Energy Crops, CryoSat-2 and Bird Bling

A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Willow, palm, miscanthus and other energy crops are being touted as a possible solution to Britain's growing energy security problems. There are suggestions that they could help replace fossil fuels, plugging Britain's energy gap and cutting our carbon footprint.

But before we go down that route, however, David Bohan from Rothamsted Research is trying to find out how these crops affect the environment. He is researching how miscanthus and willow affect native biodiversity while looking at where these crops should be sited to have minimal environmental impact.

Also in this podcast is a report about why 25 February was expected to be a nail-biter for many scientists, not least for those from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London.

Finally there are reports about how British winters are ending an average of 11 days earlier compared with the 1970s, why red leg bands put male zebra finches in front of their rivals and what next for a group of scientists that has just returned from exploring volcanic vents in the Southern Ocean.

This podcast is dated 15 February 2010.

NERC is a part of the Research Councils UK (RCUK) partnership of research councils.