Plant in Beckton has run only five times and has been beset by multiple problems since it was built
London’s desalination plant has cost more than half a billion pounds since 2010 and has run only five times, delivering 7.2bn litres of drinking water, roughly seven days of London’s typical daily demand. Now Thames Water is planning a new £500m project to tackle drought in the capital.
The Thames Gateway desalination plant at Beckton, built for £270m and now largely mothballed, has racked up an estimated £200m in debt interest, about £45m in idle upkeep and about £3m in operating costs, according to Thames Water figures. That puts the lifetime bill at about £518m, or about 7p for every litre the plant has ever produced, which is 28 times more than customers usually pay for their water.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/26/2025 - 04:08
09/26/2025 - 02:00
As our party conference gets under way this weekend in Liverpool, we must start to work out how we can inspire the country
Clive Lewis is the Labour MP for Norwich South
So choppy are the waters of the UK’s permacrisis, and so flat-bottomed the life raft known as Starmerism, that ideas once thought impossible at the outset of Keir Starmer’s initial soft-left, “Corbyn-in-a-suit” journey have become the defining realities of Labour’s present course. As its conference begins in Liverpool this weekend, the party must ask itself whether the political culture it is building is one that can inspire a country, or merely discipline it into compliance. Without a shift towards democracy, discussion and pluralism, Labour risks forfeiting the very moral and political authority it needs to confront the authoritarian voices shouting so loudly beyond our own ranks, and increasingly within them.
The Corbyn wave that swept Labour in 2015 was more than just a political surge. It was a redefinition of the possible, a moment when grassroots activism, radical ideas and the audacity of political hope took centre stage. It represented a demand for genuine democracy, pluralism and change. For many, it was the first time in living memory that Labour had felt like a movement rather than a machine. Today, Starmer’s absolute determination to distance Labour from that era speaks volumes.
Clive Lewis is the Labour MP for Norwich South. This is an edited extract from Clive Lewis’s foreword to The Starmer Symptom, by Mark Perryman
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09/26/2025 - 01:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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09/26/2025 - 00:00
Response from leaders and key climate figures comes after PM’s aides advised non-attendance over concerns Reform may attack him
Leading climate figures and Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to attend the crucial Cop30 climate summit this November, after aides advised him not to attend for fear of attracting the ire of the Reform party.
Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said: “Cop30 is where leaders are expected to come and roll up their sleeves, make deals to help their nation’s economy transition faster, creating more jobs, and guide the world on what next steps we take together.”
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09/25/2025 - 23:01
Phenomenon extremely unusual in southern hemisphere and last occurred in 2019 when it contributed to worsening of black summer bushfires
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A rare rise in stratospheric temperatures over Antarctica could influence weather into summer, with previous events driving hotter and drier conditions for south-east Australia.
The phenomenon – called sudden stratospheric warming – is extremely unusual in the southern hemisphere.
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09/25/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 26 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00147-0
Assessing fishing gear disposal practices in coastal communities from the Gulf of Guinea and the implications on the sustainability of the blue economy
Six key policy recommendations to advocate for marine conservation that matches the ocean’s dynamism
09/25/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 26 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00151-4
Marine ecosystems face threats from human-induced stressors like climate change, pollution, and habitat loss. Despite international endeavors, significant gaps remain in understanding ocean dynamics. This article presents six policy recommendations to integrate plankton populations into conservation frameworks. These could be leveraged in the process approved at CBD’s COP16 in Colombia to update criteria for defining ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs) and supporting science-based Marine Protected Area (MPA) designations.
09/25/2025 - 16:23
Forest is ‘remarkably resilient to climate change’, but remains under threat from fires and deforestation
The biggest trees in the Amazon are growing larger and more numerous, according to a new study that shows how an intact rainforest can help draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and sequester it in bark, trunk, branch and root.
Scientists said the paper, published in Nature Plants on Thursday, was welcome confirmation that big trees are proving more climate resilient than previously believed, and undisturbed tropical vegetation continues to act as an effective carbon sink despite rising temperatures and strong droughts.
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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 | [email protected] +12077011069
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