as the Australian Government's new Industry Innovation and Competition Agenda,
ARDR DOSSIER
have drawn attention to Australia's ongoing struggle with the translation of new ideas into real world applications.
In this dossier, we report on these events and provide a comprehensive review of Australia's innovation performance compared to the rest of the world
...read the dossier
announced $129.4 million in funding, including $108.7 million for 9 NHMRC Program Grants, the second largest NHMRC support scheme.
The analysis of the grants again confirms the concentration of Australia's medical research funding in Victoria.
As is shown in the infographic, Victoria outshines all other states and territories in terms of absolute funding and also relative to its population size... read full story
Australia's power generation mix is rapidly changing, as shown by two recent reviews: the 2015 Electricity Generation Major Projects report released by the Australian chief economist, and the Australian Power Generation and Technology report released by the CO2CRC.
According to the chief economist's report, the share of coal in the fuel mix dropped to 61% in 2013-14, down from 79% a decade ago, with gas and renewables increasing their share to 22% and 15%, respectively...read full story
possibly the largest resource of 'blue carbon' in the world - its coastal wetlands alone were estimated to contain in the order of 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon - and this presents opportunities for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere (reviewed in our previous story 'Sinking feelings'.
However, it is still uncertain how blue carbon could be included in national green house gas inventories.
To change this, the National Environmental Science Programme (NESP) is funding a project that aims to determine how much carbon could be stored in coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass beds and salt marshes...read full story
of the National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, the Australian Government accepts that our climate is already changing and will further change because of past emissions.
The average surface temperature in Australia has risen by 0.9 °C since 1910 amd global average sea levels increased by 0.19 metres between 1901 and 2010.
This makes it necessary not only to mitigate further warming trends but also to adapt to already locked in climate related changes, such as declining rainfalls in Australia's south...read full story
grant application is no small feat and the agency's assessment process is a major operation. However, in most instances this work is wasted, and this inefficiency in the system has become worse over recent years.
To demonstrate this: In its 2015 funding round, which includes a major announcement in early November, the agency funded only 516 of the 3758 applications received under its major funding scheme, the NHMRC Project Grants. This means that 86.3% of grant applications, often involving weeks if not months of work, were a futile effort...read full story
ARC major grants (for grants commencing in 2016) delivered $357 million for 899 research projects across four individual ARC grant schemes:
Discovery Projects - $244.9 million for 635 project;
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - $70.7 million for 200 projects;
Discovery Indigenous - $4.1 million for 10 projects; and
Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment, and Facilities - $37.9 million for 54 projects.
The Discovery Projects grant scheme, which accounts for most of the annually available ARC major grant funding, received 3584 proposals, of which 635 projects were selected for funding. This equates to an overall success rate of 17.7% - slightly less than in the previous year when 18% of the proposals were successful. The provided total funding of $245 million also fell short of the $250 million awarded in the previous year...read full story
Lots of fruit, little juice
At first glance, Australia's innovation system
is improving:
While the Global Innovation Index 2015, released in September, ranked Australia's overall 17th against 141 analysed nations, the same as in 2014, there was a significant jump in the ranking of its innovation system efficiency, from 81st place in 2014 to 72nd place in 2015.
The problem is, though, that such direct comparisons of innovative capacity make only sense when the economic context is similar.
And when this is considered the gloss loses some of its shine rather quickly...read full story
first commercial diesel displacement solar plant has started generating electricity.
Under a long-term power purchase arrangement, the generated power will support Rio Tinto's Weipa bauxite mine, processing facilities and township on the Western Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia...read full story
temperatures it is expected that rising sea levels will increase coastal erosion.
But coastal communities in the Pacific region are independently threatened by another consequence of climate change, according to new research published in Nature Geoscience...read full story
has been a controversial trade off between environmental concerns and the interests of irrigators, and this is not going to change as its implementation is taking form.
In September, the Water Amendment Bill 2015 passed the Senate, delivering on a promise the Coalition made before the 2013 federal election that it would implement a 1500 gigalitre (GL) cap on environmental water purchases...read full story
Losing sight of average...
...and never mind the leaders.
4 September 2015 - The willingness and
capacity of businesses to spend resources on R&D will be a major test for the Australian Government's ambition to boost industry innovation and competitiveness.
Prior to the global financial crisis (GFC), the rise in Australia's business expenditure on R&D (BERD) enabled Australia to almost catch up with the average level of R&D intensity* across OECD countries (*measured as a nation's gross spending on R&D relative to its GDP).
But in 2008-09 the ratio of BERD to GDP began again to decline and, as recent data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show, the negative trend continued in 2013-14...read full story
Tangled in the web
August 2015 - The internet is thought
to be a new frontier for innovation and business growth.
Commercial activities via the net are on the rise and having a web presence is seen as one of the relevant indicators that businesses are taking up the opportunities the web can provide.
For example, a 2011 report from the McKinsey Global Institute found that those businesses that did present themselves on the web grew and exported twice as much as those that had minimal or no presence, and this was found across sectors.
But while in some developed markets about two-thirds of all businesses have a web presence of some kind, the Australian business sector is lagging this trend...read full story
Netting in
The internet is rapidly changing
business models
within the Information Media and Telecommunications (IMT) industry as traditional media platforms, such as non-internet based publishing and broadcasting, struggle to keep their income base...read full story
Together forever
28 August 2015 - It has been on the drawing
board for a while,
but now its decided: NICTA and CSIRO's Digital Productivity flagship will merge and form a new CSIRO entity called Data61.
It will be headed by Australian technology entrepreneur Adrian Turner, who said in a statement that Data61 would harness the start-up culture of NICTA and the multidisciplinary strength of CSIRO.
the Australian Government's Oceans Policy Science Advisory Group led by Professor John Gunn published a position paper Marine Nation 2025: Marine Science to Support Australia's Blue Economy
Its major recommendation was to develop a ten year plan for improving our marine science capabilities and to develop the 'blue economy' potential of our marine estate.
A National Marine Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Professor Gunn, was formed and with input from 500 scientists and stakeholders the group of experts developed the now released marine science strategy for the period 2015-2025...read full story>
Broadbandits rolling on
24 August 2015 - NBN Co has released
its 2016 Corporate Plan, according to which all Australian homes and businesses will have access to high-speed broadband by 2020, in line with previous projections.
In each of the next three years the project could double the number of connected premises, with 9.1 million serviced homes and business generating $1.7 billion in annual revenue projected for the financial year 2018, broadly in line with previous projections (see insert).
But the rollout will come at a significantly higher cost than previously thought, as the peak funding requirement is now estimated at between $46 billion and $56 billion...read full story
Unforgettable commitments
7 August 2015 - Alzheimers' Australia
has won the contract to establish and run a $50 million NHMRCNational Institute for Dementia Research (NNIDR).
The new institute is to boost Australia's capacity in dementia research while ensuring that it is well integrated with international developments.
To this end, the institute is expected to align Australia's dementia research effort with the work of the World Dementia Council, which was founded at the G8 dementia summit in December 2013 with the stated ambition to identify a cure, or a disease-modifying therapy, for dementia by 2025...read full story
Food on the white board
4 July 2015 - A number of factors can be
attributed to Australia's ongoing success in agriculture, including past policy reforms that made decision-making in the sector more reponsive to market forces.
"Instead, future opportunities for government to promote agricultural productivity growth may come from reducing regulatory burdens, improving the efficiency of the rural research, development and extension system, and building human capital through improving labour availability and skills."
Many of these issues find attention in the now releasedAgricultural Competitiveness White Paper...read the full story
Northern delightenment
18 June 2015 - In June last year, the
Australian Government'sGreen Paper on Developing Northern Australia
laid out a case to renew the effort towards developing northern Australia (covered in our previous story Northern Dreaming). The release of the White Paper, which has the aspiring title Our North, Our Future, is the next step towards making good on a core election promise.
The diverse package of initiatives outlined in the policy paper are to trigger the accelerated economic expansion of a region that spans three million square kilometres north of the Tropic of Capricorn across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland...read full story
Long-distance check
30 June 2015 - The application of electronic
health technology in tele-medicine is gaining pace in Australia.
In a latest example, the CSIRO reports on clinical trials in which satellite broadband and CSIRO's Remote-I platform were used to screen the eyes of 100 patients from the Torres Strait Islands and southern Western Australia while they stayed at their local community centres...read full story
Great hit or big miss?
In June, Environment Minister Greg
Hunt gave an
example of how to make a pig look like a fashion model. "Certainty and growth for renewable energy" it said in the heading of a media statement in which he announced that the Australian Government's changes to the renewable energy target (RET) had passed the Senate.
Given that for more than a year the Australian renewables industry had to operate in an environment where nothing was certain and growth all but stalled, the outcome can indeed be interpreted as a period of calm after a war. The pig is not dead, but it surely is not looking Miss World either...read full story
Renewable smoothing
3 June 2015 - The potential of using batteries
for storing renewable energy has recently received substantial media coverage, especially after Tesla unveiled its 'Powerwall' battery suit for domestic use.
The world (especially outside Australia) is moving fast in building renewable energy capacity. But with it comes the need to efficiently store this energy either to be used off-grid or to feed into the grid outside times of peak demand.read full story
Cooperative review
May 2015 - The review of the
Cooperative Research Centre Program by David Miles, which
was commissioned by the Australian Government in 2014, has found the program is valuable and effective, although there is room for improvement.
The government has accepted all of its 18 recommendations, which means the program will continue despite the renewed funding cuts detailed in the 2015-16 budget (another $26 million over the next four years). The government has also already put in place a new CRC Advisory Group, as was recommended by Mr Miles, and it will strengthen the commercial focus of the program...read full story
Perth Wave Energy Project (PWEP) at Western Australia's Garden Island in February, Carnegie Wave Energy could celebrate the world's first grid-connected project operating multiple wave units.
The PWEP is also on train to become the first project that not only produces power but also freshwater, with both products supplied to the Australian Defence Force naval base, HMAS Stirling.
The power plant with a capacity of 700 kilowatt took around ten years to build at a cost of close to $100 million. Both the Western Australian and Australian Government contributed significantly, with $13 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and $10 million from the state's Low Emissions Energy Development (LEED) program)...read full story
Heavenly peeks
The 11 international partners of the Giant
Magellan Telescope (GMT) project have signed off on the construction of the first generation of the telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert.
The agreement will now unlock over US$500 million of the around US$1 billion the project is estimated to cost. Only two nations outside the American continent participate (Korea and Australia), while seven of the 11 partner organisations are from the US.
The lack of European partners is explained by their own, fully tax payer funded project, the 40-meter European Large Telescope, which will also be at a site in Chile.
And a third giant telescope project is going to be built at a site in Hawai, with participation from the US, China, Canada, India and Japan...read full story
Busy money for changing habits
20 May - The Australian Government has
announced nineteen projects that will receive between $1 million and $5 million under its $50 million Manufacturing Transition Programme.
The initiative seeks to encourage Australian businesses to invest in sophisticated and knowledge-intensive manufacturing, and the successful applicants are expected to contribute a further $200 million towards new equipment and plant improvements.
Government has awarded eight new offshore petroleum permits to bidders in the first round of the 2014 Offshore Acreage Release.
The new permits are targeting areas in Commonwealth waters off Western Australia and in the Territory of the Ashmore and Cartier Islands, off the northwestern coast of Australia. Together they could leverage $263 million in investment from Australia's exploration industry...read full story
Innovation highways
14 May 2015 - The Australian Government
won praise from the research
community for its decision to keep the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) going for another two years, with $300 million allocated in the May budget. However, the funding is only meant to bridge the time until the government's review of research infrastructure is finalised, and a long term funding strategy is developed.
In 2015-16, NCRIS will provide $136.9 million for 27 facilities supporting a wide range of nationally significant research outcomes. These include new cancer testing methods, advances in quantum computing, a better understanding of the oceans, weather and climate, as well as improved crop productivity and more detailed environmental monitoring...read full story
Trialling one-stop shop
20 May 2015 - The new fashion of one-stop
shops has its latest addition in the online one-stop for clinical trials, launched in May.
The website is part of the Australian Government's $9.9 million commitment to accelerate clinical trials reform, and is done in collaboration between NHMRC, the Department of Health and Sport, and the Department for Industry and Science.
The site will help patient's to get informed of the trials available across Australia, and how trials work, who can enrol, and what is required of patients. The site will also facilitate contacts between patients and a trial's lead researcher.
will provide $18.7 million for four new research hubs targeting priority research areas such as sustainable agriculture, offshore oil and a future fibre industry.
Another $20.9 million will support five new training centres covering research areas such as mining, forestry and biosecurity...read full story
Auctioned Abatement
23 April - The first Emissions Reduction
Fund auction, administered by the Australian Government's Clean Energy Regulator, has awarded businesses and individuals 107 contracts worth $660.4 million.
The contracts cover 144 project, which are expected to result in 47 million tonnes of green house gas abatement over a period of between three to ten years, at a per tonne cost of $13.94.
...read the full story
discussion paper on the safeguard mechanism that is to ensure that the purchased emissions reductions are not offset by rises in emissions elsewhere...read the full story
Trend worries
Data presented in the Quarterly
Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: September 2014 report indicate that a trend decline in emissions since September quarter 2011 reversed in the September quarter 2014....read the full story
Measuring success
April 2015 - In its recent report Research
Engagement for Australia, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) has proposed a metrics system through which engagement between university researchers and private and public sector partners could be measured.
Among OECD countries Australia rates low on knowledge transfer between the public and the private sector, and this contributes to the traditionally poor commercialisation of discoveries made in our universities...read full story
New carrot from the boss
The 2015 Prime Minister's Prizes
for
Science will for the first time also recognise the practical and commercial successes of Australian scientists with a new award...read full story
Party on a budget
The $5.5 billion Growing Jobs and Small
Business initiative may indeed be the most exciting bit in this year's 'dull' 2015-16 federal budget.
The pharmaceutical industries will also be happy about $1.3 billion towards the listing of new medicines and vaccines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Large savings affecting the scheme - up to $5 billion over four years were predicted by some in the media - did not eventuate.
There was a small boost for the environment, with an additional $174 million provided for the Government's 'Green Army' initiative. Previously announced were an additional $100 million for the Reef Trust, which was established last year to oversee investments into projects that benefit the Great Barrier Reef (see 'Our beef with the reef').
And the Government gave medical researchers also something to look forward to with the first distributions from the Medical Research Future Fund - $10 million in 2015-16. However, this would require the legislation to be passed, which at present seems highly unlikely. Still, the MRF could potentially deliver around $400 million over four years in addition to NHMRC research funding.
..read full story
Energetically productive
April 2015 - The release of the Australian
Government's Energy White Paper drew mixed responses. Thus various political and academic quarters criticised a failure to properly address climate change, with some commentators pointing out that climate change was scarcely mentioned in the document.
Compared to the previous 2012 Energy White Paper, which had a stronger emphasis on renewable energy development, the focus has indeed shifted towards consumer needs. Thus, the overarching vision for the Australian energy sector is now to provide competitively priced and reliable energy to households, businesses and international markets...read full story
Vapour power
The first hydrogen fuel cell
powered passenger vehicle has arrived in Australia.
With the import of the Hyundai SUV ix35 Fuel Cell, Hyundai also installed Australia's first solar powered hydrogen refuelling station.
Hydrogen has the advantage that it can be produced from water using a variety of energy sources, ideally renewable energy, and that its use in fuel cells only produces energy and water.
The ARDR reviewed hydrogen as an energy carrier in 2008 (It can be downloaded here). Back then experts from CSIRO Energy predicted an import of the first hydrogen cars into Australia by 2022-2024.
announced the third major installment of the 2014 NHMRC health and medical research grants. It included $98.3 million for 11 program grants, the agency's largest grants supporting long term broad, multi-disciplinary and collaborative research in some of the most complex areas of health and medical research.
Click infographic to explore
The chance of winning NHMRC support has traditionally been low, but it is now getting even tougher for Australian health and medical researchers. The overall success rate for application based grants dropped from 22% in 2013 to 18% in 2014. Accordingly, the success rate for NHMRC Project Grants, which account for the bulk of the agency's funding, also significantly dropped, from 16.9% in 2013 down to 15.0% in 2014...read full story
Targeted revolution
A new NHMRC Targeted Call for
Research (TCR)
initiative will provide up to $25 million across five years for a project that explores genomics medicine for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.
The TCR into Preparing Australia for the Genomics Revolution in Health Care is one of the largest grant initiatives in NHMRC's history and is part of the agency's effort to build a rigorous base of evidence for the use of genomics in the mangement of diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
..read full story
One for everything
18 March 2015 - Global IT firm CISCO
has announced it will invest US$15 million over five years in a Cisco Internet of Everything (IoE) Innovation Centre in Australia.
Click image to enlarge
One of eight globally, the centre will include locations in Perth at Curtin University and in Sydney at Sirca, a not-for-profit firm supporting data-intensive financial research in universities...read full story
Our beef with the reef
In March, the Australian and Queensland
Governments
jointly released a 35 year plan for the long-term sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage Area (see also our previous story "Reefing up").
As part of the Reef 2050 Long Term Sustainability Plan (Reef Plan), the governments announced new funding commitments targeting the reef's health, including an additional $100 million from the Australian Government for the Reef Trust initiative.
Established in 2014 with $40 million, the Reef Trust will consolidate investments in projects that aim to improve the reef's health. Its funding priorities will be directed by an independent scientific panel chaired by Australia's chief scientist Professor Ian Chubb.
..read full story
It's the climate, stupid
With each of its five assessement
reports the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) raised the level of confidence about the planet's unfortunate climate trajectory and that human activities play an important part in it. In their latest report in 2014, the IPCC concluded that anthropogenic activities are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
Yet their is still considerable uncertainty about important drivers of regional weather outcomes. An example of this is our limited understanding of extreme El Niño and La Niña events and how they will affect Pacific nations in the future...read full story
Reductionists at auction
February 2015- The Australian
Government has announced that businesses will be able to submit their bids for emissions reductions into the first competitive Emissions Reduction Fund auction on 15 April 2015. The bids will have to specify a certain price per tonne of emissions reductions...read full story
face of Australia's industry highlights the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Australia's economy.
The inaugural Australian Industry Report 2014 by the Chief Economist's office shows there are risks outside our control, such as a potential 'hard landing' of China's economy and, "possibly the greatest risk", unsustainable debt levels in developed countries. Trade-exposed industries also suffer under the persistenly high dollar, and the increasing competition from low wage countries....read full story
These could potentially translate into investment of more than $600 million over the next six years.
...read full story
...and no stop for the shop
The Australian Government is
progressing with its plan
to create a single environmental approval process for projects that may impact on nationally protected matters (see also our previous story 'One for all'...read full story
Broadly banded
After changing the overall strategy
of the National Broadband Network (NBN)
project earlier in 2014, the Australian Government is taking steps towards a broader reform of the telecommunications sector.
In December 2014, it released a policy paper detailing a new regulatory environment for
NBN Co, the company tasked with the NBN project, and its market competitors ...read full story
Never ending appetite
3 December 2014 - The demand for data
and content from internet sources continues to rapidly increase, while growth in the number of Australians having a home internet connection stabilised at 14.7 million (81%) in 2013-14...read full story
Foody strength
5 December 2014 - The National
Agricultural and
NAESP on youtube
Environmental Sciences Precinct (NAESP) at CSIRO’s redeveloped
$200 million Black Mountain site in Canberra was launched in December.
read full story
Hunger games
Raising Australia's competitiveness
in agriculture will be the main objective of the Agriculture Competitiveness White Paper
commissioned by the Australian Government.
In its lead up, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce released a Green Paper in late October, which summarises almost 700 submissions from stakeholders...read full story
Indian appetite
According to a recent report by
the
Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), India's food consumption is set to rise by 136% between 2009 and 2050, driven by population and personal income growth across the continent.
However, there are marked difference in the expected increase in demand across food industries. Thus, demand for fruit is set to increase by 256%, vegetables by 183% and dairy products by 137%. Together, these industries account for 77% of the total projected rise in food consmption by 2050...read full story
Spacious clean-up
2 December 2014 - With another review
of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) programme underway, this time led by business leader David Miles, a new CRC is taken up work on lowering the risk for satellites to be hit by space debris...read full story
Space junk; image:NASA
Ice telling the story
17 December 2014 - Australia's
recent prolonged
drought was far from being a historic anomaly for eastern Australia during the past thousand years.
A study published by the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in the journal Geophysical Research Letters shows that droughts lasting longer than five years are indeed a normal part of the country's long-term climate variability...read full story
Reefing up
September 2014 - As requested by the
World Heritage Committee in 2011,
the Australian and Queensland Governments released a discussion paper on a 35 year plan for the long-term sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef.
The Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan aims to protect not only the enormous ecological and cultural importance of the reef, but also the economic value it represents for Australia, with activities in the area worth around $5.6 billion ...read full story
Bright cruises
December-March 2014/15 - Australia's new
marine research vessel, the RV investigator is now officially in service, supported by $85 million from the federal purse.
The new vessel features $20 million of purpose built scientific equipment facilitating research areas including oceanographic, biological, atmosphheric and geoscience research.
The range of potential research objectives will cover the discovery of new oil and gas reserves, the study of deep ocean marine life, and the harnessing of weather related data in remote locations such as the Southern and Indian Oceans.read full story
Nurtured success
August 2014 - The $482.2 million over five years
Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme announced in the 2014 federal budget is taking shape, with a phased delivery of services having commenced in July 2014.
...read full story
Renewed worries
The Australian renewable energy industry
is experiencing a shake up, after years of stellar growth.
If the scrapping of the nation's first carbon price mechanism sent a message that the new industry is in for a difficult ride, the recent Warburton Review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) confirmed that the political wind coming from Canberra has changed direction.
Here we provide a broader update on recent developments in the sector,
including a summary of the Warburton Review ...read full story
Healthy investments
August 2014 - The NHMRC has awarded
Explore infographic.
research grants and fellowships worth a total of $71.2 million,
including 74 new NHMRC Research Fellowships totalling $54.6 million for Australia's top performing medical researchers.
...read full story
...and ageing demands
Among the various measures
targeting special areas of medical research, the Australian Government's 2014-2015 federal budget included an additional $200 million for dementia research.
...read full story
Celebrated translation
While Australia's strength in basic
medical research is well recognised,
the translation of discoveries into practice and policy outcomes remains a major challenge - often described as crossing a 'valley of death'.
In July, the NHMRC took another step towards addressing this with the launch of the Advanced Health Research and Translational Centre program.
...read full story
Being special...
10 July 2014 - The Australian
Government has formally approved a $35 million investment into Type 1 juvenile diabetes research, an initiative first announced in the 2014-2015 federal budget ...read full story
Space to the future
15 July - The Australian National
University has officially opened the doors to its new space engineering infrastrucure, the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre (AITC).
It is unique in Australia in that it provides for the engineering of space equipment right from the design stage through to the launch-pad ready stage ...read full story
Champions league
July/August 2014 - The ARC has awarded
Explore infographics
16 new
Australian Laureate Fellowships together worth $42 million, and 150 new
Future Fellowships together worth $115 million.
...read full story
its new Exploration Development Incentive (EDI), which is to be effective from July 2014.
The paper was released while the legislation was still in its final stages.
The proposed scheme is intended to boost 'greenfields' mineral exploration projects, which now have reached a 10 year low......read full story
Big picture dollars
2 July 2014 - The Australian Academy
of Science will develop
strategic decadal plans for Australia's chemistry, agricultural science, and earth sciences to ensure the nation's success in these key disciplines.
...read full story
Uni-fying affairs
Here you find stories covering
recent developments
in our universities. These and related stories can also be found in the dedicated 'university' page (see 'sections' in the ARDR menu at the top of the page.)
...read recent uni stories
Northern dreaming
The Australian Government's Green
Paper On Developing Northern Australia, released in June, envisions significant opportunities for an economically already thriving region of Australia, with the resources industry at the core of its economic expansion.
The Green Paper is part of a process towards a broader policy framework for the region's ongoing economic development, which the Government plans to detail in a White Paper within the next 12 months. To this end, it has also formed a National Strategic Partnership with the governments of Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory
...read full story
All you need is IP
IP Australia's second update*
on the state
of our intellectual property system reports that the number of Australian patent applications continues to grow strongly, up by 13% in 2013.
Demand for design rights grew by 7%, plant breeder's rights by 9%, while trade mark filings remained fairly steady
...read full story
Born to be wide
10 June 2014 - Somewhat overshadowed
by the
Click image to enlarge.
suprise decision of Germany to pull out of the Square Kilometre Array Project, the CSIROreported promising test results from its Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope ...read full story
Industrious hubs
12 June - The Australian Government
announced that seven new Research Hubs will be created through grants totalling almost $24 million over the life of the projects.
Image: University of Newcastle
The funding is provided under the ARC administered Industrial Transformation Research Program scheme, a legacy programme of the former Gillard Government and established as a component of the ARC Linkage Program. The programme also includes the Industrial Transformation Training Centres scheme, for which, however, so far no funding round has been advertised for 2014 ...read full story
... and collaborative splurge
27 June - A new round of grants
under
Explore infographic
the ARCLinkage Projects scheme will provide a total of $88.2 million for 251 collaborative research projects.
...read full story
Supercritical power
03 June 2014 - A collaborative research
project
between the
Click image to enlarge
CSIRO and solar energy firm Abengoa Solarhas reported the highest level of 'supercritical steam' ever produced using solar energy.
The Advanced Solar Steam Receiver Project achieved a steam pressure of 23.5 megapascals at temperatures of up to 570 ℃ using the two solar thermal test plants at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle.
...and a sunny baseload promise
The $5.7 million project, to which the
Click image to enlarge
Australian Renewable Energy Agency contributed $2.8 million, is part of a larger ARENA co-funded research collaboration between CSIRO and its Spain-based commercial partner.
The ultimate goal of this research is the cost competitive production of baseload electricity through solar power ...read full story
Digitised sanity
The nation's progress with the
establishment of
Click image to enlarge
a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) is still marred by the complexity of the task, and some shortcomings in its implementation.
Yet, it is a very worthwhile effort to pursue, according to a review of the project commissioned by the Australian Government in 2013 ...read full story
To ehealth or not ...?
Not only since the recent
federal budget
is reality sinking in that while increasing life expectancies and comfortable life styles are welcome results of social progress, they are going to present headaches for Governments because of ballooning healthcare costs.
However, this is based on the assumption that there is no significant change in the way healthcare is administered.
The expectation is that the emerging health information technologies (HIT), such as personal e-health records, will significantly reduce the incidence of human errors and increase efficiency in the administration of healthcare.
But this hope is not uniformly shared, with scepticism especially entrenched among health professionals.
...read full story
Explorative responses
According to the Canadian Fraser Institute
2013 survey of global business leaders, Australia is already one of the most attractive destinations for investments in the world, with WA even taking out the top spot (see story Sovereign reputation').
But the Australian Government is continuing to "restore investor confidence in Australia's economic workhorse" with the release of its interim response to the 22 recommendations of the Productivity Commission's (PC) Inquiry Report into Mineral and Energy Resource Exploration
...read full story
...for offshore manna
Nine new exploration permits
potentially attracting more than $372 million in investment over the next six years have been awarded as part of Round 1 of the Australian Government's 2013 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release.
Explore infographic
As can be explored in more detail in our infographic, all but one of the awarded permits are located in the Carnarvon, Browse and Bonaparte Basins offshore from Western Australia (including one within the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands). The one exception, a permit located offshore Victoria in the Otway Basin, was awarded to Origin Energy Resources.
Stay away from bleeding hearts
May/June 2014 - Cyber security is becoming
a pressing issue for Australian online users,
and is a focus of the Australian Government's 2014 Stay Smart Online Weeklaunched on 2 June 2014.
But as a report released by the CSIRO in May highlights, the challenge is emerging across all sectors of society as we increasingly rely on digital services, including public services such as patient health records and taxation data.
...read full story
...as a peak is in sight
The enormous growth in mobile service
delivery through wireless communications requires available radiofrequency spectrum, for which demand could almost triple by 2020.
But because of practical limits, the radiofrequency spectrum is a limited resource. Consequently, there is the possibility that we are heading toward a 'spectrum crunch', and to overcome this challenge we will require new technologies and expanded infrastructure.
This is according to a new CSIRO report which canvasses a 'wireless' future where new digital services will have a pervasive impact on almost every aspect of our life. And the agency promotes its own Ngara technology platform as a tool to help prevent potential spectrum bottlenecks in rural and remote Australia....read full story
...with non-fixation issues
The current plan for a National
Broadband Network includes around 8% or 1 million premises for which fixed line broadband technology is not an economically viable option.
Instead these premises will be serviced through fixed wireless technology or two satellites that are currently under construction.
By no means these are confined to remote or even regional Australia, but often are at the edge of cities, metro fringe areas and the outskirts of country towns.
In May, NBN Co released its redacted review of the progress made in the non-fixed line footprint, and identified substantial issues with the approach taken by the company.
...read full story
From clever back to lucky
14 May 2014 - The Australian
Government has handed down its first budget which is to fix a budget 'emergency' that has so far not been recognised by any of the major international rating agencies.
Infographic on Australia's general government debt.
Despite the promise of a targeted fund for medical research, for which funding is at present up to a hostile Senate, science and innovation in this country will be hit hard, with significant cuts across areas of research, education and training.
We provide here a budget wrap up on R&D and also explore in more detail a major claim underlying the budget: the existence of a budget emergency ...read full story
Fund (ERF) White Paper on 24 April 2014 provided long awaited details about the core policy element of the Australian Government's Direct Action strategy
(for a previous story on the ERF Green Paper see Emitted future).
