By Peter Roberts Korean defence group Hanwha has made a bid to buy one of the few Australian-owned defence prime contractors, shipbuilder Austal, and take it into foreign control. The bid was confirmed this morning by the Perth shipbuilder, which has expended from aluminium ferry building to become a major defence shipbuilder in Australia and…
1414 Degrees has announced the completion of the demonstration phase of its $6 million SiBox thermal energy storage project ready for commercialisation. The company, which is developing the SiBox technology in partnership with Woodside Energy Technologies, said the system had delivered continuous process heat at levels needed for industrial use. It defined a cycle of…
The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has welcomed the lifting of punitive tariffs on Australia’s wine exports by China. Speaking at Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley wine region Albanese said the flow on of the Chinese change of heart would be enormous. Albanese said: “Now, when the impediments to trade with China were put in place,…
The federal government has announced a $1 billion Solar SunShot scheme in association with the NSW government to support the development of solar panel manufacturing in Australia. Solar SunShot will help Australia capture more of the global solar manufacturing supply chain through support, including production subsidies and grants. This will help ensure more solar panels…
Silicon quantum processor manufacturer Diraq has announced a breakthrough in the operation of its processors overcoming one of the drawbacks of the technology – that quantum systems usually run at ultra low temperatures and need cumbersome cooling systems. The Sydney company revealed the results in a paper published in the journal Nature today showing that…
By Peter Roberts Queensland’s ARM Hub is supporting a local start-up to build a smart lithium battery for Australian homes, at the same time demonstrating its unusual-for-Australia innovation model. The batteries have a special casing that enables them to be repaired remotely, and the company, Vaulta, is scaling their pilot assembly plant at the ARM…
Imaging company EMVision Medical Devices is preparing for a meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration as it edges closer to seeking approval to market its emu point of care scanner to detect stroke. The company has been developing a system that uses microwaves and AI in a machine small enough to fit in…
By Peter Roberts The decision that BAE Systems Australia and ASC Pty Ltd are to build SSN‑AUKUS submarines in Adelaide promises to return government-owned ASC closer to the role originally intended when then defence minister Kim Beazley established the ASC to build the Collins Class submarine. The company, which will now also sustain Virginia and…
Communications and defence contractor Electro Optic Systems is to raise $35 million to cater for growth including purchasing long lead time items such as cannon for its in-demand remote weapons systems (RWS, pictured). There has been a surge of recent orders for its large and especially small RWS systems – these enable missiles, cannon and…
The ability of electric powered machines to do the job – even towing a caravan – has been demonstrated with Fortescue’s first operational electric excavator reaching one million tonnes of ore moved. Over the past three months, the excavator had been running at partial capacity while the Cloudbreak mine site team familiarised themselves with the…