Feed aggregator

Energy Efficiency Council's Jeremy Sung discusses energy standards for lighting and heat pumps and the federal government's Consumer Energy Resources Roadmap.

The post SwitchedOn Podcast: The future could be even brighter appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Green energy executives say plans for new power projects need to be more ambitious to achieve net zero grid by 2030

Labour’s clean energy targets may already be in jeopardy just weeks after the party came to power with the promise to quadruple Britain’s offshore wind power, according to senior industry executives.

The offshore wind industry has said there will not be enough time to develop the projects needed to create a net zero electricity system by the end of the decade unless ministers increase the ambition and funding of the government’s upcoming “make or break” subsidy auctions.

Continue reading...

The death of renewable hydrogen has been greatly exaggerated. What we are witnessing are actually the signs of a maturing market.

The post The hydrogen economy is not dead, just ask the shipping and aviation industries appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Plans to build a 340MW wind farm and a big battery in New England shelved after a "change of mind" from some landowners involved in the project, and as the local MP hits new lows in anti-wind rhetoric.

The post New England wind project shelved as local MP Barnaby Joyce takes anti-renewable vitriol to new low appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The only way to reduce soaring transport emissions is to shift as much travel as possible to the lowest-emission option. Robin Smit, Adjunct Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Technology Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

We should be targeting a mix of grid forming and grid following inverters with occasional use of rotating machines. But the existing system strength rules do not encourage this outcome.

The post The electric grid: Why we no longer need spinning machines appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The South Australian wind farm that high profile Victorians loved to hate has finally made it through after a decade of planning hell.

The post Contested wind project in South Australia wins federal nod as state heads towards 100 pct net renewables appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Indonesian coal mine emissions are being underreported, with fewer than half of its major miners reporting the methane emissions that occur as part of the mining process, according to a report released Monday.

In India, a species of frogs mate and lay their eggs while upside down, a new study has found.

Scientists say they have new evidence that complex life on Earth began much earlier than previously believed.

Scientists say they have new evidence that complex life on Earth began much earlier than previously believed.

Hailing the success of carrier bag laws, the Marine Conservation Society urges nations to push forward with plans for other single-use items

The number of plastic bags washed up on UK beaches has fallen by 80% over a decade, since a mandatory fee was imposed on shoppers who opt to pick up single-use carrier bags at the checkout.

According to the Marine Conservation Society’s (MCS) annual litter survey, volunteers found an average of one plastic bag every 100 metres of coastline surveyed last year, compared to an average of five carrier bags every 100 metres in 2014.

Continue reading...

You’ve probably heard the arguments against electric cars, but most of them are getting weaker as the technology, markets and infrastructure mature. John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney Andrea Pelligrini, Lecturer, Sustainable Mobility, University of Sydney Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ linked to low birth weight, reduced sperm counts and infertility

Several brands of condoms and lubricants contain alarming levels of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, including styles of Trojan and K-Y Jelly, new research finds.

The testing conducted by the Mamavation consumer advocacy blog comes just as researchers found human skin absorbs the chemicals at much higher levels than previously thought.

Continue reading...

The mothballing of its nickel plans means BHP has suspended plans for what have been the world's biggest renewable energy micro-grid.

The post World’s biggest renewable energy micro-grid suspended appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Our response to global heating and the decimation of animal species is to marginalise the Green party and lock up protesters

Signs and wonders. Omens of black portent. Part of an American looney’s ear has been shot off by another American looney. The proposed presidency of the earless looney had been endorsed by Atomic Kitten’s Kerry Katona. A computer went wrong and everything in the world stopped working everywhere. On Tuesday it was reported that Chris Packham regretted having once ridden an elephant. Last Sunday was the hottest day ever. A lioness hath whelped in the streets. Graves have yawn’d and yielded up their dead. Suella Braverman sat in for James O’Brien on LBC and the last surviving member of the Four Tops died. Surely we are living in The End Times. The optics, as they say, are not good.

But last week I sat outside at night alone on my Welsh mountain holiday, drinking draught Bwtty Bach beer from a plastic flask and reading an old Brigid Brophy paperback. For a moment I was happy beyond measure, forgot the world beyond, and stopped worrying. And then I saw something was awry in my idyll. I looked up at a security light, a stark halogen glow between the grey stone wall and the bright buck moon. Not long ago, in such a night as this, such a lamp as that would always have been hazed by a fuzzy penumbra of buzzy invertebrates. But tonight the air around it was hungry and dead, the entomological equivalent of an empty Republican convention room, where no one at all turns up to listen to Boris Johnson.

Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is available to stream on Now TV. He is previewing 40 minutes of new material in Stewart Lee Introduces Legends of Indie at the Lexington, London, in August with Connie Planque (12), Swansea Sound (13) and David Lance Callahan (14)

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

Head of Neoen says battery storage market is constantly evolving, and developers need to constantly re-invent their business models.

The post “You have to be creative:” Why Australia’s most successful grid-scale battery developer reinvents itself appeared first on RenewEconomy.

Albanese names new assistant minister for climate and energy after Jenny McAllister was promoted to a full ministerial role in Labor reshuffle.

The post Albanese names new assistant minister for climate and energy appeared first on RenewEconomy.

The group scored an own goal if their intention was to influence public opinion

Thank you, Sonia Sodha, for bursting the bubble (“Yes, five years in jail is too harsh, but the Just Stop Oil Five shouldn’t have done it”, Comment). Party A seeks something that Party B refuses to grant. Party A therefore – usually indiscriminately – targets Party C, who must be entirely innocent for this to work, and threatens to harm them unless given what they want.

It’s called hostage taking. In their latest indulgence of the practice, Just Stop Oil once again comes across as implacable yet patronising absolutists: “Yes, we’re hurting you, but we know that it’s for the best.” Their pretence of intellectual coherence is betrayed by the essential crudeness of their message: “Give us what we want, or the bunny gets it.” I cannot believe that their antics attract more people than they alienate.
Peter Millen
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire

I can’t think of anyone less “self-indulgent” than Louise Lancaster, one of the Just Stop Oil Five, imprisoned for four years last week.

Continue reading...

Woodside’s designs on the country’s largest untapped gas basin around Scott Reef are, some say, just another example of fossil fuel companies getting their way in what has become a petrostate

• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

Australia’s next wave of fossil fuel expansion is planned for environments far from where most people will ever see it. Places like Scott Reef.

Once part of an interconnected coral ecosystem that rivalled the Great Barrier Reef in scale, Scott Reef now sits in a remnant group of atolls near the edge of the Australian continental shelf, nearly 300km from its sparsely populated north-west coast.

Continue reading...