Durban, South Africa.
Climate change is changing wave patterns and strength. Bigger waves combined with sea level rise will hit coasts hard – but only in some countries.
La Havre, France, at sunset, with the port in the background.
Carbon emissions from maritime shipping and port activities are on the rise. But city ports are finding ways to reduce their carbon footprints and reconnect with nearby cities.
Ocean waves are a massive source of energy, but it’s challenging to design power generators for the harsh environment. Allowing marine organisms to grow on engineered structures could help.
Solar thermal technology is still an outside bet - and not the kind of investment the CEFC was set up to make.
Environment minister Greg Hunt wants the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to focus on new technologies, not wind and solar. But that’s not what it was set up to do, and Australia already has an agency for that.
Investment in technologies beyond the existing wind and solar could stagnate in the face of the government’s reduced Renewable Energy Target.
After months of deadlock, a deal has finally been reached to reduce the Renewable Energy Target, ending the uncertainty for industry but also risking an already sparse pipeline of future projects.
A huge float called an ‘actuator’ is lowered into the water off the Perth coast.
AAP Image/Carnegie Wave Energy
Australia’s first large-scale wave energy project is online off the coast of Perth. As Hugh Wolgamot writes, it’s a promising development, but technological challenges remain.