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Did AEMO allow the S.A. grid to fail. "I don't know", says energy minister, after witnessing measures to protect NSW from possibility of failed coal generator.

Sydney Markets unveils purpose-built 640kW solar car park, taking total installed capacity to 910kW, with more to come.

ZEN Energy unveils partnership with Santos as part of plan to offer cheap "baseload renewable electricity" product to commercial and industrial users.

B vitamins may offer some protection against particulate pollution, a small human trial suggests.

Our government spends 10 times more on disaster recovery than on prevention, but now it needs to think ahead

Talk to any investor these days about climate and energy policy, and the level of frustration is evident.

Current policy paralysis has stalled investment in additional renewable energy generation that is needed to replace ageing infrastructure, with cost implications for all Australians.

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South Australia to build country’s biggest battery storage plant via tender, as well as adding gas plant as “back-up”, creating a new “energy security target” and giving energy minister new powers to intervene in electricity market.

The energy sector was supposed to be the showcase for privatisation and market deregulation. Yet in 2017, this premise is being sorely tested – no more so than in electricity retailing, where competition has failed to deliver on its promise of lower prices for customers.

The latest Grattan Institute report, Price shock: Is the retail electricity market failing consumers?, provides evidence that in the electricity retail sector, the anticipated price reductions have not happened, and innovation has been very slow in coming.

On the contrary, the markets with the least regulation have the highest prices. Australia’s experience is mirrored in the UK, the United States and Canada, and all are struggling to find solutions.

Mixed success

The privatisation of Australia’s electricity retail markets dates back to the 1993 Hilmer Report on national competition policy. The ensuing decade saw a raft of reforms that initially delivered increases in productivity, lower prices and business innovation. But in the decade after that, this progress became much harder to sustain.

The idea was for states to create regulated monopolies in electricity transmission and distribution (poles and wires), while deregulating the retail side (the supply of gas and electricity to customers).

The competition in electricity generation largely delivered lower wholesale prices through the National Electricity Market (NEM). But a mess has since been created by poor or absent climate policy at a federal level, which failed to match the enthusiasm of (some) states for clean energy. The resulting surge of investment in wind and solar happened without due consideration of the consequences for security and reliability of supply. Generating more renewable energy is essential, but failing to integrate it properly with the NEM was negligent.

Meanwhile, in Victoria – the state with most electricity retailers and the longest history of full competition – retail prices have been increasing without apparent justification and retail margins are higher than they should be. The cost to Victorians could be as much as A$250 million a year.

Lazy customers?

Customers are unhappy, and yet we are not seeing a surge of consumer action to get the best deals. So if it’s just a matter of lazy consumers, why should governments care?

Part of the answer to this conundrum lies with the product and its relationship with consumers. First, electricity is an essential service that underpins our daily lives, and switching off is not a realistic option for most consumers.

Second, the products offered by retailers are often complex and the advertising is confusing, if not downright misleading. It is hardly surprising that consumers feel stuck and eventually give up trying to find the best deal, when all too often an advertised 30% discount on their electricity bill doesn’t necessarily mean their bills will be 30% cheaper.

So far there have been few genuine innovations in electricity pricing – even in Victoria which has had full deregulation since 2009. The most common tactic has been a discount for paying on time or by direct debit, although consumers are often frustrated when they discover that at the end of their contract they lose the discount even if they continue to pay the same way.

Meanwhile, products that offer different prices for electricity use at different times of the day have been slow to appear. These products have the potential to deliver major savings, yet the industry has failed to deliver them in a way that makes them easy for customers to understand and adopt.

What to do

When faced with a market failure, governments should consider action. Yet, as with the Australia’s domestic gas market and South Australia’s power “crisis”, they should proceed with caution.

In Britain, the partial re-regulation of retail electricity competition delivered unexpected and perverse outcomes, such as the removal of the cheapest deals. A move to re-regulate prices here could stifle emerging innovation, and would most likely leave some consumers worse off without the guarantee of a better outcome overall. We seem to be driven to a choice between free markets and central planning. Yet neither is a panacea.

