Australia is in a “global race” to stake a claim in the booming solar manufacture market – a supply chain spanning polysilicon, wafers, cells and modules that in 2021 was valued in excess of $US40 billion, an increase of more than 70% from 2020.

At the moment, China has an iron grip on the market, with a share in all of the manufacturing stages of solar panels exceeding 80%. According to the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, the nation’s annual export of solar PV products surpassed $US51 billion in 2022 – a year-on-year increase of 80.3%.

But can Australia muscle its way in?

Wyatt Roy, a former member of the federal Coalition government – and minister for innovation under Malcolm Turnbull – believes it can. And in his current role of strategic advisor to Sydney-based PV innovator and manufacturing start-up SunDrive Solar, Roy is doing his bit to bring some of those global solar billions home.

“You know, Australians love to talk ourselves down. But we literally invented modern solar technology,” Roy told One Step Off The Grid’s Solar Insiders Podcast this week.

“I think last year, globally, there was about $50 billion of revenue in the solar industry, essentially using IP from Australia.

“Unfortunately, very little value of that today is captured in Australia. As we know, 85 to 90% of the world’s solar panels are now manufactured in China. We’re very determined to change that.”

Australia’s voice to parliament Polling catchments where Indigenous Australians form more than 50% of the population voted on average 63% in favour of the voice

Brett Boag holds a small square of what appears to be ordinary wooden, 20-millimetre-thick chipboard.

Only this material is heavier and startlingly stronger.

Bulletproof in fact.

During a recent test in the United States, it withstood even a burst from a high-powered AK-47.

"It's phenomenally tough. We're making products that are even way in excess of the hardest hardwoods, very high impact resistance as well," said Mr Boag, who manufactures construction materials at a factory east of Melbourne.

The products are made from hemp — one of the toughest plants on the planet. ...

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) has released a statement urging the government to be more ambitious with its energy targets – net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035.

This is just one day after the Climate Council called on the government to do the same.

“The science is unequivocal, the climate induced catastrophes are irrefutable. ATSE calls for leaders across every Australian sector to join us in making Australia a frontrunner amongst global peers, in setting an ambitious target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035,” said ATSE President Dr Katherine Woodthorpe.

“To meet this ambition, with the Federal Government in the driver’s seat, Australia should prioritise upskilling our workforce, and develop and urgently apply evidence-based solutions across all industry sectors – particularly in energy, transportation, manufacturing, construction, minerals and agriculture.”

The position statement highlighted six top priorities. They included developing new policy for the energy network, limiting waste, and increasing the electrification of the transport industry.

“We’re the engineers and the applied scientists, we’re the ones where the rubber hits the road – who work out how to do this,” Woodthorpe told RenewEconomy.

“And we’re saying it’s doable. It’s not easy. It’s a huge task, but it’ll set Australia’s economy up for the future in a world where climate will be a real issue.”

A major change to Australian design rules promises to be a “game changer” for Australia’s shift to electric freight transport.

The new rule announced by the federal government will allow wider trucks on Australian roads, bringing the country in line with overseas markets and removing one of the key barriers to local uptake of heavy duty electric trucks, as most overseas-built models were just a few centimetres too wide to meet Australia’s previous standards.

“This Safer Freight Vehicles package responds to direct calls from industry to increase the width limit of trucks and follows extensive public consultation and feedback,” said federal assistant minister for infrastructure and transport Carol Brown.

“These changes will be a real game changer for industry, businesses and other road users, as they will save lives by adopting technology to reduce the likelihood of crashes, while also lowering freight costs and supporting better environmental outcomes.”

The change increases the overall width limit from 2.50 to 2.55 metres for new trucks, as long as they are fitted with safety features such as side guards and devices to limit blind spots.

Former Australian prime minister’s nomination revealed a day after Rupert Murdoch retired as chair of Fox and News Corp

Federal Labor has binned hundreds of millions of Kyoto “carryover” carbon credits, permanently removing the option for them to be used in to shrink Australia’s emissions reduction task and shirk its climate responsibilities.

