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SA BEST promises cut state power prices by up to 20%, build new renewables, with community electricity retailer scheme.

Allendale, Northumberland: One of their main predators is the domestic cat; an ermine will be particularly vulnerable once the snow has gone

I’m eating my breakfast when I see a flash of white hurtling down the garden path. Reaching for the binoculars that are always on the kitchen table, I see it’s a stoat, part ermined, starkly revealed now the snow has gone. Its fur is a rich red-brown with white patches, the brilliant winter coat contrasting with the jet black tip to its tail. Flowing lightly over dormant flower beds, it streaks over a wall and disappears into the field.

Minutes later, I see the stoat again, a limp vole in its mouth. It runs around the square of the garden keeping to the inside of the boundary before slipping between the stones of one of the drystone walls. It emerges without the vole, which it has cached, storing the surplus food for later. For the next half hour I watch it hunting, undulating along coping stones, its neat little face popping out from under the topiary, as the sun comes up, a mistle thrush sings and backlit winter gnats take to the air.

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New report forecasts 25 million global EV registrations a year by 2025, after 55% growth in uptake was recorded in 2017. Meanwhile, in Australia...

BP considers scenario where only electric vehicles are sold after 2040. It also considers peak oil, ponders the rise of shared car ownership, and predicts a faster rise for renewables and faster decline for coal. But it still doesn't get it.

Transgrid still swamped by new wind and solar project proposals, despite expectation that RET will be met with current commitments.

NEG is largely a smokescreen designed to bury electricity policy under a motherhood blanket. The policy is supposed to endure for decades but its major design issues have to be decided in weeks. This is just nuts.

Australia’s booming solar industry now supports more than 10,000 full time jobs.

As we farewell one anti-renewables, climate denying, coal loving Deputy PM, are we about to see more of the same? New man has attacked climate science, demonised wind, and signed off on Tony Abbott's refusal of free solar panels for the Lodge.

Farmers will receive money for "public goods", such as investment in sustainable food production.

Founding CEO Ivor Frischknecht to step down as head of Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the key player in Australia's renewable energy innovation.

Equis Energy, Asia-Pacific’s largest renewable energy Independent Power Producer (IPP), has named Nitin Apte as Chief Executive Officer.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) is pleased to announce businesswoman, activist and executive, Mara Bún, as its new president.

Utilities' shift to renewables will accelerate as prices fall further, compounded by tech improvements, cheap financing, and the proliferation of clean-energy policies.

Declining fertility and rising mortality, exacerbated by fishing industry, prompts experts to warn whales could be extinct by 2040

The dwindling North Atlantic right whale population is on track to finish its breeding season without any new births, prompting experts to warn again that without human intervention, the species will face extinction.

Scientists observing the whale community off the US east coast have not recorded a single mother-calf pair this winter. Last year saw a record number of deaths in the population. Threats to the whales include entanglement in lobster fishing ropes and an increasing struggle to find food in abnormally warm waters.

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Environmentalists say Australian emission standards are lax compared to the US, Europe and China and it's putting people at risk.

Climate change could drive most of the birds' global population from their current nesting islands.

You may already have a smart meter at home, which monitors your electricity use at 30-minute intervals. But until you can access that data yourself, you could be missing out on the best power deals. Sangeetha Chandrashekeran, Lecturer in Geography and Deputy Director Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Development of new material for supercapacitors has potential to raise range to that of petrol cars

Researchers have claimed a breakthrough in energy storage technology that could enable electric cars to be driven as far as petrol and diesel vehicles, and recharge in minutes rather than hours.

Teams from Bristol University and Surrey University developed a next-generation material for supercapacitors, which store electric charge and can be replenished faster than normal batteries.

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Minette Batters, the National Farmers’ Union’s new president, says good quality, safe food is ‘a public right’ and staying part of a customs union is vital

British farmers will not accept lower welfare and hygiene standards under any post-Brexit trade deals, and will fight to remain as part of a customs union, the new president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has pledged.

Minette Batters, the first woman to head the powerful farmers’ lobby since its foundation 110 years ago, set out a vision of farming as a unifying force across the UK, providing high-quality but low-cost food to consumers on a tight budget while safeguarding the environment and providing one in eight of the UK’s jobs.

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Exclusive: Watchdog’s new report will say agency’s prosecutions and compliance statistics were seriously overstated

The New South Wales ombudsman is investigating whether WaterNSW – the body responsible for compliance with the state’s water laws – has misled it when it provided data last year on the number of prosecutions and enforcement actions it had taken in the 15 months prior.

The ombudsman confirmed a second special report will be tabled in the first week of March, but declined to outline its contents. Special reports are a last resort when the ombudsman deems that a report to the minister is insufficient.

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