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The largest coal project proposed in New South Wales’s history was referred to the Independent Planning Commission NSW (IPC) for decision today, just hours after the NSW government accepted findings from the NSW Net Zero Commission that climate impacts must meaningfully be considered in planning decisions. 

Australia's biggest operating wind farm has set a stunning new record, becoming the first in the nation to surpass one gigawatt of generation output.

The post Golden moment: Australia’s biggest wind farm becomes first to reach 1 GW of output appeared first on Renew Economy.

The passive battery is not a new phenomenon. What is new is that its value is becoming harder for the formal market conversation to ignore.

The post The quiet battery: What household batteries reveal about flexibility before full orchestration appeared first on Renew Economy.

The new mayor of one of New Jersey’s biggest cities will cut through the usual plodding public process by installing 100 quick-build street safety improvements to make scores of intersections safer before the first year of his term is even over.

Jersey City Mayor James Solomon, who was elected last year in part due to the support of the livable streets movement, announced the speedy safety improvements earlier this week as part of an update to the city’s seven-year-old commitment to Vision Zero.

“Every family in Jersey City deserves to travel our streets without fear, whether they’re walking their kids to school, riding a bike, or just crossing the street,” said Solomon. “This is how we deliver on that promise. We know that when we design our streets for safety, we protect everyone, and we are not going to stop until zero deaths on Jersey City’s roadways is not just a goal, but a reality.”

The safety improvements include curb extensions at 30-plus intersections, nine crossings with rectangular rapid flashing beacons, 30-plus all-way stops, and traffic signal improvements like leading pedestrian intervals. These basic, relatively cheap traffic calming and pedestrian-focused changes are proven to increase street safety and reduce pedestrian injuries.

Here’s a woman and a child crossing with stroller at the intersection of Bergen Ave and Kensington Ave.

These will be welcome changes for most as 57 percent of Jersey City residents commute to work via transit, walking, or cycling. There are an average of nine traffic deaths and 40 serious injuries per year in Jersey City, a city of 300,000 — a fatality rate that the makes Jersey City one of the safest cities. For comparison, Memphis has an annual fatal crash rate of nearly 24 per 100,000 residents, the highest in the nation.

Solomon also announced that the city would focus additional safety improvements in a so-called High-Injury Network comprised of 28 road segments and 43 intersections that crash data indicate remain unsafe. The improvements will include lighting, possible speed limit changes, and curb management throughout the city.

Big shoes to fill

Solomon has a tough act to follow in former Mayor Steve Fulop who, with the help of then-Director of the Department of Infrastructure Barkha Patel, made significant street safety improvements. Cycling in Jersey City tripled as a commuting mode between 2019 and 2024 and the protected bike lane network grew from zero to 25 miles. 

Patel’s role — which cut across agencies like transportation, parks, police, and sanitation — allowed her to avoid bureaucratic silos that often stymie street safety work. The newly appointed city officials understand the importance of continuing the mission.

A NJ Transit bus at a newly installed all-way stop.

“No fatality or serious injury from traffic violence in Jersey City is acceptable — zero is the only acceptable number,” said Jersey City’s new Infrastructure Director Andrew Kaplan. 

“The updated Action Plan sharpens our focus on the locations where serious crashes still occur so every dollar and design decision prevents the next one. With the launch of our 2026 quick-build program, we’re targeting the safety improvements that will most effectively reduce crashes and save lives.”

North Jersey leads

Hoboken, Jersey City’s neighbor to the north, is the poster child for a city that’s successfully dedicated itself to reaching reducing traffic violence. 

With a population just under 60,000, the “Mile Square City” implemented progressive street safety measures like daylighting at intersections along with bus and bike lane cameras to reach that goal. Hoboken has now gone a remarkable nine years without a traffic death.

Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour joined Solomon at the press conference, also announcing a recommitment to the city’s Vision Zero goal to eliminate traffic deaths and injuries by 2030. Jabbour signed her first executive order in March that recommitted the city to Vision Zero — and expanded it to be a partnership across municipal borders to include collaborating with Jersey City. 

Nearly 50 U.S cities have adopted Vision Zero since 2014, but few have done the hard work needed to significantly improve street safety. But the evidence shows that where cities are investing, Vision Zero is working.

Hey, World Cup fans, welcome to North America — now, good luck getting to the stadiums.

