Breaking Waves: Ocean News

This blog is now closed Peter Dutton says nuclear ‘will make electricity cheaper’ but critics say Coalition costings a ‘fantasy’ The glaring gaps and unanswered questions in the Coalition’s nuclear plan and costings Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Bowen lashes Coalition plan to keep ageing coal-fired power stations open beyond middle of next decade Under the Coalition’s plan, ageing coal-fired power stations would stay open beyond the middle of the next decade when most of the operators say they’ll have to shut – is that realistic? The biggest threat to reliability in our energy system is coal-fired power now. We are dealing with … outages, breakdown, on a daily basis and that is what is the biggest threat to the reliability of our energy system and it’s a recipe for blackouts to keep ageing coal-fired power stations in the grid for longer. What they have also done is very clearly in their costings of their own policy rejected the CSIRO and Aemo’s work. Now, CSIRO and Aemo have been talking about the cost of nuclear since way before we were in office as being the most expensive form of energy available. Fundamentally what the Coalition is asking the Australian people to believe is this: that they can introduce the most expensive form of energy and it will be end up being cheaper. It won’t pass the pub test. It won’t pass the sniff test because it is just a fantasy. Continue reading...

Average user generates greenhouse gases equal to driving an extra 123 miles in gasoline-powered car a year, data shows TikTok’s annual carbon footprint is probably larger than that of Greece, according to a new analysis of the social media platform’s environmental impact, with the average user generating greenhouse gases equivalent to driving an extra 123 miles in a gasoline-powered car each year. Estimates from Greenly, a carbon accounting consultancy based in Paris, place TikTok’s 2023 emissions in the US, UK and France at about 7.6m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) – higher than those associated with Twitter/X and Snapchat in the same region. Continue reading...

Climate researchers share theories behind apparent surge, though none have a full understanding yet of what has happened Scientists are still puzzling over the reasons behind a streak of unexpected, record heat that scorched 2023 and into this year, sparking fears that the climate crisis could be moving faster than previously thought. Is it the clouds? Or shipping? Or maybe a huge volcanic eruption? Continue reading...

UK Energy Research Centre says there is ‘very little room for error’ to avoid delays and protect vulnerable people Labour’s plan to switch to a clean power system by 2030 faces “significant challenges” to avoid delays and prevent vulnerable households paying higher bills, experts have warned. The UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) has said there is “very little room for error” in meeting the government’s plan to create a 95% low-carbon electricity grid by the end of the decade. Continue reading...