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The crisis continues Although electricity consumption and pool prices fell sharply this week due to more moderate weather, 2018 base load futures rose another 5%. That’s three weeks in a row prices have risen 5%  and FY18 futures prices have now cracked the $100 MWh mark in all States ($99 MWh in Victoria). Prices in […]

In every State no more than 2 players account for more than 50% of generation market share. That doesn't encourage competition and is pushing up prices.

Supporters of carbon capture plants on coal power stations are seeking to sell the story they are cheaper than renewables – despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The EIS proposed by Labor and others is a wasteful rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme designed to favour gas, and which will lift energy prices more than they need be.

Lake Cowal in New South Wales is home once again to thousands of waterbirds; meet a young winemaker with a real connection to the earth; and UK farmer Jim Chapman spreads the farm-safe message.

New book outlines how the Magritte Group - a fossil fuel lobby - has tried to destroy climate and renewable energy policy in Europe.

Originally published in the Guardian on 27 February 1967

THE CAIRNGORMS: It didn’t seem at all strange to discover a bedraggled reindeer sheltering from the storm just inside the entrance to the chair-lift the other day, for the wind was like a knife and the ski-runs like tilted ice-rinks. Of course, he might have merely come in for the company – you could see his fellows higher up the snowbound hillside – or he might have been hoping for a chance of something more succulent than the frozen heather roots these creatures seem to live on. But he wasn’t very friendly, responding to a cautious stroking by an angry swing of the head, so I left him standing disconsolate near the ticket office and looking as if he’d lost both Father Christmas and his sledge. I suppose they’re harmless enough although a notice farther down the mountain warns “Beware of Reindeer,” but doesn’t explain why. These were the only wild life we saw in the hills during a wild week, except for the ptarmigan in their white winter plumage hurrying through the snow, and once a handsome pheasant strutting across the track through the Rothiemurchus pines. Indeed, there were days, so fierce the winds, when these popular slopes were even deserted by the humans who normally at this time of year swarm like ants, and one day, especially, when I seemed quite alone in the mountains. Ski-ing that day was out of the question – you needed ice-axe and crampons just to get across the runs – and the wind so strong on the plateau it took you all your time to avoid being blown over the edge. But down by Loch Morlich in the late afternoon the wind suddenly dropped for half an hour, and there was the quiet splendour of purpling hills and a foreground of silvered loch with the birches and pines showing black against a golden sunset like a Chinese painting.

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A crucial decision on a rule change that could have a critical impact on the future of battery storage in Australia has been delayed again by AEMC.

If the third warmest January on record occurred during a La Niña event, scientists are asking what El Niño has in store

Right now south-eastern Australia is having an unbearable summer. Temperatures in Sydney have regularly been in the upper 30s in recent weeks, while inland areas have had several days in the mid-40s.

January was the hottest month on record for Sydney since 1859, and the persistent warmth into February (with many places topping 35C day after day) may topple the New South Wales record of 50 hot days in a row.

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Behavioural science is the latest tool in the battle to save reef.

This array in Indiana is one of a growing number of "community solar gardens" in the US. Robford15/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Rising electricity prices have become a fact of life in Australia – and are likely to be so for a few years to come.

However, while the cost of generating electricity will rise as cheap but ageing coal power stations go offline, that doesn’t mean your electricity bills need to follow suit.

Households and businesses can take greater control of their energy future and slash their power bills in a range of cost-effective ways. Solar panels and battery storage are among the most obvious strategies. But not everyone can afford them, which is why we are seeing the rise of community projects that aim to give more people access to clean energy.

Australia now has more than 1.6 million solar roofs. Last year 6,750 battery storage systems were installed, up from just 500 in 2015.

Yet many households and businesses are still effectively “locked out” of this energy revolution. Many renters, apartment-dwellers and lower-income households face a series of market barriers that make these options hard to access.

Renters often find that their landlord does not want to invest in solar. Those living in apartments can have the same problem with their strata or body corporate, with the added problem of not always having access to their own roof.

Poorer households typically can’t afford solar panels or batteries, even if they would save money over the longer term. On top of the expense, buying solar panels and other clean energy products can be complicated and confusing.

Club together

The good news is that there are several initiatives around Australia that aim to get around these barriers. One example is Darebin Solar $avers, a collaboration between local government, community and industry that has installed solar panels on 300 low-income households in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. There was no upfront cost to these households, ensuring they were financially better off from day one.

Another example is the community solar gardens model, which has become popular in the United States. Solar gardens work by installing a central solar array, generally near a population centre. Energy customers are invited to buy (or subscribe to) a share in a handful of the array’s solar panels. The electricity generated is then credited on the customer’s electricity bill. Often, poorer households are offered discounts to be able to participate.

One issue with these kinds of schemes, however, is that they are complicated to set up. They usually involve many partner organisations – at least one of which has to have an interest in ensuring that users are better off. It is hard to see how the market can deliver these schemes on its own.

Where markets fail, it is typically governments’ job to step in and help. So how can governments go about helping people get access to affordable clean energy?

