Energy & Environment | The Polity

🔗 No-spin Friday brief: Australian & global #energy policy, markets, tech, risks, #environment
Curated RTs + rare takes • Research-focus • @americanpolity

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

Energy & Environment Briefing: 15 - 21 August, 2026

🇦🇺Victorian Coalition vows to scrap VNI West
CGT concession for foreign renewables investors
🌍 Data centres may ⬆️ US emissions by 20%
Panama Canal cuts transits
Putin criticism of AUKUS
Full briefing👇 https://t.co/tAza0rfp7P

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

The journey of someone into & out of climate activism ⤵️

[Sam Belfield @BelfieldSam]

https://t.co/jHqK4sCCCE

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

@BelfieldSam So interesting!

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

Please do so. Can’t wait for the results 🍿

[Ben Beattie @EnergyWrapAU]

Do there’s an audit going to happen of the capacity investment scheme…

https://t.co/XhnzTWcEnt

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

@EnergyWrapAU lol yes his two statements don’t gel. Rather polar opposites.

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

🎧 Energy & Environment Briefing: 15 - 21 August, 2026 (Audio)

Save time - listen to the week’s headlines and full briefing in just 15 minutes.

https://t.co/cuEpvyFQEj

#Auspol #netzero

[Climate Realists🌞 @ClimateRealists]

https://t.co/HCLn7BlGWK: Proof CO2 is plant food: Rising carbon dioxide is supercharging grass growth in African savannas, study finds https://t.co/T9xbP4LpuB

[Li Zexin 李泽欣 @XH_Lee23]

The gas car era is fading fast. In Shenzhen, BYD supercharging stations are way bigger than gas stations, charge almost as quickly as pumping fuel, and they're open to Tesla too.

[MINING.COM @mining]

Commodities relative to financial assets are sitting at a 55-year low, and almost nobody in the market is paying attention, says @RobMcEwenMUX.

Copper hasn't had the kind of spike gold already has, but the same forces, labor shortages and sovereignty concerns over supply, are already building.

Full conversation below.

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

You can also read it on Substack with context and sources:

https://t.co/brCbERAexU

Enjoy!

#auspol #netzero

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

Energy & Environment Briefing: 15 - 21 August, 2026

🇦🇺Victorian Coalition vows to scrap VNI West
CGT concession for foreign renewables investors
🌍 Data centres may ⬆️ US emissions by 20%
Panama Canal cuts transits
Putin criticism of AUKUS
Full briefing👇 https://t.co/tAza0rfp7P

[Dr. Nick Coatsworth @nick_coatsworth]

If you’re any Aussie investing in a company you believe in you’ll lose your 50% capital gains discount.

If you’re an overseas company investing in renewables we’ll let you off with 15% tax.

One tax system for global capital, another for working Australians.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

The Panama Canal will limit daily traffic to 34 vessels from September 4, dropping to 32 from September 15, as it prepares for lower water levels due to the El Nino weather phenomenon.

🔗 https://t.co/i4iWUCoxyg

[Financial Review @FinancialReview]

Foreign investors in renewables will be offered a concessional 15 per cent tax rate until 2040, under a deal struck between the government and the Greens. https://t.co/MsZgZhRsej

[Financial Review @FinancialReview]

The national energy regulator has warned of the growing risk that key renewable energy projects will not be completed in time to replace the closure of coal and gas stations. https://t.co/li8XwSjIRv

[Energy & Environment | The Polity @liciadriscoll]

An oldie but a goodie 🐟

[KJW @Hawkesbay69]

Restocking remote lakes with fish with planes

[Ben Beattie @EnergyWrapAU]

I only just realised we import refined nuclear fuel instead of making it here.

This proves a couple of things…

1. We are systemically stupid
2. We have a large part of the nuclear supply chain established already

[Page Research Centre @page_research]

Australia's decline since 2000 is staggering.

Median house prices have risen from $178,078 to more than $1.03 million, while average full-time salaries have only gone from $34,745 to about $108,400. And remember, this is before income tax. Take-home pay is lower still.

Rent and household debt have also climbed far faster than wages.

And while weekly grocery spending has risen less dramatically than housing and rent, this measure does not capture the changes in how much food households buy and what they buy, so it should not be read as a pure measure of grocery price inflation.

Housing, rents, groceries, these are the main expenditures of households. What good is it if TVs and mobile phones are cheaper if the younger generation can't buy their own home or afford rent?

How long can Australia continue like this?

[Jack Prandelli @jackprandelli]

🇨🇳 China just launched a shipping route that skips the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz entirely.

A Chinese container line, started its regular "Ice Silk Road" service through Russia's Northern Sea Route this week, running almost the whole way along the Arctic coastline.

The first vessel, Dubai Tower, carries 1,740 TEU, tiny next to a modern mainline containership running 20,000-plus TEU.

The crossing takes about 20 days, versus roughly 40 days via Suez, half the transit time on paper.

Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear company, issues the Arctic navigation permits and supplies the nuclear-powered icebreakers that keep the route open in ice season.

Rosatom is already calling this the next step toward regular seasonal Arctic shipping, not a one off...

Strategically this matters more than the ship size suggests.

It's a Europe-Asia corridor that sidesteps Suez, Hormuz, and the Red Sea, all the chokepoints this account has covered all week, and gives China a shipping lane that doesn't run through anyone else's waterway.

One small ship doesn't reroute global trade but pair this with everything else running this week, the Yanbu to Sidi Kerir reroutes, Oman's Duqm bypass hub, and now a functioning Arctic corridor, and the pattern is the same everywhere...everyone's building a way around the chokepoints that used to be unavoidable.

[Giovanni Staunovo🛢 @staunovo]

EU natural gas inventories in % of full - EU at 60.78%

Germany at 49.68%, Italy at 79.15%, France at 63.19%, Netherlands at 41.48%, Austria at 63.52%, Spain at 73.19% https://t.co/ynVKPpos0p

[Renew Economy @renew_economy]

Plans to build an up to 17 turbine wind farm have been given development approval to go ahead in proposed renewable energy zone and next to new transmission line
https://t.co/n0QGjE55W6