by bpckle | Mar 25, 2025 | Media
Chris Bowen announced $814m for the clean energy source despite projects in doubt across NSW, Queensland and South Australia
The green hydrogen revolution wasn’t supposed to go like this. In September, the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, declared Australia “the green hydrogen capital of the world” with “50-plus companies on the ground” and a pipeline of investments worth $200bn.
The nascent industry has been touted as the start of a renewable energy revolution, with more than $8bn in support promised across federal and state governments. But just months on from Bowen’s announcement, several major proposals are either shelved or in serious doubt, prompting the question: is green hydrogen’s race over before it began?
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by bpckle | Mar 24, 2025 | Media
A broad trough has dragged in warm, moist air and offers perfect ingredients for heavy rainfall and even supercells
Northern parts of Australia have been under a flood warning this weekend, with further flooding set to bring havoc to south-eastern parts of the Northern Territory and western Queensland early this week. A broad trough – an area of locally lower pressure – has been moving across northern Australia, dragging in warm, moist air from the Gulf of Carpentaria and providing the perfect ingredients for the formation of severe thunderstorms, and even supercells.
More than 70mm (2.75in) of rain fell in an hour under the slow-moving storms over the weekend in what is usually an arid, low rainfall zone with a desert/grassland climate classification. Some parts of the region have sparse observation data, but some local stations have been able to record more than 100mm within 24 hours, with 132mm of rain at Marion Downs, Queensland.
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by bpckle | Mar 23, 2025 | Media
Cities lose thousands of mature trees a year. On Overbury Drive, neighbours were determined to protect a solitary giant dying red gum – stuck right in the middle of their road
It’s a striking image; in a suburban landscape where nature has been largely pushed aside to make way for roads, houses and driveways, the thick craggy trunk of a towering river red gum tree stands defiantly in place, forcing the bitumen to squeeze and buckle around it. Bang in the middle of the street.
Barely a day goes by without the residents of Overbury Drive noticing a carload of tourists or curious locals pulling up in their quiet cul-de-sac, cameras at the ready.
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by bpckle | Mar 22, 2025 | Media
Increasing run-ins between anglers and the ocean’s apex predators reflects a growing unease among beachgoers. But is widespread fear justified?
Moreton Bay charter boat deckhand Bryce Daly is starting to feel unsafe swimming the waters he’s grown up fishing.
“You’ve always got a shark in the back of your mind,” the 32-year-old Jimboomba man says.
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by bpckle | Mar 19, 2025 | Media
New study finds dolphins, including critically endangered Burrunan, have among the world’s highest levels of chemicals banned decades ago
It has been half a century since governments around the world, faced with overwhelming evidence, started banning early generations of what we now call forever chemicals. Industrial chemicals known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and the notorious pesticide DDT had been widely used – DDT is credited with saving millions of lives from insect-borne disease, while PCBs were vital in electrical safety – before it was understood that they were serious environmental toxins.
“The problem with these legacy contaminants,” environmental scientist Chantel Foord says, “is that they’re amazing in our products because they don’t break down, but they’re equally devastating in our environment because they don’t break down.”
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