Market operator says capital cost of infrastructure under optimal path would be $128bn in today’s dollars, but price of delay is even higher
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The capacity of Australia’s main electricity grid will need to triple by 2050 – including a fivefold expansion of large-scale wind, solar and storage – under the most likely development path, the national energy market operator says.
The estimate is included in the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) draft “integrated system plan” for the national electricity market, the power grid that connects the five eastern states and the ACT.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/09/2025 - 08:01
12/09/2025 - 04:00
UN GEO report says ending this harm key to global transformation required ‘before collapse becomes inevitable’
The unsustainable production of food and fossil fuels causes $5bn (£3.8bn) of environmental damage per hour, according to a major UN report.
Ending this harm was a key part of the global transformation of governance, economics and finance required “before collapse becomes inevitable”, the experts said.
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12/09/2025 - 03:00
Consumers spent £1.7bn on festive lighting last year and much of it is treated as disposable
UK households have thrown away an estimated 168m light-up Christmas items and other “fast-tech” gifts over the past year, a study suggests.
The research by the non-profit group Material Focus found about £1.7bn was spent last year on Christmas lighting, including 39m sets of fairy lights.
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12/09/2025 - 01:00
‘Destructive’ marine heatwaves driving loss of microalgae that feed coral, says Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network
Caribbean reefs have half as much hard coral now as they did in 1980, a study has found.
The 48% decrease in coral cover has been driven by climate breakdown, specifically marine heatwaves. They affect the microalgae that feed coral, making them toxic and forcing the coral to expel them.
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12/09/2025 - 00:00
Tapanuli orangutans survive only in Indonesia’s Sumatran rainforest where a mine expansion will cut through their home. Yet the mining company says the alternative will be worse
A small brown line snakes its way through the rainforest in northern Sumatra, carving 300 metres through dense patches of meranti trees, oak and mahua. Picked up by satellites, the access road – though modest now – will soon extend 2km to connect with the Tor Ulu Ala pit, an expansion site of Indonesia’s Martabe mine. The road will help to unlock valuable deposits of gold, worth billions of dollars in today’s booming market. But such wealth could come at a steep cost to wildlife and biodiversity: the extinction of the world’s rarest ape, the Tapanuli orangutan.
The network of access roads planned for this swath of tropical rainforest will cut through habitat critical to the survival of the orangutans, scientists say. The Tapanuli (Pongo tapanuliensis), unique to Indonesia, was only discovered by scientists to be a separate species in 2017 – distinct from the Sumatran and Bornean apes. Today, there are fewer than 800 Tapanulis left in an area that covers as little as 2.5% of their historical range. All are found in Sumatra’s fragile Batang Toru ecosystem, bordered on its south-west flank by the Martabe mine, which began operations in 2012.
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12/08/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 08 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00174-x
Perceived fairness of conservation decision-making more strongly influenced by absence than presence of procedural equity criteria
12/05/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 05 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00167-w
Sustainable solutions: exploring trade-offs in marine protected areas from six European case sites
12/04/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 04 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00155-0
Reply to: “Comment to ‘Rethinking maritime security from the bottom up: four principles to broaden perspectives and centre humans and ecosystems’”
12/03/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00156-z
Comment to: Rethinking maritime security from the bottom up: Four principles to broaden perspectives and centre humans and ecosystems
12/03/2025 - 00:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00165-y
Hidden costs and propped-up profits: unraveling the economics of Europe’s purse-seine tuna fishing industry
