Best of the week — the five most popular stories among readers, August 5 – August 9, 2024

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to @AuManufacturing were reading.

5) Ghost Shark autonomous submarine to be manufactured in Sydney

The federal government has delivered on its promise of more rapid defence decision making, accelerating the manufacture of the Ghost Shark underwater autonomous vehicle for undersea surveillance, reconnaissance and strike at a new factory to be built in Australia.

The government has already spent $90 million along with Anduril Industries developing the very large autonomous submarine and invest another $20.1 million in a $40 million project to build infrastructure to transition the Ghost Shark program from prototype development to production.

Work began on the Ghost Shark only in May 2022, and with the first vessel to be built by 2025 marks an extraordinarily rapid R&D, prototyping, manufacture, purchase and deployment cycle – defence procurement for such complex systems has in the past taken as much as a decade.

4) VAILO aims to have upcoming Gold Coast factory “fully operational” by year’s end

LED lighting manufacturer VAILO has announced that it will re-establish its production on the Gold Coast, citing growth opportunities on the east coast including the upcoming 2032 Brisbane Olympics.

In a statement on Tuesday, the company – which was established in Adelaide in 2012 as a lighting wholesaler – added that it would not leave its birthplace entirely, and will invest in a new R&D facility at the Tonsley Innovation Precinct.

“VAILO will be better placed for the major investments being made into sporting and other infrastructure ahead of the Brisbane Olympic games and will benefit from being part of an entrepreneurial, innovative and progressive environment in which to conduct business,” said founder and CEO Aaron Hickmann.

3) CSIRO staff appeal against widespread job cuts – 700 under threat

Staff have called for Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic’s intervention to head off the destruction of more than 700 jobs in CSIRO.

In an open letter to Husic the CSIRO Staff Association said: “Our national science agency is under attack from within.

“CSIRO’s core purpose and the ability of its staff to deliver world class research are being undermined by significant restructuring and associated job losses.”

2) Bowen’s huge week of green energy announcements

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has topped off a national tour of green energy projects across the country with the inauguration of a community battery in Bondi, New South Wales.

Flanked by CEOs Marc England of Ausgrid, Frank Calabria of Origin and Mark Collett of Energy Australia he revealed that the government would be able to finance more than the 400 batteries initially envisaged.

1) Trends back rebirth of Australian green iron and steel sector

Much of Australia’s modesty sized steel sector was born through the adversity of distance from established suppliers and the threat Japan posed to Australia during WW2.

Since then there has been some development of electric arc furnaces utilising scrap as a feedstock, but otherwise Japan, then Korea and China have swamped Australian plans such as that of Lang Hancock who envisioned a WA-Queensland linked steel renaissance.

A renaissance looks increasingly close with the twin trends of decarbonisation of hard to abate steel plus new routes to steel manufacture that rely on magnetite ore rather than traditional haematite which dominates Australia’s iron ore exports, writes Peter Roberts.

Picture: credit Ausgrid