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There is no doubt that Victoria's renewable energy target will be good for consumers, industry and jobs. They should start the auctions soon.

The management of Australia’s looming energy crisis has so far focused almost exclusively on the supply side of the equation: exploiting new gas reserves, expanding the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme, and building new infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the huge potential of improving efficiency and demand management, which could save vast amounts of energy, has largely been ignored.

One promising development is the recent announcement of a trial of demand response incentives in Victoria and South Australia.

Next summer, households and businesses who sign up for the trial will be paid when they agree to be on standby to reduce their energy use during times of increased peak demand or natural disaster. They’ll be paid again if their electricity is actually reduced.

ClimateWorks Australia’s research shows that initiatives to better manage energy use could reduce peak demand on the national grid by more than 10% – or 3.8 gigawatts – the output of two Hazelwood power stations over peak times.

Harnessing the huge demand-side opportunities is critical to addressing the “energy trilemma”: ensuring energy security and affordability, while reducing emissions.

Ensuring security

Our electricity market struggles to handle energy demand in times of extreme stress, as we saw in the recent South Australian and New South Wales heatwaves. And the Australian energy market operator has forecast little change in overall or peak electricity demand over the next few years.

Demand response measures can reduce blackouts by significantly easing peak demand on these extreme days. For example, companies could be incentivised to turn off non-essential power during peak periods, freeing up more electricity for households, hospitals and emergency services.

This already occurs in Western Australia, where the electricity market regulator operates a “capacity market” allowing businesses to be paid to reduce or shift their electricity use out of peak times.

ClimateWorks’ research into the industrial sector found that demand response measures could reduce commercial electricity demand on Australia’s east coast by as much as 42% during peak periods, which would reduce the overall peak demand by 10%.

Mechanisms to unlock this potential could improve Australia’s energy security considerably, while avoiding building costly infrastructure that may only be needed on a handful of days a year.

Energy affordability

At the same time, we also need to ramp up energy efficiency measures to reduce the cost of energy for households and business. ClimateWorks’ modelling, as part of the Pathways to Deep Decarbonisation in 2050 report, shows that Australia can potentially halve the amount of final energy it uses per dollar of GDP by 2050.

ClimateWorks modelling shows the cost of making houses more energy efficient is offset by the money saved on energy and transport. ClimateWorks Australia, Pathways to Deep Decarbonisation Report

We won’t see single new technology or policy acting as a silver bullet. Instead, there are many different ways to improve our energy efficiency. Our research shows if all these opportunities are pursued, household net energy costs could be decreased by around 15% by 2030 (after taking into account capital costs).

If we used these savings to offset the cost of decarbonising the electricity sector and transitioning away from gas, household energy bills would still be reduced by about 8% by 2030.

There are huge savings to be made in industry as well, especially as gas prices continue to rise. We’ve identified a broad range of cost-effective efficiency options, and calculated that companies most exposed to energy prices could improve their overall performance by at least 5% if they adopted best-practice energy improvements.

But many of these opportunities are unlikely to be taken up under current policy and market settings. Our research shows that in particular, companies face significant financial barriers, such as the payback period and the opportunity cost of the investment, or the availability of internal capital.

Electric vehicles, which use less energy than traditional petrol cars, are another key component of cheaper – and more secure – power. Research from CSIRO argues that increased uptake of electric vehicles, combined with a proactive development of charging infrastructure, could deliver energy system cost savings large enough to offset the cost of decarbonising Australia’s electricity generation.

Reducing emissions

Energy use accounts for more than 65% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions; reducing energy use is a vital aspect of achieving our emissions reduction goals.

Our research shows that pursuing multiple avenues to energy efficiency could diminish our emissions by 130 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030.

That’s nearly half the reduction required to meet the government’s emissions reduction target, and one third of the reductions required to meet the Climate Change Authority’s recommended emissions trajectory.

On top of this, increased adoption of electric vehicles could deliver about 9 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of abatement by 2030, while better using our energy capacity. Finally, demand-side measures can also support increasing renewable energy, reducing emissions by an additional 125 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030.

Policy makers need to ensure that the transformation of our energy system includes moving to renewable energy supply and managing demand.

If we improve energy efficiency, better manage commercial and domestic demand and actively encourage electric vehicles, we can avoid serious increases in energy prices, avoid building largely unproductive infrastructure and and address dangerous climate change.

Amandine Denis receives funding from the Department of Industry for research on energy efficiency and demand-side response.

Environmental lawyers say advice means reef might finally be listed as a ‘world heritage site in danger’

The central aim of the government’s plan to protect the Great Barrier Reef is no longer achievable due to the dramatic impacts of climate change, experts have told the government’s advisory committees for the plan.

Environmental lawyers said the revelation could mean the Great Barrier Reef might finally be listed as a “world heritage site in danger”, a move the federal and Queensland governments have strenuously fought.

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Antibiotics and vitamins helped the injured loggerhead sea turtle back to health in Marathon, in the Florida Keys.

The crashed European spacecraft Schiaparelli was ill-prepared for its attempt at landing on the surface of Mars, a report suggests.

