EDF has indefinitely postponed its Hinkley C nuclear plant in Somerset, England, as a new IEA analysis shows that its power will cost UK energy users three times more than it should, writes Oliver Tickell. A similar reactor in France is running six years late and three times over budget - and may never be completed.
It's tough being a filmmaker on the front line of environmental defense, writes David Lavallee - challenging corporate control of the Earth's resources, not to mention governments and security services, all of them intent on extracting every last drop of oil and gas from the world's most pristine places. All the more so when holding a camera makes you an instant 'eco-terrorist'.
Solar PV costs have fallen by 75% over five years ago, writes Chris Goodall, making it the cheapest new power source for around half of the world's population. Now it's essential to keep incentives to drive demand for a few more years, and make it cheaper than fossil fuels everywhere.
Ukraine's state-owned nuclear generator is suing anti-nuclear activists in its latest attempt to stifle public debate over the country's ageing fleet of 15 nuclear reactors, while refusing to release information in breach of international obligations.
The Tories' decision to scrap the UK's renewable energy sector deserves condemnation, writes Oliver Tickell. But there is a silver lining: it creates the space in which to design better, cheaper, more cost effective support mechanisms to drive the clean energy revolution forward.
The UK government is to cut support for domestic rooftop solar to 13% of current levels, with similar cuts for bigger systems, and end all support for small scale renewables by 2019. The likely result, and surely the intention, is to kill off the UK's solar industry altogether.
The 'other' solar technology, CSP, which uses mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays, is about to get a lot cheaper, writes Jeffrey Barbee. A South African team has developed a low cost design suitable for mass production that can be 'plonked' on site straight from the factory.
Despite Labour's 'great purge' of left-leaning voters in the leadership election, Jeremy Corbyn remains the odds-on bookies favourite. So if he comes to power, what policies can we expect in energy and climate change? Damian Kahya asks the questions ... and is astounded at the range and scope of his ambitions. But how much could he really deliver?
With centralised fossil-fuel and nuclear generation both undesirable and increasingly unviable, the answer is to make our energy local, distributed and renewable, writes Chris Wright. But to complete the picture we need battery systems for backup, stability and efficiency. And one could be coming your way soon ...
Nuclear energy is a failed technology that's never been safe, affordable or effective at reducing carbon emissions, writes Peer de Rijk. But that won't stop the world's nuclear lobbyists from thronging to COP21 in Paris determined to secure a place for nuclear power among the 'solutions' to climate change. We must make sure they fail.
Jeremy Corbyn is the one candidate for the Labour leadership who is serious about the environment and social justice. Only he can re-energise the Party, turn it into a political force capable of defeating neo-liberalism, and lead the progressive government that Britain so desperately needs.
It's a fair question, writes Doug Parr, but one to which we are getting no answers - the government is keeping its sums and energy models secret. It looks as if the energy department, DECC, is making things up as it goes along to justify its pro-nuclear, anti-efficiency and anti-renewables policies. And when it all goes disastrously wrong, who will end up paying for the mess? We will.
New evidence from Fukushima shows that as many as 2,000 people have died from necessary evacuations, writes Ian Fairlie, while another 5,000 will die from cancer. Future assessments of fatalities from nuclear disasters must include deaths from displacement-induced ill-heath and suicide in addition to those from direct radiation impacts.
Malaysia is pushing ahead with its plans for a devastating series of 12 dams in the rainforests of Borneo that will kill a billion trees, bring death to wildlife on a stupendous scale and evict tens of thousands of indigenous people and their communities, writes Jettie Word. Now a new film honours their struggle for land, forest and freedom.
China is by far the world's biggest producer of solar panels, writes Kieran Cooke. But the industry is suffering from over-capacity, razor thin profits and a failure to innovate.
At an £11 billion cost to energy users, and against all expert advice, writes Mel Kelly, the government is forcing the rollout of 'smart meters' repeatedly exposed as expensive, poorly tested and potential threats to our health and privacy. This madness must stop.
New measures to compel local councils to speed up frackers' planning applications have a clear intention, writes Oliver Tickell - to make it ever harder for planners to refuse permission.
The success of the SNP and surveys carried out by DECC show that green energy is overwhelmingly popular, writes Keith Barnham. Labour's failure to support renewables and oppose nuclear power and fracking may have cost them the last election - but now, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn there's a real chance for the party to put that right.
The Green Deal was expensive, bureaucratic, complex, inefficient and so badly designed it could have been set up to fail, writes Sue Roberts. Yet it was the UK's only national home insulation scheme and its intentions were sound. What it needed was rethink and reform, not scrapping - and with it gone, there's a huge gap that desperately needs to be filled.
There is huge untapped potential in the green economy to create millions of decent jobs, writes Jean Lambert - but only if lessons are learned from the Government's flawed, now scrapped, Green Deal. Lesson one: we desperately need a well-funded, ambitious replacement.
An new design of tidal power turbines will generate power at a third the price of current technologies, write Alex Kirby & Oliver Tickell, even at a lower price than offshore wind - without endangering marine life.
We need a renewable energy revolution, an end to fracking, no new nuclear power, efficient homes, and the break up of our energy cartels, writes Jeremy Corbyn, All that, and strong protection for wildlife and oceans, no TTIP trade deal with the US, clean air to breathe, and massive investment in public transport. Is there anything not to like?
The land grab by NuGen for its triple reactor Moorside site keeps on growing, writes Martin Forwood. The 'biggest construction project in Europe' is expanding from Nugen's original 200 hectare site to 552 hectares of farmland reaching right up to two villages and an 11th Century church. But with compulsory purchase on the cards, there's nothing locals can do except keep on fighting the entire deeply flawed project.
Following high-level criticisms of the Hinkley C nuclear plant from HSBC and the Chancellor's father in law, EDF, the company in line to build the power station, is fighting back hard, writes Oliver Tickell. But it could all be too late to rescue the doomed project.
