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Australian Hydrogen Council welcomes CEFC funding for hydrogen vehicles

The Australian Hydrogen Council (AHC) has welcomed the landmark investment by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) of up to $12.5 million to help Queensland-based AHC member Ark Energy Corporation to produce green hydrogen to power fuel cell electric trucks. Dr Fiona Simon, CEO of the Australian Hydrogen Council (AHC) says “We are delighted to see this funding from the CEFC through the Advancing Hydrogen Fund to support hydrogen production, refuelling infrastructure and five zero emissions trucks. “Queensland has chased the hydrogen opportunity with gusto, and this is just another example of Queensland delivering on its ambition to develop a world-leading hydrogen industry. “In the AHC’s recent whitepaper, we called for a Net Zero Fund to assist specific applications that are more dependent on hydrogen for decarbonisation like heavy transport. “The Australian Hydrogen Council sees the trials of hydrogen fuel cell buses and trucks as an immediate priority, given the need to procure vehicles. “We have an enormous opportunity in Australia to create a vibrant hydrogen industry, both for domestic use and export but taking up hydrogen won’t happen without buy-in, funding, co-ordination and the right policy settings from governments. “An acceleration of government policy can get the nation to net zero faster, and it can leverage the incredible resources already being invested by other states and corporations. “ “In the AHC’s recent whitepaper, we called for a Net Zero Fund to assist specific applications that are more dependent on hydrogen for decarbonisation like heavy transport. “The Australian Hydrogen Council sees the trials of hydrogen fuel cell buses and trucks as an immediate priority, given the need to procure vehicles. “We have an enormous opportunity in Australia to create a vibrant hydrogen industry, both for domestic use and export but taking up hydrogen won’t happen without buy-in, funding, co-ordination and […]

SYSPRO delivers more with new ERP software

SYSPRO, a leading global provider of ERP software, has announced the release of SYSPRO R2 2021 which includes industry-built capabilities aimed at assisting manufacturers and distributors to improve control of internal operations, increase self-service and flexibility across the supply chain and provide better insights and intelligence for improved decision-making. “There is no doubt that the pandemic impacted the way that manufacturing and distribution businesses operate. It altered the way that the industry interacts with suppliers and customers, consumer preferences shifted and the workplace as we knew it forever changed. As a result, businesses have needed to re-align with the ‘new normal’,” said Paulo De Matos, Chief Product Officer at SYSPRO (pictured). “With those key considerations top of mind, we looked at incorporating solutions into our roadmap that would allow our customers to not only focus on improving efficiencies across internal operations, but also to help the industry to connect our customers to their suppliers and customers far more effectively and securely. “There is also an appreciation that businesses are expanding – into new geographies as well as into new territories and many are looking for consolidated systems, and central information and intelligence.” A few highlights of the latest release include: Improved control of internal operations A challenge faced by customers has been the growing demand for next-day deliveries. Especially during the pandemic, the industry needed efficient processes and logistical solutions to ship orders quickly to compete in the market. To address this, SYSPRO has introduced new inventory control capabilities for businesses to have accurate control over the stocking process. Warehouse operators will be able to leverage the functionality using a mobile device, which in turn saves time. Improving flexibility and connectivity across the supply chain Manufacturers and distributors have started to see the importance of continuous engagement with an ecosystem of suppliers and […]

Expanded migration a turning point in the skills crisis

Australian Resources and Energy Group AMMA warmly welcomes the Morrison Government expanding the Priority Migration Skilled Occupation List (PMSOL) to include several high-skilled occupations in critically low supply across the industry. Many of the 22 new occupations added to the PMSOL, most notably chefs and mining, petroleum and geotechnical engineers, are in severe shortage in Australia’s resources and energy industries, threatening to put a handbrake on Australia’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Australia’s resources and energy industry has been firing on all cylinders throughout the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of dedicated Australian employees have kept industry among the most productive and prosperous in the world. However, prolonged closed borders to the small pool of international skilled migrants that supplement our domestic workforces has wreaked havoc on Australia’s resources industry, as it has most others. AMMA’s members have been reporting worsening skills shortages that have threatened to cripple our national recovery from the pandemic’s crushing economic impacts. Significant data and evidence have been provided to government at all levels about these serious skills issues for well over a year. The next step is for government to urgently formulate a roadmap to both domestic and international reopening. A clear roadmap will provide the business community with certainty and confidence to plan for future investment and employment opportunities.