There are government interventions that could fix the worst problems without stifling effective competition. They include requiring clearer and simpler advertising, and more transparent and fairer contracts. Requiring retailers to provide data on their profit margins to an independent agency could also help, and could even be in the best interest of the retailers if it fends off more heavy-handed regulation.

The retail electricity market may be fixable, and the benefits of competition may ultimately exceed its costs. We may yet see fairer prices and real innovation. But if not, governments will have no choice but to return to price regulation. The electricity retailers who are used to the current free market certainly won’t want that.

Tony Wood owns shares in several energy and resources companies through his superannuation fund

It’s likely to be several years before scientists can determine the real implications of this year’s record melt of Antarctic sea ice, says NASA’s Walt Meier.

Queensland and federal environment officials called to Switzerland to provide UNESCO reef update

One of the worst instances of mangrove forest dieback ever recorded globally struck Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria in the summer of 2015-16. A combination of extreme temperatures, drought and lowered sea levels likely caused this dieback, according to our investigation published in the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.

The dieback, which coincided with the Great Barrier Reef’s worst ever bleaching event, affected 1,000km of coastline between the Roper River in the Northern Territory and Karumba in Queensland.

Views of mangrove shorelines impacted by dieback event in late 2015, east of Limmen Bight River, Northern Territory (imagery: NC Duke, June 2016).

About 7,400 hectares, or 6%, of the gulf’s mangrove forest had died. Losses were most severe in the NT, where around 5,500ha of mangroves suffered dieback. Some of the gulf’s many catchments, such as the Robinson and McArthur rivers, lost up to 26% of their mangroves.

Views of seaward mangrove fringes showing foreshore sections of minor (left side) and extreme (right side) damage as observed in June 2016 between Limmen and MacArthur rivers, NT. These might effectively also represent before and after scenarios, but together show how some shoreline sections have been left exposed and vulnerable. NC Duke The gulf, a remote but valuable place

The Gulf of Carpentaria is a continuous sweep of wide tidal wetlands fringed by mangroves, meandering estuaries, creeks and beaches. Its size and naturalness makes it globally exceptional.

An apron of broad mudflats and seagrass meadows supports thousands of marine turtles and dugongs. A thriving fishing industry worth at least A$30 million ultimately depends on mangroves.

Dieback of mangroves around Karumba in Queensland, with surviving saltmarsh, October 2016. NC Duke

Mangroves and saltmarsh plants are uniquely adapted to extreme and fickle coastal shoreline ecosystems. They normally cope with salt and daily inundation, having evolved specialised physiological and morphological traits, such as salt excretion and unique breathing roots.

But in early 2016, local tour operators and consultants doing bird surveys alerted authorities to mangroves dying en masse along entire shorelines. They reported skeletonised mangroves over several hundred kilometres, with the trees appearing to have died simultaneously. They sent photos and even tracked down satellite images to confirm their concerns. The NT government supported the first investigative surveys in June 2016.

Areas affected by severe mangrove dieback in late 2015 (grey shaded) along southern shorelines of Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria from Northern Territory to Queensland. Aerial surveys (red lines) were undertaken on three occasions during 2016 to cover around 600km of the 1000km impacted. NC Duke

In the end, the emails from citizen scientists nailed the timing: “looks like it started maybe December 2015”; the severity: “I’ve seen dieback before, but not like this”; and the cause: “guessing it may be the consequence of the four-year drought”.

Our investigation used satellite imagery dating back to 1972 to confirm that the dieback was an unparalleled event. Further aerial helicopter surveys and mapping during 2016, after the dieback, validated the severity of the event extending across the entire gulf. Mangrove dieback has been recorded in Australia in the past but over decades, not months.