Federal energy and climate minister Cris Bowen announced the move on Friday, day two of the 10th Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit in Sydney, and confirmed it in person at the event.

“My colleague, assistant minister Jenny McAllister, has signed the instruction which cancels them, they’re gone,” he told the summit on Friday morning.

Australia’s surplus Kyoto credits, which had amassed to more than 700 million, have for years been a blight on Australia’s climate efforts, even when those efforts themselves amounted to the better part of nothing at all.

In 2019, the Morrison Coalition government had sought to use the credits, created under the Kyoto Protocol through soft targets and convenient accounting loopholes, to further minimise its already paltry climate mitigation efforts.

The New South Wales Labor government has confirmed it will turn to consumers and local and shared storage as part of its plans to spend $1.8 billion to fast track its response to the proposed closure of the country’s biggest coal generator in two years time.

The Minns Government on Wednesday outlined a $1.8 billion “boost” to help “rescue NSW’s energy transition”, and fill the gap that will be created by Origin Energy’s planned closure of the 2.88GW Eraring coal facility in August, 2025.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has said that if government tenders for nearly a gigawatt of “firm power” and other renewable and storage projects are delivered on time, then there should be no breach of the country’s tight reliability standards.

But NSW – fearing delays in project delivery and commissioning – has decided to fast-track other measures that could boost the capacity and reliability of the grid over the short term.

The $1.8 billion package – announced at the site of a new community battery at Blacktown in western Sydney – includes a previously announced $1 billion to establish the Energy Security Corporation.

This was largely seen as a vehicle to support pumped hydro storage, which hasn’t been able to compete with batteries even when the guidelines require eight-hour storage.

...

Labor says non-payment of super should be in the same category as wage theft, but [they have not included it as a criminal offence in their industrial relations bill and] the ATO has never used existing criminal powers [as far as I could tell from the article the only powers the ATO has is fines, and fines mean next to nothing when a business has already declared bankruptcy]

Many of us are now dressed head to toe in plastic.

A textile derived from the same non-renewable source as takeaway containers, has grown to make up more than half of the clothes bought in Australia.

Polyester is durable, cheap, and dries quickly. It’s also easy to print patterns on.

It’s commonly used by itself or as a blend with other textiles. It’s used for gym clothes and sports uniforms, party dresses, work attire, and many cheap fast fashion items.

And every purchase is taking an environmental toll.

One Australian study by RMIT found a single 100 per cent polyester T-shirt has a carbon footprint — from creation through to when you dump it in the bin — equivalent to 20.56 kilograms of CO2 emissions (CO2e).

That’s equivalent to driving 140 kilometres. Buy just six tops, and that gets you all the way from Melbourne to Sydney.

So, what’s involved in getting a T-shirt from a fossil fuel, to the one you might be wearing right now? Here’s its journey along the supply chain.

Former Liberal MP, who is undertaking a six-month ultramarathon around Australia in support of the referendum, says he’s ‘incredibly disappointed this has become a political issue’ ‐‐------------- The article is full of some really good quotes, including

“I’ve come across communities drinking bore water all their lives and then they need dialysis at an early age, kidney failure, when all they need is a filtration system on their water, but nobody’s listening – instead government is dishing out buildings for them they don’t need,” he says “These people have been neglected for such a long period of time. Everything we have in place just isn’t working. It’s not addressing the early mortality rate, more Indigenous people in the prison system, health and infrastructure needs. It makes sense that we need a different approach.” “I’ve heard things said by politicians that they want more detail – that’s just a lie, they know they create the detail, as part of the processes the Australian people will vote on,” he says. “Then it’s up to the politicians to nut that out in the parliament, what the detail is and then vote on it and get good policy in place. I’ve said to Coalition members, ‘Why not let the Australian people decide, then you can argue to the nth degree when it gets to the parliament’ – but they’re just being antagonistic.”

Some compelling insight. Mad props to this guys!