Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Energy expert Tony Wood says there is no evidence to support the policy pledge Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has declared energy prices will be cheaper under a first-term Coalition government that plans to increase gas supply, without providing modelling and acknowledging significant “capacity constraints”. The Coalition has announced it will fast-track the approval of Woodside’s North-West Shelf gas project and offer subsidies to existing gas plants. Unspecified red tape will be removed and the “national interest” test in the environmental approval process would also be amended to give greater weight to economic and social benefits. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

BYD, a Chinese carmaker once dismissed by Tesla’s CEO, claims to have outpaced western rivals with charging tech that’s as fast as filling petrol engines Tesla’s boss, Elon Musk, once thought the idea that China’s BYD could compete with his company was laughable. In 2011, he smugly dismissed the Chinese carmaker as unimpressive, its products unattractive and its technology “not very strong”. He’s not laughing now – and not just because Tesla’s stock has plummeted amid a boycott by motorists protesting against his embrace of far-right politics. More pressingly, Mr Musk, like other western carmakers, has been outpaced by BYD. Last week, the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer unveiled new charging technology that, it says, is capable of delivering 400km (249 miles) of driving range in just five minutes – as quick as filling up a petrol car. The system, released next month, will be fitted in two EVs, priced from 270,000 yuan (£29,000) – comparable to Tesla’s most affordable model in China. Yet BYD claims to quadruple Tesla’s kilometres-per-minute charging rate. Technological supremacy at a competitive price may help to explain why BYD now sells seven times as many cars in China as Tesla. Continue reading...

MPs claim during her 2022 party leadership campaign she promised them she was committed to green targets Kemi Badenoch has been accused of breaking a promise made to Tory MPs during her leadership campaign after abandoning the party’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2050. Speaking to the Observer, Chris Skidmore, who served as a government minister between 2016 and 2020, said that Badenoch had made clear to a group of Tory MPs and other Conservatives at a leadership hustings in 2022, when she was seeking their votes in the race to replace Boris Johnson, that she backed the policy. Continue reading...

Giant blobs along 5,000-mile-wide sargassum belt has killed animals, harmed human health and discouraged tourism Scientists in Florida believe they have identified a “tipping point” in atmospheric conditions in the Atlantic Ocean they say caused giant clumps of toxic seaweed to inundate beaches around the Caribbean in recent summers. Previous theories for the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt that has killed marine animals, harmed human health and plagued the tourism industry in several countries include a surfeit of nutrients in the water, such as nitrogen and phosphorus in runoff from intensive farming and carried into the ocean in the Congo, Amazon and Mississippi rivers. Continue reading...