Keith Pitt and James McGrath behind move, saying ‘we have to be able to investigate all options’
A group of Queensland Liberal National party MPs reportedly want parliament to consider the feasibility of nuclear power in Australia.
The energy source is banned as a source of power but several Coalition MPs will put forward a motion in the Senate to create a committee to investigate using nuclear power in the energy mix.
Continue reading...RepuTex modelling suggests surge in state schemes and rooftop solar will reduce wholesale prices, making gas- and coal-fired power less competitive
Australia is on track to achieve 50% renewable electricity by 2030 even without new federal energy policies, according to modelling by the energy analysts RepuTex.
The analysis, to be released on Wednesday, suggests that a surge in renewable energy driven by state schemes and rooftop solar installations will reduce wholesale prices from $85 per MWh to $70 over the next three years.
Continue reading...Treasurer signals new infrastructure for renewable zones, and says Coalition will pursue climate policy it took to the election
Josh Frydenberg says Australia needs to roll out new infrastructure in the coming term of government to support renewable energy zones, and has declared that the “inevitable” transition to low-emissions sources creates an opportunity for the country.
In his first wide-ranging interview since holding his Victorian seat last weekend, where he was subjected to a concerted campaign from the Greens and the climate-focused independent Oliver Yates, Frydenberg told Guardian Australia the Coalition would implement the $3.5bn climate policy it took to the election rather than pursue a reboot.
Continue reading...Ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent to pipe greenhouse gas into vast under-sea cavities
Three of the largest ports in Europe – Rotterdam, Antwerp and Ghent – are to be used to capture and bury 10m tonnes of CO2 emissions under the North Sea in what will be the biggest project of its kind in the world.
The ports, which account for one-third of the total greenhouse gas emissions from the Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg region, would be used to pipe the gas into a porous reservoir of sandstone about two miles (3km) below the seabed.
Continue reading...Minister grilled about Lyons candidate Jessica Whelan, who claims her Facebook page was doctored. Meanwhile, the climate policy debate heats up. Follow all the updates, live
Pre-poll is happening in droves.
About 375,000 people have cast a pre-poll vote after three days of early voting, running at approx 125,000 votes per day so far. This compares to a total of 225,000 votes at the same stage of the 2016 federal election. #ausvotes #auspol
Asked about preference deals, and whether the Coalition, being a coalition, had to accept blowback for their partner’s choices, David Littleproud had this to say:
I hardly see it’s disingenuous where we have a democracy, where the Australian people decide. They walk into the ballot box, not me, and they get to determine where they put each number on that ballot paper. And that’s the way it should be. This is merely a way that parties have come to an agreement around where they believe they should go, the least worst possibility, if you don’t want to vote for us. But the reality is, it is and always will be the gift of the Australian people. And it’s something we should always fiercely protect.”
Related: At the mercy of minors: Labor and LNP wrestle for hyper-marginal Herbert
Continue reading...Court decision blocking fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic complicated administration plans to ramp up fossil fuel extraction
The Trump administration has shelved plans to vastly expand offshore oil and gas drilling in the wake of a recent court decision that blocked fossil fuel activity in swaths of the Arctic.
The administration had opened up almost all US waters to companies seeking to drill oil or gas deposits but this expansion has been halted due to a legal setback, according to David Bernhardt, the interior secretary.
Continue reading...Former PM warns electricity prices will be higher because the Coalition dumped the national energy guarantee
The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has returned to the fray to warn dumping the national energy guarantee – a decision taken by Scott Morrison – will drive up power prices.
Turnbull took exception to a column at the weekend characterising the national energy guarantee as “Malcolm Turnbull’s Neg”, pointing out the policy had strong support within the cabinet, “including and especially the current PM and treasurer”.
Continue reading...Workers begin to empty storage pool – but more critical removal of melted fuel from reactors themselves will be more challenging
Workers at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have begun removing fuel rods from a storage pool near one of the three reactors that suffered meltdowns eight years ago.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said on Monday that work had begun to remove the first of 566 used and unused fuel assemblies in reactor building No 3.
Continue reading...Experts say even nations that got rich on fossil fuels are seeing the future is green
Norway’s $1tn oil fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, is to plunge billions of dollars into wind and solar power projects. The decision follows Saudi Arabia’s oil fund selling off its last oil and gas assets.
Other national funds built up from oil profits are also thought to be ramping up their investments in renewables. The moves show that countries that got rich on fossil fuels are diversifying their investments and seeking future profits in the clean energy needed to combat climate change. Analysts say the investments are likely to power faster growth of green energy.
Continue reading...Labor abandons Kyoto credits and highlights vehicle emissions in climate policy, as budget and election loom. All the day’s events, live
Scott Morrison finishes his press conference with an attack on the Greens, which in this political climate is an attack on Labor:
Now, the Labor party have got to apply their own rule to their own decisions. If they want to have this rule, which says minor parties should be considered separate to the mainstream parties, well it seems that the Labor party doesn’t think the Greens have these extreme views.
They’ve got to apply the same ruler to themselves. We’ve made our decisions on this. The challenge is on Labor now. Are you for national security? Are you for the US alliance? Are you for border protection? Are you against death taxes? If that’s your view, if you’re for all of those things, then by all means put the Greens ahead of the Liberal party. But if you’re not, then you shouldn’t do that.