$150 million missions to boost Australian agriculture and food sectors

Three major new missions from CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, will grow Australia’s agriculture and food sectors targeting $20 billion by 2030. The $150 million investment from CSIRO, government and industry will tackle drought, the food export market and growing the protein market. CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall said the three missions together aim to capture a $20 billion opportunity for Australian agriculture to extend its position as a world leader. “For over a century, CSIRO has been working with farmers and governments to improve life on this great land – but today we’re bringing all of our newest science and technology, from Artificial Intelligence to genetics and smart materials, to bear on overcoming our oldest national challenge – drought,” Dr Marshall said. “Overcoming the impacts of drought, protecting the authenticity of Australian products, and inventing whole new markets will grow one of our most important national industries. “Australia has a natural competitive advantage in ‘ag-tech’, the way Silicon Valley does in ‘tech’ – these missions leverage that advantage to grow those local companies and grow the quality of life for Australians working in them.” These are part of CSIRO’s program of missions to support Australia’s future where we use science to amplify Australia’s global advantages and strengths. The research missions aim to: Reduce the impacts of drought by 30 per cent Increase the value of Australian agrifood exports by $10 billion, and Produce an additional $10 billion of high-quality protein products by 2030. “Overcoming challenges of this size takes a Team Australia approach, which is why we’re proud to have so many collaborators on board to help Australian agriculture become more resilient, more profitable, and to produce food that is more plentiful and healthier for Australians and our customers around the world,” Dr Marshall said. Meat & Livestock […]

Yatala Enterprise Area reflects Gold Coast industrial growth

Large infrastructure projects across Australia’s east coast have created an explosion in companies expanding or moving their operations to South East Queensland, creating a development frenzy of its own. On Queensland’s Gold Coast, in particular, the 3,300-hectare Yatala Enterprise Area north to the north of the city, the number of companies boosting their presence has risen rapidly, with a raft of new headquarters, manufacturing plants, warehouses and office spaces rising in the industrial park. With a burgeoning pipeline of major infrastructure works and the successful 2032 South East Queensland Olympic bid driving further development, businesses said they were moving to capture a slice of the fast-tracked action along the growth corridor. Compaction equipment sale and hire company, Conplant, said the sustained growth opportunities had motivated the company to construct a new, purpose-built facility at Yatala. Conplant national sales manager Guy Tome said the new facility aimed to meet the company’s growth and customer demand. “We are a national company with our head office in Sydney, but the Gold Coast branch has grown to the largest in the group,” Tome said. “Our biggest branch is the one located at Yatala. We are flat out with a lot more to come.” Tome said the company that hires and sells earthmoving equipment, specialising in compaction equipment used in building roads and rail infrastructure and road maintenance, was projecting sustained growth supplying projects including the Coomera Connector, a new north-south road corridor between Loganholme and Nerang, and the new Inland Rail connecting Melbourne and Brisbane. M1 upgrades underway across Queensland’s southeast corner, Gold Coast Light Rail and other works in northern NSW also justified the new facility that meant the company could supply more equipment and projects, he said. “There’s been a lot in the government planning that’s been fast tracked. Funding is coming […]

A global energy crisis? What happened?

Far from emerging from the Covid shock awash with fuel, as might be expected after an economic slowdown, the world is entering a new energy crisis the like of which hasn’t been seen since the 1970s. European and Asian gas prices are at an all-time high, the oil price is at a three-year high, and the price of coal is soaring on the back of energy shortages across China, India and Germany. The surge in demand is being driven mostly by recovering economies and anticipated extreme weather across Europe and north-east Asia. China is stockpiling domestic coal and gas reserves, and Russia is reluctant to supply gas to Western Europe. Closer to home, Australia’s gas prices are soaring, but might soon plummet. Petrol pandemonium In Britain, a shortage of the truck drivers who move fuel has led to panic-buying amid fears of a shortage. After Brexit, many European truck drivers went back to their home countries and never returned. Compounding Britain’s problem was its so-called “windless summer” in which renewable power production was much lower than normal. This put a significant strain on electricity generation as around 40% of its power is produced by wind. Britain has transitioned away from coal as an electricity source and with low emergency supplies will find it difficult to suddenly switch back to coal. Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains committed to wind generation and says he wants the UK to become the “Saudi Arabia of wind power” with offshore wind farms generating enough electricity to power every UK home within a decade. Oil on a roll Oil prices have soared in response to the windless summer and British and German difficulties in getting access to Russian gas. Those increases will soon hit Australia which imports 80% of its petrol, diesel and jet fuel. OPEC+ […]

D-Link launches world’s first Wi-Fi 6 USB 3.0 Adapter and new Wi-Fi 6 Mesh Router

It’s fair to say that D-Link is one of the leading forces ushering in a new digital home transformation with its slew of Wi-Fi 6 devices including today’s launch of the DWA-X1850, the world’s first Wi-Fi 6 USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 3.0) Adapter and a new Wi-Fi 6 Mesh Router – the EXO AX AX3200 DIR-X3260. DWA-X1850 world’s first Wi-Fi 6 USB 3.0 Adapter The new DWA-X1850 AX1800 Wi-Fi 6 USB 3.0 Adapter along with the DIR-X3260 AX3200 Wi-Fi 6 Mesh Router are engineered to power the increasing number of high-bandwidth devices and support high-intensity data traffic for remote workers, students and families. D-Link A/NZ MD Graeme Reardon said, “We live in a world where more is now the norm for home and business networks. More devices, more bandwidth, more speed and more range. These new Wi-Fi 6 devices enable streamlined and seamless mesh connectivity with efficient AX performance that, put simply, give you more.” The DWA-X1850 is a slim and compact wireless Adapter that plugs into any USB port and provides instant connectivity to your laptop or PC. Delivering a simple, affordable upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 performance for existing desktop and notebook computers, the DWA-X1850 is the world’s first Wi-Fi 6 USB 3.0 Adapter in the market. Featuring the latest 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 technology, it delivers smooth, reliable combined speeds up to AX1800 (574Mbps + 1200Mbps), ideal for large file transfers, online learning lessons and gaming. The Adapter also features 128-bit WPA3 encryption giving customers added peace of mind over network and device protection. This clever Adapter has others smarts too with its Multi-User or MU-MIMO technology for better efficiency of upstream and downstream transmission and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) technology (where small data packets destined for multiple devices are transmitted together and never have to […]

