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BNEF report latest to debunk Coalition clean coal plans, finding it to be super expensive, and not very clean (unless you add CCS, and then its ultra-super expensive). As for Turnbull's argument that our grid needs more baseload...

Spill comes less than 18 months after a fire on the same oil rig and prompts warning from environmentalists over dangers of offshore drilling

An oil spill at an ExxonMobil platform in the Bass Strait is being investigated by the federal regulator, after the discovery of an oily sheen on waters around the rig.

The spill comes less than 18 months after a fire raged on the same platform for nine hours before it could be controlled. And in 2013, Exxon was responsible for a spill from another rig in the Bass Strait.

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As the ice melts, the race is on to exploit Arctic resources. And that means more claustrophobic submarine operations

Diminishing ice cover has increased political and economic competition for resources inside the Arctic Circle. This means more submarine operations, which are doubly claustrophobia-inducing, as a sub can only surface where the ice is comparatively thin. In an emergency, finding the nearest hole in the ice is essential, and this has spurred the development of a new type of forecast.

There are two types of hole in the ice, known as leads and polynyas. Leads are long fractures, gigantic cracks caused by ice sheets moving apart. Ultimately, they are due to wind or ocean currents pushing areas of ice in different directions. Leads are generally transient, as the seawater freezes over quickly when exposed to the cold air.

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Scientists in India have recorded the events that unfolded after the Earth's magnetic shield was breached.

Climate science denier and veteran lobbyist Fred Palmer is proud of getting Australia to adopt the sector’s arguments on climate and poverty

If you’re a lobbyist or an industry advocate, then you know you’re winning when you hear your own talking points coming back at you through the mouths of ministers.

Better still, if it’s the Australian prime minister.

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Congressman Jason Chaffetz withdraws House bill 621 as conservationists and outdoorsmen vow to continue fight over similar legislation

In the small hours of Thursday morning, US congressman Jason Chaffetz announced that he would withdraw a bill he introduced last week that would have ordered the incoming secretary of the interior to immediately sell off 3.3m acres of national land.

Chaffetz, a representative from Utah, wrote on Instagram that he had a change of heart in the face of strong opposition from “groups I support and care about” who, he said, “fear it sends the wrong message”.

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Citizen scientists are being sought for a project which will see tens of thousands of teabags buried in wetlands to monitor carbon sequestration

Australian scientists have launched a project to bury tens of thousands of teabags in wetlands around the world. They are hoping others will sacrifice a few cups of tea and join in to discover how efficient different wetlands are at capturing and storing carbon dioxide.

Lipton green tea and red tea “rooibos” varieties will be used in the project, which already involves more than 500 scientists in every continent except Antarctica.

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Banning cars on Saturdays in a heavily polluted city hasn't made the air any cleaner according to new research.

The British Antarctic Survey shifts its futuristic Halley base to keep it away from a watery grave.

A small but distinctive signal in X-rays from the Milky Way could be key to proving the existence of dark matter.

The Woodland Trust is calling on tree lovers to vote for their favourite entry in this year’s European contest that includes four British trees. The competition highlights the cultural importance of old trees and the need to protect them

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Transport secretary says airport expansion will bolster post-Brexit economy but critics warn over environmental obligations

Proposals for a third runway at Heathrow have been published for public consultation by the government as it declared that expanding the airport would show the world Britain was open for business after Brexit.

Related: Heathrow third runway plans published for public consultation

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‘Twenty-eight Climate Change Elevator Pitches’ delivers basic, accurate climate information

We know the climate is changing, the Earth is warming, and humans are the cause. As a scientist who studies this daily, I know the evidence is compelling and mutually reinforcing. In fact, the evidence is so compelling that it’s almost impossible to find scientists who disagree.

We also know that it’s possible to solve this problem using today’s technology. We don’t need to wait for fairy dust or cold fusion. Using energy more wisely, increasing renewable energy, modernizing nuclear power, and other actions are all things we can do right now to make the future better.

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A kestrel takes a shine to a Highways England CCTV camera at Junction 11a of the M5 in Gloucestershire. First spotted by traffic officers in October 2016, the kestrel is seen on separate occasions checking its reflection in the camera, struggling against high winds and being assailed by a magpie and a raven

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Even the cleanest coal plants add millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year. Coal image from www.shutterstock.com

Following a campaign by the coal industry, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has argued for new coal-fired power stations in Australia. But these plants would be more expensive than renewables and carry a huge liability through the carbon emissions they produce.

Major Australian energy companies have ruled out building new coal plants. The Australian Energy Council sees them as “uninvestable”. Banks and investment funds would not touch them with a barge pole. Only government subsidies could do it.

It may seem absurd to spend large amounts of taxpayers’ money on last century’s technology that will be more costly than renewable power and would lock Australia into a high-carbon trajectory.

But the government is raising the possibility of government funding for new coal plants, with statements by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, Treasurer Scott Morrison and Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg. The suggestion is to use funding from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. For this to happen, presumably the CEFC’s investment mandate would need to be changed, or the meaning of “low-emissions technologies” interpreted in a radical way.

It should come to nothing, if minimum standards of sensible policy prevailed.

But an ill wind is blowing in Australia’s energy and climate policy debate. The situation in parliament is difficult, and the Trump presidency is giving the right wing in the Coalition a boost.

Definitely not ‘clean’

Proponents of new coal plants call them “clean coal”. They have appropriated a term that normally means burning coal in power stations with carbon capture and storage, a technology that filters out most of the carbon dioxide. But this is expensive and has made little progress.

Turnbull and others are simply suggesting Australia build the latest generation of conventional coal-burning plants. They are not clean – merely marginally less polluting than the old plants running now.

