Towards 3% R&D – Training the innovation workforce by Michael Edwards of Boeing

Our editorial series Towards 3% R&D – Turbocharging Australia’s Innovation Effort – requires a trained and inspired workforce. But how to achieve that? By Michael Edwards of Boeing Research and Technology. Enhancing performance, safety and efficiency of Boeing’s products and services are at the forefront of Boeing’s innovation teams’ minds when developing technological advancements for…

Towards 3% R&D – innovation in biofuels by Geoff Bell of MicroBioGen

Biofuels are one of Australia’s biggest industrial and environmental opportunities. Today in our editorial series – Towards 3% R&D – Turbocharging Australia’s Innovation Effort – Geoff Bell looks at what is needed to make promise a reality. Australia, with its extensive demand for air travel and rich natural resources like biomass, solar and wind, is…

If plastic manufacturing goes up 10%, plastic pollution goes up 10% – and we’re set for a huge surge in production

By Kathryn Willis, CSIRO; Britta Denise Hardesty, CSIRO; Katie Conlon, Ph.D., Portland State University, and Win Cowger, University of California, Riverside In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon…

Boeing and Wagner join to manufacture and utilise sustainable aviation fuels

Australian infrastructure, property development and investment management company Wagner has joined with Boeing to grow the sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) industry to help meet Australia’s airline demand for jet fuel. With demand set to grow 75 percent over the next 25 years Wagner, which owns the Wellcamp Business Park and Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport in Queensland,…

Manufacturing SMEs invited to apply for CSIRO’s Innovate to Grow course

Applications have opened for SME manufacturers to apply for CSIRO’s Innovate to Grow, a free, ten-week, online program assisting companies “embarking on early-stage R&D or those venturing into new solutions”. In a statement on Monday, the nation’s science organisation said the intake of the Advanced Manufacturing cohort would be the first following the announcement of…

Sparc Hydrogen reports success with photocatalytic water splitting

Hydrogen technology developer Sparc Hydrogen has successfully tested its second generation prototype photocatalytic water splitting (PWS) reactor atop a solar tower at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle, New South Wales (pictured). Sparc Hydrogen, a joint venture between the University of Adelaide, Fortescue and Sparc Technologies, tested over numerous trial runs the second generation prototype…