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At the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee Supplementary Budget Estimates hearing on 21 October 2016, the Department was asked about estimates it had prepared for the Minister for the Environment and Energy of the capital...

Right whales have been shown to be affected by noise pollution. FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

The sounds of the sea are associated with tranquillity and relaxation. People go to the beach to enjoy the soothing crash of ocean waves. But beneath the surface of the ocean, there is no peace and quiet for whales and dolphins.

The increasing use of the sea for human activities has resulted in a dramatic rise in noise levels. A new film, Sonic Sea, screening at the Environmental Film Festival Australia, shows that the ocean is not at all silent. It highlights our emerging understanding of the consequences of human-produced noise pollution in the ocean.

The documentary, directed by Michelle Dougherty and Daniel Hinerfeld, brings together beautiful cinematography and audio effects that draw viewers into this ethereal underwater world.

When mammals returned to the sea, they evolved to use sound as their primary way to navigate through their environment. This is because sound travels further and more efficiently through water than air.

For marine mammals, using sound to communicate, and to see (echolocate), is invaluable. But this dependence by marine mammals on underwater sound is now a trap; they have nowhere to escape the increasing underwater noise.

Where does the noise come from?

The film presents three major sources of human-produced noise in the ocean: shipping, seismic exploration, and military sonar.

Shipping noise is acoustically overwhelming the ocean, doubling every decade with no hint of slowing. Not only is the number of ships increasing, but they are also getting bigger and carrying more containers.

This noise reduces the distance over which animals can communicate with one another, forcing them to compete with increasing background noise.

Finding mates would become more difficult meaning whales may miss out on the opportunity to breed.

Alarmingly, this increasing noise has been shown to cause stress in the northern right whales, one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals. The situation can be likened to being in the audience at a rock concert without being able to leave.

Mass stranding events of beaked whales have been linked to the use of military sonar. It appears that these whales have a marked behavioural response to some types of sonar. This may be why the whales strand at times when military sonar has been used. This has raised serious concerns for the navy about whether, and where, this type of sonar can be used.

Even though seismic explosions, used by oil and gas companies, do not cause direct harm to whales, the blasts do drive them away from the area. Fish, on the other hand, are deafened by these detonations and we have seen a long-term drop in numbers with the prolonged use of seismic air guns.

Turning down the volume

The film presents various solutions to help reduce the amount of noise that is generated and the impact caused to these vulnerable animals.

Our heavy reliance on ships for the transport of goods means we cannot simply stop their movement. But it is possible to implement quieter and more efficient engines and propellers to reduce noise.

Critical habitat such as feeding and breeding grounds, as well as migratory routes, need to be identified and protected.

When whales are present, harmful activities such as seismic blasts and sonar need to stop.

The film concludes by leaving viewers with the question: what would the world look like if we don’t reduce our impacts? It raises the question of sustainability and the legacy we will leave for future generations once we are gone.

Sonic Sea is screening at the Environmental Film Festival Australia in Sydney on Saturday October 22, 2016.

Gary Truong is affiliated with UNSW Australia.

Tracey Rogers receives funding from Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with UNSW Australia.

Imagine Project sets out to cut waste in the industry by renting rather than selling bikes, which can then be returned and refurbished when the child outgrows them

The idea had been nagging at her for years, but Isla Rowntree went to the ends of the earth before she was finally ready to go ahead with something she hopes will revolutionise the way the bicycle industry is run.

This is the Imagine Project, currently being developed by Rowntree’s eponymous firm making children’s bicycles, Islabikes. It offers a simple but hugely innovative solution to reducing waste – bikes will be rented to customers rather than sold, and returned to the factory for refurbishment when their young rider outgrows them.

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Rother valley, Derbyshire The malign dragon’s breath ceased, the air cleared, then a corner of the vast works became a nature reserve

As a boy, rushing south from Chesterfield on the train, I remember how the farmland was interrupted by the Avenue coking works breathing fire and acrid smoke like a malign dragon. Eight hundred people worked there, producing fuel for steel works, along with sulphuric acid and tar, in one of the most contaminated industrial sites in Europe.

Related: How industrial sites can play a key role in wildlife conservation

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Hundreds of snow leopards are being poached in retaliation for livestock losses every year across the high mountain ranges of Asia, says a new report.

Websites pushing climate science denial are growing their audience in an era where populist rhetoric and the rejection of expertise is gaining traction

For years now geologists have been politely but forcefully arguing over the existence or otherwise of a new epoch – one that might have started decades ago.

Some of the world’s most respected geologists and scientists reckon humans have had such a profound impact on the Earth that we’ve now moved out of the Holocene and into the Anthropocene.

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The U.S. has gone eight years without hearing presidential candidates answer a question on climate change while on the same stage.

Australia's mainstream media fail to understand – and appear to have no interest in asking – that new technologies can make the grid cheaper and more stable, rather than turning to old and expensive alternatives.

