Manufacturing news briefs — stories you might have missed

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced $864,000 in funding to AGL on Thursday to develop and trial a price intensity forecasting tool to support dynamic load flexing in the commercial and industrial sectors. The $1.78 million project will initially recruit four Melbourne-based customer sites and utilise their price intensity forecasts to manage energy loads, freeing up around 25 megawatt of combined flexible load which can be used to ease pressure on the energy grid. Melbourne Airport, a warehouse and logistics company, a tier 1 supermarket chain and a water utility company will take part in the project. AGL’s tool will work by developing a pre-dispatch forecast of solar and wind generation, and thermal generator availability to produce 30-minute interval price forecasts for the next seven days. The customer sites’ process management system will plan the operation of their energy usage based on the forecast by moving load in or out of the 30-minute blocks. Through the tool, the trial customers will be able to respond to price signals and demonstrate the benefits of load flexibility without exposure to wholesale market risk.

The ACT Government is working with Canberra's local brewers to deliver a new pilot project to train the next generation of craft beer makers. According to a statement form the government, ‘Brewed to Succeed' is proposed as a state-of-the-art training program to meet the diverse requirements of the local brewing industry. “Bentspoke Brewing approached the ACT Government and CIT last year about the need for skilled workers in artisan fermented products in the beer and wine industries, ” said skills minister Chris Steel. “The Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT) is now partnering with BentSpoke to deliver a new workplace program to strengthen our local brewing businesses and train more employees in the specific skills sets they need to have a great career… “The initial program will provide teacher training for an existing expert brewer who will then deliver the course to around 12 students who are employed in the industry.” The program is being delivered by CIT in collaboration with local brewers, following a successful grant of nearly $80,000 through the Skilled to Succeed Innovation Grants Program.

World crude steel production for the 71 countries reporting to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) was 150.0 million tonnes (Mt) in October 2023, a 0.6 per cent increase compared to October 2022. China produced 79.1 Mt in October 2023 (down 1.8 per cent on October 2022.) India produced 12.1 Mt (up 15.1 per cent). Japan produced 7.5 Mt (up 2.6 per cent.) The United States produced 6.8 Mt (up 3.4 per cent.) Russia is estimated to have produced 6.3 Mt (up 9.5 per cent.) South Korea produced 5.5 Mt (up 6.5 per cent.) Germany produced 2.9 Mt (down 8.8 per cent.) Türkiye produced 3.0 Mt (up 4.2 per cent.) Brazil is estimated to have produced 2.6 Mt (down 10.2 per cent.) Iran produced 3.1 Mt (up 3.5 per cent.)

Australian Red Cross Lifeblood has teamed up with The Australian National Fabrication Facility’s Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN), and the Ramaciotti Centre for Cryo-Electron Microscopy at Monash University, to put “the world's smallest moustache” on a single blood cell. According to a statement from ANFF this week, it measured just just 5 microns across, and was developed to support global men’s health charity, Movember, and raise awareness of the role blood donation plays in men’s health. MCN engineers crafted the tiny “Mo” by layering 3D printed polymer resin on a tiny stalk and delicately attaching it to a single red blood cell using a micro manipulator. Once Lifeblood collected the cell from a volunteer blood donor in Melbourne (every blood donation contains 2.3 billion cells), the team at MCN set to work to capture the image using a FIB-SEM. Before imaging, the cell was fixed to a gold-coated slide by the team at Monash University and coated with a layer of metal about 15 nanometers thick. “FIB-SEM is capable of imaging structures as small as 1/10,000th of the width of a human hair, by employing high-energy beams of metal ions to etch and deposit tiny structures,” explained Bernie Orelup, MCN’s Engineering & Operations Manager. “The intricate process, using state-of-the-art nanofabrication techniques, allowed us to create a symbol of support for men’s health that’s invisible to the naked eye but carries a powerful message.”

“Both Holmes and its host spacecraft are healthy and stable”, Sydney-based space technology company HEO announced on Linkedin on Friday morning. “Precision pointing is very important as we aim the camera in different directions to collect imagery of satellites as they fly past at relative velocities reaching 15 km/s,” the company said, adding that “We are conducting the final fine attitude control checks before opening the aperture door for Holmes’ first image.” The Holmes Imager, a telescopic camera made by the company for collecting data from satellites in orbit, was launched on a SpaceX rocket in June, flying aboard a Droid-1 satellite made by Californian company Turion Space.

Picture: credit Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication and Monash University