A new high-efficiency coal plant run on black coal would produce about 80% of the emissions of an equivalent old plant. An ultra-supercritical coal plant running on black coal emits about 0.7 tonnes of CO₂ per megawatt hour of electricity, or about 0.85 tonnes using brown coal. That is anything but clean.

For comparison, typical old “dirty” black coal plants in operation now emit around 0.9 tonnes, so the improvement from replacing them with the latest technology is not large. Gas plants produce between 0.4-0.6 tonnes, much less than the suggested new coal plants. Gas has the added benefit of being able to respond flexibly to demand. A plant with carbon capture and storage might emit around 0.05 tonnes, and renewables zero.

The Australian grid average right now is around 0.8 tonnes and gradually falling. New coal would tend to keep that average higher over the long term.

A single typically sized new coal plant could blow out in the order of 5 million tonnes of CO₂ each year – about 1% of Australia’s current annual emissions – and would have an expected lifetime of 40-60 years. It would also pollute the air locally, as all coal plants do, causing damage to people’s health.

If we wanted to make up for the extra coal emissions by doing more in industry, transport or agriculture, then this would come at a cost in those parts of the economy. In-depth research has shown that decarbonisation of Australia’s economy needs to have zero-carbon electricity supply at its core.

What if we don’t care about the climate?

Building coal power plants is expensive. The average lifetime cost of producing power with ultra-super critical plants in Australia is estimated at around A$80 per megawatt-hour. This assumes financing is available at standard interest rates and that the plant runs at high capacity.

Given the risk that the plants will be liable under stricter carbon limits in the future, the financing costs are bound to be higher, probably north of A$100 – and may be as much as A$160. If the plant is not fully utilised, as is already the case for existing coal plants, average costs will be even higher.

By comparison, wind farms now get built at an average cost of A$75 per megawatt-hour, and solar parks at around A$110. Both are expected to come down to perhaps A$50 by 2025. New coal plants take many years to prepare and build, so 2025 is the relevant comparison.

In fact, the overall comparison costs for renewables are even lower. This is because wind and solar built in 2025 would be replaced in the 2050s with even cheaper systems.

There are extra costs associated with wind and solar – for instance, through pumped-hydro storage or more gas-fired power plants to balance supply. But these costs are far less than the underlying cost of renewables.

So renewables including system integration costs will be cheaper than new coal plants, perhaps by quite a margin. Let’s say, very conservatively, that renewables are A$20 per megawatt-hour cheaper. For the coal plant that’d be an extra cost of A$150 million per year, or A$6 billion over 40 years. The extra cost could be much higher if the plant was retired before the 2060s or not run at full capacity.

The subsidy required would be potentially billions of dollars for each plant. That’s billions of dollars from the taxpayer or electricity user, in order to supply power with high carbon emissions that are then locked in for half a century. It should not happen in a country that prides itself on rational economic policy.

Instead, government should set its sights on the long-term economic opportunities for Australia in a low-carbon world, and chart a path for the transition of the energy system.

Turnbull referred to Australia’s position as a coal exporter. But a revolution is under way in energy technologies. While coal will continue to be used in existing plants, the times of growing coal use are over. Already more than 70% of the world’s annual power sector investment goes to renewables.

Australia is lucky in that there are no limits to the amount of renewable energy that could be produced. New industries can be built around it. We should invest in the industries of the future, not sink more money into the technologies of last century.

Frank Jotzo has received research grant funding from a number of sources, mostly government and the Australian Research Council.

Nomadic herders have killed wildlife and torched buildings but questions remain over the causes of the violence

Thousands of heavily-armed herders are invading conservancies, private properties and smallholdings in Laikipia, one of Kenya’s most important wildlife areas, as they search for pasture for their cattle.

Over the past couple of weeks, about 10,000 nomadic herders, armed with automatic rifles and driving 135,000 cattle, have left a trail of destruction and chaos in the county, just three hours drive from Nairobi. The herders have indiscriminately killed wildlife – from elephants, giraffes, zebras and lions to family dogs. Residents and tourists have been injured, some seriously. At least one person has been killed, according to reports.

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Solar power and clean cars are ‘gamechangers’ consistently underestimated by big energy, says Imperial College and Carbon Tracker report

Falling costs of electric vehicles and solar panels could halt worldwide growth in demand for oil and coal by 2020, a new report has suggested.

A scenario that takes into account the latest cost reduction projections for the green technologies, and countries’ pledges to cut emissions, finds that solar power and electric vehicles are “gamechangers” that could leave fossil fuels stranded.

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Plans for one million new homes by 2020 risk overwhelming drains, unless the government ends freeze on legal requirements for sustainable drainage

The rush to build one million new homes in England by 2020 is set to increase flooding by overwhelming drains, according to the nation’s building and flooding professionals.

The risk could be avoided, however, if the government ends its seven-year freeze on implementing legal requirements for new developments to include sustainable drainage systems (SuDS), such as ponds, green roofs and permeable paving. These slow the flow of water into drains, cutting the risk of floods.

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In recognition of Budj Bim’s outstanding heritage values the Australian Government has submitted a nomination to include the area on Australia’s World Heritage Tentative List.

Sun Bank, Teesdale Snow has a magical effect when the shadows emphasise features of this post-glacial landscape

If there was a league table for roadside laybys, ranked according to the grandeur of the landscape that they overlook, then this one, on the B6282 two miles east of Middleton-in-Teesdale, would be a strong contender.

It’s perched on the edge of a steep escarpment, high above the river Tees. With the valleyblanketed in snow, the bare branches of birch, alder and ash below stood out in minute detail, as if drawn on a blank canvas.

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