Figure of 220-450 annual deaths could be even higher, as killings by poachers or farmers often go undetected in the remote mountains of central Asia

Hundreds of snow leopards are being killed every year across the mountains of central Asia, threatening the already endangered big cat, according to a new report.

There are as few as 4,000 of the solitary and elusive cat remaining and numbers have fallen by a fifth in the last 16 years.

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More than one million solar hot water systems have been installed in Australia, adding to the more than 1.5 million rooftop PV systems.

The company formerly known for its efforts to generate energy from "hot rock geothermal" will diversify into solar, battery storage, and hybrid renewables.

International Whaling Commission meeting in Slovenia follows Japan’s recent slaughter of more than 300 minke whales

Australia has thrown its weight behind a bid to outlaw large-scale commercial and so-called “scientific” whaling at a summit next week.

The International Whaling Commission meeting in Slovenia follows Japan’s recent slaughter of more than 300 minke whales, many of them pregnant, when they resumed so-called scientific whaling after a hiatus because the International Court of Justice ruled the hunts were not scientific and should cease.

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Carnegie Wave locks in $3.69m debt funding for world first solar, battery and wave integrated microgrid project, as it eyes "huge global opportunity."

Former head of Hazelwood coal generator proposes 300MW PV plant, possibly storage, as part of major renewables push.

Wind farms are pushing down the price of electricity in the electricity market. Chris J Stewart, Starfish Wind Farm, Cape Jervis, South Australia., CC BY-SA

While Australia’s energy market operator continues its investigation into South Australia’s recent state-wide blackout, there are important questions being asked.

For instance, was extreme weather the only cause? Has South Australia replaced fossil fuels with renewables too quickly?

And is the Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) too ambitious all together?

It is impossible to find answers without understanding how the energy market works, and how replacing one source of energy with another actually happens.

How does the market work?

Most Australians (barring the Northern Territory and Western Australia) get their electricity through the National Electricity Market.

Suppose all the energy users, at a particular day and time, switch on lights, computers, industrial machinery, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, traffic control equipment and more. Added together, they determine how much energy is needed or demanded at that very point in time.

On the other side of the poles and wires, different independent electricity generators – thermal, hydro, wind, solar – are offering energy to the market, each at a price enabling them to recover costs and make a reasonable profit. This is called bidding.

Contemporary electronic technology allows for the wholesale market to take electricity and bids every five minutes, and allocate amounts accepted from the successful bidders. And who are those successful bidders?

All current bids are ranked by unit price. Allocation starts from the lowest-price bidder, then the second lowest one, and continues on until the current demand is met. The last accepted bidder’s price becomes the spot market price, and allows other successful bidders to make more or less profit.

How do renewables affect the market?

The main incentive policy for wind farms in Australia is the Renewable Energy Target (RET), which legislates that 33 gigawatt hours of electricity must come from renewable sources by 2020. As part of the RET, large-scale renewable energy generators (solar and wind farms) receive credits (certificates) for electricity they generate, which are then purchased by retailers to meet the target.

This market is separate to the National Electricity Market (NEM) and acts as a second income source for renewable energy generators.

With this in mind, we have modelled what happens when wind energy is phased into the market based on five minute electricity market data for several years.

The running (marginal) cost of wind generators is zero (because wind is free), unlike traditional thermal technology (which has to pay for coal and gas). Subsequently, wind generators recover their fixed costs and obtain profit in the difference between marginal cost and market price based on “more expensive” bids.

In the long run, wind generation decreases the market price through the bidding process. So with an increase in the energy volume generated by wind, the traditional sources are pushed out from the market. The chart below illustrates this process for South Australia.

As more wind enters the market, other players are pushed out. Gennadi Kazakevitch

Because their fixed costs can be recovered through the RET, wind generators can bid at near zero prices and completely eliminate traditional competitors. Therefore, wind generation can only naturally exist in the market if there are other, more expensive forms of generation to set the price. Otherwise wind farms could not recover their costs without the RET.

This means that there is an optimal proportion of wind energy in the market, where more expensive thermal generators set the market price.

If there is an optimum amount of wind energy in the market, this has important consequences for the RET. The target artificially increases the proportion of wind energy that can be sustained in the grid. While this may be the goal of the RET, without the incentive, wind capacity would eventually fall back to the market optimum.

In practice, this would occur as wind farms reach their natural life of about 20 years and aren’t replaced. So the RET won’t maintain or increase wind energy in the market in the long term, unless the incentives continue indefinitely.

The current RET is legislated to 2030, with a target set for 2020. To encourage wind energy in the long term, it would be required, then, to support the RET by an ongoing financial inducement without a closing date.

Without any financial inducement, wind farm developers would not increase capacity beyond the optimal point, and some thermal generation will continue to exist. Thermal generation can be completely excluded only if all the fixed costs of wind energy can be recovered through the RET. This is impractical and beyond the intentions of the policy.