Mangroves losses (red) and surviving mangroves (green) around the shoreline and mouth of the Limmen Bight River, south-western Gulf of Carpentaria, April 2015 to April 2016. NC Duke, J. Kovacs Mysterious patterns in the dieback

We still don’t fully understand what caused the dieback. But we can rule out the usual suspects of chemical or oil spills, or severe storm events. It was also significant that losses occurred simultaneously across a 1,000km front.

There were also a number of tell-tale patterns in the dieback. The worst-impacted locations had more or less complete loss of shoreline-fringing mangroves. This mirrored a general loss of mangroves fringing tidal saltpans and saltmarshes along this semi-arid coast.

Mangroves were unaffected where they kept their feet wet along estuaries and rivers. This, as well as the timing and severity of the event, points to a connection with extreme weather and climate patterns, and particularly the month-long drop of 20cm in local sea levels.

Extreme weather the likely culprit

We believe the dieback is best explained by drought, hot water, hot air and the temporary drop in sea level. Each of these was correlated with the strong 2015-16 El Niño. Let’s take a look at each in turn.

First, the dieback happened at the end of an unusually long period of severe drought conditions, which prevailed for much of 2015 following four years of below-average rainfall. This caused severe moisture stress in mangroves growing alongside saltmarsh and saltpans.

Second, the dieback coincided with hot sea temperatures that also caused coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef. While mangroves are known to be relatively heat-tolerant, they have their limits.

The air temperatures recorded at the time of the mangrove dieback, particularly from February to September 2015, were also exceptionally high.

Views of mangrove shorelines impacted by dieback event in late 2015, north of Karumba, Queensland (imagery: NC Duke, Oct 2016).

Third, the sea level dropped by up to 20cm at the time of the dieback when the mangroves were both heat- and moisture-stressed. Sea levels commonly drop in the western Pacific (and rise in the eastern Pacific) during strong El Niño years: and the 2015-2016 El Niño was the third-strongest recorded.

The mangroves appear to have died of thirst. Mangroves may be hardy plants, but when sea levels drop, reducing inundation, coupled with already heat-and-drought-stressed weather conditions, then the plants will die – much like your neglected pot plants.

We don’t yet know what role human-caused climate change played in these particular weather events or El Niño. But the unprecedented extent of the dieback, the confluence of extreme climate events and the coincidence with the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef mean the role of climate change will be of critical interest in the global response to mangrove decline.

What future for mangroves?

The future for mangroves around the world is mixed. Thanks to climate change, droughts are expected to become hotter and more frequent. If the gulf’s mangroves experience further dieback in the future, this will have serious implications for Australia’s northern fisheries including the iconic prawn fishery, mudcrab and fin fish fisheries. All species are closely associated with healthy mangroves.

We don’t know whether the mangroves will recover or not. But there is now a further risk of shoreline erosion and retreat, particularly if the region is struck by a cyclone – and this may have already begun with recent cyclonic weather and flooding in the gulf. The movement of mangrove sediments will lead to massive releases of carbon uniquely buried among their roots.

Mangroves are among the most carbon-rich forests in the tropics and semi-tropics and much of this carbon could enter the atmosphere.

Aerial view of severe mangrove dieback near Karumba in Queensland, October 2016. NC Duke

Now we urgently need to understand how mangroves died at large and smaller scales (such as river catchments), so we can develop strategies to help them adapt to future change.

Australia’s top specialists and managers will be reviewing the current situation at a dedicated workshop during next week’s Australian Mangrove and Saltmarsh Network annual conference in Hobart.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Pipeline from Tennant Creek to Mount Isa could bring coal seam gas from the Territory into the eastern states market amid power crisis

An $800m gas pipeline from the Northern Territory to Queensland is one step closer after the federal government granted environmental approval for construction.

The approval, which carries conditions to protect the native death adder snake, had not been expected by the NT government for several weeks, and follows Malcolm Turnbull’s statement that his government will consider “all measures” to ensure energy security.

