Investigation finds number of dairy farms where cows cannot go outside has more than doubled since 2015
There has been a huge rise in factory-style dairy farming of “battery cows” in the UK as farmers struggle with increasing costs and face selling milk at a loss.
The number of intensive dairy farms that permanently confine some of their cattle indoors has more than doubled in the past 10 years, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) has found. Data suggests there are now at least 180 dairy farms where cows have no access to the outdoors, up from about 70 in 2015.
The Lincolnshire seaside town is often written off by YouTubers as a place defined by deprivation and decline. But for many young people it’s a place they love and are proud to call home, even though high unemployment limits their opportunities. The Guardian follows 19-year old Cohen, who is desperate to find a permanent job while running a mascot hire company and chasing his dream of becoming a professional wrestler
This video is part of a year-long project, Against the tide, from the Guardian’s Seascape series, reporting on the lives of young people in coastal communities across England and Wales
Renewables and energy storage were pitched as a way to drive down power prices. But the hidden costs of the clean energy transition mean lower prices haven’t fully eventuated.
That’s why this week’s news power prices will fall by up to 10% have been gratefully received by the government – and consumers. The falls are real, though they do not apply everywhere.
There are important caveats. The cheaper power will directly apply to customers on the default market offer, the safety net power plan overseen by the Australian Energy Regulator. Fewer than 10% of consumers are on this offer.
Despite this, the decision by the Australian Energy Regulator will be influential. Just as banks tend to follow a Reserve Bank decision on interest rates, energy retailers tend to be guided by the prices set under the default market offer.
Why are prices falling? Solar, wind and batteries can provide power more cheaply than fossil fuels, and renewables have reached as high as 50% in Australia’s main grid. They could have driven retail prices down further if not offset by the rising costs of new transmission lines.
What drives power prices?
The power savings are uneven. In South East Queensland, retail power prices will fall by 10.7% and in New South Wales by up to 7.7%. In South Australia, some customers will have a small price rise of 1.4%. Small businesses will see larger falls – as much as 20.9% in NSW.
In Victoria, which has its own separate default offer, retail prices will fall 5%.
The average power bill for an Australian household is around A$2,000 a year. The actual cost of wholesale power accounts for 30–40% of the bill. Network costs – the cost of getting the power to the consumer – make up another 40%. The remaining amount is due to environmental and retailer costs.
In recent years, the cost of producing wholesale power has dropped. This is because more wind and solar farms have come online, while grid-scale batteries are pushing gas power out of the grid at times.
This means there’s less reliance on coal and gas. The role of gas is key, as this fossil fuel has become more expensive. It tends to be used only when demand is very high. At these times, gas acts as a price-setter for the energy market and the price it sets is high. So, other things being equal, less reliance on gas means lower prices.
Network costs have mostly increased, in a range of 5–10%. The key contributor has been the cost of building new transmission lines, and damage from extreme weather has also added costs in Queensland. Inflation adds extra cost to big projects.
What’s next?
This dynamic is likely to continue for some time. We can expect wholesale prices to keep falling, or at least not rise. We may also see network prices rising more sharply, given community pushback against some new transmission projects and slow progress. Without new transmission lines, many renewable projects won’t be viable.
In the next few years, more Australian households will have smart meters installed. In NSW, SA, the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland, rollout is meant to be complete by 2030. Western Australia and Tasmania have their own programs and Victoria’s rollout was completed more than a decade ago.
Smart meters make it possible for power retailers to charge customers different rates at different times. This encourages people to use more power when it’s cheap to produce, and less during peak times such as evenings.
These time-of-use tariffs will become increasingly important. For the first time, the energy regulator included both flat tariffs and time-of-use tariffs in its default market offer. Over time, and with further market reforms, we can expect to see more people take up time-of-use tariffs.
We can also expect big batteries to flex their muscle in the grid, outcompeting gas peaking plants and keeping wholesale prices lower. The influence of these batteries is beginning to show, and it is accelerating.
Household batteries, too, may play a role. The government’s hugely popular household battery incentive scheme will let people with solar store power at home, and use it during peak times instead of relying on expensive grid power.
In the messy middle
We are in the middle of reshaping the electricity grid.
The 20th-century model was built around peak demand – the handful of times a year when huge demand required standby plants to fire up and produce power at high cost. That’s now changing. Gas will go from providing perhaps 20% of Australia’s electricity to as low as 5%. It will be needed as a backup during low wind or sun days for some time.
But the big unknown is new transmission – the missing piece of the clean energy transition. Until this is done, we will keep seeing lower wholesale costs offset by higher network costs. But when it is complete, network costs, too, should fall.
Tony Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Internal BHP documents reveal how the mining giant planned to set up an iron ore processing facility in the Pilbara to cut carbon emissions before backing away from it entirely.
