Energy and the Earth
Displaying 11 - 20 of 48 articles
With little by way of fanfare, Basslink resumed operation this week after almost 6 months. Basslink is Tasmania’s proverbial umbilical cord - a 500 megawatt submarine HVDC cable that connects to the mainland…
The Bropkas meet the grid In what must surely be a first for the Conversation, I am writing this post from the village of Sakteng in remote eastern Bhutan. That I can do so is a remarkable testimony to…
At 9.40 am local time on Monday May 9th the turbines at Alinta’s 520 megawatt Northern Power Station at Port Augusta disconnected from the grid for the last time. And with it ended more than 50 years of…
For the Turnbull of old, could a picture be worth a thousand words? “Climate change is the ultimate long-term problem. We have to make decisions today, bear costs today so that adverse consequences are…
It’s more than a little disconcerting to wake every hour or so, gasping for air, suffocating. It happened to me during a field season in southern Tibet camped at about 5400 metres above sea level. With…
On all sides of an argument, advocates push ridiculous extremes. Take the conservative push against windmills, which hopefully reached some kind of zenith last year when Alan Jones, appearing on on ABC’s…
The landscapes of the Xinjiang province of western China are very special. It is here the ancient trade routes of the Silk Roads skirt the great mountains and deserts of central Asia, weaving a magic thread…
It took several trips before I began to understand the scale of the horror. It was 2009 and I was working in the Ainaro district in Timor Leste, not far from Ramelau - Timor’s highest peak. A rural centre…
Politics is full of irony and it seems our climate is happy to lend a helping hand. Witness the Great Barrier Reef’s encore to Greg Hunt’s recent award as the world’s best environment minister. Not that…
On the back of four years of dry and the shadow of El Niño looming large, recent rains across parts of inland Queensland must come as great relief. While plenty of follow up will be needed to restore surface…