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The Savannah River Site has become the home of an Australian import that is a lot less cute than a kangaroo or koala. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Thursday that the Savannah River Site will be the new home for 32 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU) in spent nuclear fuel from Australia. The HEU spent fuel was transported by truck, rail and ship under secure conditions with the cooperation of Australia and several international organizations. With the completion of this shipment, NNSA's Global Threat Reduction Initiative has successfully removed more than 220 pounds of U.S.-origin HEU fuel from Australia since 1998. "The NNSA worked closely with Australia to oversee this important shipment of highly enriched uranium spent nuclear fuel," said NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator Ken Baker. "The removal of this U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium from Australia is another major milestone in NNSA's cooperative effort to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation and demonstrates the strong international commitment to nonproliferation."

Australia could see a five to tenfold increase of radioactive rail cargo if proposed uranium mines in South and Western Australia go ahead. Green Senator Scott Ludlum says rail cars carrying radioactive material are a concern for rail workers and communities on the line to Darwin. He's calling on communities across Australia to stand up against the expansion of uranium mining.

The uranium industry says Australia has slipped down the rankings of the world's biggest producers and that is threatening its position as an exporter. Industry leaders told a conference in Darwin they were determined to pressure governments to remove more barriers to the expansion of mining. The Uranium Association's executive director, Michael Angwin, said Australia had dropped from being the world's second biggest producer of uranium to the third biggest, behind Canada and Kazakhstan.

Australia plans to increase uranium sales to China provided it is not used in Beijing's expanding weapons programme, documents mistakenly made public by Australia's foreign minister showed on Thursday. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith tabled in parliament a confidential list of treaty negotiations with other countries, revealing details of negotiations between Australia and China about lifting exports of uranium from BHP Billiton's (BHP.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) Olympic Dam mine in South Australia. The treaty document said Australian diplomats attended talks in Beijing in January on BHP Billiton's proposal to send uranium-infused copper concentrate to China from Olympic Dam.

"Labor remains opposed to adopting a civil nuclear power program, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says. Mr Rudd said the priority now was to develop effective technology for carbon capture and storage to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. He said the people of Australia could debate anything they wanted. "Our policy is that Australia has multiple other energy sources and we will not be heading in the direction of civil nuclear power," he told reporters."

"Australia had an unarguable responsibility to accept the world's nuclear waste and discarded nuclear weapons, and could create a huge new industry for the country by doing so, former prime minister Bob Hawke said last night. Giving the inaugural Australian National University commencement address, Mr Hawke said Australia could fund essential environmental projects such as repairing the country's waterways if it was prepared to have a serious conversation about its international duty to accept nuclear waste from foreign power stations. ''Australia is the country that can make the nuclear cycle safer. We have the world's safest geological formations, we could make the world safer at a time and when there is going to be and is under way the increasing move towards generation of power by nuclear stations, looking at what is happening in the United States,'' Mr Hawke said."

The fall-out from Copenhagen has left the world's biggest "carbon criminals", among them Australia, exposed on climate change. With the overthrow of Malcolm Turnbull in the Liberal party along with the proposed ETS, the ascension of Tony Abbot and his emphasis on "direct action" it was inevitable that the federal Opposition would revisit nuclear power as an option for a low-carbon future in Australia. Given the recent sobering Government report on carbon capture and storage, "clean coal" seems less and less as the likely saviour.

The fall-out from Copenhagen has left the world's biggest "carbon criminals", among them Australia, exposed on climate change. With the overthrow of Malcolm Turnbull in the Liberal party along with the proposed ETS, the ascension of Tony Abbot and his emphasis on "direct action" it was inevitable that the federal Opposition would revisit nuclear power as an option for a low-carbon future in Australia. Given the recent sobering Government report on carbon capture and storage, "clean coal" seems less and less as the likely saviour.

A recent Corporate Watch Australia survey reveals that many so-called ethical investment funds invest in uranium mining. The number has risen significantly in recent years. Some fund managers justify investment in uranium with questionable arguments about nuclear power and climate change, but the primary reason for the shift is probably BHP Billiton's entry into the uranium industry with its 2005 acquisition of WMC Resources, which owns the Olympic Dam uranium mine in South Australia.

NUCLEAR power is important for other countries, but not for energy rich Australia, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson says. Encouraging the development of geothermal energy, however, was exceptionally important, he said. The federal Opposition has reignited the nuclear energy debate, with frontbencher Ian McFarlane saying Australia must have nuclear power if it is to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

CHANDIGARH: Despite the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) nod for the historic India-US nuclear deal, Australia, one of the world's largest producers of uranium, is unwilling to export it to India unless New Delhi signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the country's envoy says. "The NSG decision cannot affect our policies and decisions. We are very clear that we would not supply uranium to any country that has not signed the NPT," Australian High Commissioner to India John McCarthy told IANS here. "The present labour government (of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd) is very particular about this issue and there is no chance of laxity in its stand," the envoy, who was here for a media seminar, added.

