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Community solar investor round in Sydney's inner-west raised more than $17k in 9 minutes to put solar on the roof of a craft brewery in Newtown.

Allendale, Northumberland There are a lot of wasps about this year – I know of at least six nests around the garden

The ladybird poppies, fire-engine red with jet black centres, had flopped in the rain, their flimsy petals scattered across the path. Cutting back the plants, it took me a moment to process what was happening. A flurry of insects was circling my head and arms from a disturbed wasps’ nest. I was shocked by the intensity of pain from a sting on the end of my nose. Swabs of vinegar helped neutralise its alkalinity, but my cheek quickly swelled.

There are a lot of wasps about this year. I know of at least six nests around the garden. The entrance to one is in a stone wall, another under the bargeboard of a shed. One was found when thistle-bashing in the field, a fourth when clipping a box hedge.

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BHP says potential for solar and battery storage at remote and off-grid sites is "enormous" as it signs on to world-leading project near Cooktown in north Queensland. Co-funders ARENA says it is clear battery storage is already competitive in certain locations.

The general consensus is that Tesla has already started installing its new 100 kWh battery in its cars without telling anyone. TMC believe battery that the change in performance is its new 90 kWh battery software. instead of its previous 60 kWh.

A Victorian project using "non-network" demand response solutions to avoid network "gold-plating" has won state government funding.

Badger culls are to be carried out in five new areas of England in a bid to control bovine TB, the BBC learns.

ACT achieves new record low price for wind energy in Australia as it secures another 200MW of capacity, which will deliver 100% renewable energy by 2020.

Pumping heat from our cars and buildings into the outside world adds to climate change, increasing the need to stay cool

Air conditioning was a luxury in Britain 40 years ago, but the long hot summer of 1976 changed that. The scorching heat that summer lasted two months and most people sweated it out indoors with only open windows and electric fans for ventilation. After that, air conditioning no longer seemed so extravagant and its popularity soared.

Air conditioners consume huge amounts of energy, though, and that’s adding to climate change. The US uses as much electricity to keep buildings cool as the whole of Africa uses for all its electrical needs. That power largely comes from polluting power stations, adding to the warmer climate.

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Gas is back on Australia’s agenda in a big way. Last week’s meeting of state and federal energy ministers in particular saw an extraordinary focus on gas in the electricity sector.

While the meeting promised major reform for the energy sector, the federal energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, highlighted the need for more gas supplies and “the growing importance of gas as a transition fuel as we move to incorporate more renewables into the system”.

Gas is certainly a lower-carbon energy source than coal, but gas prices have soared as Australia begins shipping gas overseas.

So what might this mean for energy and climate policy?

Rising gas

In 2013-14 natural gas-fired generation rose to account for 22% of Australia’s electricity generation, although the figure falls to 12% in the National Electricity Market (NEM), which excludes Western Australia and the Northern Territory, both of which use a large amount of gas.

Among the NEM states, South Australia relies the most on gas-powered generation. This means that gas generators generally set the state’s average electricity price, which has usually been higher than those in the eastern states. Average electricity prices in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland tend to be set more often by coal power generators than by gas.

Over the past couple of decades, the construction of interstate transmission lines has helped to smooth out the different prices among states by allowing exports from those with excess, and cheaper, power to those with shortfalls or more expensive power. On balance, the process has helped to provide more affordable and reliable power across the country.

For some years views of the role and future of gas in Australia have been mixed.

But in the United States, abundant natural gas at low prices prompted industry and politicians to welcome gas as a bridge between today’s coal-intensive electric power generation and a future low-carbon grid. The share of natural gas-fired electric generation capacity more than doubled from 19% in 1990 to 40% in 2014, while the share of actual generation from natural gas rose from 12% to 28% over the same period. Last year it accounted for a third of all US electricity generation.

Soaring prices

Yet in Australia, the renewable energy target has forced our energy supply towards renewable energy, namely wind and solar. Together with the absence of a carbon price and the high price of gas produced by the lucrative export market, there have been few reasons for growth in the role of gas to generate power in Australia. This all changed last month.

In July the average wholesale electricity price in South Australia was A$229 per megawatt-hour, compared with around A$60 in the other NEM states. The state’s spot price soared to A$8,898 on the evening of July 7. Low wind output, the darkness of night, high cold-weather electricity demand and the absence of coal plants after several shutdowns all handed strong pricing power to a few gas generators.

The price volatility attracted much alarm, although the Australian Energy Market Operator noted there were no system security or reliability issues, nor departures from normal market rules and procedures. Climate Councillor and former Origin Energy executive Andrew Stock concluded that “increasing reliance on high-priced gas is not a viable solution to reduce power prices or to tackle climate change”.

He argued that more gas power would push up prices even more, increase reliance on the state’s ageing obsolete gas-fuelled fleet and increase greenhouse emissions, including risks of fugitive methane emissions.

