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Artificial intelligence smart enough to fool Captcha security check
Russia holds nuclear-capable missile tests
Subsidy plan for coal and nuclear plants 'will cost US taxpayers $10.6bn a year'
Non-partisan analysis reveals the cost of energy secretary Rick Perry’s proposal to give handouts to some of the country’s oldest and dirtiest power plants
A Trump administration plan to subsidize coal and nuclear energy would cost US taxpayers about $10.6bn a year and prop up some of the oldest and dirtiest power plants in the country, a new analysis has found.
The Department of Energy has proposed that coal and nuclear plants be compensated not only for the electricity they produce but also for the reliability they provide to the grid. The new rule would provide payments to facilities that store fuel on-site for 90 days or more because they are “indispensable for our economic and national security”.
Continue reading...Call to conserve 'crucial' rare Wales spider species
Invitation to comment on listing assessment for Tuart (Eucalyptus gomphocephala) woodlands and forests of the Swan Coastal Plain ecological community
Country diary: prickly or bitter, wild lettuce is thriving
Woodwalton Fen, Cambridgeshire One magnificent specimen is a metre-wide rosette of oar-shaped leaves
Storm Brian has eased, but the gusts still rustle the sallow, alder and willow leaves and sway the reeds. The firmament transforms rapidly from broken ashen blankets to a solid leaden layer and then a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. We strike south through a wooded area of the fen, towards the low sun glittering through the trees.
A fallen birch trunk hosts many Fomes fomentarius, a heavy-duty bracket fungus known as the hoof fungus. On the tree’s now vertical root-plate wild lettuce plants grow.
Continue reading...UPDATED: Joyce out, Canavan in, Roberts out – What High Court ruling means for climate, renewables
Graph of the Day: Negative prices in windy South Australia
A coal-based grid in 2030 will make Australia un-competitive
Climate peace in our time?
Victoria big solar pipeline adds two new projects
Politics podcast: Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott on a national energy plan
World-first “solar train” about to be launched in Byron Bay
The NEG: No guarantee of success
Australia still lags behind in vehicle emissions testing
Dinosaur sported 'bandit mask'
Bloodhound car tested ahead of 1,000mph record attempt
Sea levels to rise 1.3m unless coal power ends by 2050, report says
University of Melbourne paper combines latest understanding on Antarctica and current emissions projection scenarios
Coastal cities around the world could be devastated by 1.3m of sea level rise this century unless coal-generated electricity is virtually eliminated by 2050, according to a new paper that combines the latest understanding of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise and the latest emissions projection scenarios.
It confirms again that significant sea level rise is inevitable and requires rapid adaptation. But, on a more positive note, the work reveals the majority of that rise – driven by newly recognised processes on Antarctica – could be avoided if the world fulfils its commitment made in Paris to keep global warming to “well below 2C”.
Continue reading...Ciwem environmental photographer of the year 2017 winners – in pictures
The winner of the 10th annual environmental photographer of the year competition is Quoc Nguyen Linh Vinh, from Vietnam, for his poignant image of a young girl and her mother, surrounded by filth, danger and pollution, making their living by collecting waste
Continue reading...Revealed: oil giants pay billions less tax in Canada than abroad
Data shows companies made much higher payments to developing countries in 2016 than to Canadian, provincial governments
Canada taxes its oil and gas companies at a fraction of the rate they are taxed abroad, including by countries ranked among the world’s most corrupt, according to an analysis of public data by the Guardian.
The low rate that oil companies pay in Canada represents billions of dollars in potential revenue lost, which an industry expert who looked at the data says is a worrying sign that the country may be “a kind of tax haven for our own companies.”
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