WA would be ideal for the safe storage of nuclear waste as Australia "inevitably" embraces nuclear power, a prominent geologist has claimed. John de Laeter, a Curtin University professor who has spent much of his career studying geological formations in WA and abroad, said Australia would eventually need to build nuclear reactors, but that he did not see underground nuclear waste storage as dangerous.

Recent uranium workshops hosted by the Yamatji Marlpa Aboriginal Corporation in Western Australia were an opportunity for traditional owners to become involved in a new mining industry from its beginning, Yamatji chief executive Simon Hawkins told MINING DAILY. "A lot of the previous mining activity in Western Australia occurred pre-Native Title so traditional owners see uranium as an opportunity to actually have a proper partnership with the activity on their country post-Native Title," Hawkins said.

HEATHGATE Resources wants to build a uranium conversion plant at its Beverley mine to add greater value to the raw material it mines at the site. Heathgate president David Williams said it was time to consider conversion, which is the stage before uranium is enriched in preparation for use as a nuclear fuel. "You are still not into the contentious stage. Why couldn't we do a conversion in Australia?" Mr Williams says in an interview in today's SA Weekend magazine. "Why couldn't we do that value add in Australia? "I think that will be an interesting debate to go forward. Are we simply going to stay as an exporter of the raw material or are we going to do a bit more?"

Explorer Uranium Equities (UEL) has just signed its third deal with global uranium giant Cameco, a joint venture over the Rudall River uranium project in Western Australia, which happens to be just 25km from the huge Kintyre deposit now owned by Cameco (in partnership with Mitsubishi). This comes just a month after UEQ announced the start of drilling at Lake Blanche, South Australia, where Cameco is earning 51 per cent; there is a third joint venture between the companies in the Northern Territory.

The Yeelirrie uranium project in Western Australia has been reactivated after BHP Billiton applied to the federal government to commence a new process of environmental approval. Yeelirrie is about 420 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie and close to the Goldfields gas pipeline. The deposit was discovered by Western Mining (WMC) in 1972 and found to extend over an area of 9 km x 1.5 km, is up to seven metres thick and has an average depth of about seven metres of overburden. Old published figures show some 52,000 tonnes of uranium oxide at 0.15% average grade, and considerable metallurgical work was done before a new federal Labor government killed the project in 1983. The uranium mineralisation is carnotite (hydrated potassium uranium vanadium oxide).

Food irradiation is basically the process of passing radiation through food in order to sterilize it and make it safe for consumption. It has the ability to rid most foods of disease harboring microbes, such as E Coli. It has been touted as a miracle in many areas of the world where disease harboring microbes take hundreds of lives each year. But what happens when such a miracle becomes fatal... Irradiated food has been a controversial process in Australia for about a decade now, but it has recently come under the microscope and slapped a ban due to a rash of cat deaths. At first, the account of around 90 recorded illnesses at a vet clinic was nothing more than a mystery, but one veterinarian, Dr. Georgina Child, put two and two together.

Coal and nuclear power could cost 30% more per year by 2025 than energy from concentrating solar and hot dry rock geothermal power, according to DESERTEC-Australia. "Concentrating solar power costs are falling rapidly. Geothermal costs are already low," says Roger Taylor, a researcher for renewable interest organisation DESERTEC-Australia. "Together or alone, solar and geothermal are better, more proven long-term deals for Australian consumers than 'clean' coal or 'next-generation' nuclear."

"The Chamber of Minerals and Energy has rejected the call for a public inquiry into proposed uranium projects in Western Australia. The Government yesterday upheld a decision by the Environmental Protection Authority to use an environmental and management review program to assess Toro Energy's uranium project near Wiluna. The Conservation Council of Western Australia wants a public inquiry, the highest level of assessment, and says it should be applied to all proposed uranium projects. But the chamber's Paul Frewer says he is confident the level of assessment determined by the Minister is suitable."

The centre-left prime ministers of Japan and Australia on Tuesday voiced support for a report calling for a cut of more than 90 percent in the world's nuclear arsenals. The two leaders issued their appeal after the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament called for the global stockpile of nuclear weapons to be cut to 2,000 from 23,000 -- 22,000 of them held by the United States and Russia -- by 2025. Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd travelled to Tokyo to meet his Japanese counterpart, Yukio Hatoyama, for the launch of the report, which was commissioned by both their governments.

The centre-left prime ministers of Japan and Australia on Tuesday voiced support for a report calling for a cut of more than 90 percent in the world's nuclear arsenals. The two leaders issued their appeal after the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament called for the global stockpile of nuclear weapons to be cut to 2,000 from 23,000 -- 22,000 of them held by the United States and Russia -- by 2025. Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd travelled to Tokyo to meet his Japanese counterpart, Yukio Hatoyama, for the launch of the report, which was commissioned by both their governments.

"NUCLEAR power will be the Western world's cheapest option for electricity in an age of significant carbon charges, but Australia will be one of the few exceptions, a global study has found. In a stunning conclusion, the study by the OECD and the International Energy Agency found that even with a carbon charge of $US30 ($A33) a tonne, it ill be cheaper for Australian generators to burn black coal and send the emissions into the atmosphere than to turn to gas or other low-emission alternatives."