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Government confirms plan to let fracking firms
drill under homes
The government still plans to change trespass law so that
fracking firms can bore under private land at will, but the change
was not in yesterday's Queen's speech the Guardian says. Ministers
will wait for the result of a 12-week consultation before moving to
add the measure to legislation, it says. Greenpeace carried out a
protest "frack" under David Cameron's Oxfordshire home to highlight
its opposition to the plans.
The Guardian
Climate and energy news
UK moves to strengthen legally binding carbon
targets
Surplus emissions generated during the UK's first legally
binding carbon budget period will not be carried over to pad out
the next budget through to 2017, Business Green reports. The move
follows a recommendation from the government's Committee on Climate
Change.
Business Green
Eric Pickles clamps down on onshore wind farm
applications
Communities secretary Eric Pickles has turned down 10 out of
12 onshore windfarm applications in the past year, the FT reports.
Four of the decisions went against the recommendation of planning
inspectors, the paper says.
Financial Times
China's planned shift off coal puts $21 bln
investment at risk -report
China's increasing efforts to shift away from coal to
cleaner fuels could put annual investments of around $21 billion at
risk of being stranded, a research report estimated on
Thursday.
Reuters
Geoengineering WON'T stop global warming, warns
study
This is according to a study led by Simon Fraser University
in British Columbia, Canada, the Daily Mail says. The study argues
that while climate engineering is a cheap option it will prove
ineffective in the long-term, the Mail says.
Daily Mail
Green opposition to coalition final-year
plans
Environmentalists are opposing the government's plans to
boost roads, housing and fracking - all announced as part of the
Infrastructure Bill in the Queen's speech yesterday - the BBC
reports. Business Green reports on the inclusion in the
speech of a promise to champion a global deal on climate
change.
BBC News
Climate and energy comment
Understanding State Goals under the Clean Power
Plan
President Obama's Clean Power Plan to tackle emissions from
coal and gas-fired power plants continues to receive plenty of
attention. The US Environmental Protection Agency has made two
robust interventions in the debate. The first attempts to explain
how state-level targets were set using a nationally-consistent
formula. It stresses that it has not set absolute emissions caps,
only targets for emissions per unit of power produced. In a second
intervention the EPA attacks a study from the Heritage Foundation
on the costs of the plan. The EPA says the study has "little to do
with reality". The Financial Times looks at the unequal burden the
rules will place on states. Fox News reports on the political
repercussions of the rules, focusing on vulnerable Democrat
lawmakers in coal-heavy states like West Virginia.
USEPA
Time to focus on energy
research
Too much money is being spent on subsidies for low-carbon
energy compared to support for research into making it cheaper,
Chris Goodall argues. Governments need to be willing to "pick
winners" from among the most promising research projects and give
them substantial funds, even though some of them -like US solar
firm Solyndra - will fail. Goodall also says the UK should be
looking to nuclear expertise in China, where new reactors are being
built at fractions of the cost of the planned Hinkley Point C plant
in Somerset.
Carbon Commentary
Lancashire's shale gas can fill UK energy
gap
A letter to the Guardian says that shale gas under
Lancashire can fill the UK's growing energy gap as North sea
supplies run out. The letter is signed by a host of
academics.
The Guardian
New climate science
Land models put to climate
test
A study under way on the Mongolian steppes is trying to
improve our understanding of how global warming will affect plant
growth, Nature reports.
Nature
Solar energy: Springtime for the artificial
leaf
Researchers have make headway in turning photons into fuel,
reports Nature. It describes in a $116 million US effort to turn
sunlight into hydrogen and other fuels.
Nature