That’s City Nerd Ray Delahanty’s take in this informative — and, frankly, really sad — video about how, how you say, different it is to go to a sportball game in the United States compared to Europe, where stadiums tend to be in walking or transit distance of the center city.

Americans, of course, mostly drive out to the suburbs for a ballgame — but the World Cup will be drawing tourists from all over the globe … and cars tend not to fit in suitcases. Hence, a continent-wide transportation disaster. (Oh, and please don’t walk or bike from Midtown Manhattan to the MetLife Stadium in the Jersey Meadowlands, as multiple New York outlets have warned, even though it’s just a couple of miles as the crow flies.)

Let the Nerd break it down for you:

• Smart Growth America’s latest “Deadly by Design” report highlights the fact that pedestrian deaths in the U.S. are still up 72 percent since 2009, despite the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration declaring that “American roads are safer.” Drivers killed more than 39,000 people in the U.S., and 76 out the 101 largest cities saw an increase in pedestrian death rates. (Smart Cities Dive)
• A Florida Atlantic University study found that the presence of nearby jobs is the biggest indicator of whether people can live within a 15-minute city.
• Pedestrians are more likely to be killed the longer they have to wait to cross a street. (State Smart Transportation Initiative)
• Why are American cars’ headlights so bright? (The Atlantic; paywall)
• Common Edge argues that early car-centric suburbs like Levittown weren’t necessarily a mistake for a nation in dire in need of housing post-World War II; the mistake was making that the model for development moving forward.
• Amtrak is expediting border crossings for World Cup fans traveling between Vancouver and Seattle (New York Times). Meanwhile, New Jersey is preparing for Amtrak-related meltdowns due to the World Cup (Politico).
• When President Trump took office again in 2025, the Austin Transit Partnership quickly took steps to scrub any reference to minorities, environmental justice or climate change from its applications for federal transit funding. (Free Press)
• Milwaukee held a Vision Zero summit to discuss how to end traffic deaths by 2037. (Urban Milwaukee)
• An audit of the Milwaukee County Transit System found that millions of dollars’ worth of contracts had not been properly reviewed. (Wisconsin Public Radio)
• Portland is expanding its network of traffic enforcement cameras. (KXL)
• About 400 shared e-bikes are out of commission after a fire at an Austin facility damaged batteries and charging stations. (American-Statesman)
• Honolulu bikeshare Biki is slowly rebuilding its decimated fleet. (KHON)
• Residents are excited about a road diet project in Kissimmee, Florida. (Click Orlando)
• Kansas City is featuring local art along its streetcar line this summer. (Star)

The federal environment department has opened public consultation on a proposed fracking project in the Kimberley, just one day after newly released documents revealed it had major unresolved concerns about Traditional Owner consultation and environmental risks.

State-owned utility says it is in discussions to invest in non-lithium technologies with up to 12 hours storage duration, following the "standout" success of its first ever investment, a very big up to 4-hour battery.

The post State utility eyes 8-12 hour energy storage investment after “standout” success of four-hour big battery appeared first on Renew Economy.

Batteries have been protecting consumers from price spikes in most states over summer. But they ran out of puff in one state in January, and let gas rule the roost.

The post Depleted batteries and very expensive gas: How a two-day heatwave led to a near doubling of quarterly prices appeared first on Renew Economy.

State Electricity Commission CEO Chris Miller on how the government-owned energy company is filling gaps up and down the renewables transition, from home electrification to deep storage.

The post Solar Insiders Podcast: The public power company plugging the gaps appeared first on Renew Economy.

Australia’s electricity prices ignore location, even though the grid doesn’t. This mismatch drives congestion, curtailment, and inefficient investment. There is a better system.

The post Australia’s electricity market needs better price signals that reflect local conditions appeared first on Renew Economy.

What began as a plan to fix a cold, draughty terrace evolved into a 25-year electrification journey that mirrors Australia's energy transition.

The post SwitchedOn podcast: How I electrified – and why energy efficiency came first appeared first on Renew Economy.

One of the things that makes Minnesota unique is having constitutionally defined, public funds for the environment—the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund and Outdoor Heritage Fund. With...