In the United States, the Obama administration set a national target of 1 gigawatt of solar panels to be installed on low- to moderate-income homes by 2020 as part of the Clean Energy Savings for All program. The National Community Solar Partnership brought together 68 organisations to help set up community solar gardens and make them easier to access.

This week, Australia’s second national Community Energy Congress in Melbourne will hear from Barack Obama’s climate and energy adviser, Candace Vahlsing, who will outline how these policies can help ensure wider access to green energy.

In Australia, a proposal to establish a network of 50 Regional Energy Hubs is gaining traction. The federal Labor Party, Greens and Nick Xenophon Team all made commitments in the lead-up to the 2016 federal election.

The Regional Energy Hubs proposal is modelled on the Moreland Energy Foundation, a non-profit organisation in inner-north Melbourne set up in 2000 in the wake of Victoria’s energy privatisation. The foundation has a team of energy and engagement experts working with households, businesses, community groups and governments on innovative approaches to implementing sustainable energy supply – the Darebin Solar $avers program being one example. The idea would be to set up dozens more similar organisations, all linked together across the nation.

The program can be thought of as like Landcare but for clean energy. Landcare is a nationwide network of volunteers who care for our land and water, with the aim of boosting both environmental protection and agricultural productivity. Similarly, energy hubs would aim both to make energy more environmentally friendly, and to make clean energy more affordable and accessible.

This is why we have to move past just talking about “costs” and start thinking about investment. Modelling by Marsden Jacobs and Associates shows that every dollar of government investment in community energy can leverage A$10-17 of community investment. At the same time, this delivers many other benefits to communities: closer connections between neighbours; opportunities to learn new skills or access new income streams; easing social inequity; and improving health.

Given the myriad possible solutions to our energy challenges, we need to nut out what works best, and where. The best way to do this is by putting all of our heads together – local government, state government, federal government, private enterprise, innovators in the clean energy sector, and the communities that stand to benefit. That way we can make the clean energy transition fairer and more accessible to all.

The second national Community Energy Congress is taking place in Melbourne on February 27-28.

Nicky Ison is a Research Associate at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology Sydney and a Founding Director of Community Power Agency. ISF undertakes paid sustainability research for a wide range of government, corporate and NGO clients. Community Power Agency is a not-for-profit organisation working to grow a vibrant community energy sector in Australia.

More than 3.5m of the invasive rodents live in Britain, and their presence is harming the welfare of their native red cousins. Luckily, HRH has a cunning plan to reduce their numbers

Name: Grey squirrels.

Age: First introduced to the UK in the 1870s.

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Campaigners write to chancellor to urge him to end tax breaks and bring in scheme to encourage switch to greener cars

Ministers are coming under growing pressure to remove tax incentives for diesel cars and offer compensation to motorists so they can swap to more environmentally friendly vehicles.

A group of medical professionals, environmental campaigners and lawyers has written to the chancellor ahead of the budget to demand a change to the vehicle excise duty that they say subsidises diesel cars.

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New study by ANU suggested a 100% renewable energy grid, with 90% of electricity coming from wind and solar, will be cheaper than a coal or gas-fired system in Australia.

In a statement, Hibatullah Akhundzada says more trees are needed "for the beautification of Earth".

The salad shortage focused attention on the failures of our 24/7 dietary culture. But it also provides a chance to rethink the way we eat fresh fruit, veg and green leaves

I’m afraid the lettuce shortage was just the tip of the iceberg. We may have run low on salad leaves but, more worryingly, we were low on empathy for poor southern Spain where flash floods followed by snow wrecked the crop. Our relentless consumer-rights focus meant that the emphasis was clearly on “weather-related supply challenges”, supermarket speak for “My God, we are running out of salad!” Sustaining a dietary culture of 24/7 access to all fresh fruit and veg in all seasons was never going to be easy.

A packed salad uses at least 10 times more energy than a local lettuce

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More than £17m will be made available for robotics research carried out by British universities.

Head of the EPA told the conservative audience they would be ‘justified’ in believing the environmental regulator should be completely disbanded

Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has vowed to roll back flagship regulations that tackle climate change and water pollution, telling a conservative audience in Maryland they would be “justified” in believing the environmental regulator should be completely disbanded.

The Trump appointee signalled that the president is set to start the work of dismantling climate and water rules as early as next week. Pruitt said the administration will “deal” with the Clean Power Plan, Barack Obama’s centrepiece policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the Waters of the United States rule, which gives the EPA wider latitude to reduce pollution of waterways.

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Simon Chapman AO says there's never been a more important time for researchers all over the world to speak up about their work — its implications and how societies and governments should act on it.

Scientists at Vatican conference are searching for a solution to the manmade ‘major extinction event’

One in five species on Earth now faces extinction, and that will rise to 50% by the end of the century unless urgent action is taken. That is the stark view of the world’s leading biologists, ecologists and economists who will gather on Monday to determine the social and economic changes needed to save the planet’s biosphere.

“The living fabric of the world is slipping through our fingers without our showing much sign of caring,” say the organisers of the Biological Extinction conference held at the Vatican this week.

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