In the zone protest - for WAs energy future

WHY: WA’s energy future: you decide!

Clean, safe and affordable?  OR  Dirty, dangerous, thirsty and ever more expensive?
WA is at a critical cross roads. Our State government wants to build more polluting, water hungry and inefficient coal fired power stations, dig up toxic uranium for nuclear reactors and destroy pristine marine environment with oil and gas extraction. At the same time it is winding back funding and programs aimed at increasing WA’s use of clean, safe and renewable energy – which we have in abundance. Come and support this peaceful protest outside the Energy, Innovation and Climate Change session of the In The Zone: Crisis, Opportunity and The New World Order conference. Speakers include Dr. Ziggy Switkowski [Chair, Australian Nuclear Science and technology Organisation (ANSTO)] and Don Voelte [Managing Director and CEO, Woodside Energy].

For more info: 0421 226 200

Dr. Ziggy Switkowski is in town to promote nuclear power and the so called nuclear renaissance. Be at the protest to correct Switkowski on his nuclear misinformation:

1.       Nuclear power is not a safer energy source than wind, solar, or numerous other renewable energy sources.

2.       To produce enough uranium to generate nuclear power for just one household for just one year, 890 kgs of radioactive tailings waste will be produced at Olympic Dam, where it is dumped above-ground, open to the environment. Over a 70-year lifespan, a typical household would be responsible for just 2-3 kgs of high-level nuclear waste but over 60 tonnes of radioactive tailings waste.

3.       The nuclear renaissance is going backwards, "In 2008 World nuclear generation decreased by 0.7%, making for two consecutive years of decline." - BP Statistical Review of World Energy Production

4.       A nuclear reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated.

5.       But nuclear power is not greenhouse neutral. It compares favourably to fossil fuels but is three times more greenhouse intensive than wind power and more greenhouse intensive than energy efficiency measures.

6.       A recent independent report the World Nuclear industry Status Report 2009 states with hard evidence that nuclear power has only provided 5.5% of the commercial primary energy production and about 2% of the final energy in the world, and has trended downwards for several years.

Don Voelte is the CEO of Woodside:

1.       Woodside Ltd, one of Australia’s biggest fossil fuel corporations, is facing financial, social and ethical problems with it’s support for plans by the WA government to push ahead with a major fossil fuel development at James Price Point on the coast north of Broome.

2.       Woodside’s involvement with the State Government’s plans for a major industrial hub in the Kimberley has met with broad scale public opposition. Meanwhile market analysts are predicting a poor year for the company due to difficulty in raising capital and the low price of fossil fuels.

3.       Woodside has announced it has been forced to shelve plans for importing gas to California (plans that met with large scale community opposition) citing “changed energy market conditions”. Woodside faces a drastic reduction in the price of fossil fuels that will impact on its profit margins and a world financial crisis which means that capital raising for new projects is more difficult.

4.       Hundreds of people have already signed a 'Woodside Pledge' supporting the protection of the Kimberley’s savanna woodlands, air, ocean, wildlife and water. The pledge gives people the opportunity to state they that will not invest in Woodside or other companies that promote fossil fuel industrialisation of the Kimberley coast.