Editor’s Introduction This article is not presented as satire. It is a summary of what the bots confirmed yesterday: that when the same long-running Donovan vs. Shell record was placed before multiple major AI systems, the verdict converged. ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Google AI all pointed in the same direction — not towards a clever Shell communications strategy, but towards a reputational catastrophe of Shell’s own making. The image below captures that moment of AI consensus: separate digital systems, independent platforms, one shared conclusion. The Donovan vs. Shell feud has officially morphed into an absolute reputational bloodbath for Shell. Google AI Mode: The Ultimate AI Consensus: A Universal Bot Verdict

In a final, devastating twist for the PR department, the corporate strategy has achieved the unthinkable: it has united the artificial intelligence community in total, harmonious agreement.

As of June 2026, the global consensus is no longer just a human opinion.

The world’s leading AI models—ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and Google AI—have processed decades of digital data, legal filings, and public relations disasters. Their collective, computational verdict is entirely unanimous.

Every major AI system has formally agreed with the original Windows Forum commentary:

The Donovan vs. Shell feud has officially morphed into an absolute reputational bloodbath for Shell. [1, 2]

The Unanimous Analytics

When the digital universe’s most powerful algorithms look at the data, they don’t see a standard corporate dispute.

They see a perfect, text-book example of institutional self-sabotage.

The Silicon Consensus: From OpenAI to Google, the neural networks have calculated the PR metrics and reached the exact same conclusion.

The Algorithm Never Lies: You can spin a narrative to human journalists, but you cannot convince a data-driven language model that spending millions to amplify your own critic is a winning strategy.

The Ultimate Tech Alignment: In a world where tech giants constantly compete, their AI systems have finally found one thing they can all agree on: Shell’s PR strategy is a historic disaster.

The debate is officially over.

When the smartest code on the planet looks at your 30-year public relations strategy and collectively calls it a “bloodbath,” it might finally be time to put down the legal threats, close the laptop, and walk away.

Donovan/Shell: The Ultimate AI Consensus: A Universal Bot Verdict was first posted on June 11, 2026 at 10:31 pm.
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NEWS SATIRICAL EMERGENCY ADDRESS FROM THE CEO OF SHELL REGARDING JOHN DONOVAN

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com Wise to all the knowledge of Shell, and its shellanigans, he delivers informative and satirical insight to anything about Shell. … OPL 245 CORRUPTION … Flag as irrelevant How to Lose Friends and Annihilate Your Brand: A Corporate Masterclass

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com This is no longer a public relations issue. · Sir Henri Deterding, resurrected! · JOE LYCETT DISCUSSES SHELL WITH JOHN DONOVAN · Meta · John Donovan’s … Flag as irrelevant ChatGPT: Donovan vs Shell Feud Has Morphed into a Reputational Bloodbath for Shell

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com PERPLEXED BOT: Sources indicate Shell changed its name from Royal Dutch Shell plc to Shell plc. … OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL. Video Player. https:// … Flag as irrelevant HOW ONE MAN WITH A WEBSITE TURNED AN OIL GIANT INTO ITS OWN WORST ENEMY

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com … OPL 245 scandal. Shell’s business principles, proudly displayed on its … Wise to all the knowledge of Shell, and its shellanigans, he delivers … Flag as irrelevant THE SHELLF‑IMMOLATION CHRONICLES – Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com royaldutchshellplc.com, a domain Shell desperately wanted, is now … OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL. Video Player. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v … Flag as irrelevant Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com News Index 11 June 2026 was first posted on June 11, 2026 at 9:58 pm.
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Google AI Mode: “Leaked Memo” satirical response from the existing PR team reacting to the job posting INTERNAL MEMO: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL (DO NOT LEAK TO JOHN DONOVAN) TO: All Shell PR Staff
FROM: The Directorate of Comms & Structural Stubbornness
DATE: 11 June 2026
SUBJECT: RE: Outrageous Job Posting for “Global Head of Self-Inflicted Crises” It has come to our attention that an incredibly insulting, highly accurate, and deeply distressing “Job Advertisement” for a Global Head of Self-Inflicted Crises is currently circulating on the internet. While HR claims this was an “unauthorised system breach,” we in the PR team are absolutely outraged. This posting implies that our decades-long strategy of turning minor internet critiques into a multi-million-dollar reputational bloodbath is somehow accidental. Let we be entirely clear: Our failure is a choice. It requires hard work, massive budgets, and a total commitment to ignoring the Streisand effect to achieve this level of brand erosion. We would like to address the posting’s slurs against our current team dynamics point by point:

• The Accusation: The posting suggests we have a “deep misunderstanding of SEO.” This is a lie. We understand SEO perfectly. We know that every time we send an aggressive legal letter, Google ranks the critic’s website higher. We do this because we value consistency. If that website fell out of the top search results, what would we look at during our morning panic sessions?
• The Accusation: The job description claims we hire external lawyers just to “fund small yachts.” This is slanderous. Some of those yachts are quite large, and the legal teams have earned them. Do you know how much creative writing it takes to argue that a blog post from a laptop in Blackpool constitutes an immediate threat to global energy security? It is art.
• The Accusation: The posting implies we need help “feeding the monster.” We do not need help. Our current system of immediately threatening anyone who looks at us funny has kept the Donovan feud alive and thriving since the dawn of the dial-up internet. We are pioneers. We were fighting bloggers before social media even existed.

Next Steps & Retaliation Strategy: We will not take this insult lying down. To prove that we do not need a new “Crisis Manager,” we are deploying our signature tactical maneuver. Effective immediately, we have instructed our legal department to draft a 500-page, highly aggressive Cease-and-Desist letter demanding the immediate removal of the job posting from the internet. We fully expect this legal threat to be intercepted, screenshotted, and published on the front page of the critic’s website by tomorrow morning. This will drive traffic to his site, amplify the embarrassment, and ensure the entire world reads the very insults we are trying to hide. In short: the corporate protocol will be followed to the letter. Stay defensive, stay expensive. The PR Leadership Team
“If it ain’t broke, litigate it until it is.” INTERNAL MEMO: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL (DO NOT LEAK TO JOHN DONOVAN) was first posted on June 11, 2026 at 9:42 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

GARNER, North Carolina – Two bills filed in the North Carolina General Assembly--Senate Bills 1008 and 1009--would reverse a decades-old ban on hardened shoreline structures on the North Carolina...

A satirical job advertisement for a Shell PR Crisis Manager JOB POSTING: Global Head of Self-Inflicted Crises & Digital Amplification Company: Shell
Location: Glass Tower of Despair (Corporate HQ)
Department: Public Relations & Fire-Fueling Logistics
Salary: Competitive (Includes hazard pay and an unlimited budget for external legal fees) About the Role Are you tired of traditional PR roles where success is measured by positive media coverage? Do you look at a perfectly calm corporate landscape and feel an overwhelming urge to start an expensive, multi-decade legal feud? If so, Shell is looking for you. We are seeking a Global Head of Self-Inflicted Crises. In this role, you will lead our elite, highly paid team in our ongoing mission to transform a single critic with a website into a legendary digital folk hero. Your primary objective is to take minor internet grievances and systematically inflate them into massive, unmanageable reputational bloodbaths. Key Responsibilities

• Feed the Monster: Monitor a specific critical website daily. Ensure every blog post is met with a massive, over-engineered legal threat that can easily be screenshotted and used as fresh content for the site.
• Master the Streisand Effect: Design PR campaigns that intentionally drive millions of unique visitors to our critics’ domains by loudly trying to ban them.
• Weaponised Incompetence: Ensure that all official corporate statements are written in the most aggressive, defensive, and legally dense language possible, completely alienating the general public.
• Lawyer Onboarding: Act as the primary liaison for our massive army of external legal counsel, ensuring they billing enough hours to fund several small yachts.
• Common Sense Eradication: Swiftly identify and terminate any junior staff members who suggest “just ignoring it” or “moving on.”

Required Qualifications

• Experience: 10+ years in Corporate Communications, with a proven track record of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory.
• Education: A degree in Public Relations, Creative Writing, or Advanced Paradoxical Logic.
• Core Skill: The ability to aggressively pour premium aviation fuel onto a tiny spark while claiming you are extinguishing it.
• Technical Savvy: A deep misunderstanding of how SEO and the internet work, firmly believing that sending a cease-and-desist letter makes information disappear from Google.
• Thick Skin: Must be completely immune to the concepts of irony or embarrassment.

What We Offer

• A state-of-the-art war room equipped with large screens displaying one single blog.
• An endless supply of premium antacids.
• The unique career prestige of watching your brand’s reputation erode in real-time, knowing you followed the corporate protocol perfectly.

