Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Fifty ‘founder’ bilbies were released in fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing first wild population there in a century Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Efforts to reintroduce bilbies in the far south-west of New South Wales are showing signs of success, with numbers climbing to almost 2,000, seven years after the first breeding trial at Mallee Cliffs national park. Fifty “founder” bilbies, including 30 from Thistle Island off the coast of South Australia, were released in a fenced breeding area in 2019 with the aim of establishing a wild population in the Mallee Cliffs habitat for the first time in a century. Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading...

Exclusive: research finds Jackdaw field would provide only about 2% of current demand, and Rosebank only 1% Opening major new fields in the North Sea would make almost no difference to the UK’s reliance on gas imports, research has shown. The Jackdaw field, one of the largest unexploited gasfields in the North Sea, would displace only 2% of the UK’s current imports of gas, which would leave the UK still almost entirely dependent on supplies from Norway and a few other sources. Continue reading...

Datacentres ‘directly competing’ with possible residential builds near public transport, one council tells NSW inquiry, amid growing concerns Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Datacentre developments are crowding out opportunities for housing and job-rich industries across Sydney, a New South Wales inquiry has heard, with one local council reporting a rise in blackouts linked to the industry’s expansion. Several Sydney councils, all facing an influx of datacentre developments, have raised concerns about the health, environmental and amenity impacts on their local communities in submissions to the state’s datacentre inquiry. Continue reading...

We are at a critical point in the climate emergency and already struggling to meet emissions reduction targets. The UK government must hold its nerve While the UK is only marginally involved in the war in the Middle East in military terms, the ramifications for this country are still potentially huge. And nowhere more so than in the energy sector. It isn’t a surprise, then, that commentary has focused on the impact potential policy interventions might have on the cost of energy to UK homes and businesses, and on whether the decisions the government takes will make the nation more – or less – energy-secure. The usual suspects in Reform and the Tory party have used the war as an excuse to renew demands that the North Sea be sucked dry of its remaining oil and gas, in order – they say – to end reliance on fossil fuel imports and to guarantee energy security. More sensible heads have argued that the North Sea basin is a field that is way past peak production, and that has only limited amounts of oil and gas left, and that energy security can only be reached if we move further and faster on renewables. Extraordinarily, the real reason no further significant exploitation of North Sea oil and gas is planned seems to have been entirely forgotten, or at least set aside. Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL. His next book – The Fate of the World: a History and Future of the Climate Crisis – is published in May Continue reading...