Around The Web

BNEF and Clean Energy Regulator warn renewables market headed for shortfall, RET policy has "fundamental holes in it.”

After 12 years of planning and testing, Solar Impulse has finally completed its epic voyage around the world – all without using a single drop of fuel.

Startups are figuring out ways to beat incumbents in their own game. Virtual power plants may be the answer.

Josh Frydenberg's apparent shift in thinking on renewables is welcome, but his call to end moratoriums on unconventional gas is profoundly out of step.

New technology subsystems enrich 5i energy intelligence platform with real-time, dynamic, human comfort sensing to add how “we feel” to big data analysis.

JOVIAN HEAT: The howling turbulence of Jupiter's Great Red Spot may be superheating the upper atmosphere above the storm, researchers say.

Josh Frydenberg says wind and solar not to blame for recent price spikes, noting that price volatility is "not a new thing". But while he accepts coal is in decline, his messaging was mixed, and wants more gas into the electricity system.

A new class of antibiotics has been discovered by analysing the bacterial warfare taking place up people's noses, scientists report.

Massive increases in fines for riding without a helmet or running a red light are just the latest in the city’s ignoble history of deciding cyclists are a problem

It’s almost five months since fines for various cycling infractions, including riding without a helmet, cycling dangerously or jumping a red light were massively increased in New South Wales. Some fines went up from $71 to $425 (£40 to £240). Riders were also obliged to carry ID. At the same time, a new law spelled out minimum passing distances drivers should give riders when they overtake bikes.

Are cyclists feeling much safer? It’s fair to say the impact has been mixed. In May it turned out that while police had by then energetically handed out 1,500 of the new fines to cyclists, mainly over helmet use, just four motorists had felt the force of the law for close overtakes. There were also reports of overzealous enforcement of the rules, including a dangerous cycling citation for someone trackstanding at a red light.

Continue reading...

Jupiter's giant storm is somehow heating the planet's upper atmosphere - possibly by means of sound waves - astronomers discover.

As Philae, the robotic lander, is finally switched off and the world says goodbye.

George McRobie, who has died aged 90, was the last surviving founding member of Practical Action, an international organisation harnessing technology to help developing countries. He was a close associate of the economist EF Schumacher (my late husband, known as Fritz, who was the author of the influential text Small Is Beautiful) and for many years they worked together, initially at the National Coal Board and then, in 1965, in setting up the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), now known as Practical Action.

When Fritz died suddenly in 1977, George stepped in to become chairman of the organisation, and worked tirelessly to maintain the momentum they had generated. His contribution to both the green movement and the appropriate technology movement as a whole was immense. In 1981 George completed Small Is Possible, the last of Fritz’s trilogy of books, which laid out how the ideas and theories on sustainability in the first two books, Small Is Beautiful and A Guide for the Perplexed, could be applied to everyday life.

Continue reading...

Koalas have quickly learned to use wildlife passageways to cross busy roads in Australia's Queensland state as they move between habitats.

Filipino government body gives 47 ‘carbon majors’ 45 days to respond to allegations of human rights violations resulting from climate change

The world’s largest oil, coal, cement and mining companies have been given 45 days to respond to a complaint that their greenhouse gas emissions have violated the human rights of millions of people living in the Phillippines.

In a potential landmark legal case, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), a constitutional body with the power to investigate human rights violations, has sent 47 “carbon majors” including Shell, BP, Chevron, BHP Billiton and Anglo American, a 60-page document accusing them of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and to self determination”.

Continue reading...

Over-budget and behind schedule, the €10.5bn nuclear reactor has faced problems that some say could be repeated in the UK

On granite cliffs overlooking the Channel is France’s most famous building site. If all goes to plan, by the end of the decade this rocky outcrop will house the biggest and most powerful nuclear reactor in the world.

The technology behind the European pressurised reactor (EPR) is meant to be safer than anything that has gone before. But the project is more than three times over budget and years behind schedule, and France’s nuclear safety authority has found weaknesses in the reactor’s steel.

Continue reading...

BusinessGreen: Record six-month period sees UK secure €10.4bn (£8.7bn) of investment in offshore wind projects, but installation rate slows

The European offshore wind industry has enjoyed a record six months of investment, according to new figures released today by trade body WindEurope.

In the first six months of this year Europe’s offshore wind projects attracted €14bn of investment, split across seven projects and financing a total of 3.7GW of new clean energy capacity.

Continue reading...

The crashed remains from Flight MH370 could be as much as 500km further north than the current search area, argues a new modelling study.

Professor Monica Grady describes the final days of communication with the Philae lander

Scientists have used high-power X-rays to "see inside" an exquisite and complete dinosaur specimen.

Campaigners say company behind Keystone XL plans to send hundreds of supertankers of crude oil down the Atlantic coast with fears for potential spills

Environmentalists are again taking aim at the company that proposed the Keystone XL pipeline this time for another of its projects they fear would send hundreds of supertankers laden with crude oil down the Atlantic coast to refineries in Texas and Louisiana.

TransCanada is behind the Energy East pipeline project, a 4,600km pipeline, or nearly 3,000 miles, that would carry crude oil from tar sands in Western Canada to the East Coast, where it would then be shipped to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. When completed, the project would carry 1.1m barrels of crude oil every day from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Eastern Canada.

Continue reading...