Explore infographic
Prior to the White Paper, the Climate Change Authority (CAA) published the final report of its Targets and Progress Review in February 2014. The report presents an alternative view on how Australia should proceed with its emissions reduction effort, while it is also providing factual context to the Government's new policy proposal.
And more recently, on 9 May 2014 the Government made its Emissions Reduction Fund Draft Legislationavailable for public comment. The main bill of this package is the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Bill 2014, which essentially expands the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) to allow crediting of emissions across the Australian economy ...read full story
Blowing with the wind
Wind energy is in many countries the
fastest growing renewable energy source, although its use is largely concentrated in Europe and the US.
In December 2013 highly densely populated Germany had 23,645 wind energy projects installed on land providing 33.729 megawatt of energy. But the industry is also experiencing rapid growth in India and China.
Explore the interactive infographic
In Australia, which has vast wind energy resources, primarily in the western, south-western, southern and south-eastern coastal regions of the country, the industry has also seen a significant expansion. As previously reported, the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) Energy in Australia 2013 report estimates that by mid century wind energy could produce around 21% of Australia's electricity.
However, there are concerns that in Victoria planning restrictions and health concerns may have impacted on the industry. While this has led to the stalling of some projects, the State's 420 megawatt Macarthur Wind Farm, the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, just became fully operational (January 2013) ...read full story
Productively connected
03 April 2014 - New research released
by the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) revealed a link between Australia's mobile broadband connectedness and its productivity and overall economic growth.
Click image to enlarge
Commissioned by ACMA and the Centre for International Economics, the Economic impacts of mobile broadband on the Australian economy, from 2006 to 2013 study surveyed 1,002 Australian businesses.
It found that in 2013 mobile broadband led to an estimated increase in Australia's economic activity of $33.8 billion, of which $26.5 billion was attributed to time savings for businesses using mobile broadband.
...read full story
Improving the rollout or putting the cart before the horse?
Expectations issued by the Australian Government to NBN Co ahead of an independent cost-benefit-analysis has received mixed responses from media commentators.
The Statement gives the company the go-ahead for the use of an optimised multi-technology model in the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN). This was recommended in NBN Co's Strategic Review released in December 2013 (see story Strategic cable salad)...read full story
Earthly delights
Australia's mining sector is in
a process of transition, as new investments in projects are in decline while existing projects enter the production phase.
Click to enlarge
This is the overall message from the following report on recent developments, which also show that this does not equate to an end of the mining boom. Earnings from exported commodities are expected to increase driven by China's demand, especially for iron ore, and the commencing export of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) ...read full story
State-us Quo of R&D
We have put together a collection of
stories that we consider, justified or not, more relevant on a regional level. They cover the months February to March 2014.
In future, these stories will also be accessible in our 'States' section.
as a first step towards the Agriculture Competitiveness White Paperannounced in December last year...read full story
Counterproductive helpers
A new report from the Australian
Bureau of Agricultural
and Resource Economics (ABARES) has traced the history of agricultural policies in Australia.
It reveals how the deregulation of the sector and the removal of distorting producer support over the past decades led to strong agricultural productivity growth...read full story
Healthy winners
18 February 2014 - Following the October
2013 announcement of
$559 million in health and medical research grants (see Bucks for drugs), the NHMRC has released the outcome of another funding round for 2013 grant applications.
The new funding totals $133 million for projects across five NHMRC schemes:
11 Program Grants worth a total of $101.6 million will support multi-disciplinary team-based research;
7 Partnership Project grants worth a total of $4.4 million will support collaborative research between researchers and policy makers...read full story
Renewed doubts
17 February 2014 - The Australian
Government has
released the Terms of Reference for a review into the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme. By existing law a review of the RET is due in 2014.
The Government also announced the appointment of a four member independent review panel, which will be chaired by Dick Warburton. The panel will primarily consider the contribution of the RET in the reduction of emissions, its impact on electricity prices and energy markets, as well as its costs and benefits for the renewable energy sector, the manufacturing sector and Australian households.
The Government expects a report from the panel by the middle of this year for it to provide input into the Energy White Paper process...read full story
Big not welcome?
In early 2013, the former Gillard Labor
Government proposed to ammend the just 2 years earlier introduced R&D Tax Incentive for a more targeted support of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
It was part of the A Plan for Australian Jobs (APAJ) policy, through which the Government responded to the Smarter Manufacturing for a Smarter Australia report.
With the proposed amendments large companies with turnover of $20 billion or more would not longer be entitled to the non-refundable 40% R&D Tax offset.
Following the September 2013 election, the Government decided to proceed with this proposed tightening of elegibility to the R&D Incentive as part of the Tax Laws Amendment (Research and Development) Bill 2013...read full story
Mighty dancers
21 February 2014 - The Australian Government
has announced it
will invest $186 million in the 16th round of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) program.
The funding will go towards the establishment of three new CRCs, while also providing for the extension of four existing projects...read full story
How to play together
As the topics of modern research become
ever more
Interdisciplinary teams: getting the mix right is crucial...
complex, scientists increasingly see the need for collaborative approaches across the usual boundaries of scientific expertise.
However, interdisciplinary work is not without challenges, as was recently highlighted in The Character of Interdisciplinary Research report which the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) released in January...read full story
Cheap read
Australia's clinical genomics research
is set to gather further steam through the Garvan Institute's acquisition of Illumina's HiSeq X Ten Platform.
The HiSeq X Ten Platform is composed of 10 HiSeq X sequencers.
Image: Illumina
Garvan is is one of the first in the world to acquire the machine. Announced by Illumina in January, the HiSeq X Ten Platform can process around 20,000 genomes a year. And run at capacity, the current cost of $10,000 for the sequencing of a human genome could drop to an estimated $1,000 each.
The technological advance in the field has been tremendous. Just a decade ago the price tag for a sequence of a human genome was more than $1 billion, and the process took months. With the Illumina sequencer there is now a practical avenue available for the clinical translation of genomic medicine such as through routine analysis of cancer biopsies and people with genetic disorders. The technology is also expected to facilitate population-scale genomics research.
The HiSeq is located at Garvan's Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics, and at present awaits clinical accreditation. It will then be accessible to clinicians and researchers who are interested in establishing a clinical service or exploring the sequencing of large cohorts.
from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales have contributed important new insight that will improve climate change projections.
Based on the current trajectory, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is likely to double from preindustrial levels over the next 50 years.
Computer models simulating our future climate under such conditions have produced a broad spread of temperature scenarios that span from 1.5 to 5 ℃. This variance is largely due to differences in how clouds and their feedback on global climate are accounted for.
In a study published in Nature in January, Professor Steven C. Sherwood and coworkers report a mechanism for the formation of low-level clouds, which removes much of this uncertainty. However, the authors show that climate models that are correctly simulating this feedback tend to be constrained towards more severe future warming scenarios, indicating increases by at least 3 ℃ with a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere...read full story
And in February, a study led by Professor Matthew England and published in Nature Climate Change explained why, despite increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG), the global average surface air temperature has stayed more or less steady since 2001 - but is likely to significantly increase again in future...read full story
Hot options
The rising costs in electricity prices
can be largely attributed to the need for investments in network infrastructure to meet peak power demands.
Click image to enlarge
Thus an estimated $45 billion in electricity network infrastructure is expected for the period 2010 to 2015 alone.
Concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) could provide a cost competitive alternative to expensive network upgrades, according to a collaborative study funded by the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA)...read full story
The Direct Action policy includes the Emission Reduction Fund, the 20 Million Trees and
the One Million Solar Roofs programmes, and the Solar Towns and Solar Schools initiatives.
Green Paper on its new Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) initiative.
The ERF is the core component of the Government's Direct Action Plan, which aims to reduce emissions to 5% below 2000 levels by 2020.
To this end, the plan, which is modelled on the United NationsClean Development Mechanism, will encourage low-cost and effective emissions reduction opportunities...read full story
Financial Reports of Higher Education Providers, the 2012 operating revenue of Australia's 39 universities amounted to $25.2 billion, an increase by $6.6% from the previous year.
Click image to enlarge; graph shows sources of revenue for Australian universities in 2012
This included $24.6 billion for higher education activities, with the remainder earned from vocational education and training operations.
The bulk of the income was through funds from the Australian Government, which increased by 10.2% to $14.7 billion. Of this, $11 billion were provided through grants and $3.7 billion were from loans to students.
The reported operating expense of the 39 universities was $23.3 billion, of which employee benefits made up 56%, leaving an operating surplus of around $1.9 billion.
In 2012, the universities had assets valued at $59.5 billion, which were offset by $16.6 billion in liabilites, leaving a net asset position of $42.9 billion.
Excellence expected
On 24 December 2013, The Australian Government
approved $285 million over seven years for 12 ARC Centres of Excellence.
The funding will commence in 2014.
The 12 centres, which were selected from a pool of 22 proposals at a success rate of 54.5%, will collaborate with 106 organisations from 44 countries. This is expected to leverage more than $392.2 million in cash and in-kind support ...read full story
Three off the hook
17 December 2013 - With cuts to research
on the
horizon, the Australian Government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) brought a
redirection of funds towards three major fields of medical research: type 1 diabetes, dementia and tropical disease research...read full story
Not happy
Science & Technology Australia has released
a statement
in which it raises concern about the Australian Government's decision to remove $61 million from the ARC's Discovery Program and $42 million from the ARC's Linkage Program over the forward estimates.
Its president Dr Ross Smith said that the cuts would further limit the capacity of these 'world class' grants, which already have a success rate of below 25%. Governments needed to set priorities for research but that priority setting was very different from political picking and choosing.
"Peer review is simply the best way of ensuring tax-payers dollars are invested in world class research every time."
The
summary report
on Broadband Availability and Quality Survey shows that 91% of Australian premises now have access to fixed line broadband.
Mobile broadband services through 3G and 4G technology can be accessed from 81% and 59% of premises, respectively, while all of Australia is covered by satellite broadband, although this type of service has a ceiling to the capacity of service delivery.
This still leaves some Australians with limited access to broadband services, but it appears that the quality of broadband connections may be a more pressing national issue.
Thus the delivery of broadband services to more than a third of Australian premises was found to be have peak download speeds of less than 9 mega bit per second (Mbps).
However, even with access to fast broadband it is not guaranteed that Australians actually participate in the 'Digital Age'. In fact, a study by the CSIRO and the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation (ACBI) identified a significant 'broadband gap' with one in five adults not using the Internet at all and particularly smaller sized businesses showing low activity online.
The report raises the concern that a lack of certainty about the future rollout of Australia’s broadband infrastructure and the predominant focus on cost and scale rather than the potential benefits of next generation broadband are distracting from getting Australia prepared for the 'digital age'. Read full stories:
the ecological importance and potential financial value of coastal carbon sinks.
Seagrass meadows, a significant sink for atmospheric carbon
image: NOOA
It is widely appreciated that ecosystems on land, notably forests, are important sinks for atmospheric carbon. According to estimates reported by the IPCC in 2007, deforestation and land-use change accounts for 8-20% of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions.
However, much less recognised is the amount of organic carbon stored in our oceans. So called 'blue carbon' initiatives try to change this. It includes the Blue Carbon research initiative by the GRID-ARENDAL centre, which supports the United Nations Environment Programme (see also our 2011 dossier 'Ocean Views') ...read full story
One for all
The new Australian Government is in
the process of streamlining the complex environmental approval process for offshore petroleum projects in Australian seas.
Following up on a key election promise, it aims for a 'one-stop shop' procedure in all Australian jurisdictions. In broad terms, this concerns maritime zones that lie within coastal waters of states and the Northern Territory (up to 3 nautical mile off the coast) and Commonwealth waters (3 to 200 nautical miles from the coast)...read full story
...going fishing (for oil)
23 October 2013- The Australian Government expects
a record investment of around $580 million over the next three years as a result of Round 2 of its 2012 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release (see also our previous story Hydrocarbonic investments).
Over a six year period the total investment could be up to $730 million, according to a statement released by Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane.
Around $540 million guaranteed investments stem from three proposals that target a new oil and gas exploration area offshore South Australia in the Great Australian Bight (see 'Tough Bight to chew on' in our previous story). The sites of exploration are approximately 200 to 300 kilometres west to south-west of Ceduna. The permits were awarded to Chevron Australia New Venture Pty Ltd (2) and a joint venture of Murphy Australia Oil Pty Ltd and Santos Offshore Pty Ltd (1).
A further two permits are offshore Western Australia and were awarded to a venture of Woodside Energy Limited and Mitsui E&P Australia Pty Ltd, and to Shell Development (Australia) Proprietary Limited.
Seven further areas released did not receive compliant bids, with one further bid still under consideration.
16 October 2013 - The Australian Government released
its Terms of Reference for the development of an Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) in the lead up to a Green Paper due in December 2013.
It will be followed by a White Paper in early 2014 for the ERF to take effect from July 2014, concurrent with the repeal of the carbon price legislation.
The ERF will be a major component of the Direct Action Plan initiative that is to replace the current carbon price legislation (A respective draft legislation package was
released
on 15 October 2013) ...read full story
Oh yes, Minister
ARDR analysis
With a new Government still to find its way,
many key science and research programs of its predecessor will be
re-evaluated.
This includes initiatives supporting the development of renewable energies.
Click image to explore
On 21 November the House of Representatives
passed a package of
7 bills with the primary objective to repeal the current carbon price mechanism
and the, at the conservative side of politics, unloved Climate Change
Authority. The legislation is now to be debated in the Senate.
With its proposed legislative changes, the Government also wants to remove
the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation and scrap $450
from the $3 billion the previous Government had allocated for the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency. In addition, a $370 million ARENA
was to receive in 2014-15 will be deferred to 2019-20.
The agency will still have a sizable funding of $2.5 billion and, according
to a statement
released in November, its funding vehicles - the Emerging Renewables
Program, the Accelerated Step Change Initiative, the
Community and Regional Renewable Energy Program and the
Regional Australia's Renewables & Industry Program - will continue
accepting proposals ...read full story
Stemming the challenge
November 2013 - The clinical scope for regenerative
medicine is undoubtedly great, with much of the expectations focussed on stem cell therapies.
However, for most applications envisioned for human embryonic stem cells (ESCs),
and more recently human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and mesenchymal
stem cells, 'potential' may still most accurately describe the state of
development.
Here we trace the progression of new stem cell therapies into clinical
practice, in Australia and abroad.
In a recent review covering the translation of stem cell discoveries, one of
Australia's most distinguished experts in the field, Professor Alan
Trounson, writes that there is great momentum in the basic
research across the breadth of potential applications.
However, "the spectrum of translational studies is rather limited" ...read full story
Dollars for the scholars
October/November 2013 - Australia's major
research funding agencies, the
National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the
Australian Research Council (ARC), have awarded research grants and
fellowships worth a total of over $1 billion dollar.
Bucks for drugs
The 2013 funding round of three
NHMRC research support schemes and five
fellowship schemes will support 963 new projects with $551 million.
Click image to explore the infographic
This year the agency received over 5000 applications for NHMRC
Project Grants,
NHMRC Partnership Project grants, European Union
Collaborative Research Grants
and NHMRC fellowships. From this pool of applications only around 19% were
selected for funding.
However, as is explored in more detail in the infographic, the success rate
of organisations varied significantly ...read full story
Intellectual Property Report 2013, the first report in a new annual series on the
state of Australia's Intellectual Property System.
What makes this report an interesting read is that it is not just providing
data on trade mark and patent filings. Within the context of an analysis of
Australia's IP activity it also delivers a well rounded review of Australia's
position as a trading nation...read full story
... and invented protection
The Advisory Council on Intellectual
Property (ACIP) has
provided further pieces to the ongoing process of overhauling our patent
system.
At the end of August, it released an options paper for its review of the
innovation patent system. It follows on from an issues paper released in 2011.
In addition to this review, the ACIP has also started a review of Australia's
designs system, for which it released an issues paper in September 2013.
Australia's system for innovation patents primarily targets small to medium
sized enterprises (SMEs). It was established in 2001 as a form of second tier
patent protection, which can be obtained relatively quickly and cheaply with a
lower inventive threshold than is set out for standard patents.
In fact, the threshold for standard patents has just been further raised
through the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act 2012.
The idea behind innovation patents is that SMEs can protect incremental
inventions on the way to a marketable product. However, there are concerns that
by providing similar protection levels to standard patents the system also
opened the door to the unjustified blocking of new technologies, particularly in
the information technology industry.
...read full story
Fly like a BERD
6 Sept 2013 - In 2011-12, Australian
businesses continued to increase their
spending on R&D (BERD).
However, as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spending
decreased slightly from 1.28% to 1.24%.
Click image for an interactive infographics
According to new data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
(ABS), BERD was $18.3 billion in 2011-12, an increase of 2% from the previous
year, of which 96% was also funded by the business sector.
As in previous years, almost all of the funds were spent in the research
fields of Engineering (62%) and ICT (30%), mainly undertaking experimental
development (62% of BERD) and applied research (32% of BERD). Typical for
Australia, only around 1% of BERD was directed towards pure basic research.
Despite the overall increase of BERD, Queensland and Victoria reported a
significant downturn in spending - down $180 million and $141 million,
respectively. This was offset by large increases in Western Australia (up $320
million and South Australia up $215 million) ...read full story
...with the right performance enhancer
The potential of innovation for improving
business performance has been
highlighted in a recent report from the Australian Bureau of
Statistics (ABS).
Click image for an interactive infographic
>
The Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, 2011-12 broadly
covers data from the agency's 2011-12 Business Characteristics Survey
which asked businesses about their performance compared to the previous year,
which innovations they undertook during the period and their use of ICT.
Across all relevant indicators, including productivity, respondends indicated
markedly better performances when they also engaged in a form of innovation
activity (see figure). Thus, innovation-active businesses were more than twice
as likely to report an increase in productivity (34%) than businesses that were
not innovation-active.
It has to be noted, though, that the results do not discern how
innovation-activity relates to performance improvements.
...read full story
Strategic desert
September 2013 - There is expressed
discomfort within the R&D community that
for the first time since 1931 an Australian Government does
not include a Minister dedicated to science and research.
As it stands, the newly appointed Minister for Industry, Ian
Macfarlane, will have some responsibility for R&D and innovation,
including for the CSIRO.
But the emerging picture suggests that science policy will now be even more
fragmented across government portfolios than in the past.
In light of this we revisit a report Australia's Chief Scientist
Professor Ian Chubb released in July.
The report Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the
National Interest: A Strategic Approach established that while there is
considerable public investment in the STEM sciences in Australia, the returns
are not optimal and urgently require a more strategic approach.
...read full story
Pie sought in the sky
New funding of $26 million over 6 years
by the Western Australian
Government launches the next phase of the
International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).
Night sky at MWA site image: John Goldsmith
The Government announced its ongoing support in its August budget (see 'It's budget time').
ICRAR was established in 2009 as a joint venture between Curtin
University and the University of Western Australia.
...read full story
Marinating leader
17 August 2013 Associate Professor
Tim Ward will
lead the 4-year South Australian research program on the Great Australian
Bight.
Associate Professor Tim Ward
image: SARDI
Announced in April (see 'Taking a Bight' for details),
the $20 million Great Australian Bight Collaborative Research Science
program by the CSIRO, Marine Innovation Southern
Australia (MISA) and BPproject will research the
Bight's ecosystems, marine resources and socio-economic importance.
Photonics and Advanced Sensing
(IPAS) has opened its new $92 million headquarters at the University
of Adelaide.
'The Braggs' was partly funded through a $29 million grant from the
Australian Government and will house scientists working with photonics
and soft glass optical fibre.
IPAS follows on from the university's former Centre for Expertise in
Photonics, which conducted research into the generation and control of
light. Led by Professor Tanya Monro, its successor now
pursues a cross-disciplinary approach to improve measurement and sensing
technology in a close relationship with industry partners.
The potential applications of IPAS research spread across a broad spectrum of
areas, including defence, manufacturing, health and the environment. For
example, current projects include a new sensor to detect early-stage gastric
cancer, and the development of optical fibres that identify corrosion in
military planes. (The IPAS was featured in an IN FOCUS article in our
ARDRmagazine
12-09 issue).
Centre for Asia Capability
is to address a critical need of corporate Australia for an Asia capable
workforce.
Set up as a national program it will combine the expertise of government,
business and universities to provide Asia focused training programs, research
and the development of regional networks
It is the first of its kind in the world and follows a key recommendation in
the 2012 report of the Asialink Taskforce for an Asia Capable Workforce.
The Australian Government announced funding of $36 million
towards the project, which will be administrated by the University of
Melbourne's Asialink and include the
University of New South Wales as a partner organisation.
of the largest solar power station in the
southern hemisphere will start from January 2014, after the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency(ARENA) reached financial close
with AGL Energy Limited (AGL).
image: AGL/First Solar
>
The project to be established across 2 sites in NSW will have a combined
capacity of 155 megawatt, 15 times larger than any other solar power station in
Australia.
The total costs of the construction are estimated at $450 million, of which
$166.7 million will be from ARENA with a further $64.9 million provided by the
NSW Government. The project will also benefit from $40.7 million from the
Education Investment Fund which will fund solar power research by
project partners, the University of Queensland (UQ) and the
University of New South Wales (UNSW).
...read full story
Traceable fortunes
A
recent statement by CSIRO suggests the agency is making
headway in a development that could considerably boost the potential rewards
of gold miners.
In a pilot study CSIRO conducted with Canadian firm Mevex a
new gamma-activation analysis (GAA) technology was 2-3 times more accurately
detecting gold than the industry's standard chemical 'fire assay'.
We've
come a long way...
By scanning mineral samples with high-energy x-rays, the technology was able
to detect gold ore below a threshold of 1 gram per tonne of rock. This could
facilitate the recovery of otherwise discarded traces of gold present in mineral
samples.
Each year, Australia produces gold worth a total of around $10 billion. Yet,
according to CSIRO, a gold processing plant typically recovers only between
65%-85% of ore present in mined rock. Just a few percentages of improved yield
could amount to hundreds of million of dollars worth of additional mining
revenue.
As pointed out by project leader Dr James Tickner,
the new technology could also be cheaper and more sustainable. GAA can be set up
in an automated process, while chemical analysis involves the sending of samples
to a central lab. With GAA there is also no need for the use of heavy metals,
such as lead, in the analysis of samples.
CSIRO is now searching for a suitable commercial partner to implement a
full-scale facility in Australia, which could be up and running in 2-3 years
time.
If successful, GAA may in future also be adapted to the detection of other
high-value metals, including silver, lead, zinc, tin, copper and the platinum
group metals.
SeaSim building at AIMS Cape Ferguson Headquarters
image: AIMS
Cruising onshore
01 August 2013 - The $37 million National Sea Simulator
(SeaSim) has opened its doors at the Australian Institute of Marine
Science (AIMS).
Located at Cape Ferguson south of Townsville the facility is close to quality
seawater and at a distance to urban population. According to the AIMS, these are
ideal local conditions for the $37 million initiative, which is to simulate
ocean conditions and the potential impacts of natural events and human
activities.
30 July 2013 - Monash University has launched its $175
million New Horizons Centre.
The new research hub at the Clayton Innovation Precinct is
co-funded by the
Australian Government, Monash and the CSIRO
with the objective to advance Australia's manufacturing capabilities and
facilitate collaborative research across disciplines and departmental, faculty
and intstitutional boundaries.
25 Jul 2013 - The CSIRO has launched its new
Biosecurity Flagship.
The CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, Victoria
It will run with an annual budget of $30 million and draw on CSIRO's
extensive expertise in biosecurity research. This includes recent developments
such as an equine Hendra virus vaccine and the delivery of a a biological
control of the silverleaf whitefly, one of the world's most invasive pests.
The Flagship places a strong emphasis on developing a One Health
(formerly One Medicine) approach to improve the response to emerging
biosecurity threats.
The One Health strategy is a global interdisciplinary initiative that aims to
integrate human medicine, veterinary medicine and environmental science. It
emerged from the understanding that human health, animal health and the health
of ecosystems are interdependent.
09 July 2013 - The Australian Research Council (ARC) has
awarded 17 Australian Laureate Fellowships.
Worth a total of $47 million, they support national and
international scientist working in research fields that
range from improved child health, language learning, energy
from seabed soils, to studies on bacteria.
The only women in the elite circle of eminent scientists are
Professor Glenda Sluga from the University of Sydney,
who was awarded the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship,
and Professor Tanya Monro from the University of
Adelaide, who received the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate
Fellowship.
However, the apparent gender inequality was not based on a lower success rate
of female applicants but instead reflects that only 14 of the 112 applicants
were women.
30-08-2013 - Can we define the progress of our society more comprehensively
than just by how we fare economically?
A final project report released by the Australian Council of Learned
Academies (ACOLA) and VicHealth is a first step to
provide a sound scientific basis to answer this question. The report covers a
pilot of the Australia’s Progress in the 21st Century (AP21C)
project, in which ACOLA and VicHealth collaborated with the Australian
National Development Index Limited (ANDI). Further partners in the
project were the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), the
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the Foundation
for Young Australians (FYA) and the Young and Well Cooperative
Research Centre.
To date, the widely used proxy for the state of a country's progress is its
Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is easily measured and compared. Nevertheless,
it becomes increasingly clear that broad economic indicators fall short of
capturing the true wellbeing of a society, notwithstanding that they are
retrospective rather than forward looking.
Click the image to enlarge; Model of a small modular rector by US firm
NuScale.
image: NuScale
Fissionary outlook
Australia is blessed with abundant renewable energy, including wind, solar,
ocean waves and geothermal.
It is also the world's third largest supplier of uranium for use in
electricity generating nuclear power stations. With this large domestic access
to fuel source, electricity generation through nuclear power could be an obvious
option.
Yet, despite the potential of nuclear power stations to produce electricity
largely emissions free, it has not been at the forefront of public debate, and
was not an issue raised in the lead up to the election.
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
(ATSE) has recently
called for the issue to be put back on the national agenda. The organisation
says that Australia has a moral responsibility to debate how its uranium is used
and disposed of.
Built by Fujitsu, the NCI supercomputer is named after the
Japanese god of thunder, lightning and storms - Raijin.
image: Elwinmedia with use of a depiction of Raijin by Tawaraya Sotatsu
(17th century)
Super-flops at ANU
31-07-2013 - The National Computational
Infrastructure (NCI) high performance computing centre has opened
at the Australian National University (ANU) with the
launch of its $100 million supercomputer Raijin.
Running at 1.2 petaflops (floating point operations per second) when performing
at its peak, Raijin is Australia's fastest supercomputer and thus a major
addition to the nation's rapidly advancing computing capacity.
09-07-2013 -The National Computational Infrastructure
supercomputer will be the backbone of a partnership between CSIRO,
Geoscience Australia and AuScope developing a
national integrated geoscience network.
Visualisation and spatial information storage software as well as 'virtual
laboratories' operating in the cloud will support the project, which is to
provide better access to Australia's geoscience data.
June 2013 - The Tasmanian Forests Agreement
(TFA) passed into law on 30 April 2013.
It is
hoped to mark the beginning of a more sustainable timber
industry in the State, after a long protracted struggle
between conservationists and forest industry.
Click image to enlarge. Tasmanian forests agreement
reserves map
The Royal Ascend of the Act also
fullfills a requirement of the2011 Tasmanian Forests
Intergovernmental Agreementwhich
stipulates a cooperation between the Australian
and Tasmanian Governments in an effort to
transform the State's ailing economy.
Over $200 million of federal financial
assistance can now flow into an Economic Diversification
Fund and will primarily target projects in the areas
Tourism, Dairy, Aquaculture, Horticulture, Forestry and
Energy.
26-06-2013-In June, the Intellectual Property Laws
Amendment Bill 2013 passed the House of
Representatives and is now before the
Senate.
The bill is part of a general overhaul of the Australian patent law
the Government has undertaken over recent years. The new changes
are based on a recent
inquiry about the compulsory licensing of patents by the
Productivity Commission (PC).
The Australian Government
has provided $40 million for a new South Australian
Centre for Cancer Biology (CCB) facility.
Click for a youtube video of the Health & Biomedical Research Precinct, which is
shaping to become the largest health and biomedical precinct in the Southern hemisphere.
The 16 research teams of the centre are currently
located within SA Pathology but with a recent
partnership between the University of South Australia
and SA Pathology the centre will now also become a key component
of the State's new
Health & Biomedical Research Precinct.
The precinct is a major investment in health and biomedical research
in the State. Its key infrastructures include a new
Royal Adelaide Hospital, funded with $2.1 billion by
the State, and the
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute
, which received federal and state investments of $200 million and $79
million, respectively.
In addition to the CCB funding, the Australian Government
is investing a further $60 million in another key project of the
precinct, the Integrated Clinical School
facility by the
University of Adelaide.
21-06-2013 - The Australian Research Committee
has followed up on one of the actions
detailed in its National Research Investment
Plan released at the end of last year.
In June it announced a set of 15 strategic research priorities,
which are to drive investment in areas of immediate and critical
importance to Australia. They will supersede the National
Research Priorities (NRPs), which have been discontinued.
17-06-2013 - Australia's petroleum industry is a major
contributor to our national wealth.
Click image to enlarge. According to the figure by the Australian
Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), Australia's trade
balance in petroleum products is negative since 2003-04
According to recent
data by IBIS World Australia's oil and
gas extraction generated revenue of more than $40
billion in 2012-13.