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Sharp intake of breath on reading Chitra Ramaswamy’s statement that Pembrokeshire is the only coastal national park (Last Night’s TV, G2, 8 March). True, it is the only fully coastal one, but here in North Yorkshire we have the best national treasure of all in a park with heather moors, beautiful villages nestling in valleys, heritage and craftspeople aplenty as well as a delightful varied coastline.
Felicity Brown
Nether Poppleton, North Yorkshire

• Why is Richard Curtis’s film so popular (Love Act-two-ally, G2, 13 March)? It features a prime minister who stands up to an American president. Could only happen in fiction.
John Loader
Leyburn, North Yorkshire

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Packaging – much of it single-use food wrapping – has created a rubbish problem that now pollutes every corner of the world. Manufacturers got us into this mess, but it’s up to us to dig ourselves out – and here’s how

In 2003, I was told by a restaurant owner on a Thai island that local fishermen used to wrap their lunch in banana leaves, which they would then casually toss overboard when done. That was OK, because the leaves decayed and the fish ate the scraps. But in the past decade, he said, while plastic wrap had rapidly replaced banana leaves, old habits had died hard – and that was why the beach was fringed with a crust of plastic. Beyond the merely unsightly, this plastic congregates in continent-scale garbage gyres in our oceans, being eaten by plankton, then fish; then quite possibly it’ll reach your plate ...

This is a worldwide problem – we can’t point the finger at Thai fishermen. The west started this. The developing world justifiably yearns for its living standards and, with it, its unsustainable convenience culture.

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Competition watchdog will urge companies to sell to the domestic market, as South Australia reveals its plan to head off further power cuts

The head of Australia’s competition watchdog will urge gas companies to support the domestic market to ensure struggling manufacturers don’t go to the wall, as the Turnbull government mulls options for boosting domestic gas supply to head off forecast shortages.

The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Rod Sims, will outline his views on the east coast gas crisis in a speech in Sydney on Tuesday, as the South Australian government unveils a blueprint to shore up the state’s unreliable power network, perhaps including new investment in baseload power and storage.

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Corporate capture of academic research by the fossil fuel industry is an elephant in the room and a threat to tackling climate change.

On February 16, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center hosted a film screening of the “Rational Middle Energy Series.” The university promoted the event as “Finding Energy’s Rational Middle” and described the film’s motivation as “a need and desire for a balanced discussion about today’s energy issues.”

Who can argue with balance and rationality? And with Harvard’s stamp of approval, surely the information presented to students and the public would be credible and reliable. Right?

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Industry wants more support from federal government now prime minister has ‘taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire’

Malcolm Turnbull should encourage Australia’s battery energy storage industry now he has “taken interest in the tweets of an American billionaire”, Zen Energy chairman Ross Garnaut says.

Garnaut was referring to Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric car giant Tesla, who tweeted that Tesla could solve the power shortage issue causing price spikes and blackouts in South Australia within 100 days by installing 100-300 megawatt hours of battery storage.

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Llanon, Ceredigion The paths retain their sense of age, hinting at centuries of daily journeys from homestead to field and back

Between the village of Llanon and the sea lies an area of flat land perhaps a kilometre wide, bordered to north and south by minor rivers. On the large scale maps of the area it is labelled Morfa Esgob – which translates roughly as Bishop’s Land. In contrast to the steep, thin-soiled hill pastures inland it is a favoured spot. Well-drained and quick to warm in spring, thanks to the great heat store of Cardigan Bay, the land is now mostly grazed, but both map and landscape hint at a more complex past.

The tithe map of the local parish, recently digitised and interpreted as part of the Cynefin project, captures a snapshot of the land as it was in the 1840s. It reveals Morfa Esgob as a collection of several hundred interlocking “slangs” – narrow strips of farmland – each of a size that could be managed by a single household.

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Labor's WA election win locks in a $19.5m commitment to Carnegie Clean Energy's 20MW Albany Wave Energy Project.

The rise in wholesale electricity prices is delivering huge new incentives to solar PV and battery storage.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation backs three more big solar projects in Queensland and Victoria, as ERM finally unveils its first major renewable off take deal.