On the side of gas, Origin Energy chief executive Grant King pointed out: “South Australia’s electricity demand was met in full. The reality is that, while spot prices ran up, 99.99% of customers in South Australia did not pay one more cent for their electricity. So, from a reliability and affordability point of view, the market delivered.”

Similarly, Tristan Edis from the advisory group Green Markets noted: “In reality the wholesale electricity market as it is currently designed is doing precisely what you would want it to do to accommodate increasing amounts of renewable energy while also ensuring reliable supply of electricity.”

What energy system do we want?

The role of gas is now a conundrum, particularly if, as seems to be the case, Australia’s energy ministers see gas playing a bigger role in shoring up the electricity market.

How this would work is far from clear. Current energy and climate change policies combined with relatively high gas price forecasts suggest that the proportion of gas in the power generation mix is unlikely to rise significantly.

Yet gas plants that can provide backup for intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar may very well be needed. How much will be needed, for how long and how it will be paid for will depend on how quickly a superior mix of generation and storage technologies with very low emissions emerges and what policy mix drives the transition.

One consequence of these changes must be recognised. Whatever mix of wind, solar and gas power begins to replace our coal-dominated supply sector will cost more. Without a carbon price, electricity is generated from existing sources at less than A$50 per megawatt-hour, while wind, solar and gas all cost at least more than A$80 per megawatt-hour.

In responding to the real or perceived recent crises in South Australia (and Tasmania), our political leaders need to abandon wishful thinking and laying blame to focus on delivering and explaining the energy system that we want and need.

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

Grouse shooting | Sugar and schoolchildren | Ikea furniture | Uber drivers | Cryptic crossword | ‘Pithicisms’

George Monbiot is right: wholesale destruction of wildlife is obscene (The grouse shooters aim to kill, 16 August). Why no grousing, then, on the imminent destruction of the diverse habitats and endangered species, including many red list birds, on the west coast of Cumbria? Why no grouse about the collateral damage in obsessive pursuit of the “biggest nuclear development in Europe” at Moorside? The environmental destruction planned is on a scale the most bloodthirsty grouse hunter could only dream of.
Marianne Birkby
Radiation Free Lakeland, Milnthorpe, Cumbria

• This morning I entered my local Morrisons supermarket to be greeted by a large display, just inside the entrance, selling multipacks of filled chocolate bars. The sign above said “Back to School”. Selling high sugar goods is one thing, but encouraging the purchase for children is quite another (Report, 22 August). Shame on Morrisons.
Roger Frisby
Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire

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Archaeologists have uncovered a mysterious stone structure buried under what they describe as Scotland's "largest Neolithic rubbish dump".

As the National Parks Service turns 100 this week, we look at how receding ice, extreme heat and acidifying oceans are transforming America’s landscapes, and guardians of national parks face the herculean task of stopping it

After a century of shooing away hunters, tending to trails and helping visitors enjoy the wonder of the natural world, the guardians of America’s most treasured places have been handed an almost unimaginable new job – slowing the all-out assault climate change is waging against national parks across the nation.

As the National Parks Service (NPS) has charted the loss of glaciers, sea level rise and increase in wildfires spurred by rising temperatures in recent years, the scale of the threat to US heritage across the 412 national parks and monuments has become starkly apparent.

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Spider silk is used to create a superlens for a microscope, allowing Bangor University scientists to view objects previously deemed "invisible".

Summer Arctic sea ice is at its lowest since records began over 125 years ago

Scientists have pieced together historical records to reconstruct Arctic sea ice extent over the past 125 years. The results are shown in the figure below. The red line, showing the extent at the end of the summer melt season, is the most critical:

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Peter Cowling, Anne McEntee and JC Sandberg discuss the global landscape for renewables, policy and innovation and what the future energy mix looks like.

Award-winning state green building program scrapped by Victoria's former Coalition government, has been reinstated by Labor with a $33m investment over two years to cut building energy consumption and emissions.

Energy ministers hailed progress, but their summit ducked key issues. They refused to embrace the target zero net carbon emissions, while South Australia indicated it favoured an "emissions intensity" scheme to replace the renewable energy target.

Fight looms between retailers and networks over right to install solar and battery storage in homes, businesses. Spark Infrastructure says proposed rules "ludicrous".

DUE’s share price will likely be driven by the success or otherwise of its remote energy and clean energy segment.

Multicoloured slug, a species of nudibranch, was discovered in 2000 off the Western Australian coast and will be officially named Moridilla fifo

A multicoloured sea slug discovered off the coast of Western Australia has been named for the state’s fly-in, fly-out mining workforce after a judging panel ruled that Sluggy McSlugface breached the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.

The slug, which is a species of nudibranch, was discovered in 2000 off the coast of Dampier, about 1,500km north of Perth, by the WA scientist Dr Nerida Wilson.

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