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Granville Harbour takes flight

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 13:01
The Granville Harbour wind farm will contribute towards plans to double Tasmania’s renewable energy capacity and make it the Battery of the Nation.
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Port Augusta solar thermal on track as renewables attract investment and create jobs

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 12:55
Port Augusta solar thermal on track as renewables attract investment and create jobs Port Augusta’s 150 MW solar thermal power plant is on track, with SolarReserve opening its Australian headquarters in Adelaide.
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Two major new solar farms in SE Queensland going ahead

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 12:53
ESCO Pacific and Elliott Advisers (UK) Ltd. ("Elliott") are pleased to announce the successful financial close of the 98MW Susan River Solar Farm and 75MW Childers Solar Farm.
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Australia’s ‘electric car revolution’ won’t happen automatically

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 12:52
Electric cars might finally be having their moment in Australia, but falling costs alone won’t convert consumer sentiment into actual sales.
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The climate solution no-one in Davos will be talking about

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 12:26
At Davos, the world’s economic elite will make much of climate crisis and their desire to green global capitalism; but will ignore one of the most powerful tools.
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China adds more solar than coal and gas for first time, as Trump slaps solar tariffs

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 12:23
China installs more solar capacity than thermal capacity in 2017, while in the US Trump slaps tariffs on imported solar in effort to protect American coal.
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#30: The woman who lived in a tree

ABC Environment - Tue, 2018-01-23 12:00
Miranda Gibson was an unlikely candidate to break the record for Australia’s longest tree-sit. The shy Queenslander had never seen a forest until her early twenties. In 2011 she vowed to live in a tree in the Tyenna Valley until it was protected from logging.
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RET is met, and Frydenberg concedes more wind and solar will lower prices, improve reliability

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 10:25
New data confirms the 2020 RET will be met well ahead of time, and even energy minister Josh Frydenberg says more wind and solar will cut prices and improve reliability.
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Corporations purchased record amounts of clean power in 2017

RenewEconomy - Tue, 2018-01-23 09:12
Despite looming policy uncertainty in the two most active markets, corporations globally purchased 5.4 gigawatts of clean power through long-term contracts, surpassing 2015’s record.
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Could 'assisted evolution' save the Great Barrier Reef?

ABC Environment - Tue, 2018-01-23 07:36
Rising temperatures are killing coral at an alarming rate and scientists worry it could die off completely unless something is done quickly.
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Australia's 'electric car revolution' won't happen automatically

The Conversation - Tue, 2018-01-23 05:07
Despite persistent buzz, the falling cost of electric cars isn't enough to guarantee sales in Australia. Graciela Metternicht, Professor of Environmental Geography, School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Gail Broadbent, Post Graduate Researcher Electric Vehicles, UNSW Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
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Pioneering female becomes first wolf in Belgium in a century

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-01-23 02:54

Researchers have tracked Naya from eastern Germany into the Netherlands and now Belgium

The first recorded wolf on Belgian soil for at least 100 years has made her bloody mark.

Farmers in north-east Flanders have been put on high alert after evidence emerged that Naya, a female originally from eastern Germany that has been making a pioneering trek across Europe, had killed two sheep and injured a third near the Belgian town of Meerhout.

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Fears for future of UK onshore wind power despite record growth

The Guardian - Tue, 2018-01-23 02:35

2.6GW of capacity built in 2017 before subsidies ban industry says will make generation dearer

A record amount of onshore wind power was built in the UK last year, but government policy has been stalling the sector and risked increasing energy bills for consumers, the industry has warned.

Turbines capable of generating 2.6GW were installed across Britain in 2017 as developers rushed to meet the government deadline for securing subsidies. The previous record was 1.3GW in 2013.

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Why you can't judge a zebra by its stripes

BBC - Tue, 2018-01-23 02:22
Looking at a zebra's stripes may not be a good way to tell different types apart, say scientists.
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ISS cosmonaut does 'test flight' on a vacuum cleaner

BBC - Tue, 2018-01-23 02:18
Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said he had many questions from people asking if it was possible.
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New Caledonian crows show how technology evolves

BBC - Tue, 2018-01-23 02:15
Clever, tool-making crows show scientists the first foundations of technological development.
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Switching to electric cars is key to fixing America's 'critically insufficient' climate policies | Dana Nuccitelli

The Guardian - Mon, 2018-01-22 21:00

Nearly 60% of US carbon pollution comes from power and transportation, and power is already decarbonizing fast

In order to meet its share of the carbon pollution cuts needed to achieve the 2°C Paris international climate target, America’s policies are rated as “critically insufficient” by the Climate Action Tracker. The Trump Administration has taken every possible step to undo the Obama Administration’s climate policies, including announcing that America will be the only world country to withdraw from the Paris agreement, and trying to repeal the Clean Power Plan.

In 2020, the next American president will have to make up the lost ground and come up with a plan to rapidly accelerate the country’s transition away from fossil fuels. Currently, transportation and power generation each account for about 30% of US greenhouse gas emissions, so those sectors represent the prime targets for pollution cuts.

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Day Zero: What happens when a global city runs out of water

ABC Environment - Mon, 2018-01-22 17:43
From April 21st, residents in Cape Town will be limited to 25 litres of water per person per day
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Country diary 1918: winter wandering in Ayrshire

The Guardian - Mon, 2018-01-22 16:00

21 January 1918 Just before dawn the landscape was the chillest pale grey; it seemed pure white, with a dash of pure black

Wandering in Ayrshire just now is cold work, and one reads with a mixture of pride and envy of the warmer weather in the south. Pride because of one’s endurance of nipped fingers and senseless feet and burning windpipe for pleasure in the glorious brisk feeling, the dry squeak of the clean hard snow under one’s feet; for delight in watching the children sliding and sleighing, the exquisite lights of dawn and sunset on the snow.

Related: Walking in the winter woods: Country diary 100 years ago

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Country diary: lowest land in Britain is unsettling in the gloom

The Guardian - Mon, 2018-01-22 15:30

Holme Fen, Cambridgeshire: The trunks tangle back from both sides of the track, like wiry hair, their bark papery. Packed dense, this makes the forest look grey and odd



Britain’s highest highpoint is Ben Nevis. The lowest highpoint, if you like, is in what was Huntingdonshire: Boring Field, an old county top, at 81m above sea level. But hereabouts too is a mountain’s true inverse: the lowest lowpoint. The road to Holme Fen protrudes, like a fat plank thrown over a bog. You could fall off it if you’re distracted. I am, first by the red kites: they’re everywhere here, black wraiths cruising on dog-leg wings. I count nine within a kilometre. Then two herons, side by side at the side of the road and unbothered by it, those stripe-masked faces like strange little highwaymen.

It’s early, and the morning is feebly painted in winter colours: black fields full of rain, brown water, grey sky. It should be light by now but it isn’t. I turn on to the fen track and suddenly there’s red: the lights of a railway crossing, then the train blurring noisily beyond it. Beyond that, in a thicket of woodland, is the lowest land in Great Britain.

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