CSIRO report on future of critical metals demand in the energy transition

A new report by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, has uncovered powerful and counter-intuitive insights into the future supply and demand of critical metals needed to support the transition to a low emissions future. Trajectories for metals used in electric vehicles (EVs) may be more complicated than what is currently accepted, according to one scenario modelled using the Physical Stocks and Flows Framework (PSFF) tool. Released today, the report ‘Known Unknowns: the devil in the details of energy metal demand’ uses the bespoke tool to look at three EV battery metals (cobalt, lithium and nickel) under three different EV uptake scenarios. CSIRO’s Critical Energy Metals Mission-in-development lead, Dr Jerad Ford, said the PSFF tool uses factors not currently accounted for in traditional forecasts to test the demand and supply assumptions. “We know that demand for many metals will increase substantially as the world transitions to a low carbon economy,” Dr Ford said. “But unsophisticated models based on current supply levels and basic recycling rates lead to many mischaracterisations of the real opportunities in both metal mining and recycling. “They ignore the dynamics of materials flows on a global scale and the expected changes in underlying technologies.” For instance, it is commonly assumed that demand for newly-mined metals like cobalt and nickel will continue to increase for the foreseeable future, as they are essential for high performance lithium-ion batteries used in EVs. But by accounting for additional factors such as changes in battery chemistry, quicker EV uptake, and higher levels of recycling, the PSFF tool suggests that, even within the same scenario, new cobalt demand may have an extremely short demand window before an extended glut, while nickel peaks early then falls back sharply, and lithium remains stronger for longer before also trailing off in the out years. “This challenges conventional […]

Calling all Manufacturing Mates

Suicide affects us all. The suicide of a friend, family member or workmate can be devastating across the whole community and particularly at work. Over 3,000 Australians die from suicide each year; of these, 75 per cent of them are men. It’s a leading cause of death for people in the 25-39 age group. The pandemic has brought mental health issues into the forefront. Despite the devastating number of workers infected with Covid-19 in workplaces, Safe Work Australia have reported that nearly one in every five Covid related workers’ compensation claims were generated on mental health grounds. In manufacturing, with many predominantly male or multicultural workers, there have been barriers to discussing mental health as openly as possible. Mates in Manufacturing has been set up to remedy the challenges of suicide ideation and mental health more generally. Bringing together employers and unions and drawing on the expertise of the Mates organisation, Mates in Manufacturing is now ready to deliver its critical workplace training, building this peer-based program within our workplaces and developing the knowledge within our industry to enable us to confront this. Funding has been secured from both the NSW and Federal Governments for research by Western Sydney, Deakin and Melbourne Universities, to ensure that the programs are fit for purpose. Undertaken as a partnership between employers and unions in the sector, Mates in Manufacturing will start its rollout over November this year and will officially launch on December 10. Members of the group overseeing the project, the steering committee come from manufacturing industry leaders like Downer Group, OPAL, UGL, Stramit and Thales and are joined by the Australian Industry Group, with workers represented by the AMWU, AWU and UWU. We recognise that suicide prevention and improving mental health support transcends traditional workplace issues and that by working together […]

Overseas and Australian executives to accelerate pathways to net zero emissions

The Impact X Summit Sydney to be held on November 2-3, brings together an ambitious line-up of Australian and international leaders from government, NGOs, Indigenous organisations, and industry sectors, to discuss technology, investment, and collaborative pathways to net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner. As the world grapples with the need for urgent and genuine action to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and a 50% reduction by 2030, Australians have consistently stated that they believe the Australian Government should be doing more to address climate change, with one of the most recent polls being conducted by the Australian Conservation Foundation showing that 67% of voters overall shared this view which was held in all 151 national seats. “Under the Paris Agreement, Australia committed to reduce emissions by 26%-28% below 2005 levels by 2030, a level which is well below that of other OECD nations. “While a more ambitious target is expected soon, Australian business and industry will then need an unprecedented level of innovation, transformation and investment to deliver on our commitments. Technology will be key to this,” said Tony Gourlay, CEO of Blue Impacts, the organisation behind the summit. Matt Kean, NSW Treasurer & Minister for Energy & Environment, who has been leading the charge for net zero emissions with a series of bold policy commitments, will also be speaking at the summit. The summit will ensure that a voice is given to Indigenous Australians, who have largely been left out of the conversation on climate change. The Gaimaragal Group Founder and Director Susan Moylan-Coombs, who will be speaking at the summit said, “All Indigenous peoples globally are the caretakers of the planet. “We only took what we needed, not what we greeded. The perseverance of all Indigenous people in the face of global extractive economic practices and […]

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