Posts by Ross Rutherford
November 2025
CONTENTS – Three Sobering Charts – Shanghai’s Underwater Data Centre – Transforming Africa’s food system with renewable energy – Australia’s clean power push – EU agrees weakened climate target for COP30 – How sickly forests are felling Europe’s climate ambitions – Solar Geoengineering
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October 2025
CONTENTS – Extracts from IEA Global Energy Review 2025 – Biochar from human waste could solve global fertiliser shortages – Sustainable Jet Fuel Update – Trump team’s contentious climate report ‘makes a mockery of science’ – US intends to cancel $13 billion in funds for green energy – BP Oil Demand Forecast, Peak Oil pushed back to 2030 – China sets renewables goal – Extracts from Energy Source & Distribution Magazine
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August 2025
CONTENTS – Eight reasons to be hopeful amid global challenges – IRENA Report excerpts – The renewable energy revolution – Grid forming batteries and syncons to bolster NSW grid – ‘Plastic crisis’ hitting health from infancy to old age – Economic assumptions no longer relevant.
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June 2025
CONTENTS – Don’t blame renewables – Climate projects can bring big economic benefits – Tide is turning in Europe and beyond in favour of nuclear power – AI can help us protect the planet – Electric scooters and a salt battery push in China – WA gets first-ever home battery rebate and loan scheme – Shipping industry still at sea as it tries to navigate to net zero – Albanese announces $1.2B plan to purchase critical minerals – Items from Energy Source & Distribution Magazine
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ESR Submission to Parliament on Traffic Congestion Charging
ESR made a submission to the Transport and Infrastructure Committee of Parliament on the Land Transport Management
(Time of Use Charging) Amendment Bill 2025 to sensitively support the use of congestion charging in a way that doesn’t penalise the poor
April 2025
CONTENTS: From sewage and scum to swimming in ‘blue gold’: how Switzerland transformed its rivers – UK scientist wins prize for invention that could help avert ‘phosphogeddon’ – Nearly 100% of lithium recycled in latest research – UQ researchers set new solar cell world record – Plants are losing their appetite – WMO report documents spiralling weather and climate impacts – Trump Administration plans to gut NOAA – Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism as we know it, warns top insurer
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January 2025
CONTENTS – Global CO2 emissions in 2024
– Climate crisis effects on Earth’s water cycle – US homeowners in disaster-prone states face soaring insurance costs – Climate change and geopolitics – EU’s electricity mix in 2024 – Toxic PFAS pollution in UK and Europe – Flatulence tax: Denmark agrees deal for livestock emissions levy – Sites without sound: Oslo leads in quiet, low emission electric construction – Report says blue hydrogen gives false hope for green steel – How to make oxygen on the moon – Recommended reading – ESR Prizewinner, Zion Young
November 2024
CONTENTS – Earth’s ‘vital signs’ show humanity’s future in balance, say climate
experts – Five main takeaways from the Global Commission on the Economics of
Water Report, October 2024 – Extracts from IEA World Energy Outlook 2024 Executive Summary – Extracts from Energy Source & Distribution Magazine, Sep/Oct 2024 – Reducing climate emissions from farm livestock – Energy-saving coffee concrete makes major project debut – Deakin launches hydrogen R&D hub in Warrnambool – Amid Australia’s chaotic climate politics, the rooftop solar boom is an unlikely triumph – First Dog on the Moon, 11 October 2024.
September 2024
CONTENTS – A history of the human mind – What is degrowth and can it save the planet? – News items from Reuters Sustainable Switch, August 2024 – Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. – Submission on the second emissions reduction plan consultation, 26/08/2024 – National Land Transport Programme 2024-27
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August 2024
This newsletter includes potential new uses of wood; a process for potentially reducing cement emissions; a process which could reduce green hydrogen production costs; a new catalyst for efficiently converting ammonia to hydrogen etc.; converting trucks from diesel to hydrogen combustion; and Danish measures to reduce methane emissions and make its agricultural sector more sustainable. It ends with a reminder of the impacts of the climate crisis on the world’s oceans.
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