We now need to change the national anthem. We are no longer girt by sea, apparently, because – Labor.
Scott Morrison:
The only difference, when it comes to the National Energy Guarantee in terms of what Labor are proposing, is this: the reliability energy guarantee, which was part of the Neg we brought forward at the time, that’s now happening.
That’s the important part. The bit Labor are applying to that is legislating a 45% emissions reduction target. That’s what Labor are doing. They are going to legislate that. That’s not going to reduce power prices. Labor’s Neg actually put prices not down, because they are going to legislate a reckless target that will hit wages, that will hit jobs, that will hit production.
Continue reading...The devastating impact of oil spills is widely recognised. The past decade has witnessed the destruction caused to human life and the environment from spills including the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and the Montara spill in Australia in 2009.
On each occasion the global community has reacted with horror, demanding the oil industry clean up local ecosystems and communities. Yet in Nigeria, and particularly in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, these calls are ignored.
Continue reading...Nationals MPs have demanded action to underwrite new energy generation before the election
The energy minister, Angus Taylor, has signalled to restive Queensland Nationals that taxpayer backing for a dispatchable energy project is on the way as one of the rebel MPs has warned a decision is necessary before the election.
With cabinet set to consider energy among a range of issues on Tuesday, with the budget looming and the federal election now only weeks way, Taylor told journalists it was “critically important” that Queensland see more competition in power generation, and more dispatchable supply.
Continue reading...Ad campaigns hide investment in a huge expansion of oil and gas extraction, says InfluenceMap
The largest five stock market listed oil and gas companies spend nearly $200m (£153m) a year lobbying to delay, control or block policies to tackle climate change, according to a new report.
Chevron, BP and ExxonMobil were the main companies leading the field in direct lobbying to push against a climate policy to tackle global warming, the report said.
Continue reading...In a rebuke of the Trump administration’s ‘energy-first’ agenda, a judge rules greenhouse gas emissions must be considered
In the first significant check on the Trump administration’s “energy-first” agenda, a US judge has temporarily halted hundreds of drilling projects for failing to take climate change into account.
Drilling had been stalled on more than 300,000 acres of public land in Wyoming after it was ruled the Trump administration violated environmental laws by failing to consider greenhouse gas emissions. The federal judge has ordered the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which manages US public lands and issues leases to the energy industry, to redo its analysis.
The decision stems from an environmental lawsuit. WildEarth Guardians, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Western Environmental Law Center sued the BLM in 2016 for failing to calculate and limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from future oil and gas projects.
Continue reading...Eight years after the disaster, not a single location will take the millions of cubic metres of radioactive soil that remain
Not even the icy wind blowing in from the coast seems to bother the men in protective masks, helmets and gloves, playing their part in the world’s biggest nuclear cleanup.
Related: Eight years after Fukushima, what has made evacuees come home?
Continue reading...The inhabitants of a remote village at the heart of India’s coal industry brave deadly sinkholes and toxic gases simply to survive
In the village of Liloripathra, in a remote corner of India’s eastern Jharkhand state, mother-of-three Sushila Devi grips the hands of two women sitting on either side of her. Coal fires spew clouds of smoke into the already heavy, polluted air.
At about 8pm, a policeman cradling a small body wrapped in black plastic bags emerges through the smoke and the crowds that have gathered around her home. He has come to deliver the body of her 13-year-old daughter Chanda, killed along with two others from the village when a coal mine caved in on top of them. They had been scavenging in a colliery operated by Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of state-owned Coal India.
Continue reading...Many MPs are exasperated with Michael McCormack and despairing about where they have washed up post-Barnaby Joyce
In practical terms it’s a strange thing to demand – calling on the leadership to pass a package that has no obvious prospect of passing the parliament without amendment in the time left available.
But six Queensland Nationals have elected to put the boot into their leader, Michael McCormack, for failing on two fronts: failing to pressure the Liberals to pass the so-called “big stick” package, which they believe will lower power prices, and failing to sign up to new taxpayer-backed investments in power generation. For most Nationals north of the New South Wales border, that means new coal generation.
Continue reading...Concerns had been raised over project increasing German reliance on Russian energy
Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, called it a mistake, while the US president, Donald Trump, has branded it very inappropriate and a “very bad thing for Nato”.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline to take Russian gas to Germany is arguably Europe’s most controversial energy project, drawing opposition from Ukraine, which it will bypass, and uniting the US, eastern EU states, and the European Commission which fears it will undermine the bloc’s ‘energy union’ plans.
Continue reading...Expected announcement by ExxonMobil of discovery off island’s south coast seen as potential game changer
Tensions between Cyprus and Turkey over energy could soon come to a head, with ExxonMobil apparently poised to announce a significant natural gas find off the divided island’s southern coast.
After more than three months of deep-water exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, the US firm is expected to unveil findings this week in what is being described as a seminal moment in the race to tap potentially profitable underwater resources.
Continue reading...It is time to prove it is serious about phasing out use of fossil fuels worldwide
The United Kingdom is a critically important actor in the global fight against climate change.
As a permanent member of the UN security council, and a member of the G20 group of leading industrialised economies, it is well placed to further a progressive climate agenda and influence other states to fully implement commitments made under the Paris agreement.
Continue reading...