However, we are net importers of crude oil and refined
petroleum products as production is declining while domestic
demand, particularly for transport fuel, is increasing.
Since 2003-04, our balance of trade in petroleum products has been
negative, as illustrated in a figure by the Australian
Petroleum Production & Exploration Association, and the
Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics recently
reported in its
Australian Petroleum Statistics that in 2012-13 the total
export value of Australian petroleum products was around $28
billion while the value of imports was around $40 billion.
Some commentators are
warning that this could become a problem for our energy
security, although this concern was not
shared in the Government's 2012 Energy White Paper.
However, there is a general understanding that Australia needs
to increase its effort in petroleum exploration. Here we cover
recent developments related to this crucial industry.
14-06-2013 - The Australian
Government has announced the board of the new
Manufacturing Precinct.
It is one of ten Industry Innovation Precincts
funded under the $1 billion Plan for Australian Jobs
initiative (read more in It's budget time).
... read full story
Peak-less into the future
April-June 2013 - Early last year the ARDR reviewed the
emerging advanced biofuels industry, both on a domestic
and global level.
Among the examples featured were Licella
Pty Ltd.'s production of 'drop-in' fuels from
wood biomass and residues and Muradel Pty Ltd's
algal biofuel technology.
In June, Resources Minister Gary Gray
unveiled Muradel's first 'green crude' from
microalgae, which could be used in the existing
petroleum industry or provide fuel for aviation.
Both companies have recently received $5.4 and $4.4 million,
respectively, through the Australian Renewable
Energy Agency's (ARENA) Advanced
Biofuels Investment Readiness Program.
...read full story
Sharing the gap
07-06-2013- ARENA has established a new $60 million
SHARE (Supporting High-value Australian Renewable
Energy) initiative, which from 1 July will accept industry
applications for projects that aim to close the knowledge gap
in 3 priority areas. ...read full story
Under one umbrella
The Defence Science and Technology Organisation
(DSTO) and
CSIRO are joining forces in an agreement that covers a
broad range of technologies.
These include horizon scanning and
emerging technologies, manufacturing technologies, advanced
technologies, advanced materials, intelligent processing, energy
storage, autonomous systems, sensors and bio-technology.
Under the alliance Australia's largest
publicly funded organisations will also share professional
development training programs for staff, undertake staff
exchanges and joint community outreach activities and share
infrastructure including participation in each other's
innovation precincts.
Click image to enlarge - The state of
resources and energy projects as of
April 2013 and how it may unfold over
the next 5 years.
Economic abyss in sight?
Australia's economy is increasingly dependent on its mining
industry but how long will the current boom be able to prop
up the domestic economy?
Just a few years ago it was believed to be lasting,
possibly for decades to come. But the tides have turned
with mega projects either cancelled or delayed, such as
the $36 billion Browse LNG project (Woodside),
the $30 billion Outer Harbour Development
at Port Hedland (BHP Billiton) and the
$20 billion Olympic Dam Expansion (BHP
Billiton).
A
report by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics
(BREE) covering the six months to April 2013 shows that the stock of
investments in committed resources and energy projects has indeed plateaued,
albeit on record levels at about $268 billion.
30-05-2013 - The Future Grid Cluster was
launched in Sydney to develop an analytical framework
for the most cost effective integration of renewable energy
sources and technologies into Australia's electricity grid.
Funded with $13 million over 3 years, the project is a research
collaboration between the CSIRO and the
universities of Sydney, Newcastle,
Queensland and New South Wales.
29-05-2013 - The cloud is emerging
as a major way of delivering a wide
range of ICT services such as the
external storage of data and the
provision of processing power on
external web servers.
Cloud services can be open to the public or are delivered through
private clouds that are restricted to a selected group of consumers, while
hybrid systems are also common in many organisations. Yet despite the broad
spectrum of services and deployment options, cloud services share basic
characteristics in that users can:
quickly and cheaply scale up or down;
share computer resources;
access services from multiple devices;
access capacity on demand; and
easily meter the consumption of services.
The Australian Government's National Cloud
Strategy (NCS), first announced in October last year and
released at the end of May, unsurprisingly highlights the synergies
between its National Broadband Network and the benefits
associated with cloud computing technologies. ...read
full story
Can we put it on their table?
25-05-2013 - With the release of Australia's first
National Food Plan the Australian
Government has provided a potential framework
for Australia's agricultural industries for the coming
decade.
The plan delineates the Government's policy
position for the future of the sector, and sets out 16 goals
to 2025.
Only months out from a general election, it is
uncertain to what extent the plan will be implemented but,
together with other recent reports on this issue, it does
provide a coherent perspective on the broader context and
the mix of challenges and opportunities that face the
nation's food producing industries.
Earlier in May, the Australian Bureau of
Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences
(ABARES)
presented a 5 year outlook in its Agricultural
Commodities: March Quarter 2013 report that suggests
the agricultural sector will need to lift its innovation
performance to return to productivity growth levels required
to deliver on increasing global demands for food. ...read
full story
Regional boost
10--5-2013 - Announced in the federal budget, Charles Sturt
University will receive $5.9 million from the Australian
Government to build a Food, Soil and Water Research Centre.
As part of a new $40 million science precinct, the Port Macquarie campus,
the
centre will address local as well as global
issues.
It is planned to be developed by 2015, in partnership with the Port
Macquarie-Hastings Council, and expected to cost a total of $8
million.
16-04-2013 - The Australian Government
released a
discussion paper
that aims to improve how companies monitor
greenhouse gases during the exploration and
production of coal seam gas.
Click to enlarge
It is the second round of public
consultations on proposals which for the first
time address the differences between
conventional extraction of gas and CSG.
These include the use of hydraulic
fracturing or 'fracking' in CSG production.
There is now some evidence that fracking may
lead to more emissions than, for example,
conventional CSG extraction techniques.
The proposed amendments to the current
rules for fugitive emissions estimates, which
are specified by the National Greenhouse
and Energy Reporting (Measurement) Determination
2008, are in line with new requirements
in the US, which were introduced by the US
Environmental Protection Agency in 2011
...read full story
Partners in health
Over the past months, the NHMRC
released several announcements that relate to
its NHMRC Partnership for Better Health
initiative.
Established to better translate research into health policy, the
initiative has two components - the
Partnership Project scheme which
supports investigator driven specific projects
and the Partnership Centres,
which are broader in focus with teams of
researchers and decision-makers together
addressing multiple objectives.
The themes of each centre is negotiated by the Knowledge Broker (at
present Professor Philip Davies)
with co-funding partners.
According to NHMRC information, there are currently two agreed
themes: a Partnership Centre that is to deal
with cognitive and related functional decline in
older people, and a Partnership Centre
addressing perspectives on preventing
lifestyle-related chronic health problems.
Centred vision
09-04-2013 - Australia's first Partnership
Centre was
launched, which over the next 5 years will
address the complex problems faced by older
people with cognitive decline, including
dementia.
The partners in the $25 million centre
include the NHMRC and the several NGOs including
the Brightwater Care Group
(WA), HammondCare (NSW),
Helping Hand Aged Care (SA) and
Alzheimer's Australia.
The new centre will bring together consumers, researchers and aged
care providers in a research program that will
be led by chief investigator
Associate Professor Susan Kurrle,and
is driven by the needs of the health sector.
Dollars for healing buddies
10-04-2013 - The Australian Government
will provide $7.9 million for 11
Partnerships for Better Health - Partnership
Projects, which will be jointly funded
by the NHMRC and partners including Commonwealth
and State agencies, hospitals, medical research
institutes, and patient advocacy groups.
This is in accordance with
recommendations by the Strategic Review of
Health and Medical Research - Better Health
through Resesearch [McKeon
Review"] to imbed research into all facets
of the health system, Australian Health Minister
Tanya Plibersek remarked in a
statement
10-04-2013 - The Australian Government
has also announced a new medical research
partnership with the Government of
Singapore to jointly fund the work of
five research teams based in both countries.
The projects will address three of the
most infectious diseases in the Asia-Pacific
region - tuberculosis, dengue fever and
influenza.
The funding is provided through the
NHMRC and Singapore's Agency
for Science, Technology and Research
(A*STAR).
Participating Australian research
institutions include the University of
Melbourne, Monash University,
The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical
Research, the Macfarlane Burnet
Institute for Medical Research and Public Health,
the Victorian Infectious Diseases
Reference Laboratory and
Melbourne Health.
05-04-2013 - The Australian Government
has released the Strategic Review of
Health and Medical Research - Better Health
through Resesearch.
Chaired by Simon McKeon,
the review panel reached the overarching
conclusion that Australia's health care system
performs well by international standards - only
Japan, Spain and Italy achieve higher life
expectancy at lower cost.
Nevertheless, there is an insufficient
connection between health and medical research
(HMR) but calls and health care services
delivery.For example, the panel cites a recent
CareTrack Australia report according to
which around 43% of Australians do not receive
appropriate, evidence-based healthcare.
Laying out a 10 year strategy, the panel
details 21 recommendations that aim for a better
integration of HMR into all aspects of the
healthcare system.
Click to enlarge
Major points include that current HMR investment
should be optimised and be boosted with
additional competitive programs that could be
accessed by a broader range of researchers than
current programs. Measures to improve research
capacity in the health sector include support
for initially 100, and over a 10 year period up
to 1,000 research grants for health
professionals
01-02-2013 - In February, the Australian
Government announced 38 grants worth
total of $10.6 million for research projects
targeting cancer, including the understanding of
genetic variants of cancers, improved support
for carers, and research into improved
treatments.
The grants are provided through Cancer
Australia's Priority-driven
Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme,
an annual national research grants scheme
conducted by Cancer Australia in partnership
with the NHMRC...read
full story
Facing defensive
prospects
12-04-2013 - In April, the Defence
Science and Technology Organisation
(DSTO) launched a 5 year strategic plan in the
face of a changing global security and Defence
environment.
The times, they are a'changing
This includes the increased blurring of
state and non-state threats, the military
modernisation in the Asia-Pacific region, the
global access to commercial off-the-shelf
technology and the rapid progression of cyber
capabilities and other disruptive technologies.
These external challenges coincide with
a tightening resource environment. Set out as a
guide for the organisation's future research,
collaborations and business activities, the
paper identifies ten key strategic initiatives
and related actions comprised in four broader
themes ...read full story
...well fed
04-04-2013 - The University of Tasmania
has launched the Centre for Food
Innovation (CFI) in Launceston.
These good old days
...
image:
Australian Defence
Force
The centre was established as a
tripartite partnership between the
university, the CSIRO and
the Defence Science and Technology
Organisation (DSTO).
According the university, it is a
'groundbreaking collaboration' that will
link Tasmania to national food research
networks and initiate joint research
projects.
The facility will not only promote
added-value food production for regional
Tasmania but also enhance the food science
and technology capabilities of the
DSTO Scottsdale facility, which is
currently
upgraded
with $18.7 million from the Australian
Government.
Research driven by the CFI will, for
example, aim to extend the shelf life of
food using innovative processing and
packaging technologies and to develop
technologies for new specialised foods that
could find dual use in Defence and civilian
markets.
Potential collaborative partners of
the CFI include the Tasmanian
Institute of Agriculture,
Australian Maritime College logistics,
the School of Human Life Sciences
and the Sensing Tasmania
(Sense-T) network. The centre will also work
closely with the Food Precinct as part of a
national food network.
02-04-2013 - A key initiative of the Clean Technologies
Supplier Advocate and the Supplier Advocate Program, the
Australian Clean Technologies Competition, was launched
in early April.
It is the third since the initiative commenced in 2011.
Selected applicants will receive mentoring from some of the country's leading
advisors on commercialisation, business modelling, funding solutions and
successful techniques for pitch delivery. In addition, finalists will also be
assisted in participating in export markets and participate in a Government-led
trade mission in Asia.
Entries close on 3 June. For further information visit
www.cleantechcomp.com.au.
09-04-2013 - Australia's first space policy was
launched at ANU's Stromlo
Observatory in early April.
From 1 July 2013 there will also be a new Space Coordination
Office which, as part of the
Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate
Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education,
will coordinate and showcase Australia's
domestic civilian space activities.
Click image to enlarge. NASA has
currently more than a dozen Earth science
spacecraft/instruments in orbit studying all aspects of the
Earth system (oceans, land, atmosphere, biosphere,
cryosphere), with several more planned for launch in the
next few years.
The Australian Government has increasingly recognised the importance
of space research, including through the $40
million over 4 years Australian Space
Research Program and the creation of a
Science Policy Unit. This renewed
interest is also founded in the increasing
economic contribution of space capabilities,
such as satellites.
According to the Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation,
Senator Kate Lundy, Satellite
imagery alone has added around $3.3 billion to
GDP in 2010. And positioning technologies such
as GPS added an estimated $1 billion to GDP in
2008, which is likely to increase to between $6
and $12 billion by 2030. NewSat, an Australian
satellite communications company just completed
a $600 million financing package for its Jabiru
1 satellite. And the NBN project includes an
investment of nearly $2 billion in satellites
that will provide remote Australia with access
to the Internet. The
Satellite Utilisation Policy now
released closely follows the Principles
for a National Space Industry Policy,
which it now replaces as a statement of
Australia's objectives and direction for
civilian space activities....read
full story
Sinking feelings
20-02-2013 - According to a three-year study
recently
published by CSIRO
scientists and international coworkers in the
journal Biogeosciences, the Australian
landscape soaked up around one third of the
carbon emitted by fossil fuels in Australia over
the past 20 years.
It also established that emissions from exported fossil fuels
greatly exceed fossil fuel emissions from within
the country. Thus in 2009-2010 Australia
exported 2.5 times more carbon in fossil fuels
than was emitted from fossil fuels burned within
Australia.
The Australian Terrestrial
Carbon Budget project is one of 14
regional and continental studies around the
world that are part of a key initiative by the
Global Carbon Project, the Regional
Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes
(RECCAP)initiative. Through RECCAP the GCP aims
to establish the mean carbon balance of large
regions of the globe at the scale of continents
and large ocean basins, including their
component fluxes.
In their analysis for Australia, the
scientists to into account account fossil fuel
emissions within Australia and through exported
fuel, and also how much land carbon is either
lost or gained as the 'breathing' of plants and
soil responds to variable climate and rising CO2
concentrations. It also considered effects of
fires, erosion and deforestation. The work
established that over the past 20 years rising
atmospheric CO2 caused a 15% increase
in plant production compared to pre-industrial
times, whereby the fertilising effect was found
to be larger in warmer regions of Australia.
In the period 1990-2011, the average
take-up of carbon plants was 2.2 billion tonnes,
significantly more than the average uptake over
the past 100 years, which reflects the
fertilising effect of atmospheric CO2.
But for any individual year the amount was
highly variable. In fact, in wet (high-growth)
years, the Australian bioshpere absorbed more
carbon from the atmosphere than the total of
human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, while in
dry years, nearly the same amount was again
released back to the atmosphere.
Most of the absorbed carbon (56%) was
found to be on account of grassy vegetation,
dominant in the dry and savannah regions, while
woody vegetation accounted for the remainder
(44%).
09 April 2013 - The Great Australian Bight, off the
central and western portions of the South Australian
coastline, will be the target of a unique $20 million
science program by BP Development Australia
(BP), CSIRO and Marine
Innovation Southern Australia (MISA), a
consortium of a number of South Australian
institutions*.
Announced in April, the project will be undertaken over four years.
(Click image to enlarge) - Great
Australian Bight coastline and
the Southern Surveyor image
courtesy CSIRO; the map
right-top:
Wikipedia
It is one of a few whole-of-ecosystem studies of the marine
environment and the potential resources in the Bight, with
the broader objective of supporting sustainable development
in the region.It will target the following 7 broader themes:
Oceanography
Pelagic Ecosystem and Environmental Drivers
Benthic Biodiversity
Ecology of Iconic Species and Apex Predators
Petroleum Geology and Geochemistry
Socio-economic Analysis
Integration and Modelling
The RV Southern Surveyor set sail in early April for
scientists to collect water and seafloor sediments from
depths three kilometres below the ocean surface - the
deepest set of samples obtained from the Bight to date. They
will be studied to reveal the distribution, diversity and
ecology of animals, plants and microbes in the deepwater
environment of central and eastern GAB.
The research results will be available to
stakeholders interested in the region through publication in
science journals, literature and published reports.
*MISA is a collaborative consortium of South Australia's major
marine research institutions, including SARDI (South
Australian Research and Development Institute), the
University of Adelaide, Flinders University
and the South Australian Museum.
14-03-2013 - The University of Melbourne,
National ICT Australia (NICTA) and IBM
Research-Australia are collaborating in the
development of a next generation IT platform for
improved disaster management - the Australia
Disaster Management Platform (ADMP).
The project will built on existing roadmaps such
as the Victorian Emergency Management Reform -
Whitepaper, Dec 2012, the project will address the
current shortfall in emergency support tools that are
inter-operable, which may hamper a more coordinated and
effective response to major emergencies.
The ADMP will process vast amounts of geo-spatial
and infrastructure information from multiple data sets
to create real-time practical information streams on
disaster events. This will allow users to become aware
of emergency situations in real-time. The platform will
also be used for the development of simulation and
optimisation models within available and changing
constraints.
China and Australia are forging closer ties on many
levels, including intellectual property.
In a recent development the Intellectual
Property Offices of both nations signed a Memorandum
of Understanding for continuing cooperation on 25
February 2013.
In this context, the director general of IP Australia,
Philip Noonan, highlighted the
importance of the Intellectual Property Laws
Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act, of which the
last provision came into effect on 15 April (... and a
bill with further ammendments to the Patent Act was
introduced into Parliament at the end of May - see
below).
The key objectives of the Raising the Bar reforms are to raise the
quality of patents granted in Australia and to more
closely align the inventive step standard required for
Australian patents with international standards. In
effect, Australia's patentability test is now similar
to other large IP Offices, including that of China,
and hence it is more straightforward for Australian
technology exporters to secure a patent in China
...read full story
Diverse
knowledge gap
03-04-2013 - The new Centre for Biodiversity
Analysis was launched in Canberra as a
partnership between the CSIRO and the
Australian National University (ANU).
According to the centre's director
Professor Craig Moritz (ANU), its work
will aim to improve our understanding about Australia's
biodiversity and help governments and non-governmental
organisations to translate policy into action.
(Click image to enlarge) - Australia
is one of 17 global biodiversity
hotspots which include: Australia,
The Congo, Madagascar, South Africa,
China, India, Indonesia Malaysia,
Papua New Guinea, Philippines,
Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico,
Peru, United States and Venezuela.
map: Australian Government
Department of Environment;
image: CSIRO, Marie Davies
With an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 species
Australia is a biodiversity hot spot, one of 17
countries described as being 'megadiverse'. Most of
Australia's species are believed to be unique to the
region. According to government information this
includes 84% of our plant species, 83% of mammals, and
45% of birds. Yet our knowledge of Australia's
biodiversity is still limited and work at the new centre
will address this. It is also an early example for the
developing Canberra Global Research Precinct,
a ANU-CSIRO collaboration that will focus on plant and
environmental science, and promote the uptake of
research outputs by government agencies.
25-03-2013 - While most sectors in Australia
have experienced slowing but still positiv
growth of productivity, in the mining sector
multifactor productivity declined by around one
third in the decade to 2010-11.
However, a new
discussion paper by the Bureau of
Resources and Energy Economics (BREE)
observes that measuring mining productivity poses
special challenges. Thus a decrease in
productivity can also reflect factors such as the
depletion of ore deposits, as ore grades or other
aspects of resource quality declines as more inputs
are needed to produce a marketable product. Similar
trends are observed in comparable resource rich
countries such as Canada and the US.
(Click image to enlarge) - Labour
productivity, capital productivity
and MFP growth in mining, Canada,
the United States, and Australia,
average annual growth rates (%),
1989-1990 to 2006-07
Graph: BREE report: Productivity in the Australian Mining Sector, March 2013
However, the study found that if adjusted
for deposit quality depletion, Australia's mining
productivity actually grew at a positive rate over
the past decade, although at a slower pace than in
the 90s.
But other factors may weigh in as well such
as inefficiencies of vintage capital, output-input
lags, the lumpy nature of mining investment, and
high commodity prices that place a priority on rates
of extraction rather than costs of extraction.
When adjusted for ore quality and capital lag
effects, multifactor productivity grew in each state
and sector as a result of both technical efficiency
improvements and the scale of operations.
11-03-2013 - Ferra Engineering is one
example of a successful technology exporting company that
developed from the humble beginnings of a small family
business, a two-man operation in 1992, that now employs more
than 100 people.
The Brisbane based company specialises in the
design, manufacture, assembly and testing of aerospace
structures and sub-systems. Its international success was
recently underpinned with a $60 million deal with
multinational aerospace and defence company Boeing,
which the Queensland Government announced
in March. Ferra will manufacture the Joint Direct
Attack Munitions Systems (JDAM), a US developed
guidance kit. According to information obtained from
Wikipedia, the JDAM kit converts unguided bombs, or
'dumb bombs' into guided all-weather 'smart' munitions that
use the Global Positioning System (GPS) and have a range of
up to 15 nautical miles (28 km).
March/April 2013 - While the uranium industry is still only at
the verge of a recovery after a crash in uranium spot prices and
uranium market shares triggered by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
disaster in March 2011, Western Australia got its first uranium
mine approved and Queensland is set to recommence development
and operation of uranium mining.......read
full story
Bit by bit body
and mind repair
Ehealth technologies are expected to transform Australia's
health care delivery. An example for the potential is a project
launched in Victoria at the end of March.
Are you ready for the
doctor?
The Regional Cystic Fibrosis e-Health & Telemonitoring
Program is a pilot project by Monash University
and partners*. Funded by the Victorian Government
under the $18 million Broadband Enabled Innovation
Program its objective is to remotely monitor patients
with cystic fibrosis at home and to reduce their specialist and
hospital visits by delivering services online.
To this end the project will leverage the high-capacity
broadband currently rolled out in regional Victoria, the State's
Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips
said at the launch. The new technology will facilitate the
exchange of information, including care plans, radiology images
and video-consultation, and include an online patient portal.
More information:www.premier.vic.gov.au; *
project partners include: Monash Medical
Centre, Royal Children's Hospital,
Alfred Health, Cystic Fibrosis
Victoria, SmartHealth Solutions,
Attend Anywhere and Riskman
International
Hitting the ground
The Great Artesian Basin is not only Australia's
largest groundwater basin, it represents the world's
largest and deepest artesian acquifer - a confined
acquifer that holds groundwater under positive
pressure.
The Great Artesian Basin
image: CSIRO
In March, the Australian Government
released the Great Artesian Basin Water Resource
Assessment, which the CSIRO
and Geoscience Australia carried out as
part of the Sustainable Yield Projects.
In addition and complementing the Assessment, a
four-year Mound Springs project
investigated surface and groundwater interactions and
mound spring characteristics in the western area of the
Great Artesian Basin. The project was funded by the
National Water Commission and the South
Australian Government and carried out by a
number of South Australian project partners*.
Together, the studies provide details about water availability in
the GAB to guide waterpolicy and water resource
planning. ....read full story
Money makes the world...
March 2013- Access to venture capital, or the
apparent lack of it, is an Achilles heel of
Australia's innovation system.
To ease this particular problem for innovative, and potentially high
growth smaller firms, the Government implemented the
Innovation Investment Fund (IIF) in 1998.
Managed by AusIndustry, it is set
up as a co-investment scheme that provides licensed
private sector fund managers with capital for
investments that must be matched (at an agreed
ratio) with capital raised by the fund manager from
the private sector.
Since inception 3 rounds of the IIF established 16 funds and
co-invested in successful new companies such as
Seek, Bionomics,
Pharmaxis and Benthic Geotech.
However, the scarcity of venture capital remains a major obstacle
for innovative SMEs, and hence the
Australian Government's recent Plan
for Australian Jobs package includes a new
$350 million round of the IIF program.
In March, Industry and Innovation Minister Greg Combet
also announced that three recently IIF licensed
venture capital funds will invest at least $200
million, with $100 million contributed by the
Government, into early stage Australian companies.
The support through Carnegie Venture Capital Pty Ltd
($40 million), and GBS Venture Partners Pty
Ltd and Innovation Capital
Associates Pty Ltd ($30 million each) will
not only inject equity capital but also assist a
whole range of companies with management expertise.
22-02-2013 - Scientists from the University of
British Columbia have led a major international
study that promises to deliver a new and urgently needed
class of influenza drugs.
Click image for a
detailed depiction
Published
in Science in February, the 15 authors also
included 4 scientists from CSIRO Materials
Science and Engineering.
The current common influenza drugs Relenza and the more frequently
used Tamiflu target neuramidase, an enzyme of the virus
that is essential for it to spread in the human body.
Flu virus particles are formed inside of body cells which they enter
after binding to a component of the cell surface, the
sugar sialic acid. However, newly formed virus particles
can only effectively release from their host cell when
this sialic acid is removed from both viral and cell
surfaces through the action of the neuraminidase enzyme.
Both Relenza and Tamiflu prevent this step thus blocking the spread
of the virus in the body. However, resistance against
the drugs, in particular Tamiflu, are now occurring and
there is urgent need for alternatives.
According to
the World Health Organisation,
influenza kills approximately 500,000 people each year,
with up to 2500 of those deaths occurring in Australia.
Costs to the Australian health care system are estimated
to be more than $85 million.
The scientists confirmed a recently proposed mechanism through which
neuramindase cleaves sialic acid residues and developed
compounds that fix the enzyme action in an intermediate
state, thus preventing a further reaction with the host
cell's sialic acid.
Importantly, the drugs targeted a site that is found in all flu
strains, and they were effective against strains
resistant to Relenza or Tamiflu. Hence the authors
believe they constitute attractive new antiviral
candidates.
13-03-2013 - The CSIRO has commenced a
$3.5 million pilot plant in Perth to test new technology
developed by Sydney-based Direct Nickel
through which low grade nickel resource from laterites
can be converted into a higher grade resource.
Nickel is a key component of stainless steel and mostly mined from
nickel sulphide deposits as they are cheaper to process.
But with deposits depleting and around 70% of world
reserves of nickel found in laterites there is an
increasing need to mine this resource more cost
effectively with little environmental impact.
Click image for a
video describing the process. Image and
video: CSIRO
For Australia, this could present major benefits as we
have abundant low grade nickel laterite deposits.
Current processes rely on the use of sulphuric acid at high
temperatures and pressures, resulting in expensive
treatment and disposal of chemical waste. By contrast,
Direct Nickel's technology uses nitric acid, of which
over 95% can be recycled and reused. The set up and
operating costs are estimated to be less than half those
of existing processes, and the technology is more
efficient in extracting the nickel from the laterite
ores. It is also believed to be the first process
capable of treating all laterite ores.
After positive initial results, CSIRO expects that the technology
could be available to industry as early as 2016.
16-02-2013 - Providing a total of $70 million, the 15th
round of the Cooperative Research Centres
(CRCs) program will fund the establishment of 3 new
centres and the expansion of the current Vision
CRC research program.
The new CRC
for Cell Therapy Manufacturing will
be led by the University of South
Australia
Responding to the announcement, the CRC Association (CRCA)
expressed concern regarding the level of funding,
given that $150 million were initially allocated for
this round and 7 out of 9 initial applications were
selected to interviews. But proposals for CRCs
in Biodiversity, Resilient Regions
and Prostate Cancer missed out in
funding.
However, this may not indicate a cut to the overall level of
funding for the program, CRCA chief executive officer
Tony Peacock wrote in the association's
newsletter. Thus, in the
announcement of the funding, the Government
reaffirmed that $619 million will be made available over
2012/13 to 2015/16 period
28-02-2013 - Carnegie Wave Energy Limited
has formally
accepted a $1.27 million grant from the
Clean Technology Innovation Program for its
$2.5 million trial to power desalination plants with
wave energy.
(Click
image to enlarge)- CETO Power
and Freshwater technology
Carnegie's CETO technology has frequently
generated waves among renewable energy enthusiasts. Its
Perth Wave Energy Project ('PWEP'), a $31.2
million power station under construction at Garden Island to
become the company's first commercial-scale CETO
grid-connected wave energy project.
But apart
from electricity, the high pressure seawater generated as
CETO's fully submerged buoys move with the wave motion, can
also be used to produce desalinated water through standard
reverse osmosis desalination technology.
This concept is the
basis of the CETO desalination pilot which will co-located
with the PWEP aims to demonstrate the technology's potential
to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from
desalination plants.
28-02-2013 - The $230 million Science and
Technology Centre launched at the
Queensland University of Technology's Gardens
Point Precinct at the end of February.
The Cube;
image: Queensland University of
Technology
The project commenced in 2008 to bring together
expertise in the disciplines of science, technology,
engineering and mathematics.
It is funded by the Australian and
Queensland Governments ($75 million and $35
million, respectively) and the Atlantic
Philanthropies ($25 million) and includes the
headquarters of QUT's newest research institute, the
Institute for Future Environments (IFE). The IFE
houses more than 300 scholars from the fields of science,
technology, engineering, mathematics, business, law,
education, health and creative industries, whose focus will
be on some of the world's most pressing problems with core
research areas including:
Smart energy use and clean technologies
Sustainable use of natural resources
Monitor and document the health of our planet
Robot design and deployment
Production of sustainable foods
Information security and resilient infrastructure
Application of maths and computers to global problems
Another major research hub within the centre is the
$17 million Central Analytical Research Facility
(CARF), which is dedicated to the most advanced electron and
light microscopy, analytical chemistry, environmental
analysis and molecular genetics.
