Solar above, batteries below: here’s how warehouses and shopping centres could produce 25% of Australia’s power

By Bruce Mountain, Victoria University Imagine if Australian cities became major producers of clean energy, rather than relying on far-flung solar and wind farms. Far fetched? Hardly. Our cities and towns are full of warehouses, commercial areas, shopping centres and factories. These types of buildings have one very important underutilised resource – large expanses of…

Best of the week — the five most popular stories among readers, July 22 – July 26, 2024

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to @AuManufacturing were reading. 5) Civmec and Austal join forces for landing ship bid Engineering firm Civmec and shipbuilder Austal have executed a memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form a Joint Venture (JV) to submit a proposal to the government to support the project LAND8710…

Small modular reactors have promise. But we found they’re unlikely to help Australia hit net zero by 2050

By Ian Lowe, Griffith University and Kylie Walker, Australian National University Australia’s clean energy transition is already underway, driven by solar, wind, batteries and new transmission lines. But what about nuclear? Opposition leader Peter Dutton last month committed to building nuclear reactors on the site of retired coal plants – triggering intense debate over whether…

Best of the week — the five most popular stories among readers, July 15 – July 19, 2024

What were the five biggest stories of the week? Here’s what visitors to @AuManufacturing were reading. 5) Fortescue backpedals on green hydrogen, heads downstream Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue has backpedaled on its ambitions in green hydrogen, reorganising the mining and energy company and focusing more on familiar downstream green energy opportunities. The company, which has taken what some…

$13 million in critical minerals grants awarded to Renascor, Queensland Pacific Metals

The federal government has announced a total of $13 million in grants to Queensland Pacific Metals and Renascor Resources through the International Partnerships in Critical Minerals program. Each grant supports up to half of project costs, with $5 million to Renascor Resources for its pilot purified spherical graphite (PSG) project and $8 million to Queensland…

Without a massive grid upgrade, the Coalition’s nuclear plan faces a high-voltage hurdle

By Asma Aziz, Edith Cowan University Keeping the lights on in Australia is a complex task. Enough capacity must be ensured everywhere in the country, at every moment. Surplus in one location won’t solve shortages in another, unless we have the transmission infrastructure to transmit electricity between them. The transmission network largely consists of high-voltage…