So as it stands, our modelling suggests the RET is not a good way to increase the amount of wind generation in the electricity network. However our conclusions are different for other renewable energy sources such as hydro, which also have near zero marginal costs but have much longer lifetimes.

Therefore, where and if possible, we need to use a mix of technology, rather than overemphasising wind generation technology.

This article was co-authored by Henry McMillan, masters candidate at Monash University focusing on regulatory and energy economics.

Gennadi Kazakevitch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Spiders can control their web’s tension and stiffness to help them identify potential partners as well as prey, study shows

Spiders can control the tension and stiffness of their webs to optimise their sensory powers, helping them locate and identify prey as well as partners, according to researchers at Oxford University.

Much in same way that notes travel along a plucked guitar string, spider silk transmits vibrations in different frequencies, sending information back to the spider.

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The cost of wind and solar power in South Africa has fallen to near half the price of new coal plants, and less than half the price of nuclear.

Conservation SA has installed two ZCell batteries to charge an electric car and to provide energy for emergency lighting and data centre backup for its office.

BIG BEASTS: A giant new species of long-necked dinosaur revealed today, sheds light on the likely origin of Australian sauropods.

According to data released by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this week, September 2016 was the second-hottest September on record globally. Until then, every month since April 2015 was the hottest for its month on record (the hottest August, the hottest July, and so on).

Back in April 2015, Donald Trump was still considering whether to run for US president while Malcolm Turnbull was still five months away from becoming Australian Prime Minister. Since then we’ve also seen two new versions of the iPhone come out.

So our 16-month streak of record heat is a long one. In fact it’s the longest in NOAA’s 137-year records of global temperatures. Other global temperature series have slightly different records but the general story is the same – the last couple of years have been very hot.

Rising temperatures

Heat records are a clear sign that temperatures are rising. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t expect too many new records after more than a century of measurements. For example, to get a record-hot September now means that it has to be hotter than all the other Septembers that have gone before, all 136 of them.

Statistically we might expect record hot or cold months about only once a decade if temperatures were flat. Records are often clustered, one hot month is usually followed by another one.

Of course we do have a trend in global temperatures and this makes breaking heat records much more likely. Without the effect of climate change it’s very unlikely we’d be experiencing so many records.

In contrast, we haven’t experienced a cold record in a very long time. The last record-cold year globally was in 1911, but there have been 20 record-hot years since then up to 2015.

Several studies have shown that even on more local scales we experience far more hot records than cold records, including in Australia where we’ve experienced 12 times as many hot records as cold ones. The increase in hot records has been attributed to climate change.

The El Niño after the ‘hiatus’

The last couple of years have been strongly influenced by El Niño. The expulsion of heat from the ocean into the lower atmosphere (where most of our temperature measurements are made) means that these periods are about one-tenth of a degree more than average.

In comparison, human-caused climate change has warmed the planet by about one degree Celsius. Combining the warming signal of climate change with the El Niño has led to the record warmth over the past 16 consecutive months.

Global temperature anomalies for 1950-2016 (from a 1901-2005 average) with red bars marking El Niño years and blue bars marking La Niña years. The 2016 estimate is the difference between the years of the last strong El Niño (1997 and 1998) added to the 2015 anomaly. The warmth of the last three years follows the early-2000s Benjamin Henley, data from NOAA

The 2015-16 El Niño came off the back of the so-called warming hiatus. From about 2000-14 the Earth experienced very little warming. This has been linked to decade-length variability in the Pacific Ocean. Since 2014, the warming has restarted and this has meant that record heat across the globe is now more likely.

Australia avoids the heat

If you’re reading this in Australia you might be thinking, where’s all this heat? After a warm summer and a record-hot autumn the winter was pretty wet with cities such as Melbourne feeling cool compared to previous winters. But across Australia, this winter past was the sixth warmest and second wettest on record.

September was warmer than average for most of the globe but not southwestern Australia. NOAA

More recently, September was actually cooler than average (one of the few spots across the globe to not be abnormally warm) as well as the second wettest since 1900. The wetter-than-normal conditions were associated with very warm waters to the west of Australia feeding in more moisture across the continent. The wet weather prevented heat from building up.

Australia only represents a small part of the globe though, and overall the world is still experiencing near-record warmth. Over the next few months we’re less likely to see global heat records fall. Now that the El Niño has well and truly disappeared, replaced by cooler waters in the central Pacific, the record warmth is likely gone. For now.

This won’t prevent 2016 as a whole almost certainly becoming the hottest year on record. This will make it the third consecutive record-breaking hot year globally.

And when the next big El Niño comes, combining with a growing human-induced climate change effect, we can be confident more heat records will fall.

Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.

Benjamin J. Henley receives funding from an ARC Linkage Project and is associated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.