When a humpback whale became entangled in a craypot line off Kaik?ura last week, witnesses described it thrashing in distress for ten minutes before eventually freeing itself.
It was a fortunate outcome.
Elsewhere in New Zealand and Australia, similar cases have required complex disentanglement operations involving trained rescue teams, multiple vessels and specialist equipment.
In one recent Australian case, rescuers removed hundreds of metres of fishing line, hooks, rope and buoys from a young whale whose movement and feeding ability had already been severely compromised.
These interventions are often reported as conservation success stories. Sometimes they are.
Entanglement can cause lasting injuries.Department of Conservation, CC BY-NC-ND
But they also reveal a more confronting and often overlooked reality about whale and dolphin entanglements. For many animals, the real issue is not whether they escape. It is what happens afterwards.
Entanglement is an animal welfare issue
Globally, scientists estimate 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises are killed each year due to entanglement or incidental capture (bycatch).
Entanglements occur in all manner of marine debris including gillnets, trawl nets, longlines, pot ropes and shark nets.
The problem is so pervasive that the International Whaling Commission (IWC) leads a global entanglement response initiative which brings together leaders of established national programmes to develop best-practice protocols and train people in other parts of the world where entanglements occur, including New Zealand and Australia.
Timely intervention can make the difference for a marine mammal’s survival chances.Yuin Khai Foong, CC BY-NC-ND
However, entanglement is not only a conservation issue but a major animal welfare problem.
Some animals drown quickly after becoming trapped in nets or lines. Others survive the initial interaction but endure prolonged suffering over weeks or months as ropes cut deeper into tissue, movement becomes impaired, feeding efficiency declines and infections develop.
In many cases, animals die of secondary complications rather than the entanglement itself.
Hidden suffering despite interventions
Our latest study provides a stark example of this hidden welfare burden.
We detail findings from a necropsy of a bottlenose dolphin that became entangled in fishing line off Auckland. Despite successful disentanglement by an IWC-trained team from the Department of Conservation, the dolphin was later found dead.
Postmortem examination revealed the dolphin had suffered extensive long-term injuries linked to entanglement. The juvenile female was severely emaciated, with deep chronic cuts, tissue damage and widespread skin disease where the line had embedded into her body.
Further tests identified serious secondary infections with evidence of bacteria throughout multiple organs via the bloodstream –- a condition known as septicaemia or blood poisoning.
Together, the findings paint a stark picture of the hidden toll entanglement can inflict on marine mammals. Even when animals are successfully disentangled, stress, impaired feeding, chronic pain and severe infection from entanglement injuries may already be irreversible.
Rather than recovering, the dolphin likely experienced prolonged pain and deterioration long before eventually stranding and dying.
These findings highlight the enormous welfare cost involved in entanglements and the importance of timely interventions and follow-up postmortem investigations.
Timing can determine outcome
The Kaik?ura humpback that freed itself within minutes may ultimately recover well.
But many entanglements do not end so quickly or well.
The longer ropes or gear remain attached, the greater the likelihood of irreversible injury and declining survival probability. Delayed intervention can allow wounds to deepen, infections to establish and body condition to deteriorate.
This is why rapid specialist disentanglement response is so important.
However, many entanglements occur offshore and are never witnessed. Animals may travel hundreds or even thousands of kilometres while carrying gear.
Weather, sea conditions, daylight and safety constraints often prevent immediate intervention. In many cases, whales cannot be relocated once sighted.
Confirmed entanglements represent only a small fraction of the true number occurring at sea. Many animals likely die unobserved.
Others survive long enough to experience chronic debilitation before eventually disappearing or stranding far from where the original interaction occurred.
Scientists have argued these welfare consequences deserve explicit consideration alongside traditional conservation metrics.
Success should not simply be measured by whether an animal swims away after release. It should also consider likely long-term recovery, duration of suffering, severity of injury and realistic survival outcomes.
Beyond the moment of rescue
Images of freed dolphins swimming back out to sea are understandably powerful. They represent hope, compassion and the extraordinary efforts of disentanglement teams working in dangerous conditions.
But they can also obscure the broader reality of what entanglement means biologically.
For some animals, rapid intervention truly may prevent severe injury and save a life. For others, delayed intervention means the damage was done long before the dolphin was cut free.
The dolphin described in our study is a reminder of that hidden reality. Mortality was not the consequence of an isolated stranding event but rather the final stage of a incident involving chronic injury and prolonged physiological decline.
Rescue is not simply whether the animal is cut free from the net but whether the intervention allows full recovery afterwards.
Karen Stockin is chair of the ethics advisory committee, Society for Marine Mammalogy.
Antonio Fernández does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
