Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Arithmetic over capacity does not add up, with supply chains a constraining factor Renewable energy auction secures enough power for 11m UK homes It was a “record-setting auction” and “a significant step forward in our mission for clean power for 2030”, trumpeted the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, enjoying the contrast with last year’s auction flop under the Tories in which precisely zero bids were received to build offshore windfarms. Miliband was claiming credit when it wasn’t entirely due, of course, because this year’s competition was designed well before the general election. Some version of success was guaranteed from the moment the last government said it was prepared to pay up to £73 a megawatt hour (in 2012 prices, confusingly) for offshore wind, a mighty leap from the £44 level that produced no takers in 2023. At the higher level of incentive, developers were bound to come out to play again. Continue reading...

Finance secretary says ‘tough decisions’ are needed to fill £1bn hole in the budget Scottish ministers have raided a £460m green energy fund to help pay for higher than inflation pay deals that the government did not budget for. Shona Robison, the Scottish finance secretary, said she needed to use the fund while also cutting non-essential spending by £500m to fill a £1bn hole in this year’s government finances. Continue reading...

Heatwaves and lack of rainfall have led to receding water levels in the Mornos reservoir, which submerged Kallio in the 1970s No place is more indicative of plummeting rainfall levels in Greece than the Mornos reservoir. And no settlement is more indicative of how serious this year’s drought has been than Kallio, a village submerged by the artificial lake in the late 1970s. Nearly five decades after Kallio was deliberately flooded as part of the construction of a dam to ensure water supply for Athens, people living nearby have watched in disbelief as reserves have receded to the point that the village has reappeared. Continue reading...

Bella Nilsson’s company Think Pink accused of dumping at least 200,000 tonnes of waste Eleven people, including an entrepreneur who once called herself the “queen of trash”, have gone on trial in Sweden accused of illegally dumping toxic waste in the country’s biggest ever environmental crime case. The closely watched trial at Attunda district court in Sollentuna, near Stockholm, centres on the recycling company Think Pink, its former chief executive Bella Nilsson, who has since changed her name, and her ex-husband Thomas Nilsson. Continue reading...