But the core feature of the centre is the Cube - a
two storey high public space in which the public can engage
with dedicated projects such as the Virtual Reef
project. One of the world's largest touch and display
system, the Cube boasts 190 square metre of high-definition
screens including 48 touch panels, which integrate with 14
high-definition projectors to reach a massive 115-megapixel
resolution.
The Australian Government's
Oceans Policy Science Advisory Group
(OPSAG) has released a new review of Australia's marine
wealth and research infrastructure capabilities.
Click image
to enlarge -
The UNCLOS zones and limits that
comprise Australia's marine
jurisdiction.
Image: Geoscience
Australia
The report A Marine Nation 2025: Marine Science to support
Australia's Blue Economy follows up on OPSAG's 2009 strategic paper
that marked a renewed policy interest in our marine endowments (reviewed in
Treasure hunt under the sea; ARDR magazine, April 2009 edition).
Non only has Australia the third largest marine jurisdiction of any
nation in the world, covering a total of 13.6 million square kilometres, the
environment of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is also extraordinarily
complex ranging from tropical to antarctic conditions. There are three
oceans that surround Australia, our coastal seas and the continental shelf
waters surrounding the continent, and our Antarctica and offshore island
territories. In addition, marine environments communicate with estuaries,
rivers and catchments and thus interact with our freshwater systems.
Given our exposure to the seas the state of our ocean environment
will affect how we fare with major national challenges facing Australia.
According to Marine Nation 2025 these include: sovereignty;
national security and natural hazards; energy security; food security;
biodiversity and ecosystem conservation; climate change; and resource
allocation.
Yet, as we have detailed in a recent dossier article (Ocean
views; ARDR magazine; Sep-Dec 2011 edition), in the past marine
science has not ranked high on the nation's agenda, despite the importance
of the seas also for our cultural idendity.
This has somewhat changed in recent years....read
full story
Feeding the world
06-03-2013 - The University of Sydney
has launched the Centre for Carbon, Water and
Food at Camden.
Click infographic to enlarge - Australia's
and China's shares in global grain
production and trade
Set up with more than $20 million, the teaching and
research facility will focus on a more water efficient and
less carbon intensive food production, and also issues
around the interaction of agriculture and mining.
In a broader outlook, an interdisciplinary team
of researchers will target the challenge for Australia to
benefit from the increased food demand in Asia, as its
middle class is projected to grow to 3 billion by 2030.
As outlined in the
Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, the
development could provide significant opportunities for
Australian businesses including those in the food technology
and production industries.
In this Australia has strong common interests
with China, as was reflected in the
Feeding the Future, report on the Australia-China
cooperation to enhance food security released at the end of
December 2012.
The centre has recently entered into an agreement
with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science
which will result in a Sino-Australia Joint
Laboratory for Sustainable Agro-Ecosystems
established in Australia with a mirror facility established
in China. In addition, the centre will collaborate with
Nanjing Agricultural University in setting up a
Sino-Australian Laboratory for Food Security at the
centre and in Nanjing.
In March, Environment Minister Tony Burke
was again in the crossfire for intending to increase
federal powers in the approval process of CSG and large
coal mining developments.
This followed on from the Government's
controversial conditional approval of AGL's
coal seam methane gas (CSG) project at Gloucester in
NSW, announced in February alongside further approvals
for two NSW coal mine projects at Maules Creek and at
Boggabri (see below).
With the planned amendments to the
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
1999 a project would require Australian
Government assessment and approval of coal seam
gas and large coal mining developments if they have a
significant impact on a water resource. According to
Minister Burke, so far federal approval of projects
includes water to the extend there has been an impact on
issues such as threatened species or a RAMSAR wetland.
With the amendments, the Australian Environment Minister
would have the capacity to take all potential impacts on
water into account
Click infographic to enlarge - Australia's
use of the Internet
Graphs:
Elwinmedia based on data by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Fast future
New data on Internet use by the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows the ever
increasing appetite for downloads.
Meanwhile a new report by the CSIRO
predicts a future in broadband connected homes, the ACMA
shows the rapid uptake of smartphones and tablets, and
Adelaide plans to become a free wireless city...
Find below a list of stories published on this site.
Heavenly peeks (June 2015) The $1 billion Giant Magellan Telescope project is on its way.
Busy money for changing habits (May 2015) The Australian Government is supporting 19 projects with $50 million under its Manufacturing Transition Programme.
Slippery prospects (May 2015) The first round of the 2014 Offshore Acreage Release resulted in eight new permits.
Innovation highways for the nation (May 2015) In 2015-16, the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy will provide $136.9 million for 27 facilities.
Trialling one-stop shop (May 2015) An online one-stop shop for clinical trials was launched.
Transformers at work (April 2015) The ARC's Industrial Transformation Research Program (ITRP)
will provide $18.7 million for four new research hubs.
Auctioned abatement (April 2015) The first Emissions Reduction Fund auction awarded 107 contracts worth $660.4 million for 47 million tonnes in CO2 abatement.
Better safe than sorry (March 2015) The Government has released a discussion paper on the Emissions Reduction Fund safeguard mechanism, while a new report shows that Australia's trend decline of emissions has reversed after the price on carbon was removed in 2014.
Measuring success (April 2015) The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences has proposed a new metrics system for measuring cross-sector research engagement.
New carrot from the boss (April 2015) The Prime Minister's Prizes for Science will now also recognise practical and commercials success.
Party on a budget (May 2015) The 2015 federal budget keeps the promise of being dull also for the research and innovation sector.
Energetically productive (April 2015) The Australian Government has released its Energy White Paper.
Vapour power (April 2015) The first hydrogen fuel cell
powered passenger vehicle has arrived in Australia.
X-factor continued (March 2015) The Australian Government announced the third major installment of the 2014 NHMRC health and medical research grants.
Targeted revolution (March 2015) A new NHMRC Targeted Call for Research (TCR) initiative will provide up to $25 million across five years for a project that explores genomics medicine for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.
One for everything (March 2015) Global IT firm CISCO has announced it will invest US$15 million over five years in a Cisco Internet of Everything (IoE) Innovation Centre in Australia.
Our beef with the reef (March 2015) The Australian and Queensland
Governments jointly released a 35 year plan for the long-term sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage Area.
Reductionists at auction (February 2015) - Businesses will be able to submit their bids for emissions reductions into the first competitive Emissions Reduction Fund auction on 15 April 2015.
A climate of change (December 2014) A snapshot of the changing face of Australia's industry, the inaugural Australian Industry Report 2014 highlights the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Australia's economy.
Offshore hopes (December 2014) Round two of the Australian Government's 2013 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release delivered seven permits, which could potentially translate into investment of more than $600 million over the next six years.
No stop for the shop (December 2014) The Australian Government is progressing with its plan to create a single environmental approval process for projects that may impact on nationally protected matters.
It's a broadbandit's world (December 2014) The Australian Government released a policy paper detailing a new regulatory environment for NBN Co.
Never ending appetite (December 2014) The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) reports that growth in the number of Australians having a home internet connection has stabilised at 14.7 million (81%) as of June 2014.
Foody strength (December 2014) The National Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Precinct (NAESP) at CSIRO s redeveloped $200 million Black Mountain site in Canberra was launched in December.
Hunger games (December 2014) Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce released the Agriculture Competitiveness Green Paper.
Indian appetite (December 2014) According to a recent report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), India's foot consumption is set to rise by 136% between 2009 and 2050, driven by population and personal income growth across the continent.
Spacious clean-up (December 2014) With another review of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) programme underway, this time led by business leader David Miles, a new CRC is taken up work on lowering the risk for satellites to be hit by space debris.
Ice telling the story (September 2014) Australia's recent prolonged drought was far from being a historic anomaly for eastern Australia during the past thousand years.
Reefing up (September 2014) The Australian and Queensland Governments released a discussion paper on a 35 year plan for the long-term sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef.
Bright cruises (December-March 2014/15) Australia's new marine research vessel, the RV investigator is now officially in service...
Nurtured success (July 2014) The $482.2 million over five years Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme announced in the 2014 federal budget is taking shape, with a phased delivery of services having commenced in July 2014.
Renewed worries (July 2014) The recent Warburton Review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) confirmed that the political wind coming from Canberra has changed direction.
Healthy investments (July 2014) The NHMRC has awarded research grants and fellowships worth a total of $71.2 million, including 74 new NHMRC Research Fellowships totalling $54.6 million for Australia's top performing medical researchers.
Healthy investments (July 2014) The NHMRC has awarded research grants and fellowships worth a total of $71.2 million, including 74 new NHMRC Research Fellowships totalling $54.6 million for Australia's top performing medical researchers.
Ageing demands (July 2014) Among the various measures targeting special areas of medical research, the Australian Government's 2014-2015 federal budget provides an additional $200 million for dementia research.
Celebrated translation (July 2014) The NHMRC took another step towards addressing Australia's poor health research translation with the launch of the Advanced Health Research and Translational Centre program.
Being special (July 2014) The Australian Government has formally approved a $35 million investment into Type 1 juvenile diabetes research, an initiative first announced in the 2014-2015 federal budget. .
Space to the future (July/August 2014) The Australian National University has officially opened the doors to its new space engineering infrastrucure, the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre (AITC).
Champions league 2014 (July/August 2014) The ARC has awarded 16 new Australian Laureate Fellowships together worth $42 million, and 150 new Future Fellowships together worth $115 million.
Big picture dollars (July 2014) The Australian Government has released operational details for its new Exploration Development Incentive (EDI), which is to be effective from July 2014.
Big picture dollars (July 2014) The Australian Academy of Science will develop strategic decadal plans for Australia's chemistry, agricultural science, and earth sciences...
Northern dreaming (June 2014) The Australian Government's Green Paper On Developing Northern Australia envisions significant opportunities for an economically already thriving region of Australia, with the resources industry at the core of its economic expansion.
Born to be wide (June 2014) IP Australia's second update on the state of our intellectual property system reports that the number of Australian patent applications continues to grow strongly.
Born to be wide (June 2014) Somewhat overshadowed by the suprise decision of Germany to pull out of the Square Kilometre Array Project (see insert), the CSIRO reported promising test results from its Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope.
Industrious hubs (June 2014) Seven new Research Hubs will be created with almost $24 million provided through the ARC Industrial Transformation Research Program.
Collaborative splurge (June 2014) A new round of grants under the ARC Linkage projects scheme will provide a total of $88.2 million for 251 collaborative research projects.
Supercritical power (June 2014) A collaborative research project between the CSIRO and solar energy firm Abengoa Solar has reported the highest level of 'supercritical steam' ever produced using solar energy.
Digitised sanity (June 2014) The establishment of a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record is a complex but worthwhile project, according to a new review commissioned by the Australian Government.
To ehealth or not to ehealth (June 2014) In this brief review we report on the slow but steady progress towards eHealth in Australia.
Explorative responses (June 2014) The Australian Government has responded to the Inquiry Report into Mineral and Energy Resource Exploration by the Productivity Commission.
...for offshore manna (June 2014) Nine awarded new offshore petroleum exploration permits could attract more than $372 million in investments.
Stay away from bleeding hearts. (June 2014) Cyber security is becoming a pressing issue for Australian online users, as highlighted in a new report from the CSIRO on cyber security trends and implications.
A peak in sight. (May 2014) A new report from the CSIRO warns that while demand fro mobile internet services could almost triple by 2020, the development may head towards a 'spectrum crunch'.
Emerging non-fixation issues. (May 2014) NBN Co has released its redacted review of the progress made in the non-fixed line footprint.
Blowing with the wind (April 2014) A brief on the state of wind energy in Australia, including the $1.5 billion, 600 megawatt CERES wind project.
Productively connected on the run (April 2014) New research released by the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) revealed a link between Australia's mobile broadband connectedness and its productivity and overall economic growth
Earthly delights (March 2014) Latest reports present a mixed outlook for the Australian mining sector, including the Resources and Energy Quarterly - March Quarter 2014 report from the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics and recent statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We also cover a discussion paper on the proposed Exploration Development Incentive and the 2014 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release.
State-us Quo of R&D (February/March 2014) Here we cover stories from and about the states over the period.
Scientific wonders (February/March 2014) Here we review recent outstanding science stories from or with participation of Australian researchers.
Big thinking for a well-fed future (6 February 2014) The Australian Government has released an Issues Paper in preparation of its Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper.
Counterproductive helpers (February 2014) A new ABARES report has traced the impacts of past agricultural policies in Australia.
Healthy winners (18 February 2014) New NHMRC funding totalling $133 million will support projects across five NHMRC schemes.
Renewed doubts (17 February 2014) The Australian Government has released the Terms of Reference for a review of the Renewable Energy Target.
Big not welcome - Proposed changes to the R&D Tax Incentive will exclude larger firms (turnover $20 billion or more) from receiving assistance - possibly the only example for an exclusion purely based on size in the world.
Mighty dancers (21 February 2014) The Australian Government will provide $186 million for establishing three new and extending four existing Cooperative Research Centres.
How to play together (January 2014) ACOLA has released a final report on a study investigating the benefits and challenges of inderdisciplinary research.
Cheap read (January 2014) The Garvan Institute is one of the first owning a sequencer that can perform a genome sequencing study at potentially less than $1000.
Cloudy days (January/February 2014) Two recent Australian studies have brought a new understanding how cloud formation may impact on climate change and why global mean temperatures have not significantly risen since 2001.
Hot options (February 2014) An ARENA funded Breaking the solar gridlock study has assessed the potential of concentrating solar thermal power at Australia's electricity grid constrained locations.
Emitted future (December 2013) The story covers the Australian Government's Green Paper on its Emissions Reduction Fund.
Profitable uni-verse (December 2013) The 2012 Financial report of higher education providers reveals a sector in good health (Story includes an infographic on university revenue sources).
Excellence expected (24 December 2013) The Government has approved $285 million, which from 2014 will support 12 ARC Centres of Exellence.
Three off the hook (December 2013) The Government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) includes a redirection of ARC funds to boost some areas of medical research, but not everyone is happy.
Broad bandits seeking new direction The story covers the NBN Co Strategic Review, the Government's Summary Report of a Broadband Availability and Quality Survey, and a report from the CSIRO on the impact and challenges related to broadband.
Sinking feelings A round up of recent Australian research that highlights the ecological importance and potential financial value of coastal carbon sinks.
One for all The Government plans to streamline the complex environmental approval process for offshore petroleum projects in Australian seas.
Hot air action (16 October 2013) The Australian Government has released the Terms of Reference for the development of an Emissions Reduction Fund.
Oh yes, Minister ARDR analysis of the Governments revision of climate change policies.
Stemming the challenge In this dossier we trace the progression of new stem cell therapies into clinical practice, in Australia and abroad.
Dollars for the scholars
(October/November 2013) the NHMRC and the ARC have awarded research grants and fellowships worth a total of over $1 billion dollar.
Australia's patenting processes are in the spotlight with the release of IP Australia's first annual report on the state of the IP system, and the release of an Options Paper in preparation of a review of the innovation patent system.
Fly like a BERD Recent data from the ABS on business spending on R&D, and how innovation impacts on business performance.
Strategic desert (September 2013) For the first time since 1931 an Australian Government does not have a Minister dedicated to science and research.
Dear pie sought in the sky The Western Australian Government will provide $26 million in new funding for the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).
Marinating leader (17 August 2013) Associate Professor Tim Ward will lead the 4-year South Australian research program on the Great Australian Bight.
Light play (July 2013) The Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS) has opened its new $92 million headquarters at the University of Adelaide.
One direction: Asia (8 July 2013) The National Centre for Asia Capabilities has opened.
Hot largesse in the making (31 July 2013) ARENA has reached a financial close with AGL for the construction of a $450 million solar power station, the largest in the southern hemisphere.
Traceable fortunes (6 August 2013) A new CSIRO development could considerably boost the rewards of gold miners.
Cruising onshore (01 August 2013) The $37 million National Sea Simulator (SeaSim) has officially opened.
Horizons to the future (30 July 2013) Monash has launched its $175 million New Horizons Centre strengthening Australia's manufacturing capabilities.
The CSIRO has launched its new Biosecurity Flagship, which will take a One Health approach to biosecurity threats.
What do we really want? (30 August 2013) -
The final report on a pilot of the Australia's Progress in the 21st
Century project has been released
Fissionary outlook (July 2013) -
Delegates at a recent ATSE conference on nuclear energy believe there
should be a renewed debate about the use of nuclear power for
electricity generation in Australia.
XY still the norm (09 July 2013)
Only 2 women are among the 17 recipients of Australian Laureate
Fellowships in 2013.
Born to be wild (June 2013) Summary of
the latest developments related to the Tasmanian Forests Agreement.
Patent power to the Crown (26-06-2013)
Covers the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2013 currently
before the Senate.
Healthy money going south (15-06-2013) The
South Australian Health & Biomedical Research Priority receives $100
million from the Australian Government.
Getting the priorities right(21-06-2013)
New Strategic Research Priorities are to guide public research
investment.
Hydrocarbonic investment (17-06-2013)
Covers the Government's recent Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage
Release and other stories related to Petroleum exploration.
Manufactured board (14-06-2013) - The
board of the new Manufacturing Precinct, one of ten Industry Innovation
Precincts, has been announced.
Sharing the gap (07-06-2013) - ARENA's
$60 million SHARE (Supporting High-value Australian Renewable Energy)
initiative will accept industry applications from 1 July.
It's budget time (May-August 2013) -
Summary of federal and state budgets (Victoria, Queensland, South
Australia and Western Australia).
Economic abyss in sight (May-June 2013) -
Reviews the state of Australia's resources and energy industries based
on recent analysis by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics
(BREE), the Resources and Energy Major Projects 2013 report and the
Energy in Australia 2013 report.
Charged changes (30-05-2013) - The Future
Grid Cluster was launched in Sydney.
Regional boost (10-05-2013) - Charles Sturt
University receives $5.9 million Government funding for a new Food, Soil
and Water Research Centre.
Fracklustre advances - The Government
discussion paper on new regulations that aim to improve the monitoring
of greenhouse gases during the exploration and production of coal seam
gas.
Partners in Health (April 2013) - A collection
of stories around the NHMRC Partnership in Health program
Infectious collaborations (10-04-2013) - The
Government has announced it has entered a new health research
partnership with Singapore.
Facing defensive prospects(12-04-2013) -
the DSTO has released a 5 year strategic plan, and the University of
Tasmania launched the Centre for Food Innovation
in a partnership with the DSTO and CSIRO.
Clean competition (02-04-2013) - The third
round of the Australian Clean Technologies Competition was launched in
early April
Spacious ambition (09-04-2013) -
Australia's first space policy was launched
Sinking feelings (20-02-2013) - Results
published from Australian Terrestrial Carbon Budget project reveal the
Australian landscape as an important carbon sink, and that we export
more fossil fuel emissions than produce within the country
Taking a Bight (09-04-2013) - The Great
Australian Bight will be the target of a $20 million science program.
Disastrous foresight(14-03-2013) - The
Australia Disaster Management Platform (ADMP) is developing an improved
IT platform for disater management.
Patently friends (March/April 2013) - a broad
roundup on recent developments around IP
Diverse knowledge gap (09-04-2013)- The
Centre for Biodiversity Analysis was launched in Canberra
Productive challenges (25-03-2013) - A new
discussion paper released by BREE on the challenges of measuring
productivity in the mining sector.
High-tech down under (11-03-2013) -
Queensland company Ferra Engineering has won a $60 million contract with
Boeing for the manufacture of Joint Direct Attack Munitions Systems.
Radiating gold (March/April 2013) -
Western Australia got its first uranium mine approved, while Queensland
is set to recommence its uranium industry.
Bit by bit body and mind repair (March 2013)
- The Regional Cystic Fibrosis e-Health & Telemonitoring Program was
launched in Victoria.
Hitting the ground (March 2013) - New
insights about the Great Artesian Basin revealed throughthe Great
Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment and the Mound Springs project.
Arresting protection (22-02=2013) - CSIRO
work on a new class of flu vaccines is published in Science.
How to make a nickel (13-03-2013) - A new
CSIRO pilot plant to test technology for the conversion of low grade
nickel laterites to high grade resource.
Cooperative commitment (16-02-2013) - $70
million funding for Cooperative Research Centres announced.
When the west waves move (16-02-2013) -
Carnegie Energy Wave Limited has accepted Government funding for a
project that will power desalination plants with wave energy.
The show is on (28-02-2013) - The $230
million Science and Technology Centre launched at the Queensland
University of Technology's Gardens Point Precinct.
Feeding the world (06-03-2013) - The
University of Sydney has launched the Centre for Carbon, Water and Food
at Camden.
Marine prospects - The Oceans Policy Science
Advisory Group (OPSAG) has released a new report A Marine Nation
2025: Marine Science to support Australia's Blue Economy.
Of coal and gas... Februar/March 2013 - The
Australian Environment Minister approved AGL's coal seam methane gas
(CSG) project at Gloucester and coal mine projects at Maules Creek and
at Boggabri (see below). It also seeks to amend current legislation to
extend federal powers in assessing the potential impact of CSG projects
on groundwater.
Fast future (Feb to April) - New data on
Internet use by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows the ever
increasing appetite for downloads while a new report by the CSIRO
predicts a future in broadband connected homes, the ACMA shows the rapid
uptake of smartphones and tablets and Adelaide plans to become a free
wireless city...
While the ARDR is still in the process of transitioning from its
previous magazine-style format to a web-style publication, some
content is now available. We hope it is of interest although we don't
yet have the scope of our previous ARDR magazine.
Recent stories across all fields of the Australian R&D landscape are
displayed on our homepage and in future we will also have pages that cover special areas
of R&D.
The stories on our homepage can be read scrolling to the right (on mobile
devices use your finger). Alternatively you will find stories and short
descriptions in the contentlist (right corner on our homepage).
If you have any feedback, input or questions, please send us an email at
info@elwinmedia.com
If you are interested in our previous website and back issues of ARDR magazines, you can
find it
here.
Disclaimer: Opinions or views expressd in releases or articles
published in the Australian R&D
Review (ARDR) are personal views of
contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies
of the ARDR.
The ARDR expressly disclaims any and all warranties and
liability in connection with the information published in the ARDR
and your use of such information.
16-04-2013 - The Australian Government released
a discussion paper that aims to improve how companies monitor
greenhouse gases during the exploration and production of coal
seam gas. It is the second round of public consultations on
proposals which for the first time address the differences
between conventional extraction of gas and CSG.
These include the use of hydraulic fracturing or
'fracking' in CSG production. There is now some evidence that
fracking may lead to more emissions than, for example,
conventional CSG extraction techniques.
The proposed amendments to the current rules for fugitive
emissions estimates, which are specified by the National
Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (Measurement) Determination 2008,
are in line with US requirements introduced by the US
Environmental Protection Agency in 2011.
They would also refine how companies estimate fugitive
emissions from CSG wells during a well workover or well
completion, in particular where fracking techniques are a
component of the extraction process.
The project uses empirical data from Australian CSG wells to
establish factors for leakage that underly fugitive emissions
and are specific to Australia.
According to Professor Alan Randall,
head of Agricultural R&D Resource Economics at the
University of Sydney, the proposals would substantially
advance the monitoring of emissions from gas-fields, "moving
away from back-of-the-envelope methods and toward direct
measurement of site-specific emissions".
The paper also includes a report on a collaboration
between the Government's Climate Change Department and the
CSIRO.
The project uses empirical data from Australian CSG wells to
establish factors for leakage that underly fugitive emissions
and are specific to Australia.
05-04-2013 - The Australian Government has
released the Strategic Review of Health and Medical
Research - Better Health through Resesearch.
Chaired by
Simon McKeon, the review panel reached the
overarching conclusion that Australia's health care system
performs well by international standards - only Japan, Spain and
Italy achieve higher life expectancy at lower cost.
Click image to enlarge
Nevertheless, there is an insufficient connection between health
and medical research (HMR) but calls and health care services
delivery. For example, the panel cites results from the
CareTrack Australia project, which is part of a NHMRC
program grant according and according to which around 43% of
Australians do not receive appropriate, evidence-based
healthcare.
Click image to enlarge
The review report presents a 10 year strategy with 21
recommendations that aim for a better integration of HMR into
all aspects of the healthcare system. Major points include that
current HMR investment should be optimised and be boosted with
additional competitive programs that could be accessed by a
broader range of researchers than current programs. Measures to
improve research capacity in the health sector include support
for initially 100, and over a 10 year period up to 1,000
research grants for health professionals.
In 2011-12, Australia's total investment in HMR was
around $6 billion, of which $4 billion or 0.09% of GDP was
contributed by governments. Although Government expenditure on
health is slightly below the OECD average, this is mainly due to
the exceptionally high expenditure in the US, which is at 0.31%
of GDP almost 3 times the OECD average of 0.11%.
The panel recommends to adopt a 'national health sytem
R&D investment target' of 3%-4% of the total government
expenditure on health. This would reflect similar targets for
general R&D, which in many OECD countries is set at 3% of GDP.
The panel also proposes to create a set of national HMR
priorities, to which around 10-15% of NHMRC funding for HMR
should be allocated for 'top-down strategic research'.
Other key recommendations include to accelerate clinical
trial reforms building on the report by the Clinical
Trials Action Group, and the establishment of
integrated health research centres that bring together hospital
and community-care networks, universities and medical research
organisations.
In support of investments in HMR, the report
points out that according to a
2008
Access Economics report
the health benefit obtained for each dollar invested are
estimated at $2.17. Benefits associated with health research
can, for example, be linked to improved productivity due to the
reduced burden of chronic diseases and better workforce
wellbeing.
Further points by the panel include the finding from some
studies that Australians place an estimated value on each
additional year of life of around $432,000. By contrast, the
Government's implicit valuation of each 'quality-adjusted life
year is just about $42,000. The panel also draws a direct link
between HMR life expectancy over the past 100 years and HMR
discoveries [hereby is notable, though, that life expectancy
rose steadily from 50 years in the late 19th century to around
82 years today without the apparent spikes one might expect with
certain HMR discoveries.]
But there are measurable economic returns to HMR
investment. Thus it underpinned growth in medicinal and
pharmaceutical exports, which in 2009 overtook the motor
vehicles industry as Australia's largest manufacturing export
category. Most of these exports (40%) now are targeting Asian
countries, and it is likely that this market will grow
significantly in the future. Australia's biotechnology industry
is also maturing, with over 100 companies now listed on the
Australian Stock exchange with a combined market capitalisation
of $32 billion (31 Dec 2012).
01-02-2013 - In February, the Australian Government
announced 38 grants worth total of $10.6 million for research
projects targeting cancer, including the understanding of
genetic variants of cancers, improved support for carers, and
research into improved treatments.
The grants are provided
through Cancer Australia's Priority-
driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme, an annual
national research grants scheme conducted by Cancer Australia in
partnership with the NHMRC. Since inception in
2007, 209 grants totalling $71.8 million have been funded
through this scheme. Projects include:
Associate Professor Monika Janda
(Queensland University of Technology)
will investigate the intrauterine contraceptive system
MIRENA IUD as an alternative to surgical standard
treatment (hysterectomy) for the treatment for the early
stages of edometrial cancer, the most common
gynaecological cancer in Australia. MIRENA IUD locally
delivers small amounts of the hormone progestin.
Professor Michael Friedlander
(Prince of Wales Hospital)
will receive project funds in support of the Australian
arm of an international clinical trial that investigates
alternative protocols of administering chemotherapy as a
way to improve the survival and quality of life for
women with ovarian cancer.
Associate Professor Penny Schofield
(Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre) will
lead a multidisciplinary team to establish a cohort of
patients with Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP) to
determine for the first time the frequency of genetic
mutations in tumours and define quality of life issues
and psychosocial needs unique to these patients. This
will provide concrete direction for new and effective
treatments, clinical management and supportive care
programs.
Professor Melissa Southey
(University of Melbourne) will
continue her research on susceptibility genes that
present risk factors for the development of lobular
breast cancer.
Dr Lorraine O'Reilly (The
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
will use a newly identified mouse model of stomach
cancer to investigate the role of molecules called
inflammatory cytokines in gastric adenocarcinomas , the
second most common cause of cancer-related deaths
world-wide (5-year survival ~25%).
Associate Professor Timothy Price
(The Queen Elizabeth Hospital,
Adelaide) will undertake a trial of oxaliplatin as an
addition to standard treatment in patients with locally
advanced rectal cancer. The trial aims to reduce the
spread of disease, while maintaining the good rate of
local control achieved with standard treatment.
Dr Lisa Mielke (The
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
will investigate the role of chronic inflammation in the
development of colon cancer, a leading cause of
cancer-related deaths. The study will target the
cellular and molecular circuitry that leads to
tumourigenesis and identify possible interventions to
prevent tumour formation.
The Australian Government has announced
$7.9 million for 11 Partnerships for Better
Health - Projects, which will be jointly funded
by the NHMRC and partners including Commonwealth and
State agencies, hospitals, medical research institutes,
and patient advocacy groups.
This is in accordance with recommendations by the
Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research - Better
Health through Resesearch [McKeon
Review"] to imbed research into all facets of the
health system, Australian Health Minister
Tanya Plibersek remarked in a statement.
Major projects include:
the Women's Wellness after Cancer Program
at the Queensland University of Technology
and involving further 10 partner organisations. Funded
with $1.17 million and led by Professor
Debra Anderson, the project aims to
maximise the wellbeing of women treated for cancer,
utilising Internet and Smartphone technology to support
them to live healthier lifestyles.
