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After four years of leading volunteer beach cleans in the west of Wales, Alan Cookson is quitting because of the insurmountable plastic problem around Britain’s coastlines. We join him as he leads his last beach clean to find out why he believes we need to change our approach in the fight against plastic pollution

'Like mopping up a flood': throwing in the towel over beach plastic pollution

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Hydrogen could replace fossil fuels in the steel-making process and help decarbonise the sector globally almost completely by 2050 with a carbon price of around $35-50, a report said Thursday.

The 16-year-old climate activist arrived in New York on Wednesday in a zero-carbon emissions sailing boat, completing her 15-day voyage from Britain to take part in a UN climate summit. 'It was a bit rough sometimes but it went incredibly well, and I didn't feel seasick, so I was extremely lucky,' she told reporters

• 'Let's do it now': Greta Thunberg crosses Atlantic and calls for urgent climate action

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Expert who led 2006 review says ban on nuclear should be lifted, but much more overseas evidence is needed on small modular reactors

It will be about a decade before it is clear whether small nuclear reactors are suitable for Australia and would take about 15 years to bring a plant online if a decision was made to build one, one of the country’s leading experts has said.

But Ziggy Switkowski, who headed a 2006 review of nuclear power for the Howard government, said the technology had no chance of being introduced unless Australia had a coherent energy policy.

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Dry and warm conditions in winter are set to continue into spring, and the likely culprit is the positive Indian Ocean Dipole Jonathan Pollock, Climatologist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology Andrew B. Watkins, Manager of Long-range Forecast Services, Australian Bureau of Meteorology Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Faced with state indifference to their plight, the indigenous community is fighting back

• Xikrin people fight back against Amazon land-grabbing

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True scale of persecution of birds of prey such as buzzards and owls is likely to be higher

Birds of prey were shot, poisoned, trapped or illegally killed in 87 confirmed incidents in 2018 that led to just one successful conviction, according to the RSPB’s annual Birdcrime report.

This persecution of raptors including peregrines, buzzards, red kites and owls is the tip of the iceberg, with many more birds vanishing in mysterious circumstances, according to data from satellite-tagged birds and other intelligence.

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Plans to build an 800km transmission line between New South Wales and South Australia given "critical infrastructure" status by NSW government.

The post NSW puts interstate transmission link project on the fast-track appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The warmer it gets, the more we use air conditioning. The more we use air conditioning, the warmer it gets. Is there any way out of this trap?

On a sweltering Thursday evening in Manhattan last month, people across New York City were preparing for what meteorologists predicted would be the hottest weekend of the year. Over the past two decades, every record for peak electricity use in the city has occurred during a heatwave, as millions of people turn on their air conditioning units at the same time. And so, at the midtown headquarters of Con Edison, the company that supplies more than 10 million people in the New York area with electricity, employees were busy turning a conference room on the 19th floor into an emergency command centre.

Inside the conference room, close to 80 engineers and company executives, joined by representatives of the city’s emergency management department, monitored the status of the city power grid, directed ground crews and watched a set of dials displaying each borough’s electricity use tick upward. “It’s like the bridge in Star Trek in there,” Anthony Suozzo, a former senior system operator with the company, told me. “You’ve got all hands on deck, they’re telling Scotty to fix things, the system is running at max capacity.”

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Experts tell inquiry that increasingly expensive large-scale nuclear power, and as-yet unproven small reactor technology, cannot compete with firmed renewables.

The post Nuclear inquiry told “firmed renewables” cheapest and best option for future appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The native birds, including 76 wedge-tailed eagles, hawks and falcons, will be tested to determine the cause of death

About 120 native birds have been found dead after suspected poisoning in northeastern Victoria.

Officers from the environment department found the birds, including 76 wedge-tailed eagles, hawks and falcons, during raids on a property near Violet Town this week.

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Windlab says banks nervous due to project delays, cost over-runs, and tighter new standards, and this will add to cost of capital, and cause yet more delays.

The post Wind, solar projects face further delays as financiers get nervous appeared first on RenewEconomy.

One Stop Warehouse has signed exclusive agreements with ALEO Solar, Risen Energy and Tongwei Solar (TW Solar) to supply new products into the Australian PV markets.  

The post One Stop Warehouse is bringing exclusive solar technologies to Australia appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Japan’s environment ministry will this week submit a carbon pricing proposal to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as part of its tax reform package for next year.

Exclusive: Carmichael mine set to receive subsidies, favourable deals and tax concessions over 30 years

Australian governments will give $4.4bn in effective subsidies to Adani’s Carmichael coal project, which would otherwise be “unbankable and unviable”, a new analysis has found.

The report, by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, concluded that the project would benefit from several Australian taxpayer–funded arrangements – including subsidies, favourable deals and tax concessions – over its 30-year project life.

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Susan Kennedy is the former chief of staff to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now the two have teamed up to offer artificial intelligence and machine learning to integrated wind, solar and storage.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Humans are too slow for wind, solar and batteries appeared first on RenewEconomy.

By the end of 2020, LONGi will upgrade its existing cell and module lines and transform them for production with 166mm wafer.

The post LONGi received over 2GW of orders for its Hi-MO4 module with M6 (166mm) wafers appeared first on RenewEconomy.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF), one of the world’s leading conservation organizations, seeks a Senior Program Officer for its WWF-US Forest and Climate Team.

Reaching Net Zero emissions will be a huge challenge, says UK's outgoing chief environment scientist.

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