National Audit Office says potential benefits are ‘considerable but uncertain’ while risks are ‘immediate and substantial’
The cost of the government’s £38bn nuclear plant in Suffolk is subject to “significant uncertainty” and may outweigh the benefits for UK households until at least 2064, according to the government’s spending watchdog.
The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that although the potential benefits of the Sizewell C nuclear plant are considerable, they remain uncertain. The risks, however, are “immediate, substantial and borne by the public”.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/19/2026 - 18:01
05/19/2026 - 11:46
A fast-growing brush fire that started on Monday morning in southern California has prompted evacuation orders for thousands of people and damaged at least one home.
The Sandy fire was reported just after 10am in Simi Valley, a city in Ventura county about 30 miles north-west of Los Angeles. The blaze spread to more than 1,300 acres by its second day. Several neighbourhoods in nearby northern LA were put under evacuation warnings. Under an evacuation warning, residents are not required to leave immediately but are encouraged to be alert and be prepared to leave if conditions worsen
Fast-growing southern California brush fire prompts evacuation orders
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05/19/2026 - 10:00
Exclusive: Science agency is planning to sack a third of the team working on the national climate model, sources say
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Job cuts at the national science agency mean Australia will no longer be able to submit climate projections to form part of global reports and will have significantly reduced ability to forecast future damage to the country, leading researchers have warned.
Multiple sources told Guardian Australia that CSIRO planned to sack a third of the team working on the national climate model that provides projections relied on by governments, councils, industry and farmers as they plan for the future.
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05/19/2026 - 06:00
Rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure in Canada collides with laws meant to protect endangered species
Environmental groups in Canada fear endangered orcas could become a casualty of Mark Carney’s push for a new oil pipeline, as the rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure collides with laws meant to protect threatened species.
The decades-long tragedy of the critically endangered southern resident orcas has become emblematic of an ecosystem in crisis. But fishermen, whale-watching companies and the marine transport industry have long feuded over who bears the most blame.
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05/19/2026 - 01:00
Study of Channel finds levels of toxic Pfas in Solent at 13 times safe limits in some places, with much coming from treated sewage
Scientists have found high levels of toxic Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, in soil, water and throughout the marine food chain in the UK’s Solent strait, including at protected environmental sites, according to a new study.
In some samples, pollution was 13 times the safe threshold for coastal waters. Others, which were below legal limits for individual chemicals, failed tests for combined toxicity.
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05/18/2026 - 18:01
UK foreign secretary says urgent pressure needed to get strait of Hormuz reopened and fertiliser and fuel moving
Global fertiliser supplies must be freed up within weeks to avoid disaster, with harvests suffering and food prices rising, the UK’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said.
The war in Iran has frozen shipments of fertiliser through the strait of Hormuz, creating a supply crunch that has already damaged farming in the UK, Europe and the US and is having its worst impacts in the developing world, where farmers cannot afford the higher prices now being charged.
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05/18/2026 - 15:19
EPA outlines effort to kill Biden-era rules as critics condemn RFK Jr and Lee Zeldin’s ‘hocus pocus’
The Trump administration has announced a plan to kill Biden-era drinking water limits on four Pfas “forever chemicals”, and to delay the implementation of standards for two other compounds.
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing two separate rules to delay and rescind the limits. The rules must go through an approval process that can take several years, and almost certainly will be challenged in court.
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05/18/2026 - 09:01
Never documented archaeologically before, evidence points to First Nations people caring for and nursing the animal
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The discovery of a millennium-old dingo burial site in western New South Wales, including evidence of a “feeding” ritual never before documented archaeologically, has shed new light on the longstanding relationship between the canines and First Nations people.
The dingo was buried along the Baaka, or Darling River, in Kinchega national park near the Menindee Lakes.
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05/18/2026 - 07:00
Use of AI is a valuable tool for weather prediction but only when it’s trained with ample data, experts say
As the US prepares for hurricane season and a summer of record-breaking heat, experts fear the Trump administration’s cuts to climate and weather data programming could make the federal government’s weather forecasts less reliable when they are needed most.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) late last year launched a suite of artificial intelligence-powered global weather forecast models which it said would improve “speed, efficiency, and accuracy”. In March, an agency official said those models were being trained with centuries of weather data.
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05/18/2026 - 05:00
Rising demand for exotic pets is pushing many gibbon species to extinction, with their strong family bonds making them especially vulnerable to the brutal trade
It is a cool morning in Thailand’s hilly north, and a wildlife officer sits on the veranda of Omkoi wildlife sanctuary’s office. On her lap is a wide-eyed infant primate dressed in baby clothes. Not unlike a human baby, he kicks and waves excitedly. Most of his dark skin is covered in dense white fur, except for his face and the palms of his hands.
“We call him Chokdee,” the officer says. “It means ‘good luck’.”
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