Associate Professor Julian Trollor
from the University of New South Wales
and collaborators from 11 partner organisations will use
$1,13 million in funding to develop a sound evidence
base on the profile of mental ill health, service use,
pathways to care and mental health policy for people
with intellectual disability.
Mental health will also be the target of a project
funded with $1.27 million and led by
Professor Mark Dadds, University
of New South Wales. He and collaborators at
Royal Far West, a provider of health services
to children from rural regions, will develop and
evaluate a transportable model of early intervention to
improve access and outcomes for rural children with
early-onset mental health and their families.
12-04-2013 - In April, the Defence Science and
Technology Organisation (DSTO) launched a 5 year
strategic plan in the face of a changing global security and
Defence environment.
This includes the increased blurring of state
and non-state threats, the military modernisation in the
Asia-Pacific region, the global access to commercial
off-the-shelf technology and the rapid progression of cyber
capabilities and other disruptive technologies.
These
external challenges coincide with a tightening resource
environment. Set out as a guide for the organisation's future
research, collaborations and business activities, the paper
identifies ten key strategic initiatives and related actions
comprised in four broader themes:
1.Delivery:
Science and technology excellence;
Strategic engagement with client focus;
2. Shaping:
Big picture analysis on shape of Defence;
Grand Challenges for Safeguarding Australia;
3. Tomorrow:
Fostering innovation;
Invigorating Australia's research efforts in
national security;
4. Organisation
Leadership, accountability and performance
management;
Talent, diversity and career development pipeline;
Transformation of ICT to drive innovation and
collaboration;
Best practices for business processes and
administration.
The times, they are a'changing
The strategy also includes a strategic research investment
program targeting key areas that will be addressed over the next
five years. They include:
09-04-2013 - Australia's first space policy was launched at
ANU's Stromlo Observatory in early April. From 1 July 2013
there will also be a new Space Coordination Office
which, as part of the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate
Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, will coordinate
and showcase Australia's domestic civilian space activities.
Click to enlarge;
NASA currently has more than a dozen Earth science
spacecraft/instruments in orbit studying all aspects of the Earth
system (oceans, land, atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere), with
several more planned for launch in the next few years.
The Australian Government has increasingly recognised the
importance of space research, including through the $40 million over
4 years Australian Space Research Program and the
creation of a Science Policy Unit. This renewed
interest is also founded in the increasing economic contribution of
space capabilities, such as satellites.
According
to Minister Assisting for Industry and Innovation,
Senator Kate Lundy, satellite imagery alone has added
around $3.3 billion to GDP in 2010. And positioning technologies
such as GPS added an estimated $1 billion to GDP in 2008, which is
likely to increase to between $6 and $12 billion by 2030.
NewSat, an Australian satellite communications company just completed a $600
million financing package for its Jabiru 1 satellite. And the NBN
project includes an investment of nearly $2 billion in satellites
that will provide remote Australia with access to the Internet.
The Satellite Utilisation Policy now
released closely follows the Principles for a National Space
Industry Policy, which it now replaces as a statement of
Australia's objectives and direction for civilian space activities.
The policy's context is an increasingly congested space
environment presenting both opportunities and challenges for
Australia. Australia heavily relies on information from satellites
that are owned by its international partners and the policy's
overarching objective is to secure on-going and cost-effective
access to these space capabilities.
However, to this end Australia
will increasingly have to contribute to international missions,
preferably in areas it has niche expertise such as ground
infrastructure and the application of space information.
The potential benefits and opportunities for Australia are
nevertheless significant, with the increasing integration of space
capabilities in Australian industries such as agriculture, mining
and telecommunications.
The policy does not commit to space launch
activities such as human space flight. Instead its focus is on space
applications that have national significance and may contibute to
improved productivity, better environmental management, national
security, law enforcement and national disaster management, a
smarter workforce and equity of information and services.
Key aspects of the policy include:
Giving priority to earth observations from space; satellite
communications; and position, navigation and timing;
Contributing to international 'rules of the road' for space through
Australian space situational awareness infrastructure and diplomatic
efforts;
Building and retaining high quality Australian space expertise; and
Developing a plan to meet projected growth in Australia's satellite
information needs by modernising and consolidating Australia's ground
infrastructure.
March/April 2013 - While the uranium industry is still only at the
verge of a recovery after a crash in uranium spot prices and uranium
market shares triggered by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in
March 2011, Western Australia got its first uranium mine approved
and Queensland is set to recommence development and operation of
uranium mining.
Need for more
11-06-2013 - In a speech at an international mining conference in
Darwin Resources Minister Gary Gray said
that Australia needed new uranium mines to meet rapidly global
demand. He called on business leaders to work together with
Parliament to facilitate growth of the industry.
He referred to a relevant House of Representatives'
Standing Committee on Industry and Resources, whose recommendations
addressed skills, the elevation of uranium mining to the Council of
Australian Governments (COAG), indigenous engagement, international
safeguards and worker safety.
In highlighting important Government initiatives, Mr Gray mentioned
the 2006 Uranium Industry Framework, which led to the
Uranium Council, which was established to ensure the
progressive and sustainable development of uranium exploration,
mining, milling, transport logistics and export; establishing
nationally consistent best practice standards.
In April, Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke
gave conditional approval for the Wiluna uranium mine project in
Western Australia, the first in the state after it lifted a ban on
uranium mining in 2008.
According to a Government statement, the conditional
approval is based on advice by Geoscience Australia,
the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety
Agency, and the Supervising Scientist, as well as public
comments.
The $269 million Wiluna Uranium project
proposed by Toro Energy Limited would have an
estimated lifespan of 14 years during which it is expected to
process 1.3 million tonnes of ore each year to produce 780 tonnes of
uranium oxide concentrate. To put this in perspective, the SA's
Olympic Dam mine produced 4500 tonnes of uranium oxide in 2005 ( as
well as copper, silver and gold).
The project is located in the state's Mid-West region is
based on the two largest of five separate calcrete-hosted uranium
deposits, which received WA Ministerial environmental approval in October 2012.
In March, the Queensland Government
announced an independent committee report with 40
recommendations for a best-practice uranium mining industry in the
State amid plans by the Government to lift a ban on mining put in
place in 1989. Exploration of uranium deposits still continued and
the estimated value of identified uranium deposits in Queensland
stands now at $10 billion.
According to Natural Resources and Mines Minister
Andrew Cripps, uranium exports could earn billions of
dollars and provide hundreds of jobs and economic benefits,
particularly in rural and regional communities.
In addition to recommendations that address a safe and
environmentally responsible industry process the committee proposes
to facilitate the use of existing ports in Darwin and Adelaide, and
use existing shipping lanes. It further recommends the application
of a 5% royalty regime to uranium, with the possible use of a higher
rate once the price of uranium reaches a certain higher threshold.
It should also offer a new mine a concessional royalty rate of 2.5%
for the first 5 years of a mine's life.
The chairman of the Uranium Mining Implementation
CommitteePaul Bell said a
well-regulated uranium mining industry would pave the way for
significant economic activity in regional Queensland.
With its move towards uranium exploration and mining,
Queensland joins South Australia, the Northern Territory and
recently Western Australia as uranium mining states. New South Wales
has lifted a ban on exploration but is yet to decide on whether to
recommence uranium extraction, although in January a report in the
ABC suggested that this may be on the cards.
The global outlook for uranium demand is still uncertain. For
over a year prices have been fairly depressed after Germany and
Japan signalled they would phase out their nuclear power. By
contrast, other nations are in the process of expanding nuclear
power, including China, India, Russia, Ukraine, the US, the UK and
South Korea.
According to the World Nuclear Association
(WNA), 62 reactors will be under construction worldwide in 2013,
with another 484 either planned or proposed. Expansion is in Asia on
the horizon, with a capacity of 200 gigawatt electricity generated
by 2030.
In 2010-11, Australia's share in world uranium production was
11% - the third largest producer of uranium, after Kazakhstan and
Canada, which contributed 35.6% and 16.7%, respectively.
The countries using most nuclear energy for electricity
production (2518 terrawatt hours globally in 2011) are the US and
France, with a share of 31.3% and 16.7%, respectively.
The Great Artesian Basin is not only Australia's largest
groundwater basin, it represents the world's largest and deepest
artesian acquifer - a confined acquifer that holds groundwater
under positive pressure.
In March, the Australian Government released
the Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment,
which the CSIRO and Geoscience
Australia carried out as part of the
Sustainable Yield Projects.
In addition and complementing the Assessment, a four-year
Mound Springs project investigated surface and
groundwater interactions and mound spring characteristics in the
western area of the Great Artesian Basin. The project was funded
by the National Water Commission and the
South Australian Government and carried out by a number
of South Australian project partners*.
Together, the studies provide details about water availability
in the GAB to guide waterpolicy and water resource planning.
The $6.25 million Assessment involved a basin-scale investigation
of water resources and the potential impacts of climate change
and groundwater development out to 2070.
Stretching over more than 1.7 million square kilometres the
Great Artesian Basin is the only reliable source of freshwater
through much of inland Australia, covering roughly 1/5 of the
nation. There are also major industrial projects depending on
this source of water. The Olympic Dam mine in SA is the most
outstanding example, reportedly using around 35 million litres
each day.
And the potential of coal seam gas (CSG) mining activities
potentially depleting or contaminating the groundwater reservoir
has raised major concerns across the community.
Yet there remain significant gaps in our knowledge of the
functions of the GAB. Only recently studies have overturned a
long held view that the GAB is as a single, large, contiguous
groundwater flow system in which aquifers are continuous across
the extent of the entire basin.
Click image to enlarge - Shown are the geographic extent of the Great
Artesian Basin and, in the enlarged image of the basin, its
ground surface topography with areas of potential groundwater
recharge. This image also shows the four reporting regions of
the Assessment. In the right image is shown a three-dimensional
illustration of vertical leakage of groundwater via faults and
polygonal faulting.
Images: extracted from the report Water resource assessment for
the Great Artesian Basin, December 2012
The results of the Assessment confirm the GAB is an extensive
and complex groundwater system heavily influenced by geological
features including faults, ridges and connections with other
geologic basins. These features all interact to influence actual
groundwater and flow conditions. The study identified areas
where underlying geological basins and overlying shallow
groundwater are potentially connected with aquifers of the GAB.
The Assessment also demonstrates that groundwater has a greater
potential to move vertically across GAB formations than
previously thought.
Yet it could take many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of
years for water to travel from its recharge areas in Queensland
to discharge in areas such as the mound springs in South
Australia.
More information: www.csiro.au; *South Australian project partners include
the South Australian Arid Lands NRM Board, Flinders
University, Adelaide University, CSIRO, and the
Northern Territory Government and the Allocating Water and
Maintaining Springs in the Great Artesian Basin research project (the
GAB Mound Springs project).
Tenderly tapping
May 28-05-2013 - The Government has
issued a tender for up to 7200 megalitres of unallocated water
from its Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Plan.
The targeted area for the water release comprises management
areas in the Surat Basin.
According to the Government, the released volumes were
determined by the Department of Natural Resources and Mines
through its water resource planning process, which indicated
that these volumes of water could be released while maintaining
the environmental values of the Great Artesian Basin and the
security of supply to existing water users.
16-02-2013 - Providing a total of $70 million, the 15th
round of the Cooperative Research Centres
(CRCs) program will fund the establishment of 3 new centres
and the expansion of the current Vision CRC
research program.
Responding to the announcement, the CRC Association (CRCA)
expressed concern regarding the level of funding, given
that $150 million were initially allocated for this round
and 7 out of 9 initial applications were selected to
interviews. But proposals for CRCs in Biodiversity,
Resilient Regions and Prostate Cancer
missed out in funding.
However, this may not indicate a cut to the overall level of
funding for the program, CRCA chief executive officer
Tony Peacock wrote in the association's
newsletter. Thus, in the
announcement of the funding, the Government reaffirmed
that $619 million will be made available over 2012/13 to
2015/16 period. The new CRCs include:
The CRC for Alertness, Safety and Productivity will receive
$14.5 million over 7 years to develop and deploy the next generation of shift
scheduling and workplace design techniques; alertness assessment devices;
individualised programs for better sleep health; and a range of strategies to
reduce fatique. The centre will receive additional $60 million from its 25
industry and organisational partners, and have 3 nodes based at Flinders,
Monash and Sydney universities.
The CRC for Cell Therapy Manufacturing will receive $20 million
with further cash and in-kind contributions from 14 partner organisations adding
to an investment totalling $59 million.
A new CRC for Cell Therapy Manufacturing will be led by the University of South Australia
The 6 year program, which will be led by the University of South
Auatralia, is to facilitate cost effective manufacture and rapid
translation of cell therapies through interventions with smart materials and
surfaces. For example, this is hoped to underpin new cell therapies for treating
type-1 diabetes, wounds, and transplant patients. Participants in the CRC
include national and global manufacturers, researchers from the
Queensland University of Technology and Sydney University,
the Royal Adelaide and Westmead hospitals, the
St Vincent's Institute and charity organisations.
The CRC for Living with Autism Spectrum Disorders will receive
$31 million, with more than 63 million in additional cash and in-kind
contributions provided by its 56 partner organisations. These include
not-for-profit Autism service providers, universities, federal and state
governments and commercial organisations. Associated with the University
of Queensland, the $104 million program will be based in Brisbane as
the first national cooperative research effort addressing Autism. Its 8 years
research program will have a "whole-of-life" outlook with the aim to develop a
continuum of measures that can support the life of autistic individuals.
In addition, the funding includes $5 million for the development of a
world first, intelligent retinal camera by the Vision CRC.
Designed to also be used under extreme condition, the camera
will allow non-specialised staff in remote locations the
accurate and rapid detection of sight-threatening conditions
such as diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma.
The Government further
announced it will also establish a priority public good
funding stream within the CRC program.
Image: Bushfire CRC
And subject to an equivalent commitment by State and
Territories, it committed up to $47 million over eight years
from July 2013 for the existing Bushfire CRC to continue and
to develop a complementary natural hazards research program
into flood, earthquake, cyclone and tsunami events.
The Australian Government's
Oceans Policy Science Advisory Group
(OPSAG) has released a new review of Australia's marine
wealth and research infrastructure capabilities.
Click image to enlarge - The UNCLOS zones and limits that comprise
Australia's marine jurisdiction.
Image: Geoscience
Australia
The report A Marine Nation 2025: Marine Science to support
Australia's Blue Economy follows up on OPSAG's 2009
strategic paper that marked a renewed policy interest in our
marine endowments (reviewed in
Treasure hunt under the sea; ARDR magazine, April
2009 edition).
Not only has Australia the third largest marine jurisdiction of
any nation in the world, covering a total of 13.6 million
square kilometres, the environment of its exclusive economic
zone (EEZ) is also extraordinarily complex ranging from
tropical to antarctic conditions. There are three oceans
that surround Australia, our coastal seas and the
continental shelf waters surrounding the continent, and our
Antarctica and offshore island territories. In addition,
marine environments communicate with estuaries, rivers and
catchments and thus interact with our freshwater systems.
Given our exposure to the seas the state of our ocean
environment will affect how we fare with major national
challenges facing Australia. According to Marine Nation
2025 these include: sovereignty; national security and
natural hazards; energy security; food security;
biodiversity and ecosystem conservation; climate change; and
resource allocation.
Yet, as we have detailed in a recent dossier article (Ocean
views; ARDR magazine; Sep-Dec 2011 edition), in the
past marine science has not ranked high on the nation's
agenda, despite the importance of the seas also for our
cultural idendity.
This has somewhat changed in recent years.
=>
In 2008, the United Nations confirmed
Australia's entitlement to exploit around 2.56 million
square kilometres of its 'extended continental shelf', an
area beyond 200 nautical miles from our coastline that
equals around a third of the land mass of continental
Australia. Resources associated with this region are
potentially vast, although harnessing them may present
significant challenges (including legal obstacles as
highlighted by an ARDR opinion by
Dr Robin Wagner in 2009). Still, the UN decision
helped reset the priorities of Government science policy
towards our ocean wealth, also because of the existing gap
of knowledge about this frontier.
Mooring news
In April, a key mooring facility at Maria Island, which is part of
Australia's integrated Marine Observing System
(IMOS) and equipped with a suite of environmental sensors,
joined an international network to detect increasing ocean
acidification.
It is now one of 3 IMOS moorings included in
the network.
It was built at CSIRO's Hobart Marine Laboratories,
and deployed late last year as the 4th IMOS instrument at the Maria Island site.
CSIRO operates the instruments and
provides the data generated to the public.
Two other IMOS moorings are located on the western side of South Australia's
Kangaroo Island and on the central Great Barrier Reef near Townsville.
The IMOS observations are extended into the Southern Ocean through the French
Antarctic supply ship Astrolabe and the Australian ice breaker
Aurora Australis, which provide a platform for at-sea monitoring during
return voyages from October to March between Hobart and the Antarctic bases they
visit.
The surface waters of the Southern Ocean are where some of the most profound
shifts in carbonate chemistry will occur by mid-century, potentially influencing
the survival of deep-sea coral communities and calcifying pelagic species.
Thus the 2009 Marine and Climate Super Science
Initiative provided $387.7 million for major new
investments in our marine research and research capabilities
including a new marine research vessel to replace the
RV Southern Surveyor and a major extension of the
Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) network.
CSIRO's mooring at Maria Island
image: CSIRO
At the heart of these efforts, and the main theme of the
Marine Nation 2025 document, is the need to strike a
balance between national and economic interests associated
with our ocean environments while protecting the diverse
life forms they harbour.
OPSAG proposes the term 'blue economy' to canvas the sustainable
management of Australia's marine industries, which
contributed an estimated $42 billion to the economy in 2009.
As repeatedly pointed out in the report, this is slightly
more than the value of agricultural industries in that year
- and it may increase to more than $100 billion by 2025.
This assumes further expansion of existing industries as
well as emerging opportunities such as renewable energies
(including wind and wave).
The estimate includes so called 'ecosystem services', although
the value of these are not easily quantifiable in market
terms. A recent
study by the Centre for Policy Development
estimated that their combined value is around $25 billion.
This includes services such as regulating carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere by ocean absorption, recycling essential
nutrients and controlling pests and diseases as well as
social and cultural benefits including sport and recreation,
and inspiration for art, design and education.
The greatest economic impact, however, is expected to stem from
the recent major expansion of hydrocarbon extraction
facilities offshore north-western Australia and new
developments of gas processing facilities in both
north-western Australia and the coast of central Queensland.
Demand, particularly for LNG, is expected to grow
significantly, with exports predicted to grow from currently
20 million tonnes per year to more than 100 million tonnes
by 2035. However, to meet this deman Australia will require
further offshore exploration for new gas reserves. Yet,
according to OPSAG despite 75% of known hydrocarbon reserves
being located in maritim jurisdictions, less than 10% of the
area with known reserves is under exploration permit.
Australia's key infrastructure is the research vessel
RV Southern Surveyor, a crucial component of
Australia's marine science capability, which will be
replaced by the RV Investigator (commissioned in 2013/14).
However, Australia's second major marine research vessel,
the polar supply and research vessel Aurora
Australis is operated by the Australian
Antarctic Division, while a fleet of smaller
vessels are operated by various other institutions.
This is reflecting the lack of integration in the management of the
nation's marine science capabilities The RV Southern
Surveyor is a crucial marine infrastructure, used for
example in the discovery of submarine volcanoes between Fiji
and Samoa offering evidence of mineral deposits, for
examining climate records from ancient corals and producing
a carbon chemistry map of the Great Barrier Reef region.
Meanwhile the 2009 Montara oil and gas leak in the Timor sea off
the Western Australian coast is a stark reminder of the
potential risks associated with offshore oil and gas mining.
Australian fisheries are a major stakeholder in the marine
environment, despite their comparably small economic output
- according to Marine Nation 2025, wild catches
were worth just $1.4 billion in 2010. But, as OPSAG points
out, Australian fisheries have disproportionately large
ecological, social and political footprints. They also
include the significant recreational fishing and indigenous
customary fishing activities, which together are estimated
to contribute around $2.5 billion to the economy but are not
managed in the same way as the commercial fishing industry.
While fishing will remain important to meet global demand - in
2009 fish provided 16% of global animal protein consumption
- according to OPSAG, the bulk of increases in global demand
will be met by aquaculture. Over the past decade the value
of the Australian production increased by around 40%, from
$0.68 billion in 2000 to $0.87 billion in 2010, but further
growth will present a critical research challenge and
relevant infrastructure, particularly controlled environment
seawater environments.
Aurora Australis
image: Australian Antarctic Division
Given the considerable economic interests at stake finding the
right balance between exploiting marine resources and
protecting the diverse live forms oceans harbor is a major
challenge.
In November 2012, the Government proclaimed the world's largest
network of marine protected areas (MPAs) covering 2.3
million square kilometres - more than a third of Australian
Commonwealth waters. And a final management plan for the
marine parks is currently before Parliament, as
announced by Environment Minister Tony Burke
in March.
However, the ARDR understands that even among conservationists
there is some controversy over the effectiveness of the new
MPA network. Only a small fraction of the network constitute
green 'no-take' zones offering high levels of protection and
as Professor Bob Pressey recently
pointed out in a
commentary in "The Conversation" these are mostly
located in areas that make little difference to fishing and
mining. Professor Pressey further criticises that the
network is minimising the impact of marine protected areas
on commercial and industrial interests while minimising the
contributions of these areas to protecting marine
biodiversity. "The conservation benefits are vanishingly
small in proportion to size of the new areas," Professor
Pressey writes.
Better understanding of our ocean environment will require
investments in marine science and infrastructure. The
gathering of adequate data, for example, will be paramount
and according to OPSAG, the continuation of Australia's
Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) is
crucial as without it our capability to support marine
assets would be severely compromised. Yet its funding is
only committed until 2013, OPSAG says (The ARDR understands
that IMOS funding for 2013-2014 is applied for under the
recently established Collaborative Research
Infrastructure Scheme).
Despite increased investments in marine research and
infrastructure, currently there is a fragmented approach
prevailing. Major marine infrastructure capabilities, such
as data infrastructure and marine observing systems, are
separately managed by institutions. In order better
coordinate the use of capabilites, OPSAG proposes to expand
the concept of national facilities (see box).
Also, various national science frameworks and strategies -
climate change science, earth system science, Antarctic
science, fishing and aquaculture - have marine components
instead of having an integrated management.
OPSAG's central proposition is to establish a more unified
national approach such as through a formal National
Marine Science Steering Committee, which would be
tasked with the development of a Decadal Plan for
Marine Science. Its obectives would be to:
knit together marine components of various science strategies and
frameworks currently in place;
identify and agree on marine science priorities that address the suite
of national challenges;
identify national marine science capability strengths and weaknesses
(encompassing infrastructure, skills and collaborations) and approaches to
deal with the gaps;
outline a national marine science information management strategy;
and set out a regular process for engagement with stakeholders to allow
evolution of the strategy as needs demand.
In March, Environment Minister Tony Burke
was again in the crossfire for
intending to increase federal powers in the approval
process of CSG and large coal mining developments.
This followed on from the Government's
controversial conditional approval of AGL's
coal seam methane gas (CSG) project at Gloucester in NSW,
announced in February alongside further approvals for two
NSW coal mine projects at Maules Creek and at Boggabri (see
below).
With the planned amendments to the
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act
1999 a project would require Australian
Government assessment and approval of coal seam gas
and large coal mining developments if they have a
significant impact on a water resource.
According to
Minister Burke, so far federal approval of projects includes
water to the extend there has been an impact on issues such
as threatened species or a RAMSAR wetland. With the
amendments, the Australian Environment Minister would have
the capacity to take all potential impacts on water into
account.
==>
In a statement Minister Burke said that in many instances the
process would involve data already been collected in the
state approval process. But by becoming a matter of national
environmental significance it will have the full resources
of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee
and the analysis that results from it. Projects that are
early in the approval process will at all stages be able to
incorporate the additional matter of environmental
significance.
Critical voices of the proposed legislation
include Associate Professor of Environmental Law (ANU)
Andrew Macintosh, who
told the ABC that industries are right
to be concerned as the reasons for creating a centralised
authority "just don't hold water". He said that
traditionally the states have been the primary regulator for
environmental issues and it's only on specific issues that
the Commonwealth can and should get involved.
...and rocking the boat...
Earlier, the Government's decision to conditionally approve
three controversial resources projects in NSW had been met
with strong criticism from environmentalists and affected
community groups.
In February, Environment Minister
Tony Burke confirmed his decision on the
Maules Creek and Boggabri coal
mine proposals and the coal seam methane gas (CSG) project
in Gloucester after a confidential letter sent by Minister
Burke to the NSW Government was leaked to
Fairfax Media.
However, he stressed that there were still
significant outstanding issues to be worked through. For the
Gloucester CSG Project this includes
hydrogeological modelling based on further field studies and
analyses.
Notwithstanding the concerns for ground
water contamination associated with the CSG project, the
carbon footprint of the three projects combined could be as
large as 47 million tonnes of greenhouse gases a year or
around 8% of Australia's total emissions.
There are strict conditions placed on
the projects which will also require further work to
minimise environmental impacts. However, the NSW Government
will be excluded from the process, Minister Burke said
referring to the leak.
The Government's conditional go-ahead is
based on
advice by an Independent Expert Scientific Committee.
AGL welcomed the outcome for its fully
owned Gloucester project, despite the 36 additional strict
conditions that include measures for the protection of the
Giant Barred Frog, Green and Golden Bell Frog and Small
Flower Grevillea, as well as for the protection of
groundwater.
The project encompasses the entire
Gloucester Geological Basin and was approved by the State in
2011 subject to 70 stringent conditions. In its first stage
there will be up to 110 gas wells with the gas to be piped
to a delivery station in Hexham, NSW.
Whitehaven's Maules Creek Project targets
one of Australia's largest coal deposits, containing 362
megatonnes of recoverable reserves. According to Whitehaven,
the project could support an open cut mining operation for
more than 30 years at a production rate of 10.8 megatonnes
of coal per year.
However, the project has been met with
fierce opposition from conservationists and local community
groups, in parts due to its potential impact on the Leard
State Forest (see also an
opinion piece by Amanda Kelly
in The Conversation).
The Boggabri Coal Mine project is an open
cut mine fully owned by Idemitsu Australia Resources
Pty Ltd and located in the NSW Gunnedah Basin 17
kilometres north-east of Boggabri. In 2009 it exported
around 1.55 million tonnes of coal but could now see the
mine increase its production to 7 million tonnes per year
until 2053.
However, to comply with the conditions set
out by Minister Burke the coal mining projects will have to:
put in place strict clearance limits for native
vegetation;
provide enduring protection of offset areas totalling
more than 15,000 hectares for matters protected under
national environmental law, delivering secure and long term
conservation across the region;
require management plans to improve the extent,
condition and connectivity of the ecological community and
listed threatened species habitats; and
require $2.5 million dollars of investment in
rehabilitation research and contributions to threatened
species recovery actions.
...with wet hopes
Meanwhile the Queensland Government
released its CSG Water Management Policy, which aims
to encourage industry to use CSG water in a way that
protects the environment and maximises its productive use as
a valuable resource.
The policy sets out that if a feasible
beneficial use of water has been considered, CSG water is to
be treated and disposed of in a way that minimises the
impact on the environment.
The State Government hopes that by setting
clear priorities for CSG water management it encourages
industry-led compliance.
New data on Internet use by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics (ABS) shows the ever increasing appetite for
downloads while a new report by the CSIRO predicts
a future in broadband connected homes, the ACMA shows the rapid
uptake of smartphones and tablets and Adelaide plans to become a
free wireless city...
=>
Data feasting
According to the ABS report
Internet Activity, Australia, December 2012, Australians
downloaded 34% more data in the December quarter 2012 than in the 3
months to June 2012, and over 60% more data than in the December
quarter 2011.
Australian use of the Internet
Graphs: Elwinmedia based on data by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics
In line with this, the number of subscribers to Internet
services rose throughout 2012 by 5.0% to almost 12.2 million, of
which 24% were within the business and government sectors.
While in 2012 data downloads by mobile handset
subscribers increased significantly, by 38% in the December quarter
compared to the 3 months to June, over 95% of the total data
downloaded was through fixed line broadband (see figure).
And the download speeds are becoming faster.
Around half of all broadband subscribers - 5.4 million - are now
provided with advertised download speeds of between 8 megabits/sec
(Mbps). A further 1.6 million are connected to advertised speeds of
24 Mbps and more.
Smart movers
Complementing the ABS data, research by the Australian
Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)
released in February shows that Australians continue their rapid
adoption of smartphone and tablet technology.
Over the 12 months to May 2012 take-up of these devices increased by
104% to 8.67 million units. In the 6 months to May 2012, Australians
accessed the Internet around 9.2 million times using a mobile phone
and 4.4 million times using a tablet.
The research further revealed that compared to other mobile phone
users, smartphone users were:
9 times more likely to go online via their handsets
4 times more likely to purchase goods online
3 times more likely to stream or download audio or video content
3 times more likely to pay bills online
twice as likely to access social networking sites.
The authors of the report note that continued rollout of
mobile network upgrades, growth in 4G coverage and the increased use
of WiFi hotspots are key drivers for the increase in smartphone
ownership. In the June 2012 quarter, over 2 million Australians used
a WiFi hotspot, 32% more than in the previous year.
Virtually leading nation
South Australia's Adelaide is ready to benefit from the increasing
demand for mobile access to the Internet. According to a plan
launched in November 2012, the Adelaide City Wireless Broadband
project could see the SA capital become the first in Australia to
offer free Wi-Fi across the city centre by the end of 2013.
