April 2021

Peter Martin,Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Not long ago it seemed as if the future was going to get better and better — not long ago at all. The high point was around 2005, fifteen years ago. I don’t know if you can remember how you felt at the time, but for me the surge in living standards, driven by an ever-building surge in output per working hour (“productivity”) suggested things were building on themselves: each new innovation was making use of the ones that had come before to the point where…. Ray Kurzweil, now the director of research at Google, summed it up in a book released in 2005 itself, titled The Singularity Is Near. Singularity was “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed”. Changes would build on each other to the point where everything changed at once. Kurzweil dubbed it the “law of accelerating returns”. Year by year in the leadup to 2005, Australia’s productivity growth had accelerated to the point where in the 15 years to 2005 it had grown 37%. If it kept accelerating… In the 1930s economist John Maynard Keynes foresaw “ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed”. On average the working week might fall to 15 hours. In the 1970s, futurologist Alvin Toffler spoke of a four-hour working day. And then from 2005 on productivity growth collapsed. In the 15 years since, Australia’s output per working hour (productivity) has grown by just 17%. Thirty seven per cent turned out to be the high point. And not only here. In the United States and other developed economies productivity growth is divided into “before 2005” when it […]

Low maintenance Airstroke actuators from Firestone provide a compact and easily installed way to facilitate robust and reliable engineering of clean green renewable energy installations needing to continuously orient solar and wind power arrays towards their source of energy. The simple pneumatic actuators can be installed in solar arrays and within wind power structures to continuously orient their generating surfaces in the most favourable position to optimise the amount of energy produced from natural sources. In actuation capacities from just a few dozen kilograms to more than 40 tons a unit, and functioning reliably for millions of cycles, Airstrokes are proven worldwide in demanding covered and outdoor applications ranging from conveyors and vibrating screens though to splitting a giant Australian mining dragline for maintenance. Their complementary fabric-and-rubber Airmount isolators deliver isolation efficiencies frequently exceeding 99 per cent to protect sensitive plant from damage from ambient noise vibration and harshness (NVH) and to reduce NVH emissions from installed plant. The rubber and fabric actuators solve the problem of stationary solar collection panels becoming inefficient as the sun shifts from a 90-degree angle to the panels, or where wind generators must be smoothly re-oriented to harvest the maximum energy from changing winds. Usually inflated or deflated by standard fixed or mobile compressed air (typically the ubiquitous 7 bar (100 psi) compressor equipment used throughout Australia), they can continuously reorient photovoltaic systems to minimise and angle of incidence between the incoming sunlight and a photovoltaic array, or to achieve the most favourable angle for Wind generation. Airstrokes are particularly beneficial for installations where continuous focusing through single or dual-axis arrangements enhances energy returns. Such installations – sometimes in remote locations and subject to climatic extremes over 24 hours – need extremely reliable actuators to continuously reposition payloads, including solar panels and reflectors. Airstroke […]

UK-based company Biohm uses natural vegetative material to ‘grow’ insulation panels.It has also developed a new type of composite material that is 100% biodegradable and vegan. Biohm is one of 17 companies in The Circulars Accelerator Cohort 2021. What if we could use waste or carbon-negative materials to make buildings? Biohm,a ‘biomanufacturing’ company is doing just that, creating building materials from mushrooms, orange peel, cocoa husks and other food waste. They have developed an alternative to wood-based sheet materials made from waste by-products from the food or agricultural sectors. Called Orb, the composite material is 100% biodegradable and vegan and can be moulded into shapes. It has also developed a world-first insulation panel made from mycelium – the white, thread-like roots that grow from fungus. The natural mushroom fibres can outperform some insulation products. “Mycelium is usually found in forests, underground, and it holds the topsoil together. It allows plants to connect to one another – it’s like nature’s Internet. And we grow that into an insulation panel that can provide superior insulation values compared to other alternatives on the market,” says Biohm founder Ehab Sayed. Cutting back on waste Sayed started the company after being shocked by the waste from the construction industry. By repurposing waste, and creating biodegradable products, his company contributes towards the ‘circular economy’. Biohm is a member of The Circulars Accelerator Cohort 2021, an initiative to help circular economy entrepreneurs scale their innovations. The accelerator is a collaboration with UpLink, the World Economic Forum’s innovation crowdsourcing platform, and is led by professional services company Accenture in partnership with Anglo American, Ecolab, and Schneider Electric. An incomplete circle More than 92 billion tonnes of materials were extracted and processed in 2019, contributing to about half of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Economic Forum. “The resulting waste – including plastics, textiles, food, electronics and more – […]

-Daniel Sultana, Country Manager, Australia and New Zealand at Paessler. One of the key benefits of converging IT (Information Technology), OT (Operational Technology) and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) systems in a manufacturing business is that it enables a more holistic approach to manage the entire infrastructure. The resulting digital interconnectedness provides vast improvements for manufacturers in terms of efficiency, reliability and profitability, but there are risks associated with IT/OT convergence, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre. What are IIoT gateways? Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) refers to a network of connected devices in the industrial sector and is a subset of the Internet of Things (IoT). An IIoT gateway is a bridge between a field network and the IoT platform or sometimes a business application. IIoT gateways can be viewed as data aggregation points for field devices or wireless networks. They provide local storage and compute capabilities as well as a user interface for data processing and system management. The defining characteristic of connected devices on IIoT networks is that they transfer data without human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Connected devices communicate through IIoT gateways, which are physical servers that filter data and transmit it to other devices and software applications. IIoT gateways have therefore become a key part of a solution to monitor an entire infrastructure holistically, which provides a multitude of benefits for manufacturers that adopt it. Since digital transformation in manufacturing started, more and more connected and smart devices are appearing in factory settings. This includes sensors for monitoring environmental factors like temperature, humidity and vibrations, as well as devices needed for smart automation. Building monitoring systems There are concerning stories about poorly secured building automation networks being hijacked, resulting in hundreds of employees being unnecessarily evacuated and a loss of productivity. For this reason, facilities […]