Australia’s energy technologies have received their annual report card, and renewables are still the class champions whilst nuclear small modular reactors remain firmly planted at the bottom of the cost league table, according to CSIRO’s latest GenCost report released on Tuesday. The comprehensive study found wind and solar backed by storage and transmission continue to…
Bin Lu, Australian National University and Marnie Shaw, Australian National University As the electrification of transport and heating accelerates, many worry the increased demand could overload national power grids. In Australia, electricity consumption is expected to double by 2050. If everyone charges their car and heats water using electric systems at the same time, peak…
Australia risks becoming a mere consumer of technology rather than a producer if it continues following global best practices instead of charting its own course in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, according to Professor Henrik von Scheel, the strategist who coined the term “Industry 4.0”. Speaking ahead of his keynote at Industrial Transformation Australia next week,…
National satellite project announced A national satellite initiative, spearheaded by Optus and a national consortium of industry, academia and government partners, plans to launch a sovereign Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite by early 2028. The consortium includes iLAuNCH Trailblazer, HEO, Inovor Technologies and the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), with the satellite to be designed and built by…
Like-for-like recycling, for example turning a PET bottle into another PET bottle, is a good outcome, believes Scientia Professor Veena Sahajwalla. The inventor and founding Director of UNSW’s Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) is focussed elsewhere, though. “When materials get more complex you can’t always assume that conventional solutions and conventional manufacturing…
Despite the Industry 4.0 theme emerging from Germany early in the last decade, local uptake of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (or smart factories, 4IR or a handful of other near-synonyms) appears to be slow. The benefits have been spruiked ad nauseum in the intervening years by industrial technology vendors, researchers, manufacturing advocates and others. Yet…
Arafura vessel commissioned The Royal Australian Navy commissioned the first of six Arafura class offshore patrol vessels (OPVs) at Fremantle, Western Australia, on Saturday. According to a statement from Defence, the OPVs (built by Luerssen Australia, which is owned by Civmec as of Wednesday) will improve the “ability to contribute to maritime patrol, response and…
It might be to put a new sales team on the ground in a new market. Or to import some expensive production kit and fly an expert over to teach your staff how to use it properly. Or you might need to bring in outside technical help to bring a tricky project up the last…
By Colette Southam, Bond University The federal government wants to boost Australia’s productivity levels – as a matter of national priority. It’s impossible to have that conversation without also talking about innovation. We can be proud of (and perhaps a little surprised by) some of the Australian innovations that have changed the world – such…
As @AuManufacturing prepares to deliver our 2025 Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers report this week, Simran Gill gives a wrap-up of the recent awards event. There are also video interviews from the day with Rux Energy, the Smartcrete CRC, Allegro Energy, Advanced Navigation, the Australian Business Growth Fund, Mapei Australia, and Australia Wide Engineering. Australia’s…