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This summer, the RERT and demand response enabled Victoria and South Australia to survive without any major blackouts.

Wind and solar farms encouraged to use new technologies like cloud-cam and Lidar and provide their own 5-minute ahead output forecasts.

MinterEllison has advised Victoria's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) on its Energy Storing Initiative (ESI) – a funding program that will deliver two large-scale battery storage projects for grid constrained areas in Western Victoria.

All indigenous languages can be traced to a mother tongue dubbed Proto-Australian, researchers say.

The 2018 National Taxonomy Research Grant Programme (NTRGP) Student Travel Grants round is NOW OPEN and will close at 2pm (AEST) Monday 23 April 2018.

This month is an interesting anniversary: the sixtieth anniversary of solar power in space.

Arctic sea ice has experienced maximum extent for the year, reaching 14.48m square kilometers on 17 March – the second smallest in 39-year satellite record.

Simply Energy chooses Tesla batteries for 8MW virtual power plant in Adelaide, now rapidly emerging as a centre for technology that adds to grid security and lowers prices for consumers. Even the Coalition is excited.

Consumers in England will get money back for returning plastic and glass containers in a bid to cut waste.

This week, site access construction works have started on site for the Cattle Hill Wind Farm, located in the Central Highlands of Tasmania.

Upstart electricity retailers Powershop and Diamond Energy again win 5-star rankings in independent Green Energy Guide. AGL, meanwhile, earned itself an elephant stamp.

• Father Amaro Lopes is follower of Dorothy Stang, killed in 2005
• Extortion, land invasion and sexual harassment charges considered

Brazilian police have arrested a priest in the Amazon who championed the rights of smallholders against powerful agricultural interests.

Father Amaro Lopes is the best-known follower of the American-born nun, Dorothy Stang, who was murdered in 2005 in a killing orchestrated by landowners during a dispute that continues today.

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Consumers to receive small cash sum for returning plastic, glass and metal drinks containers

All drinks containers in England, whether plastic, glass or metal, will be covered by a deposit return scheme, the government has announced.

The forthcoming scheme is intended to cut the litter polluting the land and sea by returning a small cash sum to consumers who return their bottles and cans.

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Many common frogs were trapped under ice in early March and some inevitably died

The common frog Rana temporaria is having a difficult spring. The extreme cold at the beginning of March trapped many under ice. A lot continued to breathe through their skin, but after several days some died from lack of oxygen. The survivors then got breeding under way in many ponds, only for another three-day cold snap to halt proceedings. Some ponds still have no spawn, while in others the adults have already left piles of jelly to take their chance.

Related: How to make your garden frog-friendly

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Africa's famous animal migrations are increasingly blocked by fences, erected by farmers to keep their livestock safe from disease. But a new approach aims to deliver healthy beef and healthy wildlife. Penny van Oosterzee, Adjunct Associate Professor James Cook University and University Fellow Charles Darwin University, James Cook University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Wildlife film-maker, author and conservationist best known for Tarka the Otter, which was voted one of the greatest family films of all time

David Cobham is best remembered for his classic films on British wildlife, including the 1979 cinema feature Tarka the Otter and his 1972 TV programme The Vanishing Hedgerows, the first explicitly environmental film broadcast by the BBC.

Cobham, who has died aged 87, made The Vanishing Hedgerows for the corporation’s prestigious strand The World About Us. Presented by the author Henry Williamson, it was a powerful elegy to Britain’s disappearing farmland wildlife, with shocking scenes showing the fatal effects of pesticides on birds.

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The James Webb Space Telescope will not now be launched until May 2020 at the earliest.

Greenpeace wants health shops like Boots to follow the lead of Holland & Barrett and ditch products that threaten the pristine waters home to penguins, seal and whales

Campaigners are calling on high street retailers to stop stocking health products containing krill that have been caught in the pristine waters of the Antarctic.

The Guardian reported earlier this month on the threat industrial krill fishing poses to animals like penguins, whales and seals.

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Hunting pressures mean brown bear cubs now spend an extra year with their mothers, say scientists.

Footage of an elephant blowing ash has baffled wildlife experts, who say they've never seen behaviour like it before. The video released by the Wildlife Conservation Society may be an example of zoopharmacognosy, animal self-medication

• Elephant 'smoking' footage baffles experts

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