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Kit Hill and Metherell, Tamar Valley: This pear tree remains spectacular, with creamy blossom on wide-spreading branches

At dawn, birdsong floats up from shrubby undergrowth towards the cold summit of Kit Hill. Mist lies in the lowest valleys and, like the scattered enclaves of yellow oilseed rape and plastic-covered maize plantings, appears luminous among the pale greens and blues of the expansive patchwork of fields and woods.

The first cuckoo call of the season impels a brief runabout in honour of family tradition to ensure another year of liveliness – although my predecessors would have had no need to come uphill and away from the valley to hear this bird. The sound of melodeon, trombone, drum and bells echoes around the monumental mine-stack as the Cornish Wreckers dance morris in celebration of May and of “winter gone away”.

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Tesla has unveiled its latest grid-scale battery – a 140 Powerpack 18.2MW system in Belgium the company says was installed in five weeks.

Victoria energy minister officially launches construction of first crop farm in the world to be wholly powered by renewable energy - a wind farm and a Tesla battery.

Four new innovative clean energy start-ups are the first to benefit from a new working relationship between the CEFC and clean energy business accelerator EnergyLab, with additional support from the Queensland government.

To provide a clearer picture of small-scale installations in Australia, the Clean Energy Regulator has moved to quarterly publications of Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme installation and capacity data.

Kokam's Ultra High Power Lithium-ion NMC battery technology cost-effectively provides the high-power output needed for spinning reserve, ancillary services, mining, off-shore drilling and other utility and industrial applications.

Dinosaurs may have used a unique nesting strategy to prevent their eggs from being crushed.

ARENA provides $7m to encourage more wind, solar and battery parks to provide grid services such as frequency and voltage.

Two parliamentary committees say ill-thought out policies have driven down clean energy investment.

A daily summary of our news plus bite-sized updates from around the world.

Japanese knotweed is said to cost UK economy £170m a year, but so far only solution is controversial glyphosate-based herbicide

Japanese knotweed is a thug of a plant capable of growing a foot a week at this time of year; it spreads rapidly from underground rhizomes; erodes riverbanks, leading to flooding; smothers other plants; blocks drains and wreaks such havoc on homes and gardens that it blights property prices. It is estimated that controlling Japanese knotweed costs the UK economy about £170m each year. An entire industry has been built on trying to control the plant, using at least 15 different active control methods. There is, however, no impartial study of how effective any of these treatments are.

Scientists at Swansea University recently concluded the world’s largest field trial over five years on tackling Japanese knotweed. Their depressing assessment is that eradicating the plant using weedkillers is useless, and so too are physical methods such as covering up and cutting down knotweed.

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People used to think that boy lions had big shaggy manes to protect their necks from being bitten or scratched during fights. But scientists soon realised this idea didn't make much sense. Nadya Sotnychuk, PhD candidate, University of New England Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.

Market participants should expect an under-subscribed WCI auction this quarter along with more modest price increases in the medium-to-long term, according to analysts.

The EU’s efforts to decarbonise heavy industry are being undermined by ETS benchmarking rules that systematically block cleaner industrial alternatives from getting a foothold, according to environmental campaigner group Sandbag.

EU carbon prices slumped on Tuesday after extending a recent seven-year high in early trade and following another weak auction.

Whatever the WWF says, peak demand for gas-fired generation will be larger, says Steve Bolter, while Chris Underwood pours cold water on the IMechE’s hydrogen proposal

The WWF has been oversimplistic in its argument that no further gas-fired power stations are needed (Report, 14 May). The forecast increase in annual renewable electricity production is only just sufficient to balance the closure of coal-fired electricity generation and the fall in nuclear generation resulting from the retirement of many of our nuclear power stations (most of which are already working beyond their design lives). However, this does not mean more no more gas generation capacity is needed. Electricity demand varies, and renewables are intermittent. There has to be enough capacity to meet demand at all times.

While pump storage systems and batteries are able to store enough energy to cope with short-term variations in demand and the availability of renewable generation, it would not be environmentally friendly, efficient or cost-effective to use such systems to store energy from summer to winter, or even to store enough to survive a long midwinter period of high pressure over the North Sea.

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European utilities were relatively quiet in the rallying EUA market over Q1, company results suggest, representing potentially bullish news for prices as generators may now need to accelerate their EUA buying.

Almost 265 million EU carbon allowances will be withdrawn from the over-supplied EU ETS in the first eight months of 2019 and inserted into the MSR when it launches early next year, the European Commission announced late on Tuesday.

IBM and Veridium Labs have teamed up to launch a blockchain-based platform to transform carbon offsets into digital tokens for trade on a decentralised exchange, the companies announced on Tuesday.

Almost all single use plastics, including coffee cups, bags and water bottles will be replaced with compostable or reusable versions by 2019

The UK parliament has unveiled a package of measures to “virtually eliminate” single-use plastics from Westminster in the next year.

The move will see a range of items – from coffee cups to straws, plastic bags to water bottles – removed from the parliamentary estate, to be replaced by compostable or reuseable options by 2019.

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