Around The Web

ESB admits voltage issues a legacy of networks accommodating huge influx of air conditioners, and it's wrong to blame rooftop PV for blowing up your kettle.

The post Will rooftop solar blow up your kettle? No, but your local network just might appeared first on RenewEconomy.

One of Australia's largest industry super funds announces targest for net zero emissions portfolios by 2050, as energy lobby splits over its own zero emissions targets.

The post Hesta Super commits to net zero emissions by 2050, as energy lobby splits over target appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The controversial HomeBuilder scheme could come with a big upside: making old homes more energy efficient. Peter M Graham, Associate Professor - Architectural Performance, Monash University John Thwaites, Chair, Monash Sustainable Development Institute & ClimateWorks Australia, Monash University Michael Li, Senior Project Manager (Cities & Policy), ClimateWorks Australia, Monash University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

New company unveils plans to build a 1000MW (1GW) wind farm near Hughenden in North Queensland, to provide low-cost energy for mining and industrial development.

The post Plans for Australia’s biggest wind farm unveiled for Queensland’s north appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Green Party members could vote in favour of a new coalition.

The UK sends more plastic waste to Turkey than to any other country but not all of it reaches recycling plants.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Nearly 95,000 customers lost power, some for up to four hours, when a gas power station tripped and caused a cascade of failures at other gas units. Who knew?

The post Nearly 95,000 customers lose power over cascading gas generator failures appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) on Thursday called for the EU to strengthen its ETS and non-ETS carbon pricing to help meet its decarbonisation goals, playing down the carbon leakage risk that to date has resulted in heavy industries getting the vast majority of their EUAs for free.

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices fell further below the WCI auction reserve value this week as secondary market activity declined, while RGGI allowances (RGAs) dropped beneath the supply-curbing Emissions Containment Reserve (ECR) trigger price.

The Senior Technical Advisor (the Consultant) will assist in connecting the EU4Climate project and its beneficiaries in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries to the EU best practices and recent developments related to climate change policies and greening agenda.

Illegal hunters are damaging farm property, shooting at buildings and killing livestock. So why do farm trespass laws target animal activists? Kyle J.D. Mulrooney, Lecturer in Criminology, Co-director of the Centre for Rural Criminology, University of New England Alistair Harkness, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Centre for Rural Criminology, University of New England Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

It is time to consider the community and social factors underpinning a non-optional critical component of Australia's energy transition.

The post How Australia’s energy transition might trip over the wires appeared first on RenewEconomy.

In a letter to the Japanese company, activists call for rapid transition to products sourced from plantations and recycled fibre

More than 40 Australian environment groups have called on Japan’s Nippon Paper Group to remove timber logged in Victoria’s native forests from its supply chain in the aftermath of bushfires and a landmark judgment that found a government forestry agency repeatedly breached conservation regulations.

It comes as a legal injunction halted VicForests’s operations in a further 14 coupes in the state’s central highlands and amid growing pressure for a statutory review of Australia’s national environment laws to reconsider the industry-wide exemption for logging.

Continue reading...

Government advisers have set a course through the pandemic to net zero. Is Boris Johnson capable of following it?

The colossal challenge facing human civilisation, of ending our reliance on fossil fuels in short order, has almost certainly been made harder by the pandemic. Ever since scientists discovered that the Earth was warming as a result of human activity, it has been a struggle to get people, governments and businesses to do anything about it. Even in those countries least resistant to the evidence of rapidly approaching danger, something else was usually seen as more important. In the past few months, once again, the climate emergency has been knocked off the top of world leaders’ to-do list by the more immediate threat of the virus.

Recognising this, the environmental movement came up with the excellent idea of a green recovery. The annual report published on Thursday by the Committee on Climate Change, which provides official advice to the UK government, is a crucial, national component of that global effort. It sets out to tell Boris Johnson, his ministers and the British public how we can embed the lessons of Covid-19 in the next phase of carbon cuts.

Continue reading...

CO2 prices three to seven times higher than RGGI's Emissions Containment Reserve (ECR) trigger prices are necessary for New England states to meet their long-term economy-wide GHG abatement goals, analysis commissioned by power producers said Wednesday.

The Energy Community secretariat will this summer release a study setting out a roadmap to introduce carbon pricing in the Western Balkans and Eastern European countries, an official at the regional organisation said Thursday.

Global emissions from shipping in 2020 are set to shrink by up to 35% year-on-year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but could recover quickly as progress to tackle maritime pollution remains slow, researchers have projected.

It’s 38C in Siberia. The science may be complicated – but the need for action now couldn’t be clearer

There’s an Arctic heatwave: it’s 38C in Siberia. Arctic sea ice is the second lowest on record, and 2020 may be on course to be the hottest year since records began.

For many people, such news induces a lurch of fear, or avoidance – closing the webpage because they don’t want to hear yet more bad news. A few might think “It’s just weather,” and roll their eyes.

Continue reading...

Robin Hood-style shoplifting session at London supermarket ‘because poverty sucks’

A new political party was launched in London on Thursday by a group of activists from Extinction Rebellion, who marked the event by shoplifting a haul of supermarket goods to highlight the instability of global food distribution.

The stunt involved five members of the nascent Beyond Politics party walking out of Sainsbury’s in Camden with shopping trolleys filled with food but without paying.

Continue reading...