Broadly at home
A recent
report by the CSIRO details how the next
generation of broadband services, the rapid uptake of devices such
as smartphones and tablets and the concurrent development of
dedicated applications and services is set to transform our homes.
A broadband-connected home
image: CSIRO (extracted from the CSIRO
report)
Broadband Connected Homes shows that scenarios in which almost all
facets of domestic life are controlled through a system of
interconnected digital devices are about to become reality.
Its central theme is to highlight the importance and potential of
new generation broadband to realise this envisioned future.
The report predicts that new services will emerge in areas such as
energy management, home telecare and telehealth, teleworking and
video delivery. But the connected home future will also include many
services that are currently delivered through traditional media.
For this to be possible, the connected home must evolve to become a
platform through which devices and applications from multiple
vendors work together. This may require that open standards are
identified and supported. In addition, because of the large amount
of data shared, privacy and security will need to be addressed.
In this context, the report highlights some of the common
misconception about the current use of broadband in Australia.
Based on ABS data there is a great variability in broadband
connections. More than 80% of Australians are connected to the
Internet, and of those over 90% (or around 75% of all Australians)
are connected to at least basic broadband (see above). However, this
refers to all data services providing more than 256 kilobit per
second (kbit/s) download speed. By comparison, next generation
broadband is understood to deliver at least 10 megabit per second
(Mbit/s). It is also important to note that unlike with fibre optic
connections, with first generation connections the advertised
download speed is usually affected by factors such as distance from
the exchange, the quality of copper in the case of ADSL services
using the standard telephone line, or signal strength and quality in
the case of wireless services.
The tremendous increase in mobile and fixed wireless services and
the concurrent steep decline in dial-up connections has led to the
common believe that downloads using wireless services are equally
increasing. However, this is not the case (see the above
infographic). Comparing the 3 months periods to December 2010 and
2011 reveals that while downloads over fixed-line broadband
increased by 84.5%, wireless data download increased only 36.5%.
Moreover, wireless data downloads accounted for only around 6.7% of
total data download in the period to 2011.
In essence, while smartphone adoption contributes to broadband
connection rates, this is only complementary to fixed line services,
which do the heavy lifting. For this ubiquity of connectivity is
most important.
The report makes here a strong case for the rollout of the National
Broadband Network, as service providers can rely on that most of
residents in Australia can access high quality broadband services
with known characteristics and do not need to invest themselves in
network infrastructure.
If the current rollout continued after next election, 93% of
premises would be serviced with fibre based connections, at launch
supporting up to 100 Mbit/s data download speeds and 40 Mbit/s data
upload speeds. Fibre also provides an easy upgrade path for upgrades
to provide higher speeds in future.
Around 4% of premises would be serviced with a fixed wireless
(4G/LTE) solution providing 12 Mbit/s download and 1 Mbit/s upload
speeds. Further 3% of premises would be serviced with satellites.
While also delivering speeds of around 12 Mbit/s (1 Mbit/s),
satellite services are limited by greater latency which could
particularly affect voice, video and interactive gaming.
China and Australia are forging closer ties on many levels,
including intellectual property. In a recent development the
Intellectual Property Offices of both nations signed a Memorandum of
Understanding for continuing cooperation on 25 February 2013.
In this context, the director general of IP Australia,
Philip Noonan, highlighted the importance of the
Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act, of
which the last provision came into effect on 15 April (... and a
bill with further ammendments to the Patent Act was introduced into
Parliament at the end of May - see below).
The key objectives of these reforms are to raise the quality
of patents granted in Australia and to more closely align the
inventive step standard required for Australian patents with
international standards. In effect, Australia's patentability test
is now similar to other large IP Offices, including that of China,
and hence it is more straightforward for Australian technology
exporters to secure a patent in China.
=>
Patent and trademark attorney firm Watermark
remarked in an article published on their website that this
could reduce overall costs as the patent grant process may be
facilitated in one country as a result of the grant of a patent in
the other country. In the lead-up to the MOU, discussions between
the two countries also concerned WIPO-CASE, an online patent work
sharing program created by the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO) and a group of IP offices from
Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, the so called Vancouver
group.
According to Watermark, the Vancouver group, whose members
share a similar size and development and have a similar legal
heritage, aims to reduce unnecessary duplication of work, and to
contribute to a more effective approach to work sharing. Together
with WIPO, the group developed the WIPO-CASE pilot system to
facilitate easier exchange of patent search and examination results.
Thus the Centralized Access to Search and Examination
system (CASE) provides a digital library of search and examination
reports that can be shared by participating IP Offices.
Another avenue of cooperation could be the cloud patent
examination solution (CPES), which is proposed by the
Chinese IP Office to simplify procedures for patent
applicants and improving the efficiency of the offices when dealing
with the same patent application.
30-05-2013 - The Australian Government has introduced the
Intellectual Property Laws Amendment Bill 2013 into Parliament
that clarifies its capacity to access patented inventions that
deliver critical public services.
The move is in response to a Productivity Commission's Report on
Compulsory Licensing of Patents which found there was uncertainty
around the scope of current Crown use provisions, particularly in
the context of healthcare.
While critical issues related to the use of patents, notably
gene patents, is playing out in the courts, the bill is clarifying
that in exceptional circumstances the Australian Government has the
power to protect patients' access to healthcare services.
To this end, the Government plans further measures that include:
appoint a Patent Audit Committee to advise on patent policy settings and
undertake audits of patent approvals for certain technology groups;
commence consultations on a new objects clause for the Patents Act; and
consult on excluding certain inventions that would be offensive to the
public.
More specifically the bill includes the following key elements:
The Crown use of patents: It clarifies that Crown use can be used for
providing services that the Australian, State and/or Territory Government have
primary responsibility for funding or providing.
The Trips Protocol: It implements the World Trade Organization Agreement on
Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Protocol), which was
accepted by Australia in September 2007. It enables medicine producers to apply
at the Federal Court for a compulsory licence for the manufacture and export of
patented and otherwise unaffordable pharmaceuticals to developing countries that
encounter serious health issues.
Plant breeder rights: With the amendments less complex alleged infringements
of plant breeder rights can be dealt with in the Federal Circuit Court instead
of the Federal Court. The Federal Circuit Court was expanded in 2012 to hear
trade mark and designs matters.
Trans-Tasman single economic market: The amendments provide for a single
trans-Tasman patent attorney regime, including common qualifications for
registration as a patent attorney, a Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Board and a
Trans-Tasman IP Attorneys Disciplinary Tribunal. The amendments also allow for
single patent application and examination processes.
25-05-2013 - With the release of Australia's first
National Food Plan the Australian
Government has provided a potential framework for
Australia's agricultural industries for the coming decade.
Click image to enlarge - Agricultural
production and yields vary widely across Australia,
reflecting the different geographical and climatic
conditions; map sourced from Feeding the Future
report, released by the Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade in December 2012.
The plan delineates the Government's policy
position for the future of the sector, and sets out 16 goals
to 2025.
Only months out from a general election, it
is uncertain to what extent the plan will be implemented
but, together with other recent reports on this issue, it
does provide a coherent perspective on the broader context
and the mix of challenges and opportunities that face the
nation's food producing industries.
Earlier in May, the Australian
Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences
(ABARES)
presented a 5 year outlook in its Agricultural
Commodities: March Quarter 2013 report that suggests
the agricultural sector will need to lift its innovation
performance to return to productivity growth levels required
to deliver on increasing global demands for food.
While expected climatic changes, population
growth, changing economic conditions and increasing
competition for resources are concerns, Australia is also
part of a rapidly developing region with unprecedented
opportunities, as
highlighted by the Government's 2012 Australia in
the Asian Century White Paper.
According to the National Food Plan, the
global middle class is expected to grow from 1.8 billion in
2010 to 3.2 billion in 2020 and 4.9 billion in 2030, with
85% of this growth occurring in Asia. This will be an
important driver of increased food imports, especially in
China where demand is expected to outpace local food
production. In addition, it will also shape the mix of food
imports towards more meat and processed produce and thus
present important opportunities for Australia's exporters of
higher value food products.
06-06-2013 - The Food Industry Innovation Precinct is one
of up to 10 new Industry Innovation Precincts that will be
funded with a total of $504.5 million under the $1 billion Plan for
Australian Jobs initiative (read more in
'It's budget time').
An offer by La Trobe University and RMIT
to host the precinct for an interim period of 12 months was accepted by the
new precinct board announced in May (below). The industry-led initiative
will initially be established at La Trobe's R&D Park Bundoora campus, which
has other food-related infrastructure such as pilot plant and food
preparation and tasting laboratories. The campus is also close to food
industry partners in sectors such as dairy, confectionary, meat and cereal.
As announced in May, Chair of the Food Industry Precinct will be
Peter Schutz who will be joined on the board by:
Dr Geoffrey Annison, Australian Food and
Grocery Council;
Dave Ashcroft, Petuna Aquaculture
Catherine Barnett, FoodSA
Associate Prof Kim Bryceson,
University of Queensland
Charlie Donnelly, National Union of
Workers;
Margaret Haseltine, Agri-Food Skills
Australia
Dr Hermione Parsons, Victoria
University
Dr Christine Pitt, Meat and Livestock
Australia;
Dr Alastair Robertson, CSIRO;
and
Simon Talbot, Kraft Australia and NZ.
The Food Precinct will work in conjunction with the $236 million
Industrial Transformation Research Program (ITRP), another key part
of the Industry Innovation Precincts initiative.
The value of food consumed worldwide is projected
to be 75% higher in 2050 than in 2007, an annual average
increase of 1.3%. Demand will especially increase for beef,
wheat, dairy products, sheep meat and sugar, and this is
projected to lift the value of Australia's agrifood exports
by 142% between 2007 and 2050.
China alone will account for around 43%
of this increase, and the country's growing importance for
Australia's food sector is triggering initiatives such as
the joint Australia-China study Feeding the Future,
which was released in 2012.
Another major
expanding market for food products is India, which will
account for 13% of the projected increase in global
consumption, with rising demands primarily for wheat and
dairy products.
The Government plans to invest $28.5
million in a new Asian Market Strategic Research
Fund to help Australian food producers in their
response to these significant export opportunities that
emerge in the Asian region.
You want it, we move it
The National Food Plan includes a new $28.5 million
Asian Food Markets Research Fund, which
will provide grants for R&D projects that, for
example, commercialise new products suitable for
Asian markets, develop new ways to process, package
and export products for Asian markets, conduct
market research, or undertake research to overcome
market hurdles, such as quarantine constraints.
The Fund will also support the completion of two key studies: The
$2.2 million What Asia Wants study will
assess the long term food demand prospects across
individual Asian countries so Australian food
producers can plan for new opportunities. The study
is complemented by the Moving Food:
Infrastructure needs for the future study.
There will also likely be growth in the
domestic demand for food of around 3% per year.
Australia exports over half of its
agricultural produce, which is enough to feed around 60
million people. In 2011-12, food products earned Australia
$30.5 billion, accounting for 11.5% of the nation's total
merchandise trade. While Australia did import food worth
$11.3 billion, it still leaves a sizable food trade surplus
of $19.2 billion, which places us among the top ten food
exporting countries in the world.
Nevertheless, our global share in total
food production is relatively small. By 2050 we are
projected to contribute only about 3% of world food exports.
Hence we will not be able to feed the world. But as the
National Food Plan highlights, Australia is well positioned
to contribute significantly not only with food but also by
providing important expertise in agricultural technology to
developing countries.
In 2011-12, the Australian sector's
primary production generated earnings of $42.6 billion.
Almost 90% of the fresh food consumed in Australia is
produced here. The majority of consumed processed food is
also from local sources, and earned the food and beverage
manufacturing industry $91.2 billion.
The Australian food sector, which
employs around 15% of Australia's workforce, consists mostly
of SME's, a potential concern in so far as these often lack
the scale, experience and skills to invest in long-term
innovation.
There are major challenges ahead,
including slow productivity growth. Between the late 1970s
and the 1990s, Australia's agricultural productivity grew by
2% per year but growth has since slowed significantly, in
part due to the widespread drought conditions during the
last decade.
Hence, a central goal detailed in the
plan is to reverse this trend and lift Australia's
agricultural productivity by 30% over the next decade.
Innovation in the sector will be crucial, such as through
the now 46 Collaborative Research Centres
which since 1991 have undertaken food industry related
research programs.
Other measures include:
continued investments in the rural R&D system, which
is currently around $700 million per year;
the establishment of a Food Industry
Innovation Precinct, which is supported by an
Industry Innovation Network to improve
business-to-business links;
investments in food-related research through the
ARC's Industrial Transformation Research Program
(with $23 million spent in its first round); and
investments of $8.5 million in the Northern
Australia Sustainable Futures Program and $10
million in the North Queensland Irrigated
Agriculture Strategy;
increased participation of food businesses in the
digital economy;
an infrastructure and biosecurity system that
supports a growing food industry;
$2.2 million for research and analysis of food
industry trends, provided through the Asian Food
Markets Research Fund;
representation of the sector through the
Food and Beverage Supplier Advocate.
The sustainability of food production is another major
objective of the plan, with proposed investments including:
over $600 million under the Caring for our
Country Sustainable Agriculture Stream over the
next 5 years;
appointing a Soil Health Advocate;
investments of more than $15 billion in the
Water for the Future initiative; and
measures addressing the causes of potential climate
change including:
a price of carbon;
$429 million through the Carbon Farming Futures program;
$44 million through the Carbon Energy Futures program; and
tackling food waste through the National Waste Policy (each year
Australians produce on average 361 kg of food waste per person).
As part of the push for
increasing productivity, the plan also includes to promote
biotechnological advances, including genetically modified
food, and nanotechnology as avenues to overcome adverse
challenges. It includes the development a national strategy
for biotechnology in agriculture.
More information:
www.maff.gov.au
Australian foody in demand
05-03-2013 - While growth in agricultural productivity has
slowed, according to projections by ABARES
the sector will achieve $39 billion in exports and $51
billion in production in 2012-2013.
However, ABARES' five
year outlook to 2017-18 anticipates a fall in the average
value of farming, fishing and forestry production to around
$50 billion in real terms. Exports are also projected to
ease to $37 billion.
Australia's agricultural sector achieved an average total
factor productivity growth of 1% per year between 1977-78
and 2010-11, more than most other industries, but growth
declined in the decade to 2010-11. This was the result of
declining output growth, although input also declined
significantly over the period.
Over the medium term the value of farm production may fall in
real terms to around $45 billion by 2017-18, which is 4%
lower than in 2012-13.
ABARES Agricultural Commodities: March Quarter 2013
report shows that productivity in the broadacre industries
increased on average by 1% per year between 1977-78 and
2010-11. This was on the back of an overall decline in the
use of resources and increased poduction intensity in most
industries. However, primarily through the impacts of the
recent drought but also because of reduced public
expenditure in agricultural R&D, productivity growth has
slowed over the past decade.
According to ABARES' executive officer Paul Morris,
greater focus on innovation and being more targeted in
meeting consumer demands in Asia will be essential to take
advantage of future opportunities. This would require
greater industry investments in R&D and innovation, while
governments need to carefully balance competing priorities.
In a speech at ABARES' 43rd Outlook Conference he said
that amid scarce resources and global competition, the
trade-off between economic development, the environment and
community expectations has probably never been quite as
stark as it is at present. "The way that industry and policy
makers respond will be central to the future of agriculture,
fisheries and forestry in this country," he said.
While the world's demand for food will increase, there is also
more competition on the horizon, including from countries in
the Asian region. ABARES economist Jammie Penm
expects that food production in Asia will increase
significantly over the next decades as countries have
greater potential to increase their agricultural
productivity.
Australia's economy is increasingly dependent on its mining
industry but how long will the current boom be able to prop
up the domestic economy?
Just a few years ago it was believed to
be lasting, possibly for decades to come. But the tides have
turned with mega projects either cancelled or delayed, such
as the $36 billion Browse LNG project (Woodside),
the $30 billion Outer Harbour Development
at Port Hedland (BHP Billiton) and the $20
billion Olympic Dam Expansion (BHP
Billiton).
A
report by the Bureau of Resources and Energy
Economics (BREE) covering the six months to April
2013 shows that the stock of investments in committed
resources and energy projects has indeed plateaued, albeit
on record levels at about $268 billion.
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While the investment level remained unchanged since October 2012,
the number of projects accounting for this investment
dropped by 14 projects to 73 projects at the Committed
Stage. This loss of investment was largely offset by cost
increases in 5 mega projects that occurred after a final
investment decision (FID) was made.
Energetic outlook
Australia produces a diverse mix of energy products,
reviewed in detail in BREE's Energy in Australia 2013
report released in June.
In terms of energy content, in 2010-11 Australia's production was to
59% made up of coal, with uranium and natural gas contributing a
further 20% and 13%, respectively.
The remainder was crude oil and LPG, together accounting for 6%,
while renewables were just 2% of the total energy produced. However,
this share is expected to rapidly increase over the next decades.
The energy industry contributed almost $80 billion, or 6%, to the
total Australian economy in 2010-11, with coal mining and the
extraction of oil and gas alone each adding $27 billion or 4%.
Another $22.5 billion or 1.7% came from the electricity supply
industry.
These mega projects, each worth more than $5 billion, together
account for some 80% of all investment in Committed Stage*
projects. Indeed, few mega-projects dominate investments in
resources and energy projects. The 13 mega projects that
were approved in the period 2003 to 2012 account for 59%, or
$232 billion, of the cumulative investments in Committed
Stage projects over this period. Yet 48 large projects
(valued at over $1 billion but less than $5 billion)
approved in the same period account for 24%, or $93 billion
of the total, while the remaining 332 projects with values
under $1 billion account for just 17%.
LNG projects are the current drivers of investment with 18 LNG
projects at Committed Stage together contributing $189
billion of the $268 billion total investment. However, LNG
projects are also prone to cost blow outs post-FID. Thus 4
out of the 6 LNG onshore projects face cost increases
totalling $20 billion, which includes the Gorgon LNG and
Australia Pacific LNG ($9 billion and $1.7 billion,
respectively).
Click image to enlarge - The state
of resources and energy projects as of April 2013 and how it
may unfold over the next 5 years.
Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) may present an alternative
to increase the profitability of LNG projects, and is now
also discussed as an alternative to Woodside's cancelled
Browse LNG Development at James Price Point. Instead of the
need to process the gas onshore to LNG, the extraction
process is completed entirely offshore, with the LNG plant
anchored directly above the gas field. After extraction, the
natural gas is processed on-board before being cooled to
liquid form and stored until an LNG ship offloads the cargo.
The world's first project of this kind is Shell's
$12 billion Prelude Development in the
Browse basin, around 200 kilometres off the north-west coast
of WA. And at the end of April, Woodside
announced an agreement with Shell that could provide a
framework for a Browse FLNG joint venture.
There are still projects worth $232 billion at the Feasibility
Stage* and projects worth over $120 billion at the Publicly
Announced Stage*, although it is unclear how many of these
will progress to the Committed Stage*.
BREE estimates that over the past twelve months around $150
billion of projects were either delayed, cancelled or
re-assessed. A likely scenario for the next 5 years is that
the level of committed investment will moderately decline to
$256 billion by the end of 2013 and then further decrease to
around $70 billion by 2017. This would represent a major
drop in investment levels but the BREE report emphasises
that there are still major opportunities that could reverse
this outlook. Thus if all the projects that were assessed as
'possible' do indeed progress to the Committed Stage within
the next 5 years, investments could increase to around $310
billion in 2014 before declining to around $195 billion in
2017.
An important indicator of future mining activity is the level of
expenditure in exploration, and here a currently less
optimistic outlook for commodities is reflected in a
decrease in expenditure during the last two quarters of
2012. In the December quarter of 2012, $264 million was
spent on exploring so called greenfield sites(entirely new
sites of resource potential). This represents a decrease of
16% compared with the September quarter, and a 27% decline
compared with the June quarter, although the total
expenditure in 2012 ($1.2 billion) was the same as for 2011.
Click image to enlarge - Exploration
expenditure over the past 5 years
A similar picture emerges for brownfield explorations, which
target sites that are close to already known deposits. The
$561 million spent in the 2012 December quarter were 8% less
than in the September quarter and 21% less than in the June
quarter 2012, yet total exploration expenditure targeting
brownfields ($2.5 billion) was unchanged from 2011.
*Publicly Announced Stage projects are either at a very early stage of
planning, have paused in progressing their feasibility studies or have an
unclear development path; Feasibility Stage projects have completed an initial
feasibility study and the results support further development; Committed Stage
projects have completed commercial, engineering and environmental studies,
received all required regulatory approvals and finalised the financing for the
project.
30-05-2013 - The Future Grid Cluster was
launched in Sydney to develop an analytical framework
for the most cost effective integration of renewable energy
sources and technologies into Australia's electricity grid.
Funded with $13 million over 3 years, the project is a research
collaboration between the CSIRO and the
universities of Sydney, Newcastle,
Queensland and New South Wales.
Australia's electricity grid currently generates electricity
using to 92% coal and gas, and this presents a significant
challenge. It is estimated that over the next decades
investments of around $240 billion will be needed to
transform the sector into a less emissions intensive
industry.
This would include that by the mid of this century renewable
energies contribute around 50% to electricity production,
and that the remaining coal and gas power stations are
fitted with carbon capture and storage technologies to
reduce their emissions.
The Cluster's research is split into 4 major areas to address
these challenges:
Improved understanding of impacts of different loads, generation sources and
energy storage on system security, led by University of Sydney
planning and co-optimisation of electricity and gas networks, led by
University of Newcastle
economics of alternative network development paths and estimates of total
cost and price impacts, led by University of Queensland
policy measures and regulatory changes to facilitate a smooth transition to
a de-carbonised future grid, led by University of NSW.
29-05-2013 - The cloud is emerging as a major way of
delivering a wide range of ICT services such as the
external storage of data and the provision of processing
power on external web servers.
Cloud services can be open to the public or are delivered through
private clouds that are restricted to a selected group
of consumers, while hybrid systems are also common in
many organisations. Yet despite the broad spectrum of
services and deployment options, cloud services share
basic characteristics in that users can:
easily scale up or down;
share computer resources;
access services from multiple devices;
access capacity on demand; and
easily meter the consumption of services.
The Australian Government's National Cloud
Strategy (NCS), which was first announced in
October last year and
released at the end of May, unsurprisingly
highlights the synergies between its National
Broadband Network and the benefits associated
with cloud computing technologies.
The push for the NBN as well as for a rapid uptake of cloud
computing technology across the government and business
centres reflects the importance the Government generally
places on ICT. According to the NCS, it is "a major
driver of innovation and productivity improvement in all
facets of society". And the cloud, it states, may become
a potentially 'disruptive' and 'transformative'
innovation, similar to the widespread use of
electricity.
As a number of studies have highlighted, a wide adoption of
cloud technologies could benefit economic growth - a
KPMG study suggests it could increase annual GDP by $3.3
billion by 2020 - and also help reduce carbon emissions
since with the centralised cloud infrastructure ICT
operations of firms require less energy.
The NCS lists a number of consumer benefits associated with
cloud computing. Foremost it could bring down costs that
particularly for SMEs and not-for-profit organisations
can be prohibitive in developing online capacity. By
using cloud services, consumers can avoid having to buy
and operate expensive hardware. Immediate cost savings
by shifting basic services such as email and data
storage is claimed to range between 30% and 50%.
Other benefits may include:
general productivity increases as businesses can free up resources;
lower time to market and increased scalability;
the ability of acquiring new capabilities at a fraction of the costs;
improved reliability and security; and
enhanced mobility and flexibility.
The NCS cites a 2012 study commissioned by the
European Union, according to which over 80% of
enterprises surveyed had reduced their ICT costs through
cloud services. In addition, the firms reported
productivity increases (40%) and improved business
processes (35%).
However, a major obstacle to a more rapid uptake is that users
who could benefit the most are not aware of it.
Research by Optus suggests that only around 8%
of SMEs understand what cloud computing is, and 60% are
unaware of the technologies, while 4% do use it. While a
more recent survey by MYOB in 2012
found that around 20% of SMES were using cloud
computing, it still points to a slow uptake.
There are a number of programs in place which could help
facilitate better knowledge about benefits but also the
risks associated with cloud services (see box).
Among businesses, data privacy and security are important issues
and a MYOB survey found that for 16% of SMEs concerns
about data ownership inhibit their uptake of cloud
services.
Yet according to the NCS, the risks with cloud services are not
inherently more or less than traditional ICT, but the
relative risks are different. The Government's own
research lists among them:
lack of quality information about the risks and benefits;
data ownership and privacy;
vendor lock-in and interoperability;
unequal bargaining power between providers and consumers of cloud services;
and
loss of Internet connectivity and the available quality of connection.
As the industry is still emerging, the government's position is that
sector-specific regulation is currently not warranted,
while self-regulation could indeed be an opportunity for
key players to set themselves apart.
The Government sees a role for itself in providing better
information through a suite of online tools and
resources, for example through its
digitalbusiness.gov.au website and other online
information portals.
Other actions include:
establishing a consumer cloud working group to examine potential issues, and
explore the international cloud market place for levers that could be applied in
cases of market inefficiencies or failures;
a voluntary Cloud Consumer Protocol to enhance information disclosure; and
a stock take of existing regulatory measures.
The NCS also makes the case that Government leadership in procuring
cloud services could help overcome some of the concerns
within the private community, including through the
setting of appropriate standards.
Yet many agencies have also been slow in adopting the
technology, again primarily due to security concerns.
The Australian Government's Information
Management Office (AGIMO) published in 2011 a
Cloud Computing Strategic Directions Paper, and in
2012 a list of selected cloud service providers (the
Data-centre-as-a-Service-Multi Use List) to
assist agencies in procuring cloud services. The
Government is currently reviewing the directions paper,
and is committed to accelerating the broader uptake of
cloud services by its agencies, for example through
cloud service trials, the results of which it intends to
publish.
With the implementation of the NCS, agencies would at least have
to consider cloud services in new ICT procurements. In
addition, the Government intends to promote cloud
services to NGOs that receive public funding, and
explores the feasibility of a whole-of-government cloud.
Another avenue supporting the emerging cloud computing market is
through R&D. However, the NCS does not detail any
specific measures or investments beyond those currently
in place, including through NICTA, the CSIRO, the
university sector and collaborative mechanisms such as
the CRC program. Any additional investment needs will be
assessed as part of the National Research
Investment Plan.
While the NCS makes a strong case for cloud computing, according
to an article
published in the Sydney Morning Herald,
the reactions from the sector were mixed. Thus the
apparent failure to mandate a cloud-first approach in
its national cloud computing strategy attracted some
criticism, although others welcomed the strategy.
Queensland's clouded priority
30-05-2013 - The Queensland Government
has opted for a 'cloud-first' approach in the
procurement of ICT services. The
announcement at the end of May followed on from a
successful cloud trial of email service within the
Government's Chief Information Office.
According to the announcement, an Invitation to Offer (ITO)
cloud-based services to the State Government will be
released at the end of September.
Australia's diverse mix of energy products was
reviewed in detail in BREE's Energy in Australia
2013 report released in June.
In terms of energy content, Australia's 2010-11 production was
to 59% made up of coal, with uranium and natural gas
contributing a further 20% and 13%, respectively.
The remainder was crude oil and LPG, together accounting for 6%,
while renewables were just 2% of the total energy produced.
However, this share is expected to rapidly increase over the
next decades.
The energy industry contributed almost $80 billion, or 6%, to
the total Australian economy, with coal mining and the
extraction of oil and gas alone each adding $27 billion or
4%. Another $22.5 billion or 1.7% came from the electricity
supply industry.
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Coal has a special position in Australia's energy mix. Thermal and
metallurgical coal are major export commodities, with combined earnings of
around $48 billion in 2011-12.
We share 6% of the world's coal production, of which 87% is
exported, representing 27% of the world's trade with coal.
Around 97% of the exported coal is from Queensland (most
metallurgical coal) and New South Wales (most thermal coal).
Both metallurgical coal and thermal coal have seen sharp increases
in export value. Between 2007-08 and 2011-12, the value of exported
metallurgical coal rose from around $12 billion to more than $21 billion,
and thermal coal from around $9 billion to more than $17 billion.
BREE projects that over the medium term coal production will further
increase as a result of new investment in mining and also infrastructure
capacity, which in the past has constrained exports. As of October 2012,
there were 17 committed coal mining projects, with a further 63 at the
feasibility stage.
With 2.7% of the world's total energy production we are the ninth
largest energy producer in the world and sustain a growing
export industry, earning the nation $70 billion in 2010-11.
After taking into account its energy imports, such as
petroleum products, 63% of Australia's net energy was
exported in that year.
Primarily driven by increased global demand, Australia's
production increased on average 9% each year over the past
decade. Much of this growth was driven by global demand and
the value of our energy exports has increased by some 7%
each year (2011-12 Dollars) since the early 90s, and 10%
between 2010-11 and 2011-12 on the back of more exported
coal and LNG.
We are net importers of crude oil and refined petroleum
products, yet crude oil is at the same time one of our most
valuable resources and energy exports, ranking 6th after
iron ore, metallurgical and thermal coal and gold.
Gas accounts for 25% of Australia's total energy consumption, while half of
its total production is exported. In 2011-12, Australia earned $12 billion
from liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.
Two thirds of our gas is from Western Australia, and there most is
recovered from the Carnarvon Basin.
