As a new report makes clear, the timetable is dauntingly tight. But the potential rewards on offer are huge
One of Labour’s first acts in government was to lift the de facto ban on new onshore windfarms introduced by the Conservatives in 2016, which closed off one of the key pathways to clean, cheap energy by the 2030s. This week, progress was resumed as plans were outlined for what would be the most productive onshore windfarm in England. According to developers, the Scout Moor scheme in Greater Manchester could meet 10% of the region’s energy needs by the end of the decade.
As a major new report published on Tuesday makes clear, if Labour’s mission of a clean electricity system by 2030 is to be met, an avalanche of such projects will be required. The publicly owned National Energy System Operator (Neso) estimates that a doubling of onshore wind capacity will be necessary, along with a still bigger expansion of offshore wind and a tripling of solar power. When this is all considered alongside the need to transform the country’s power and transmission networks at an unprecedented pace, the daunting scale of the task becomes clear. Crucially, though, Neso’s analysis finds that the 2030 date is achievable if, to put it non-technically, the government, the energy industry and regulators truly go for it.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/05/2024 - 13:39
11/05/2024 - 09:07
Carmakers sell 29,800 electric cars in October as diesel models drop by a fifth and petrol cars by 14%
Sales of electric cars in the UK grew in October despite overall demand for vehicles shrinking as manufacturers raced to meet government targets.
Carmakers sold 29,800 electric cars during the month, up by a quarter compared with the same month last year, according to data published on Tuesday by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), a lobby group.
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11/05/2024 - 07:55
Christian Åslund was shocked at the difference between what he saw in 2002 and what confronted him this summer
Standing in blinding sunlight on an archipelago above the Arctic Circle, the photographer Christian Åslund looked in shock at a glacier he had last visited in 2002. It had almost completely disappeared.
Two decades ago Greenpeace asked Åslund to use photographs taken in the early 20th century, and photograph the same views in order to document how glaciers in Svalbard were melting due to global heating. The difference in ice density in those pictures, taken almost a century apart, was staggering.
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11/05/2024 - 05:53
Collaboration between RSPB and Chester zoo leads to best mating season on record for the semi-aquatic fen raft spider
Thousands of giant spiders that can grow to the size of a human hand are thriving in the UK, thanks to a successful breeding programme from Chester zoo.
The fen raft spider is a harmless arachnid that plays a vital role in aquatic ecosystems, but 15 years ago was on the brink of extinction because of habitat loss.
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11/05/2024 - 04:30
Expert analysis backs our policy and its benefits for the country. Defeatist critics should take note
Ed Milband is secretary of state for energy security and net zero
Labour fought and won the last election on the argument that every family and business in the country was paying the price of the previous government’s failure to deliver clean, homegrown energy for Britain.
Families and businesses know from the cost of living crisis that our dependence on fossil fuel markets controlled by dictators such as Vladimir Putin left the UK vulnerable and exposed to energy price spikes, as well as the escalating costs of climate breakdown. We also know that the drive to clean energy represents the greatest economic opportunity of the 21st century. That is why the prime minister has put delivering clean power by 2030 at the heart of one of his five missions for government.
Ed Milband is secretary of state for energy security and net zero
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11/05/2024 - 03:00
Scientists use new technology to sequence the DNA of microscopic ocean creatures for the first time
Off the west coast of Greenland, a 17-metre (56ft) aluminium sailing boat creeps through a narrow, rocky fjord in the Arctic twilight. The research team onboard, still bleary-eyed from the rough nine-day passage across the Labrador Sea, lower nets to collect plankton. This is the first time anyone has sequenced the DNA of the tiny marine creatures that live here.
Watching the nets with palpable excitement is Prof Leonid Moroz, a neuroscientist at the University of Florida’s Whitney marine lab. “This is what the world looked like when life began,” he tells his friend, Peter Molnar, the expedition leader with whom he co-founded the Ocean Genome Atlas Project (Ogap).
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11/05/2024 - 02:44
Lawyer for police argues business should be allowed to continue as Rising Tide threatens to halt exports for 30 hours
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Protesters have scaled back their plan to block the Port of Newcastle to 30 hours, down from an initial 50 hours, amid a legal challenge by New South Wales police to stop the action going ahead.
On Tuesday, police and the protest organiser – Rising Tide – appeared in the supreme court for a second day. Police are challenging the protest, which would involve activists paddling into the harbour on kayaks and rafts to stop coal exports leaving the port.
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11/05/2024 - 01:00
Cubico project at Scout Moor north of Manchester could power the equivalent of 100,000 homes
Plans to build what would be the biggest onshore windfarm in England will move forward this week, the first since the Labour government lifted the de facto ban put in place by the Conservatives nine years ago.
An independent renewable energy developer has submitted plans to erect 21 wind turbines next to an existing windfarm north of Manchester.
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11/04/2024 - 19:56
Former NSW Liberal energy minister Matt Kean debated his former Coalition colleagues about the cost of nuclear power in a parliamentary estimates hearing on Monday. Now chair of the Climate Change Authority, Kean debated Nationals senator Ross Cadell over CSIRO analysis which found nuclear was the most expensive form of large-scale energy available
‘No bigger rent-seeking parasite’ than nuclear industry, Matt Kean tells former Coalition colleagues in heated debate
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11/04/2024 - 19:01
State-owned Neso says Britain could be net exporter of green electricity by end of decade at no extra cost
A plan to create a clean electricity system by 2030 promised by Labour before the election is “immensely challenging” but still “credible” if ministers take urgent action to fix Britain’s sluggish planning system, the energy system operator has said.
Britain could become a net exporter of green electricity by the end of the decade at no extra costs to the energy system under the plans and bills may even fall if ministers make the right policy changes, according to the operator.
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