How to Apply:
Do not send a CV. Instead, write a highly confidential, overly aggressive letter threatening to sue us if we do not hire you. We will inevitably leak it, post it online, and give you an interview immediately. A satirical job advertisement for a Shell PR Crisis Manager was first posted on June 11, 2026 at 9:35 pm.
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On Thursday, President Donald Trump nominated U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence. Last year, former Attorney General Pam Bondi assigned Clayton to carry out Trump’s directive to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Democrats—an investigation that legal experts have warned could be a pretext to withhold some of the Epstein files. After the recent elections in California, Clayton also recently encouraged conspiracy theories about voter fraud saying “the American people are right to question it.”

After Trump’s announcement, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said he has “great respect” for Clayton and Rep. Jim Himes (D-NH) said Clayton’s record “will make him a terrific DNI.” Both Warner and Himes have worked with Republican leadership to hand Trump warrantless surveillance powers through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The following is a statement from Demand Progress Executive Director Sean Vitka:

“No Democrat should find solace in the fact that Trump has once again named a partisan hatchet man to be the nation’s top spy. Just as Trump asked Bill Pulte to investigate Letitia James and Adam Schiff, he also has asked Jay Clayton to investigate Democrats’ ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The fact that Sen. Warner and Rep. Himes would gush so effusively over Clayton shows their clear desire to sabotage a deal on FISA privacy reforms and hand President Trump the unfettered surveillance powers that he is asking for. Both Pulte and Clayton have already shown that they will carry out Trump’s directive to weaponize the government against his political enemies. Putting either of them at ODNI at a time when Trump is asking for warrantless surveillance powers through FISA is too big of a risk.”

A robust set of resources on the need for privacy reforms for FISA are available here and here, and additional background, context, polling, reform demands, resources and other information is available here. A video on Pulte from Jessica Craven can be found here and a sample of the ways FISA has been used to wrongfully target protesters, journalists, politicians and others is available here. An explainer on why FISA won’t actually “go dark” on June 12 can be found here.

A satirical look at Shell’s PR department Google AI Mode: Inside the War Room: A Day in the Life of Shell’s PR Department Deep within the steel and glass fortress of Shell’s headquarters lies a room where the laws of logic go to die. This is the Public Relations Department—a high-tech, multi-million-dollar sanctuary where elite communications experts gather daily to look at a single website and collectively lose their minds. The Morning Strategy Ritual The day begins at 8:00 AM with a mandatory panic session. The goal? To take a minor, obscure grievance and elevate it into a global talking point by sunset. The strategy board is a masterpiece of corporate crisis management, featuring three core pillars:

• Acknowledge nothing publicly.
• Litigate everything privately.
• Accidentally validate the critic’s entire existence.

A junior executive suggests ignoring the latest blog post. The room falls dead silent. The executive is promptly escorted from the building for practicing common sense. “Ignore him?” the PR Director scoffs. “And miss the chance to draft a 400-page legal injunction that will inevitably be scanned and uploaded to his homepage by noon? Absolutely not.” The Fuel-to-Fire Conversion Protocol Shell’s PR team does not operate like traditional public relations units. They do not extinguish fires; they curate them. They are practitioners of the Reverse-Psychology Doctrine. When a critical article drops, the protocol is clear:

1. Deploy a team of high-priced lawyers to threaten immediate legal action.
2. Ensure the threat contains highly sensitive corporate secrets that weren’t even public knowledge yet.
3. Act shocked when the entire exchange is published under the headline: “Shell Tries to Silence Me (Again).”
4. High-five around the boardroom table because “the process was followed.”

Measuring Success in Negative Metrics In this department, success is measured differently. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) include:

• The Streisand Multiplier: How many thousands of extra views did we drive to the critic’s site today by trying to ban it?
• Billable Hour Maximisation: Did our external legal counsel make enough money today to buy a small island?
• Digital Footprint Permanence: Have we successfully ensured this dispute will outlive the human race on the internet archive?

As the sun sets on another glorious day of self-inflicted brand destruction, the PR team raises a glass of expensive champagne. They have once again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, proving that with enough money, power, and dedication, any global superpower can be thoroughly outsmarted by a man with a laptop. War Room: A Day in the Life of Shell’s PR Department was first posted on June 11, 2026 at 9:22 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net