Report says proven technology could benefit thousands in poor quality housing and help UK meet carbon reduction targets
Flooded disused coalmines could be a significant source of energy and provide cheap heat to thousands of homes, a new report argues.
Mine water geothermal heat (MWGH) systems use the water in flooded coalmines, which is warmed by natural processes, to supply low-carbon heat. Heat exchangers and pumps recover the heat, which is distributed via district heating networks to homes and buildings, providing low-cost, long-term, stable energy.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/06/2025 - 07:00
11/06/2025 - 05:00
Winds of Melissa’s strength are now five times more frequent due to the climate crisis, research says
Every aspect of Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm ever to hit Jamaica, was worsened by the climate crisis, a team of scientists has found.
Melissa caused widespread devastation when it crunched into Jamaica as a category five hurricane on October 28, with winds up up to 185mph.
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11/06/2025 - 02:00
Lawyers challenge €4bn Project One development, saying emissions and health impacts vastly underestimated
The deaths from pollution caused by Europe’s biggest plastic plant, which is being built in Antwerp, will outstrip the number of permanent jobs it will create, lawyers will argue in a court challenge issued on Thursday.
In documents submitted to the court, research suggests the air pollution from Ineos’s €4bn petrochemical plant would cause 410 deaths once operational, compared with the 300 permanent jobs the company says will be created.
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11/06/2025 - 01:00
After it was found most offsets did not represent real carbon reductions, the money dried up. But successful schemes such as Kasigau in Kenya now face a stark future
Solomon Morris Makau checks the fallen tree for snakes before he wraps a tape measure around the trunk. The early morning sun is overwhelming in the dryland forests of the Kasigau corridor, which separates the east and west Tsavo national parks in southern Kenya. Two guards keep watch for elephants and lions. There is little sign of green among the sprawling acacias, which stand silently in their punishing wait for the end of the dry season. Despite the threat from puff adders, Makau and his team have a job to do: measure the trees and shrubs in this 50 sq metre area to calculate their growth and change in carbon stock.
“This one is lying dead,” says Makau, of one of the trees pushed over by elephants – but tens of thousands around it are still alive, stretching out in the distance as far as the eye can see.
Solomon Morris Makau, right, leads a team of environmental technicians in gathering bio data from natural vegetation
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10/31/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 01 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00160-3
Human activities in coastal and marine regions increasingly generate inter-sectoral conflicts, emphasizing the need of effective spatial planning. India’s marine ecosystems, which sustain millions of livelihoods, are under mounting pressure from overexploitation, climate change and competing human uses. To address these challenges, developing a robust marine spatial planning framework is essential for both conservation and sustainable ocean use. Puducherry, with high recreational potential, serves as a pilot site for such an initiative, aiming to balancing stakeholder interests and needs, strengthening coastal resilience, and promoting a sustainable blue economy.
10/30/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 31 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00153-2
Distant-water fleets, local consequences: lessons from a case study in Liberia
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
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