Around The Web

Analysts say Telstra may spend $20 billion to enter Australia's energy markets as it looks to boost earnings and take on the incumbent utilities. Some smaller retailers have shown the path forward.

Infigen Energy to shift focus to "C&I gen-tailer," as more Australian businesses seek to control their energy costs.

NEG still looks like a poorly thought out policy; rooftop solar delivers for Queensland; and Infigen's nosebleed debt financing fee.

Greens senator Janet Rice says Turnbull government's lack of policy and ambition on electric vehicle uptake is seeing Australia get left behind.

As the share of U.S. electricity generated from coal plants continues its steady decline, the question remains as to what will ultimately replace this resource in meeting U.S. electricity demand.

Australia's first large scale solar and big battery storage installation - the Lakeland project near Cooktown in far north Queensland - officially connected to the grid.

Premiers and senior Ministers in two of the six states in the National Electricity Market are now actively campaigning against market outcomes.

Blackouts in Victoria illustrate how networks and regulators have failed to change their business models, and failed to keep up with technology.

Magnets, air blowers, centrifuges, crushers: your recyclables go through a lot before they get turned into something else. Trevor Thornton, Lecturer, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Oysters aren't just good for a feed. They also give a vital boost to coastal ecosystems, which is why efforts are underway to restore Australia's once-abundant oyster reefs to their former glory. Dominic McAfee, Postdoctoral researcher, marine ecology, University of Adelaide Ian McLeod, Senior Research Scientist - Coastal Restoration, James Cook University Maria Vozzo, PhD in Marine Ecology, Macquarie University Vivian Cumbo, Postdoctoral Research, Macquarie University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

A chunk of the monster Whitechapel fatberg is now a superstar museum exhibit. It shines a horrifying light on our throwaway age – but will it stop people clogging up the sewers with the grease from their Sunday lunch?

The fatberg that went on display this month at the Museum of London is proving something of a sensation. Visitor numbers have more than doubled; there is a palpable air of half-term excitement when I visit; and the fatberg fudge – modelled to look like the rough-hewn fatberg brick, with little raisins to represent flies (or something worse) – has sold out. The museum has hit on an unlikely goldmine.

Unsurprisingly, curator Vyki Sparkes is looking pretty pleased with herself, and is already talking about a world tour for her prized object – a slice of the giant Whitechapel fatberg discovered last year. There is just one problem: no one knows if it will survive. It is already changing colour as it continues to dry out, and Sparkes is worried that it may start to disintegrate. It is due to be on show at the museum until July. Best come early to avoid disappointment. But, for now, it is an undoubted triumph, raising the question “what is art” – can hardened sewage in a glass case have aesthetic value? – and confronting us with the environmental destructiveness of our throwaway age.

Continue reading...

Documenting fracking protests in Kirby Misperton, photographer Gary Calton found a surprising mix of people uniting to protect Britain’s countryside

It’s early February and the mood at the anti-fracking camp in the embattled village of Kirby Misperton, North Yorkshire, is one of cautious optimism. The camp, a collection of makeshift wooden buildings in a muddy field outside town, has been running since December 2016, but it’s only in the last five months that demonstrations against the fracking company Third Energy have flared up, leading to an extraordinary police presence around the village, more than 80 arrests and – just a couple of weeks ago – an apparent victory for the protesters.

I’m in the company of Observer photographer Gary Calton, who has been documenting events here for six months. Calton, who lives eight miles away, has pictures of protesters boarding lorries, lying down at the gates to the site and facing off against battalions of police. He has also captured more intimate moments, the protesters running through drills, chatting, sleeping and – a key activity on the freezing day I visit – simply keeping warm as they wait for the next chapter in the fracking saga to unfold.

Continue reading...

Populations of all kinds of wildlife are declining at alarming speed. One radical solution is to make 50% of the planet a nature reserve

The orangutan is one of our planet’s most distinctive and intelligent creatures. It has been observed using primitive tools, such as the branch of a tree, to hunt food, and is capable of complex social behaviour. Orangutans also played a special role in humanity’s own intellectual history when, in the 19th century, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, co-developers of the theory of natural selection, used observations of them to hone their ideas about evolution.

But humanity has not repaid orangutans with kindness. The numbers of these distinctive, red-maned primates are now plummeting thanks to our destruction of their habitats and illegal hunting of the species. Last week, an international study revealed that its population in Borneo, the animal’s last main stronghold, now stands at between 70,000 and 100,000, less than half of what it was in 1995. “I expected to see a fairly steep decline, but I did not anticipate it would be this large,” said one of the study’s co-authors, Serge Wich of Liverpool John Moores University.

Continue reading...

Professor Martin Green queries how we dispel the lingering pessimism in Canberra over solar and expand the use of this remarkable technology?

An innovative scanning system is making it easier to find the hidden stories behind artworks.

You do your best work depending on whether you're more lark or owl, baby teeth extractions are rife and dentists are alarmed, how polyamorists celebrate Valentines, does tinned fish contain Omega 3?, and 80 women scientists take their place at the global table.

Spiders can be beautiful, timid, fluffy and even give up their lives for the sake of their children.

Spiders can be beautiful, timid, fluffy and even give up their lives for the sake of their children.

Experts say growling grass frog and southern brown bandicoot not likely to be found at Endeavour Fern Gully

Experts have cast doubt on government claims the Coalition is funding a conservation project in Victoria’s Endeavour Fern Gully to benefit threatened species – because the listed species are unlikely to occur in the area.

Endeavour Fern Gully is a 27-hectare (65 acre) rainforest property on the Mornington Peninsula. The environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, says the government had funded a broad Green Army project that “improves habitat through weed control and promotes greater conservation awareness of native vegetation in remnant bushland at Endeavour Fern Gully”.

Continue reading...

Feral pigeons are exposed to the same environmental factors as humans, so help explore the affect of contaminants, say researchers

Pigeons might be seen as the scourge of cities, but researchers say they could help us explore both the levels and impacts of a host of toxins in the air, from lead to pesticides.

Scientists say feral pigeons are a valuable way of probing contaminants in environment, since they are exposed to the same air, water, food and other factors as humans, and don’t venture far from home.

Continue reading...