Australia's longest producing gas source is the Victorian Gippsland
Basin, accounting for around 12% of production in 2011-12. A further 8% is
sourced offshore in the Victorian Otway and Bass basins.
Production of coal seam gas (CSG) now accounts for 12% of national
gas production, and this is set to increase with 3 major CSG to LNG projects
due for completion by the middle of the decade.
Major gas projects under construction or committed include
conventional gas projects:
Pluto (4.3 million tonnes per year (mtpa));
Gorgon (15.6 mtpa);
Wheatstone (8.9 mtpa);
Ichthys (8.4 mtpa); and
Prelude (3.6 mtpa)
.
The 3 unconventional CSG to LNG projects are:
Queensland Curtis LNG (8.5 mtpa);
Gladstone LNG (7.8 mtpa); and
Australia Pacific LNG (9 mtpa).
The domestic consumption of energy grew slower than
production, averaging only 0.8% per year over the past 5
years, as the energy intensity of the nation's economy kept
declining on the back of gained energy efficiencies and an
increased share of the less energy intensive service
industries.
Our major energy consuming sectors are the electricity
generation sector (28%) followed by transport (22%) and
manufacturing (22%). Together these sectors account for 75%
of all energy consumed. While increasing, the mining sector
still contributes only 10% to consumption.
Major technical advances amid rising fuel prices in the
transport sector are the primary source for the declining
energy intensity of the Australian economy, only partially
offset by a sharp increase in energy intensity seen in the
mining sector.
Australia now ranks as the 17th largest non-renewable energy
consumer in the world, and 19th on a per capita basis.
The mix of energies consumed in Australia is also changing, as
the share of coal is in decline while we use more gas. In
2010-11, coal accounted for 35% and oil for 36% of
Australia's energy consumption. The use of gas has
continuously increased over the past 3 decades, particularly
in electricity production and it accounted for 24.8% of
total energy consumed in 2010-11.
By contrast, the share of renewables has largely remained
unchanged over the past decade, contributing 4%.
However, BREE projects that over the next 4 decades consumption
of renewables will grow by around 3.6% each year to 1032
peta joules (PJ), while total consumption will only slightly
increase by 1% each year to 7369 PJ.
Around 53% of Australia's renewable energy is comprised of
biomass such as wood and bagasse, while hydro power used for
electricity generation makes up 23%.
The remaining 24% is through the use of biofuels, wind and
solar. The generation of electricity from wind and solar has
increased sharply over recent years. The energy produced
from wind more than doubled from 9 PJ to 21 PJ in the 5
years to 2010-11, while solar energy tripled, from 0 to 3 PJ
over the same period. This was largely offset by a drop in
the use of bagasse energy, which more than halved to 43 PJ.
While renewables are projected to increase their share in energy
production, particularly in the generation of electricity,
Australia's main energy products are at present coal (70%)
and gas (20%).
These energy sources have blessed Australia with, by
international standards, relatively cheap electricity, and
this appears to be still the case as is suggested by a BREE
figure that compares household electricity prices with other
OECD countries based on purchasing power (see figure).
Click image to enlarge - Real household price indices, OECD
eonomies, 2012 `
graph: BREE Energy in Australia
report 2013
However, BREE projects that under carbon price arrangements
their share will increase to 51% by 2049-50.
As of October 2012, there were 14 renewable energy projects in
an advanced stage of development, which together would add
around 2 GW capacity. Of these, 13 are wind projects, which
reflects the excellent wind resources at Australia's
southern coast. In addition, costs for wind technology have
come down significantly in recent years and are set to
become cheaper than fossil fuel based electricity generation
if a price on carbon and the renewable energy target (RET)
stays in place.
In addition to the advanced stage projects, their are 91 less
advanced projects including 72 wind energy projects and 11
solar energy projects. Together these could add another 17
GW capacity.
There are also 3 geothermal energy and 3 ocean energy projects
in a less advanced stage adding up to 1 GW.
However, while wind is still growing strongly, and by mid
century is projected to produce 21% of Australia's
electricity, BREE projects that its growth will be outpaced
by solar, and also geothermal. By 2049-50, solar could
contribute around 16%, and geothermal 8% to Australia's
electricity generation.
April-June 2013 - Early last year the ARDR reviewed
the emerging advanced biofuels industry, both on a domestic
and global level. Among the examples featured were
Licella Pty Ltd's production of 'drop-in' fuels
from wood biomass and residues and Muradel Pty Ltd's
algal biofuel technology.
In June, Resources Minister Gary Gray
unveiled Muradel's first 'green crude' from microalgae,
which could be used in the existing petroleum industry or
provide fuel for aviation.
Both companies have recently received $5.4 and $4.4 million,
respectiveley, through the Australian Renewable
Energy Agency's (ARENA) Advanced Biofuels
Investment Readiness Program.
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Running a commercial demonstration plant since 2011, Licella will
use the ARENA grant for a $8.2 million feasibility study
into the construction of its first pre-commercial biofuels
plant. The 21 months study aims to deliver an investment
case for the plant which will produce up to 125,000 barrels
of bio-crude oil per year. As a drop-in fuel the oil could
be directly used to replace existing fuels, for example in
the aviation industry.
Licella's technology is based on water in a so called
supercritical state under elevated heat and pressure. In
this fourth state of matter water has both acidic and basic
properties and physical features that are similar to that of
gases. Under these conditions biomass such as saw dust can
be processed to produce drop in biofuel. The company has
piloted the technology for over 3 years in Somersby north of
Sydney.
The recipient of the second grant, Muradel, is a joint venture
between the University of Adelaide,
Murdoch University and South Australian biofuel
company SQC Pty Ltd.
Since November 2010, Muradel runs an open pond algae biofuels
pilot plant at Karratha in Western Australia - the first of
its kind in Australia.
Muradel's open pond growth of algae
The ARENA investment will support a project to up scale the marine
algal plant from the pilot stage to a $10.7 million
demonstration plant near Whyalla in South Australia.
Both projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2014.
07-06-2013- ARENA has established a new $60 million
SHARE (Supporting High-value Australian Renewable Energy)
initiative, which from 1 July will accept industry applications for
projects that aim to close the knowledge gap in 3 priority areas.
These include:
understanding renewable energy potential;
grid integration; and
international engagement.
As part of the SHARE initiative, ARENA invests in 2 knowledge
sharing projects. They are:
the Update of the Australian Technology Assessment
- an analysis of the barriers to grid connection; and
an
inaugural
Australian Liquid Fuels Technology Assessment.
ARENA supported knowledge projects include:
a review and update by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE)
of the 2012 Australian Energy Technology Assessment (AETA) including producing a
2013 model;
production by BREE of the 2014 edition of AETA;
development by BREE of an inaugural Australian Liquid Fuel Technology
Assessment;
a review of the commercialisation pathways of Australian geothermal
technology development;
a deeper analysis of renewable energy in the Australian Energy Resource
Assessment;
ongoing data collection of the off-grid market;
a detailed study of the prospects of Australian solar thermal, and
an assessment of the potential for integration of renewable energy in
existing fossil power stations in Australia.
May-June 2013 - Over recent months several Australian governments
delivered their 2013-14 budgets in an ongoing difficult global
economic environment.
Here we report on the federal budget as well as on state budgets
from the Victorian, Queensland and
South Australian and Western Australian
Governments.
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Federal budget
The May federal budget projects a deficit of around $18 billion in
2013-14, despite major spending cuts of around $43 billion. These
include the controversial efficiency dividend to grants provided
under the Higher Education Support Act 2003(see below) and
$159.1 million from the Education Investment component of the $200
million Solar Flagships program. The Carbon
Capture and Storage (CCS) Flagships Program
is reduced by $500 million and $29 million over 2 years is saved
through cuts in the Coal Mining Abatement Technology Support
package. Funding of $370 million over 3 years from the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is deferred out
to 2020, although ARENA's total funding of the program will stay
over $3 billion. .
Also notable saving of around $1.1 billion over the forward
estimates could stem from proposed changes to the R&D Tax Incentive
(see box).
Introduced on 1 July 2011, the R&D Tax Incentive includes:
a 45% refundable tax offset for eligible companies with an aggregated
turnover of less than $20 million per year; and
a 40% non-refundable tax offset for all other eligible companies.
The R&D Tax Incentive, which followed on from the previous Tax
Concession, also brought new categories for eligible R&D projects with
'core R&D projects' defined as experimental activities that generate new
knowledge, while 'supporting R&D projects' directly relate to core R&D but are
subject to a so called dominant purpose test.
In his blog series on the
R&D Tax Incentive, Kris Gale from Michael
Johnson Associates writes that the bill excludes corporates responsible
for approximately 20% of Australia's innovation spend from the nation's flagship
innovation program. He further notes that the bill now includes the broadened
concept of 'assessable income'. In the case of Australian residents this would
extend to global ordinary and statutory income, while foreign residents only
need to include Australian sourced ordinary and statutory income. He is also
concerned that the proposed legislation presents an unprecendented extension of
administrative power to Innovation Australia.
With the new arrangements, which are part of a
Tax Laws Amendment (2013 Measures No. 4) Bill 2013 introduced into
Parliament on 26 June 2013, large firms with an assessable income of
$20 billion or more will no longer have access to the 40% non-refundable tax
offset, although they will still be able to claim deductions for R&D
expenditures under general tax law provisions.
Under the bill, smaller companies with an aggregate annual turnover
of less than $20 million will also be able to opt for the R&D refundable tax
offset to be assessed on a quarterly basis during an income year.
Nevertheless, there are significant initiatives targeting R&D and
innovation, such as the $1 billion innovation program announced in
February. Key spending initiatives include:
a $1 billion innovation program targeting innovation, productivity and
competitiveness;
$226 million for cancer prevention, detection, treatment and research, as
well as patient care and support;
$691 million over five years for new listings under the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme;
$135 million over 5 years for another round of the ARC Future
Fellowships scheme, which will provide for up to 150 new four-year
fellowships;
$154 million over 4 years will be provided as additional funding to
Geoscience Australia to support priority activities such as developing
pre-competitive information on potential areas suitable for private exploration.
and
$330 million towards the Tasmanian Forests Agreement.
Additional funding for R&D facilities include:
$230 million for the CSIRO with the provision to upgrade
its facilities at Clayton, Victoria, and Black Mountain, ACT; and
more than $30 million for the Australian Institute of Marine Science
in Townsville - also supporting the National Tropical Sea Simulator
facility.
The Government will also continue its funding of the
National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy,
providing $189.9 million over the next 2 years. However, long-term
funding will be subject to a review in line with the National
Research Investment Plan.
There will also be an extension of the Reef Rescue
Program costing $200 million over 5 years. The program was
implemented in 2008 under the Caring for our Country
initiative with the aim to protect the Great Barrier Reef and
increase agricultural productivity.
As part of its Creative Australia policy vision
of boosting our creative industries, the Government will provide $20
million over 3 years for an Australian Interactive Games
Fund. The fund will support the development of the
interactive video gaming industry in Australia.
Agriculture
Agriculture features prominently in the budget with key initiatives
including:
$60 million will be provided as part of a $379.9 million over 7 years
investment in a
new post-entry quarantine (PEQ) facility in Victoria for high risk plant and
animal imports, as announced in the 2012-13 Budget.
The Government further provides a total of $238.2 million for agricultural
R&D corporations.
support for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, in which the
Murray-Darling Basin Authority sets a benchmark of 2750 giga litres
(GL) of environmental water in the Basin. As previously announced, the
Government
commits $1.8 billion over 10 years from 2014-15 to the recovery of a further
450GL of environmental water. The funding will support efficiency measures as
well as the removal of flow constraints impeding environmental outcomes from
available environmental water.
$155.0 million over 7 years from 2013-14 for projects that restore the health of
the wetlands at Pike and Katarapko in the Riverland of South Australia.
$10.0 million from 2013-14 to 2018-19 for research on environmental water use.
$25 million in
extra funding for Hobart's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems
Cooperative Research Centre. Through the funding, provided over 5 years
from July 2014, the already largest centre of Antarctic and Southern Ocean
climate change research in Australia will continue its research on climate
change impacts in Australia and the Pacific.
$9.5 million towards Australia's continued contribution to broader research and
Antarctic operations staged from Tasmania. This includes the running of 4
fully-operational Antarctic and sub-Antarctic stations.
$7.4 million for work on the ice breaker Aurora Australis, as
well as for exploring options to replace the vessel in the near future; the base
level funding for the Australian Institute of Marine Science will be boosted
with $30.9 million over 4 years.
While funding for universities will increase in every
year over the forward estimates, the Government will introduce a 2%
and 1.25% efficiency dividend in 2014 and 2015. This is to provide
$903 million over 4 years in savings in order to fund the
National Plan for School Improvement.
Click image to enlarge
The efficiency dividend has been controversial with claims that
the increased school funding would be at the expense of cuts to
universities. However, the budget papers include a graph
illustrating that the dividend will only be a minor dent in the
overall growing funding of the higher education sector.
Funding for university places has increased from $3.5 billion in
2007 to $6.1 billion in 2013, and further $1.9 billion over 4 years
are allocated to meet a predicted surge in the demand for places.
Innovation
The Government's key initiative in supporting Australia's
innovation, productivity and competitiveness is a set of initiatives
costing around $1 billion and detailed in the industry and
innovation statement
A Plan for Australian Jobs. A respective
exposure draft of the Australian Jobs Bill 2013 was released in
February with submission closed in April.
The plan has 3 core strategies:
Backing Australian industry to win more work at home: Under the strategy,
a new Australian Industry Participation Authority will help
businesses gain relevant capabilities and connections. Through the legislation
of new Australian Industry Participation (AIP) arrangements major projects worth
$500 million or more would be required to implement AIP Plans that would provide
local industry opportunities to win work on a commercial basis. In addition,
projects worth $2 billion or more that apply for concessions under the
Enhanced Project By-Law Scheme will require to embed Australian
Industry Opportunity officers within their global supply offices. The
strategy further includes reforms to the anti-dumping system to provide stronger
protection for Australian industry against unfair competition from overseas.
Support for Australian industry to win new business abroad: The
Government has allocated $500 million into the establishment and operation of up
to 10 Industry Innovation Precincts which will support business
innovation and growth in areas of Australian competitive advantage. The
initiative includes a new Industry Innovation Network promoting
the participation of businesses, including in regional areas. The first two
Precincts will be a Manufacturing Precinct with locations in
South East Melbourne and Adelaide and a Food Precinct
headquartered in Melbourne.
Industry Innovation Precincts:
The Government plans to support 5 Established Industry Innovation
Precincts in areas of the economy where Australia already has a
competitive advantage and 5 Emerging Industry Innovation Precincts
in areas of the economy that have emerging opportunities with strong export
potential. In a break down the funding consists of:
$238.4 million for the establishment of up to 10 Precincts, an Industry
Collaboration Fund providing Precincts with funding for large-scale, high-impact
industry collaboration projects, and an Industry Innovation Network;
$236.3 million of Industrial Transformation Research Program funding to fund
priority projects;
$29.8 million of for the incorporation of a Manufacturing Technology
Innovation Centre into the Manufacturing Precinct.
Helping Australian small and medium businesses to grow and create new
jobs:
This measure includes a $350 million round of the Innovation Investment
Fund as part of a $378.6 million Venture Australia package. Through
changes to venture capital tax arrangements the Government aims to improve
clarity and certainty for investors and to encourage participation by 'angel'
syndicates. There will also be a new Growth Opportunities and Leadership
Development (GOLD) initiative which will provide focused support for
SMEs with high growth potential. Recognising the value of the Enterprise
Connect program for SMEs, the program will be extended to include more
manufacturing firms and new sectors like professional services, information and
communication technologies, and transport and logistics. In addition, a new
Enterprise Solutions Program, funded with $29.4 million over 5 years,
will support SMEs in the development of solutions to public sector needs. The
program will provide grants of up to $100,000 for feasibility studies and up to
$1 million for proof of concept.
Complementing its $1 billion Jobs Plan, the Government
will bring forward $160 million in Clean Technology
Investment Program funding to 2014-15, which will drive
around half a billion dollars of manufacturing capital investment in
Australia. The $800 million Clean Technology Investment program has
so far supported 222 projects with more than $121 million in grants,
leveraging a total of $338 million through additional private sector
co-investment.
Reactions:
Given the significant cuts or deferrals of funds for renewable
energy and efficiency, green advocates were unsurprisingly critical
of the budget. But the major criticism did focus on the planned
efficiency dividend in the higher education sector.
The Australian Academy of Science has welcomed the additional
funding for the ARC Future Fellowships program, the 2-year extension
of NCRIS, and the continued funding of peak research bodies
including CSIRO, the Cooperative Research Centres, and the
National Health and Medical Research Council.
However, in a
statement released by the Academy Professor Suzanne
Cory said that "it is but a small and short-term
investment against a background of a total of $3.3 billion in cuts
and deferrals to research and higher education". The Academy is also
critical that there is no support for a strategic international
science program.
More information:
www.budget.gov.au; For
additional R&D related comments on the budget visit the
Australian Science Media Centre website www.smc.org.au
Victoria
The narrative of the Victorian budget is that of an improving
economy,with its GSP expected to grow at around 2.25% in 2013-14 and
2.75% in 2014-15.
Against these improving conditions net Government
debt is forecast to peak at 6.4% of gross state product (GSP) in
2013-14. The budget projects an operating surplus of $225 million in
2013-14, which is then set to increase to $2.5 billion by 2016-17.
The overall emphasis of Government initiatives is on building
infrastructure, with $6.1 billion allocated to major projects.
R&D and innovation related investments include:
Business:
$29.8 million are
allocated for innovation initiatives, including $16 million over 4 years in
new funding for the Driving Business Innovation initiative. The
demand driven grants program builds on the Market Validation Program
which has funded more than 31 projects collaborative projects between public
sector agencies and Victorian small businesses in areas such as health, water
and transport.
Driving Business Innovation will support Victorian SMEs and
government agencies to jointly develop innovative solutions to technology
challenges facing the public sector.
$50.4 million will support Victoria's international business engagement in
Western China and Indonesia by opening 2 Victorian Government Business
Offices. The initiative complements the State's trade mission strategy
and builds on the $50 million Victorian International Engagement
Strategy.
Creative Industries:
$8.5 million over 4 years will deliver a suite of support to
Victorian screen practitioners in the areas of television
production, animation and games industry development.
Agriculture
In total, more than $104 million will be invested in agricultural
research, development, extension as well as biosecurity. It includes
the second year of funding for the Growing Food and Fibre
initiative which, in partnership with industry, provides $61.4
million of additional investment over 4 years for projects targeting
biosecurity and productivity-focused R&D.
Examples of supported projects are the genome sequencing in sheep
and beef cattle, best practice lamb reproduction, the development of
an experimental summer fruit orchard at Tatura, and almond
productivity research.
ICT
A total of $19 million over 4 years are
allocated for the technology portfolio, including new funding
towards the implementation of the
Victorian Government's ICT Strategy released in
February, as well as the extension of core initiatives under
Victoria's Technology Plan for the Future - Information and
Communication Technology.
Mining
$31.7 million over 4 years
will be spent on programs that support the mining industry,
including a $19 million investment in exploration and the reduction
of barriers to investment. The Government will also extend funding
for Clean Coal Victoria, investing $8.3 million
over 4 years.
Water
The Government will spend $50 million on water management and
planning initiatives, which include $22.5 million for the
Office of Living Victoria and $3 million for work
associated with the Murray-Darling Basin.
The Queensland Government also
predicts a rebounding economy with growth of GSP forecast at 3%
for 2013-14, and averaging 4% over the forward estimates. However,
natural disasters continue to pose a significant challenge, with the
budget allocating $9.3 billion over 3 years for the recovery from
recent impacts.
In addition, the Government struggles with significant
reductions in revenue forecasts contributing to a estimated fiscal
deficit of $7.7 billion in 2013-14, and it has delayed a return to
surplus to 2015-16.
Selected budget items of interest include:
Science and research
The budget includes a $9 million over 5 years investment for
dementia research undertaken at the Queensland Brain
Institute.
Agriculture
With more than $400 million directed towards primary industries, the
Government has
allocated $16 million for the implementation of the
Queensland Agriculture Strategy, which was
released in June 2013. The strategy aims to double Queensland's
production by 2040, outlining 60 initiatives. On key target is
boosting the productivity of the State's beef industry, its largest
farm export, including through 2 new extension officers. Other
initiatives as part of the strategy include a winter cereal
pre-breeding program, conducted in conjunction with the University
of Queensland through the Queensland Alliance for
Agriculture and Food Innovation.
The Government will further invest $3 million in a project with
the Queensland University of Technology on farm
robotics for the automated planting, maintenance and harvest of
crops.
The budget also includes a capital expenditure program for the
development or upgrade of agricultural facilities totalling around
$20 million.
Environment
The Government has
allocated $80 million over 5 years in extra funding for the
continuation of 14 regional Natural Resource Management (NRM) bodies
target the sustainable management of land and water resources, and
the protection of the Great Barrier Reef.
Mining
Queensland's resources and exploration industries will be
supported with $30 million for Geological Survey of
Queensland (GSQ) initiatives.
As other States, the South Australian Government is
struggling with lower than expected GST receipts. Nevertheless, in
its 2013-14 budget it paints an optimistic outlook for the economy
over the forward estimates. The estimated deficit of more than $1.3
billion in 2012-13 and of around $900 million in 2013-14 is expected
to improve over the forward estimates, with a modest surplus
forecast in 2015-16.
Net Government debt is projected to peak at 12.5% of GSP in
2015-16, and economic growth is expected to improve to 2.5% over the
coming year.
The Government's main spending emphasis is on a capital program
worth a total of $10.1 billion over the forward estimates. This
includes new funding for major road and rail projects under the
Nation Building 2 program as well as support for existing projects,
such as $248.1 million for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Advanced Manufacturing
Advancing doing things...
Following a review of the State's manufacturing sector by
Professor Goran Roos, the SA Government, guided by an
Advanced Manufacturing Council, developed a 10-year
strategy to support an emerging advanced manufacturing industry
in the State.
The $11.1 million plan centres on the growth of
high-tech precincts through which small businesses can exchange
ideas between each other, and with universities and other
institutions. Its initiatives include:
a network of internationally experienced manufacturing
executives who will mentor other local manufacturing executives;
a series of education programs to help local companies create
new business models, services and technologies;
a program to encourage food companies to work together to use
new technologies and respond to new opportunities;
a pilot program, based on those used in the US and UK, to use
government spending to help small businesses become more innovative;
four workforce development programs;
a government assistance road map to better inform manufacturers
of funding and assistance available;
a new voucher scheme to help firms connect with research
providers;
a new Mining Industry Participation Office
within State Government; and
a revised Industry Participation Policy to
ensure South Australian businesses have full opportunity to
participate in major projects.
Advanced manufacturing is one of 7 strategic priorities of the State
Government, which follows on from a review by Professor
Goran Roos of the State's manufacturing sector, which
recommended to support the sector's transformation into an advanced
manufacturing industry.
The review had also recommended to focus
this development on key strength of the State. The recommendations
were
followed up by a $11.1 million Advanced Manufacturing
Strategy, released at the end of 2012. In line with the
strategy, the budget includes:
$4.1 million over 4 years for the establishment of a High-Value Food
Manufacturing Centre which will bring together expertise from
manufacturing industry, government, universities and researchers;
$3 million over 3 years for a Small Business Innovation Research
Pilot Program; and
additional $27 million for the training of workers to meet the skills needs
of SA industries.
Mining
The Government will continue its support for the State's resources
sector, with realising the benefits of the 'mining boom' another of
its 7 strategic policy priorities. The budget allocates $8.6 million
over 2 years in new funding to support exploration and innovation in
the mining sector.
A new Mining and Petroleum Services Centre of
Excellence will be established with $6 million over 4
years. In addition, the State's PACE initiative
will receive $4 million over 2 years to fast-track exploration of
projects in SA's Gawler Craton region, bringing the total funding of
PACE to $28 million over the budget period.
Western Australia's economy is in a transition as major resource
projects are moving into the less labour intensive production phase.
Yet it continues to be the nation's fastest growing economy, while
also boasting the fastest growth in its population (around 3.5% in
2012).
Handed down in August, the State's 2013-14 budget forecasts this
year's economic growth at 3.25%, down from the 5.75% estimated
growth in 2012-13.
Despite a generally positive economic outlook, the State Government
says that the declining share of national GST revenue is a concern.
Following last year's fall to 55%, the State's population share in GST
revenue is set to further reduce to 45% in 2013-14. As a result, the
State's income from GST will be $477 million less than last year.
Nevertheless the Government is able to spend a total of $26.9 billion
over the next four years, including $7.5 billion in 2013-14, on
infrastructure projects alone. This is also in response to the fast
pace of population growth in the State that poses significant
challenges.
Special initiatives related to R&D and Innovation include:
A $30 million investment over 4 years will establish a
FutureHealth fund. This additional investment brings the total of WA State
Government expenditure on health and medical research to $88 million over 4
years. Adding to this are 3 Lotterywest grants totalling $7.2 million, which
will support a new Western Australian Neuroscience Research
Institute to be built at the QEII Medical Centre.
The source of the grants is unique in Australia, with WA being the only
state where money raised from lottery products is injected directly back
into projects benefitting the community.
ICRAR is also supporting the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory.
The image shows dipole antennas in the Murchison Widefield Array.
Their sophisticated computing systems combine the information they
individually collect from space into a cohesive image.
Image: Paul Bourke and Jonathan Knispel. Supported by WASP (UWA), iVEC,
ICRAR, and CSIRO.
The Government will provide $26 million over 6 years for the
International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), which was
established in 2009 in a joint venture between Curtin University
and the University of Western Australia.
ICRAR plays an important role in Australia's involvement in the SKA
project. International in its scope, ICRAR was set up to create a collaborative
environment for scientists and engineers working with industry on SKA related
projects.
The budget further includes a $297 million over four years package for
agricultural projects targeting potential market opportunities in
Asia.
The Seizing the Opportunity initiative builds on existing
investments in agriculture, including the $311 million Ord
Expansion Project and the $30 million Australian
Export Grains Innovation Centre. Supported agricultural
projects will include areas of R&D, land and water, industry
development and investment attraction.
The Australian Government has announced the
board of the new Australian Manufacturing Innovation
Precinct (AMIP), one of ten Industry
Innovation Precincts funded under the $1 billion
Plan for Australian Jobs initiative (read more in
It's budget time)
=>
In May, the precinct's headoffice was officially
launched at the New Horizons research
facility, which Monash University shares
with the CSIRO.
The New Horizons building, shared by Monash and the CSIRO,
will house the Australian Manufacturing Innovation Precinct
HQ.
image: Monash University
The appointments to the precinct's board comprise
representatives from the manufacturing industry, unions and
the research sector. It will be chaired by
Albert Goller, former managing director and
chair of Siemens Australia and New Zealand.
Further members of the board are:
Christine Bridges Taylor, general manager and
director of B&R Enclosures;
Paul Bastian, national secretary,
Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union;
Dr Fred Davis, vice president of Business
Development, Universal Biosensors;
John Dixon, managing director, Silk
Logistics Group;
Dr Calum Drummond, group executive, Manufacturing,
Materials and Minerals, CSIRO;;
Mike Edwards, general manager, Boeing
Research and Technology Australia;
Professor Paul Greenfield, chair,
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation;
Michael Heard, member of South Australian
Premier's Science and Industry Council and former chief executive
officer of Codan Ltd;
Dr Frank Koentgen, director and chief executive
officer, Ozgene;
Rhett Morson, general manager, Morson
Engineering;
Mike Rausa, executive director Corporate Services,
Toyota Motor Corporation Australia.
17-06-2013 - Australia's petroleum industry is a major
contributor to our national wealth. According to recent data
by IBIS World Australia's oil and gas
extraction generated revenue of more than $40 billion in
2012-13.
Click image to enlarge. According to the figure by the
Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association
(APPEA), Australia's trade balance in petroleum products is
negative since 2003-04.
However, we are net importers of crude oil and refined petroleum
products as production is declining while domestic demand,
particularly for transport fuel, is increasing.
Since 2003-04, our balance of trade in petroleum products has
been negative, as illustrated in a figure by the
Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association,
and the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics
recently reported in its Australian Petroleum Statistics
that in 2012-13 the total export value of Australian
petroleum products was around $28 billion while the value of
imports was around $40 billion.
Some commentators are
warning that this could become a problem for our energy
security, although this concern was not
shared in the Government's 2012 Energy White Paper.
However, there is a general understanding that Australia
needs to increase its effort in petroleum exploration. Here
we cover recent developments related to this crucial
industry.
Each year, the Australian Government conducts the
Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release as a key measure
providing the global exploration industry with new opportunities to invest
in Australia's oil and gas sector.
In the process, the Government announces a number of potential
areas - usually around 30 at a time comprising a mix of shallow-water and
deep-water areas, areas close to existing sites of production as well as
underexplored and rank frontier regions.
The Government also provides access to information such as
pre-competitive geological and geophysical data and analysis, as well as
information about marine reserves, environmental, fishing, security and
other considerations that could impact on future petroleum activities in an
area.
The bids by companies for exploration permits are usually
assessed over a 6-12 months timeframe. However, if an exploration permit is
granted it could be several years before any physical exploration activities
occur in the area. In fact, the permit itself does not authorise petroleum
exploration activities. Rather, permit titleholders have only the exclusive
right to apply for such a permission.