Select Tesco stores will sell only reusable bags in a 10-week trial that could lead to the single-use bags being phased out in all of its stores

Shoppers at a handful of Tesco stores in the UK will no longer be able to buy 5p “single-use” plastic carrier bags, in the first such trial by a supermarket.

If successful, it could lead to the bags being phased out completely, less than two years after the law was changed in England to force larger stores to charge for them.

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If you go down to Uffmoor Wood today, you’re sure of a big surprise – you won’t be able to get in. Has the Woodland Trust made the right decision to temporarily padlock the Worcestershire woodland?

It’s Britain’s baddest woodland. Two hundred acres of bluebell-infested forest so naughty that the Woodland Trust has taken the rare step of shutting it down until it improves.

Uffmoor Wood, near Halesowen in the West Midlands, is padlocked as of today, after becoming a focal point for sheep-worrying, dirt bike scrambling, dog fouling, drug peddling and sex dogging.

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Exclusive: European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking glyphosate to cancer following counsel with an EPA official allegedly linked to the company and who figures in more than 20 lawsuits

The European Food Safety Authority dismissed a study linking a Monsanto weedkiller to cancer after counsel from a US Environmental Protection Agency officer allegedly linked to the company.

Jess Rowlands, the former head of the EPA’s cancer assessment review committee (CARC), who figures in more than 20 lawsuits and had previously told Monsanto he would try to block a US government inquiry into the issue, according to court documents.

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Cyclists hail experimental scheme – that sees the dangerous intersection closed to all but buses, cyclists and pedestrians – as a turning point

Bank junction, one of London’s most dangerous intersections, was closed this week to all but buses, and people on bikes and foot, from 7am to 7pm on weekdays, in an 18-month experimental scheme that could be as ground breaking as New York’s Times Square or Paris’s Left Bank.

In 2015 Ying Tao was hit from behind by a lorry and killed as she cycled across the six-armed crossroads. Cyclists make up to 50% of Bank traffic during peak times, and from 2010-14, 46 cyclists were injured at the junction, six seriously. There were also eight serious pedestrian casualties in that time.

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Hundreds of Indigenous delegates are discussing the future of their peoples in a historic meeting at Uluru, but what the nation's leaders advocate for?

Stop the Machine aims to put an end to methods of farming that are endangering biodiversity and wildlife the world over

We can feed an extra 4 billion people a year if we reject the bloated and wasteful factory farming systems that are endangering our planet’s biodiversity and wildlife, said farming campaigner Philip Lymbery on Monday night, launching a global campaign to Stop the Machine.

At present, 35% of the world’s cereal harvest and most of its soya meal is fed to industrially reared animals rather than directly to humans. This is a “wasteful and inefficient practice” because the grain-fed animals contribute much less back in the form of milk, eggs and meat than they consume, according to Lymbery, the chief executive of Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). “The food industry seems to have been hijacked by the animal feed industry,” he said.

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Changes in food distribution and not falling ocean temperatures could hold key to shift towards giant lengths

The blue whale has a body the length of a jet airliner, a heart the size of a car, and a tongue the same weight as an elephant.

Now researchers say they might have solved the mystery of why baleen whales – a group that includes these blue beasts, the largest animals on the planet – became so large.

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Exclusive: Britons fail to eat 178m bags of salad every year, say Tesco and government waste body Wrap, in study highlighting food waste

Britons throw away 40% of the bagged salad they buy every year, according to the latest data, with 37,000 tonnes – the equivalent of 178m bags – going uneaten every year.

The figures from the government’s waste advisory body Wrap are being published on Wednesday by the supermarket giant Tesco to highlight that prepared salads are still among the UK’s most wasted household foods. Past studies have shown that the average UK family throws away £700 of food each year.

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Crowds cheer as ‘Big Don’, a massive sea turtle, is released off the Florida Keys on World Turtle Day after being rehabilitated from injuries from an encounter with a fishing line. The 200-pound (91 kilogram) loggerhead turtle was nursed back to health with antibiotics, vitamins and a healthy diet of squid and fish

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Australian Energy Regulator loses costly Federal Court battle to control how much NSW network operators can charge for power.

Wenlock Edge, Shropshire This is the cow parsley moment, its blossom making foamy bow waves against hawthorn hedges along the road

The lanes are luminous with the white pulse of May: cow parsley, hawthorn, hogweed, garlic, stichwort. In fields there are pale lambs and dandelion clocks and stands of horse chestnut in candle. White on green. Green on white.

It is evening and the birds are fractious. I am listening to an old story so nearly forgotten that its retelling sounds strange and new.

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Queensland has officially become the Solar State with new figures confirming that combined solar rooftops are now Queensland’s largest power station.

AGL today announced the appointment of Melissa Reynolds to the newly created role of Chief Customer Officer and the promotion of Richard Wrightson to the position of Executive General Manager, Wholesale Markets.

National Transport Commission (NTC) and Austroads publish national guidelines to support Australian autonomous vehicle trials.

Clean Energy Innovation Fund completes $26m capital raising, easily surpassing its $20 million target with help from some big investors.