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Is there a better way to respond to Covid-19? Economist Matt Grudnoff on why the government stimulus package should lock in secondary benefits, the type you get from renewables.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Covid-19 and the electricity grid appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Queensland snake catcher says 80kg albino Burmese python found in Oxenford is the largest he has come across in 27 years

As a seasoned snake catcher, Tony Harrison is used to the people the claiming there is a five-metre snake on their doorstep. But for the first time on Monday, the caller wasn’t exaggerating.

“This was the largest snake I have come across in 27 years,” Harrison said. “The poor old lady who opened the front door to see it there got the fright of her life”

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British Columbia will suspend next week’s CO2 levy price increase as the Canadian province rolls out a C$5-billion action plan to help businesses and residents affected by the COVID-19 coronavirus fallout, Premier John Horgan announced Monday.

The huge challenge the world faces to find an exit strategy to end the lockdowns and return to normal.

The cost and impact of coronavirus will imperil necessary action on the climate emergency. Towns and cities must use their collective imaginations to make a difference

Difficult and almost impossibly daunting as it may seem, the world is faced with not one but two existential crises and two races against time: the coronavirus and the climate emergency. Dealing with both is going to require extraordinary focus and resolution.

Already there is a whiff of political opportunism in the air. Last week, the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, said that the €1tn European Green Deal, unveiled and enshrined in law by the European commission barely three weeks ago, should be put to one side. Member states, he advised, should concentrate all resources on combating a pandemic which, one by one, is shutting down societies and economies. Along with other eastern European states such as Poland, the Czech government has been reluctant to acknowledge the scale of action required to combat global heating, which would have a severe impact on fossil fuel industries in their countries.

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Powerful owls need old, hollowed-out trees to nest in, but humans keep chopping them down. Now, designers have partnered up with ecologists to build them high tech artificial nests. Dan Parker, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne Bronwyn Isaac, Lecturer, Monash University Kylie Soanes, Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne Nick Bradsworth, PhD Candidate, Deakin University Stanislav Roudavski, Senior Lecturer in Digital Architectural Design, University of Melbourne Therésa Jones, Associate Professor in Evolution and Behaviour, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

For the next couple of decades, Snowy 2.0 will in fact store coal-fired electricity, not renewable electricity. Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A prospective EU proposal to put shipping emissions in the EU ETS will likely face wrangling over carbon intensity targets and its baseline emission year, analysts said in a report released on Monday. 

California Carbon Allowance (CCA) prices rebounded on Monday after crumbling below the 2014 WCI floor price in early trading, with several speculators buoying the market in response to more participants unwinding their positions.

Industries across Europe are bracing for more disruption as governments struggle to contain the COVID-19 coronavirus, with initial steps already curbing demand for power and carbon units.

Plant part-owned by Trevor St Baker was registered with emissions reduction fund but review said it should not qualify

A push by power baron Trevor St Baker to access a Morrison government climate policy initiative to pay for an upgrade at a 42-year-old coal power plant has been rejected after a review found it should not qualify.

As reported by Guardian Australia, the Vales Point coal plant in New South Wales was registered with the $2.55bn emissions reduction fund, the “direct action” policy introduced by Tony Abbott and extended by Scott Morrison, in August 2018.

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Nasa scientists probe Denman Glacier which fills the deepest land gorge on Earth.

Finding will come as boost to governments seeking to move to net zero carbon emissions

Electric vehicles produce less carbon dioxide than petrol cars across the vast majority of the globe – contrary to the claims of some detractors, who have alleged that the CO2 emitted in the production of electricity and their manufacture outweighs the benefits.

The finding is a boost to governments, including the UK, seeking to move to net zero carbon emissions, which will require a massive expansion of the electric car fleet. A similar benefit was found for electric heat pumps.

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Possible slaughterhouse shutdowns and staffing issues put pressure on ‘vulnerable’ supply chains, as campaigners call for restriction of live exports

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Campaigners have called for the suspension of all live animal shipments out of Europe, and a restriction to the shortest possible journeys within Europe, over welfare and animal diseases concerns – as meat supply chains face potentially debilitating strain.

Last week queues of up to 60km (37 miles) formed at the Polish/German border on Wednesday after Poland announced that it was shutting to foreigners. Although the closure was supposed to apply solely to people, cargo experienced a knock-on effect, with some trucks reportedly taking as long as 18 hours to get through border controls. More queues formed at the Bulgarian/Turkish border.

Sabine Fisher of German animal welfare group Animal Angels said: “One driver told us that it had taken him three hours to travel 300 metres. There were trucks of sheep, bulls, cows. I’ve never seen a queue like it.”

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Fears that electric cars could actually increase carbon emissions are a baseless, a study suggests.

The Alberta environment ministry on Friday pushed back the true-up deadline for the Canadian province’s outgoing Carbon Competitiveness Incentive Regulation (CCIR) in light of the coronavirus pandemic, while the department also updated a compliance offset protocol and removed several other inactive methodologies.

EUAs crashed towards €14 early on Monday, continuing their heavy falls to a new 22-month low as traders feared the rest of Europe would follow Italy's lead in shutting factories to help tackle the coronavirus.

‘Largest scale experiment ever’ shows what is possible as satellite images reveal marked fall in global nitrogen dioxide levels

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The coronavirus pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world, satellite imagery from the European Space Agency shows.

One expert said the sudden shift represented the “largest scale experiment ever” in terms of the reduction of industrial emissions.

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The Wuhan-based carbon exchange in China’s Hubei province on Monday reopened for business after being closed since Jan. 23 due to the widespread COVID-19 virus.

Abundant food thanks to mix of sunshine and rain helps species confound fears of declines

The record temperatures of summer 2019 helped make it the best season for butterflies in 22 years, with more than half of Britain’s species increasing in number.

Last summer delivered a winning combination of warmth, sunshine and rain which ensured that caterpillars fed up on lush plants before emerging as adult butterflies.

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