The Australian Government has announced 13 new
offshore petroleum exploration permits for areas off the
coast of Western Australia (12) and Tasmania (1). Together
the permits could translate in $180 million in new
investment over the next 3 years.
The new titleholders were selected after the assessment
of 23 bids for 15 offered areas as part of the first round
of the 2012 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage
Release.
The details for the 2013 Offshore Petroleum
Exploration Acreage Release were
released at the end of May.
The 31 areas in Commonwealth waters are located across
the following 6 basins: Bonaparte, Browse, Northern
Carnarvon,Perth, Otway and Gippsland.
Click
on image to enlarge; Areas currently covered by Australia's
petroleum exploration permits
image: modified from
interactive maps provided by NEATS
Tough Bight to chew on
The Great Australian Bight (GAB) is one of the lesser
explored areas for petroleum, but has recently attracted
renewed interest, especially after Geoscience
Australia reported in 2007 that a survey in the GAB
had identified areas with excellent source rock potential
for black oil.
Petroleum exploration in the Bight Basin has a history of over
50 years but so far only 10 wells have been drilled, and
this may reflect significant challenges. Nevertheless, it is
considered as one of the most prospective underexplored
frontiers in the world.
In 2011, BP acquired 4 exploration permits in
the GAB, covering an acreage of some 24,000 square
kilometres, which are some 300 kilometres offshore in water
depth of up to 5,000 metres. In the following year the
company completed a three-dimensional marine seismic survey
and it is now in the process of planning for exploration
wells. The company expects drilling to start in 2015-16,
subject to respective approval, and this would bring the
total investment by the company to $1.437 billion.
To this end the company has entered contractual arrangement for the
use of a $755 million harsh environment semusubmersible
drilling rig in the initial drilling operations.
3D
Model of a Semisubmersible Drilling Rig.
photo: Hyundai
Heavy Industries
The environmental concerns are significant, though, as part of
the acreage stretches into the Great Australian Bight Marine
Park, and the 4 oil exploration wells are to be in or
adjacent to this zone. As BP details on its website, the
conditions are extreme, because of the depth and the force
of the waves building up from the Antarctic.
The company is also involved in a $20 million environmental
study in the GAB (see story
Taking a Bight.
BP is not alone seeking for oil in rough southern waters, with
Bight Petroleum holding 2 exploration permits in
the GAB. However, reflecting the considerable environmental
concerns, at the end of May the Australian Government
determined that a proposed 3-dimensional marine seismic
survey across 3,000 square kilometres would have to go
through a full federal environmental assessment process.
Nevertheless, there is heightened interest in the GAB and
further 3 frontier areas in the GAB's Ceduna Sub-Basin were
included in the 2012 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage
Release.
Onshore en vogue
Related to this is new data released by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS) in its
quarterly update on the state of mineral and petroleum
exploration in Australia.
According to the ABS Mineral and
Petroleum Exploration, Australia, Mar 2013 report, the
trend estimate for mineral exploration expenditure other
than petroleum is pointing downwards, with a 4.5% fall to
$772.6 million recorded in the March quarter. However, the
outlook for petroleum exploration looks brighter.
Click on the image to enlarge; The graphs show the trend estimate
of the expenditure on petroleum exploration in selected
states and the Northern Territory based on data by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics published in June 2013.
graphs: Elwinmedia
The trend estimate for total petroleum exploration
expenditure rose 2.7% to $1232.5 million in the March
quarter.
The largest contributor to the rise was South Australia (up
27.8%), and it is onshore exploration where the increased
investment occurs. Thus the trend estimate for onshore
petroleum exploration expenditure rose 11.6% to 339.8
million, whereas offshore exploration fell 0.8% to $889.0
million (In seasonally adjusted terms, petroleum exploration
fell 13.6% to 1121.7 million in the March quarter).
Related to this story is the Energy in Australia 2013
report by the Bureau of Resources and Energy
Economics, which we cover in
Energetic Outlook.
The National Research Investment Plan is to support
the decision by government on research investments. The plan was
released on 28 November 2012 and detailed a number of actions
including:
the objective of guiding Australian Government research investment in a way
that improves national wellbeing by increasing ;productivity and addressing
Australia's key challenges;
a framework, in the form of a national research fabric, that enables the
development of Australia's research capacity and capability to be responsive to
the needs of all sectors including business;
a set of research investment principles that ensures government investments
address the overall investment objective and are delivered efficiently;
a statement of strategic research priorities that enables investment to be
focused on meeting the government's priorities.
The development of strategic research priorities is based on the understanding
that the needs of the nation are most effectively met if investments in research
are set within a comprehensive planning framework.
21-06-2013 - The Australian Research
Committee has followed up on one of the
actions it
detailed in its National Research
Investment Plan released at the end of
last year.
In June it announced a set of 15 strategic research priorities,
which are to drive investment in areas of immediate
and critical importance to Australia. They will
supersede the National Research Priorities (NRPs),
which have been discontinued.
=>
The 15 priorities address 5 major societal challenges detailed by
the Chief Scientist, Professor Ian
Chubb, in December 2012:
Living in a changing environment
Identify vulnerabilities and boundaries to the adaptability of changing
natural and human systems;
Manage risk and capture opportunities for sustainable natural and human
systems;
Enable societal transformation to enhance sustainability and wellbeing.
Promoting population health and wellbeing
Optimise effective delivery of health care and related systems and
services;
Maximise social and economic participation in society;
Improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people.
Managing our food and water assets
Optimise food and fibre production using our land and marine resources;
Develop knowledge of the changing distribution, connectivity,
transformation and sustainable use of water in the Australian landscape;
Maximise the effectiveness of the production value chain from primary to
processed food.
Securing Australia's place in a changing world
Improve cybersecurity for all Australians;
Manage the flow of goods, information, money and people across our
national and international boundaries;
Understand political, cultural, economic and technological change,
particularly in our region.
Lifting productivity and economic growth
Identify the means by which Australia can lift productivity and economic
growth;
Maximise Australia's competitive advantage in critical sectors;
Deliver skills for the new economy.
An extended list of the priorities can be accessed
here
26-06-2013-In June, the Intellectual Property Laws
Amendment Bill 2013 passed the House of
Representatives and is now before the
Senate.
The bill is part of a general overhaul of the Australian patent
law the Government has undertaken over recent years. The new
changes are based on a recent
inquiry about the compulsory licensing of patents by the
Productivity Commission (PC).
In the report Compulsory Licensing of Patents
released on 27 May 2013, the PC included the following
key recommendations:
Replacing the 'reasonable requirements of the public' test for granting a
compulsory licence to exploit a patented invention with a new public interest
test;
Removing the provision in the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) dealing with
situations where a patent is used anti-competitively;
Repealing section 136 of the Patents Act 1990 (Cth) and
incorporating treaty obligations directly into the Patents Act; and
Incorporate a system of Crown use which would be a cheaper and quicker
alternative compulsory licensing.
=>
The bill clarifies that the Government can intervene in cases in
which patients are denied reasonable access to existing
health car services because of an existing patent. This
could have, for example, implications for the use of
patented human genes in the screening of cancer.
The TRIPS Protocol is designed to strike a better balance
between the rights of a patent holder and the need of poor
countries to obtain access to potentially life-saving
medicines. Its implementation would mean that in response to
a health crisis in developing crisis, Australian
pharmaceutical manufacturers could seek a compulsory license
for the manufacture and supply of a generic and thus cheaper
version of a patented drug.
Further proposed changes provide for a single trans-Tasman
patent attorney regime and single patent application and
examination processes for Australia and New Zealand.
China and Australia are forging closer ties on many levels,
including intellectual property.
In a recent development the
Intellectual Property Offices of both nations signed a
Memorandum of Understanding to continue their cooperation on
25 February 2013. In this context, the director general of
IP Australia, Philip Noonan,
highlighted the importance of the Intellectual Property
Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act, of which the last
provision came into effect on 15 April.
The key objectives of these reforms are to raise the
quality of patents granted in Australia and to more closely
align the inventive step standard required for Australian
patents with international standards.
In effect, Australia's
patentability test is now similar to other large IP Offices,
including that of China, and hence it is more
straightforward for Australian technology exporters to
secure a patent in China.
June 2013 - The Tasmanian Forests Agreement (TFA), which
passed into law on 30 April 2013, is hoped to mark the beginning of
a more sustainable timber industry in the State, after a long
protracted struggle between conservationists and forest industry.
The legislation came
into effect in June, amending the Tasmanian Forestry Act 1920.
Its main objective is to frame a path towards a more sustainable
timber industry and the protection of Tasmania's unique native
forests, of which an additional 170,000 hectares were recently
classified as Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area.
Click image to enlarge. Tasmanian forests agreement reserves map
The Royal Ascend of the Act also fullfills a
requirement of the 2011 Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental
Agreement which
stipulates a cooperation between the Australian
and Tasmanian Governments in an effort to
transform the State's ailing economy.
Over $200 million of federal financial
assistance can now flow into an Economic Diversification Fund and
will primarily target projects in the areas Tourism, Dairy,
Aquaculture, Horticulture, Forestry and Energy.
In addition to assistance supporting the new
arrangements affecting native forest conservation and
the economic interests of the timber industry, the
TFIGA's other main objective is the diversification of
Tasmania's economy.
To this end the Australian
Government agreed to provide $120 million over 15 years.
The funding includes $112 million for regional
development projects and $8 million for the Tasmanian
Innovation and Investment Fund.
In total, the 2011 TFIGA
canvassed a total investment of $277 million pledge into
Tasmania's development, although most of the federal
funding was subject to the TFA Act 2013.
With its
commencement in June 2013, programs and expenditures
worth over $200 million will now be invested.
State and
Commonwealth Investments under the TFIGA include:
$85 million in assistance to community members affected
by the downturn in the State's timber industry;
$43 million to facilitate protection of new areas of
high conservation value forests;
$120 million over 15 years, including an initial payment
of $20 million to identify and fund appropriate regional
development projects;
$7 million per annum ongoing to manage new reserves;
$1 million for mental health counselling and community
wellbeing.
To support the process of creating new reserve areas as
laid out by the TFA ACT 2013, the TFIGA establishes an
Independent Verification Group as an advisory body
to the Prime Minister and the Tasmanian Premier.
The governments also signed an
Conservation agreement for the legally binding
protection of an interim forest area covering almost 430,000
hectares.
Dairy, Aquaculture, Horticulture and
Forestry products were identified as areas of special opportunity by
Professor Jonathan West from the University
of Tasmania in his
reportDiversifying Tasmania's Economy: Analysis and Options,
which was commissioned as part of the 2011 TFIGA.
Interestingly, the study
found that forestry is not as dominant in the Tasmanian economy as
often believed. Thus in 2011 only 1.4% of employment was in the
forestry sector, and of that only half was dependent on
native-forest activity.
Professor West concludes that Tasmania has
natural and human-made advantages that are sufficient for the State
to catch up with the states on mainland Australia.
However, he writes that
Tasmania's most important and promising development and growth
opportunities are inhibited from realising their potential by
blockages and obstacles.
In May, the Australian and Tasmanian
Governments signed an
update of the TFIGA. As part of the new agreement, the
Australian Government announced that it would increase the remaining
$93 million of its $120 million Economic Diversification investment
to a $100 million. In addition, the funding will flow under the
Tasmanian Jobs and Growth Plan over a period of 4 years
instead of the previously planned 15 year period.
The Tasmanian Forests Agreement Act 2013 builds on
the 2012 Tasmanian Forestry Agreement, but the amendments to the
State's Forestry Act 1920 do not fully represent the
negotiated outcome reached by forest industry and conservationists.
For example, it places additional conditions on the creation of new
reserves.
A Legislative Council Select
Committee undertook an inquiry into the agreement and the
amended Tasmanian Forests Agreement Bill 2012 passed by the
Tasmanian House of Assembly in November 2012. In its report it noted
that State and Commonwealth Government had stayed outside the
negotiation process despite the agreement influencing various areas
of Government policy and thus affecting the wider Tasmanian
community.
The committee's report details a number of
concerns relating to key principles underpinning the original bill.
Summarised by the committee's chair Paul Harriss,these
include the minimum wood supply arrangements, the lack of proper
scientific methodology associated with reserve decisions that will
not achieve the best conservation outcomes, the limitations of the
socio-economic work completed, the lack of detail in relation to
durability and the lack of community consultation.
With the amendments to the Forestry Act
1920, the minimum volume of timber that Forestry Tasmania must make
available to industry is reduced from 300,000 cubic metres to
137,000 cubic metres. The high quality sawlog is thereby to be
sourced from areas defined as 'permanent timber production zone
land'.
The new legislation also establishes a
framework for the potential, although not guaranteed, creation of
reserves in areas that are currently state forest and open for
native timber harvesting.
Just over 500,000 hectares of Tasmanian
native forest in areas including the Tyenna, Styx Hastings, Picton
and the Upper Florentine could eventually be reserved, including as
national parks, conservation areas or nature reserves.
However, the creation of any new reserves
will require the approval of Parliament. In the transition, the Act
prohibits logging within slightly less than 500,000 hectares of
identified areas which are now declared as 'Future Reserve Land'.
The process also includes compensation for community members that
have a financial loss as a result of the state forest becoming a
reserve.
The TFA Act 2013 also provides for the
establishment of a Special Council, which is to
advise the Minister on the implementation of the agreement,
including through recommendations on the harvest of 'special
species'(blackwood, myrtle, celery top, sassafras, huon pine and
silver wattle).
31-07-2013 - The National Computational Infrastructure
(NCI) high performance computing centre has opened at the
Australian National University (ANU) with the launch of its
$100 million supercomputer Raijin.
Built by Fujitsu, the supercomputer is named after
the Japanese god of thunder, lightning and storms - Raijin. It
comprises a 1.2 petaflop Fujitsu PRIMERGY cluster, with Mellanox FDR
Infiniband interconnect featuring 9 terabytes per second bandwidth.
image: Elwinmedia with use of a depiction of Raijin by Tawaraya Sotatsu (17th century)
Running at 1.2 petaflops (floating point operations per second) when
performing at its peak, Raijin is Australia's fastest supercomputer and thus a
major addition to the nation's rapidly advancing computing capacity.
The NCI was established with a $50 million grant from the Australian
Government's Super Science Initiative. A further $50
million over 4 years has been provided through a co-investment from the
ANU, CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology
(BoM), Geoscience Australia and other research-intensive
universities.
High-end computing is an important component of applications that span a
broad range of research fields. Climate science, computational
chemistry, particle physics, astronomy, material science,
microbiology, nanotechnology and photonics are some on this list.
However, Australia is only just catching up with the world in
establishing essential capacity.
Recent major supercomputer initiatives include Australia's second
petascale infrastructure, the Pawsey High-Performance
Computing Centre for SKA Science in Western Australia, and
the Victorian Life Sciences Computation Initiative,
which at present is the world's largest supercomputing facility
dedicated to the life sciences
09-07-2013 -The National Computational Infrastructure
supercomputer will be the backbone of a partnership between
CSIRO, Geoscience Australia and
AuScope developing a national integrated geoscience
network.
Visualisation and spatial information storage software as well as
'virtual laboratories' operating in the cloud will support the
project, which is to provide better access to Australia's geoscience
data.
The national geoscience data network expands on the AuScope Grid,
a portal for Australia's geoscience information that is available to
industry and the wider community. As part of the National
Research Infrastructure Strategy it was developed by
AuScope in collaboration with several universities, government and
research organisations.
The AuScope Grid and the national geoscience network together will
support and enhance collaborative projects such as the UNCOVER
project, which aims to increase investment in research to achieve
mineral exploration success.
However, the national geoscience network's capacity to provide earth
science data from a range of sources in real-time could eventually
also be used for real-time accurate prediction of the impact of
natural hazards. According to Geoscience Australia senior advisor
Dr Lesley Wyborn, at present most tsunami warning
systems rely on theoretical models to predict how the event of an
earthquake may unfold, and when a tide is going to be at a certain
height. But in future, with the expansion of the network it may be
possible to provide emergency managers a snapshot of what is
actually happening at a certain point in time.
09-07-2013 -The National Computational Infrastructure
supercomputer will be the backbone of a partnership between
CSIRO, Geoscience Australia and
AuScope developing a national integrated geoscience
network.
Visualisation and spatial information storage software as well as
'virtual laboratories' operating in the cloud will support the
project, which is to provide better access to Australia's geoscience
data.
The national geoscience data network expands on the AuScope Grid,
a portal for Australia's geoscience information that is available to
industry and the wider community. As part of the National
Research Infrastructure Strategy it was developed by
AuScope in collaboration with several universities, government and
research organisations.
The AuScope Grid and the national geoscience network together will
support and enhance collaborative projects such as the UNCOVER
project, which aims to increase investment in research to achieve
mineral exploration success.
However, the national geoscience network's capacity to provide earth
science data from a range of sources in real-time could eventually
also be used for real-time accurate prediction of the impact of
natural hazards. According to Geoscience Australia senior advisor
Dr Lesley Wyborn, at present most tsunami warning
systems rely on theoretical models to predict how the event of an
earthquake may unfold, and when a tide is going to be at a certain
height. But in future, with the expansion of the network it may be
possible to provide emergency managers a snapshot of what is
actually happening at a certain point in time.
Click image to enlarge; Model of a small modular reactor by US firm NuScale
Australia is blessed with abundant renewable energy, including wind,
solar, ocean waves and geothermal.
It is also the world's third largest supplier of uranium for use in
electricity generating nuclear power stations. With this large
domestic access to fuel source, electricity generation through
nuclear power could be an obvious option.
Yet, despite the potential of nuclear power stations to produce
electricity largely emissions free, it has not been at the forefront
of public debate, and was not an issue raised in the lead up to the
election.
The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
(ATSE) has recently
called for the issue to be put on the national agenda. The
organisation says that Australia has a moral responsibility to
debate how its uranium is used and disposed of.
Australia's electricity generation has to become less carbon emissions
intensive.
But ATSE's president Dr Alan Finkel is
concerned that if nuclear is not included as part of the mix it will
be difficult to achieve an abundant and reliable supply of
low-emissions electricity.
Addressing ATSE's Nuclear Energy for Australia conference in
Sydney, he said that France, with its extensive use of nuclear
energy for electricity generation, is an example of the positive
impact that the use of nuclear energy can have on emissions. Their
grid average emissions level is 10 times lower than in Australia.
World-wide nuclear power stations contribute around 11-12% of total
electricity generated.
However, there remain important concerns, above all about the safe use of
nuclear power given that the global nuclear industry has had several
significant accidents (with Fukushima still presenting an ongoing
problem...).
There is also the question of waste disposal.
In addition, the nuclear option is deemed expensive and may bear the risk
of weapons proliferation.
According to the conference
report, the majority of the delegates believe these concerns are
not supported by evidence. Yet they need to be addressed in an open
an transparent way if the technology is to be accepted by the
public.
The long term costs associated with safe permanent waste disposal and the
eventual decomissioning of power plants are considerable. But
Australia could follow the example of other countries with a levy on
the wholesale price of nuclear generated electricity, accumulated
over the life of a plant, to provide for these costs.
Australia will have to attract a massive capital investment for
electricity system expansion and large scale baseload plant
replacement. But compared with a gradual migration to renewables,
the introduction of nuclear power to Australia by 2030 would lead to
very large savings to the economy through greenhouse gas emissions
abatement, more competitive electricity costs, improved health
outcomes and reduced health costs over the decades following.
So called Generation III and Generation III+ pressurised water (PWR),
boiling water (BWR) and heavy water (HWR) reactors, which produce
electricity at a scale of 1000 mega watt electrical (MWe) and more,
could be integrated into the eastern electricity grid.
These reactors offer near-zero greenhouse gas and other airborne
emissions, high fuel efficiency, minimal and manageable residual
waste, built-in proliferation protection and advanced passive safety
protection.
Less straight forward are small-scale factory assembled nuclear reactors,
more widely known as small modular reactors (SMR). Typically having
a capacity of less than 300 MWe, they could be useful, for example,
in remote areas for applications in mining and processing. But so
far they have not yet been sufficiently tested in international
markets.
Nuclear power in Australia will need an expanded and enhanced regulatory
system, but the experts believe this not a prohibitive requirement.
The majority of delegates therefore concluded that there is no supported
reason why uranium based nuclear power should not be considered as
an energy option for Australia.
30-08-2013 - Can we define the progress of our society more
comprehensively than just by how we fare economically?
A
final project report released by the Australian Council of Learned
Academies (ACOLA) and VicHealth is a first step to
provide a sound scientific basis to answer this question. The report covers a
pilot of the Australia’s Progress in the 21st Century (AP21C)
project, in which ACOLA and VicHealth collaborated with the Australian
National Development Index Limited (ANDI). Further partners in the
project were the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), the
Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), the Foundation
for Young Australians (FYA) and the Young and Well Cooperative
Research Centre.
To date, the widely used proxy for the state of a country's progress is
its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It is easily measured and
compared. Nevertheless, it becomes increasingly clear that broad
economic indicators fall short of capturing the true wellbeing of a
society, notwithstanding that they are retrospective rather than
forward looking.
=>
In 2008, a report by the OECD noted the emergence of a
new global movement towards establishing new measures of societal
progress that go beyond GDP.
Click image to enlarge; OECD framework of measuring wellbeing and progress;
In Australia, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
had already in 1999 begun to develop an integrated set of measures
defining Australia's state of development, the Measures of
Australia’s Progress (MAP).
It was one of the first projects of its kind in the world. To date, it
provides regular updates on 17 indicators across a range of domains,
and the ABS is currently working on a new version of the suite
called MAP2.0.
At the Australia 2020 Summit, it was proposed to go a
step further and to support the development of a composite index
that measures Australia’s economic, social and environmental
progress. This catalysed the establishment of the Australian
National Development Index (ANDI), an incorporated
member-owned initiative of leading community organisations, peak
bodies, businesses, faith-based organisations, researchers, and
independent, non-partisan grassroots citizens.
In order to provide a sound scientific foundation for the ANDI project,
ACOLA and VicHealth embarked on the The Australia's Progress in the
21st Century (AP21C) project, and a pilot of this project has now
been concluded. Its aim was to scope out a full 3-year AP21C
project. Based on the results, Australia's National Academies would
recommend and support a full AP21C project in which a new index of
national progress is built on re-defining progress as 'an increase
in equitable and sustainable wellbeing' rather than just GDP.
As delineated in the pilot's report, internationally there are a series
of individual initiatives with similar focus. A more widely known
example is the Bhutan Gross National Happiness program.
The OECD's
Measuring the Progress of Societies, which started
around a decade ago, has a more overarching focus. Its aim is to
provide a global platform that brings together the increasing number
of national, regional and community based programs for the
development of new societal progress measures.
One of the most advanced projects is the Canadian Index of
Wellbeing, which is also a potential partner for the AP21C.
The pilot of AP21C comprised several separate studies including research
on current wellbeing measurement models as well as community
attitudes towards progress and progress domains.
Key categories and priorities of progress used in many international
studies and by the ABS were found to be good starting points for an
Australian progress index and measurement framework.
The communication with the public on these issues will require
appropriate language, preparation and engagement techniques.
However, with that in place valuable information can be obtained,
the research found.
Thus survey results with 'ordinary Australians' suggest that indicators
of 'equitable and sustainable wellbeing' could form a reasonable
proxy for progress. Strikingly a slight majority of survey
respondents felt that based on this measures Australia was not
'heading in the right direction. The most frequently mentioned
reason for dissatisfaction was poor standards of government,
leadership and politicians. This was followed by negative views on
immigration policy and loss of national identity.
Australians appear to have a multi-layered view on national priorities
and the kind of society they want Australia to be.
Attributes such as 'benevolent', 'economically successful', 'tolerant',
'egalitarian', and 'traditional' ranked highly. At the same time,
respondents placed less importance on foreign aid and Indigenous
wellbeing, and they had a high level of concern regarding
immigration and cultural diversity.
The report determined that a sound cross-disciplinary scientific
foundation for understanding and measuring societies progress is
readily achievable. The project also established a series of
potential national and international partnerships that could support
a full AP21C project.
While not uncontroversial, a composite indexes, such as aimed for by
ANDI, could be achieved in Australia, and is internationally
increasingly in use. Importantly, with the Canadian example it has
been shown that it can significantly influence public policy and
media debate.
Indeed, the report authors strongly embrace the objective of the ANDI
project, which they describe as potentially "one of the most
significant collaborative undertakings of Australia's science and
research sector in the second decade of the 21st century."
09 July 2013 - The Australian Research Council
(ARC) has awarded 17 Australian Laureate Fellowships
worth a total of $47 million to both national and
international researchers working across a broad spectrum of
research fields. Topics range from improved child health,
language learning, harvesting energy from seabed soils, to
gaining a better understanding of bacteria.
The only women in the elite circle of eminent scientists are
Professor Glenda Sluga from the
University of Sydney, who was awarded the
Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship,
and Professor Tanya Monro from the
University of Adelaide, who received the
Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship. However,
the apparent gender inequality was not based on a lower
success rate of female applicants but instead reflects that
only 14 of the 112 applicants were women.
=>
On the long and protracted road to change this, Professors Glenda and
Monro will as part of their fellowship also mentor women who
are interested in taking up or continue a career in science.
Mentoring and capacity building weigh 30% in the selection of candidates,
with the remainder based on the investigator's track record
(40%) and the project/program of research activity (30%).
On average, the 5 year fellowships are supported with $2.8 million. The
overall success rate of this year's applications was 15.18%,
although this differed markedly between ARC disciplines.
Thus, around 26% of Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA)
projects won support, while Biological Sciences and
Biotechnology (BSB) proposals had a success rate of only 9%.
Consequently, the HCA discipline was with 6 grants most successful. Next
were Engineering, Mathematics and Informatics (5), then
Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences (4), while only 2
projects fall under the Biological Sciences and
Biotechnology discipline.
None of the 12 projects in Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences were
selected.
All recipients of fellowships will target a National Research Priority,
with more than half of the awarded monies ($26 million)
supporting projects in the Frontier Technologies for
Building and Transforming Australian Industries category.
25 July 2013 - The CSIRO has launched its new
Biosecurity Flagship.
The CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, Victoria
image: CSIRO
It will run with an annual budget of $30 million and draw on CSIRO's
extensive expertise in biosecurity research. This includes recent
developments such as an equine Hendra virus vaccine and the delivery
of a biological control of the silverleaf whitefly, one of the
world's most invasive pests.
The Flagship places a strong emphasis on developing a One Health
(formerly One Medicine) approach to improve the response to emerging
biosecurity threats.
The One Health
strategy is a global interdisciplinary initiative that aims to
integrate human medicine, veterinary medicine and environmental
science. It emerged from the understanding that human health, animal
health and the health of ecosystems are interdependent.
=>
Most emerging human diseases originate from animals, including the MERS
virus, a new SARS-like virus that appears to have spread from the Middle East
and is believed to have killed 45 people since 2012. And a new strain of highly
pathogenic bird flu, the H7N9, has been identified in China.
With the increasing mobility of people across the world potentially
causing a faster spread of emerging diseases, there is a need for
more effective responses to new health threats. The One Health
approach aims to facilitate this.
Electron micrograph of the emerging virus that causes Middle East Respiratory
Syndrome (MERS).
image: CSIRO
.
A US initiative, the board of One Health is largely dominated by US
experts (26 out of 30 members are from the US). Nevertheless,
Australia is represented through
Dr Martyn Jeggo, the director of the
Geelong Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases.
And the list of non-US supporting organisations is extensive.
The initiative builds on forming strategic multidisciplinary
partnerships. In line with this the CSIRO Biosecurity Flagship
collaborates with more than 20 national and international partner
organisations.
At the end of July, the CSIRO
announced another new alliance with Duke-NUS,
which itself is a collaboration between
Duke University (North Carolina) and the
National University of Singapore. A signed relationship
agreement covers the intention to form an International
Collaborative Centre for One Health.
The Duke-NUS is also developing new tests for early and rapid detection
of emerging infectious diseases, such as Hendra virus and
coronaviruses, which CSIRO scientists will then test and validate at
the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory in
Geelong, Victoria.
30 July 2013 - Monash University has launched its
$175 million New Horizons Centre.
Monash University's New Horizons research hub
The new research hub at the Clayton Innovation Precinct
is co-funded by the
Australian Government, Monash and the CSIRO
with the objective to advance Australia's manufacturing capabilities
and facilitate collaborative research across disciplines and
departmental, faculty and institutional boundaries.
To this end it will accommodate 400 scientists from the university and
the CSIRO working in engineering, IT and other
sciences.
Located within the Australian Manufacturing Innovation Precinct
(AMIP), it will house the AMIP's headquarters.
New Horizons will provide key facilities for research in 'future
manufacturing', including a range of important materials synthesis,
processing and proof-of-concept facilities. Researchers at the
centre will also have the advantage of the close proximity to the
Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy, the
Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, Green
Chemical Futures and the Australian Synchrotron.
Other major capabilities include:
multi-scale modelling and design of materials from the scale of atom to
production system level;
biological engineering, such as micro-nano scale technology for innovations
such as the manufacture of nanoparticles for drug delivery into cells,
miniaturized implantable microsensors for medical diagnosis and microengineered
robots for on-board tissue repairs;
renewable energy, with a range of sophisticated processing techniques for
producing the next generation of photovoltaic and solar hydrogen technologies
including dye-sensitive solar cells fabricated by high throughput processes.
In addition to its focus on research, New Horizons will also provide
advanced teaching and research training capabilities.
01 August 2013 - The $37 million National Sea
Simulator (SeaSim) has opened its doors at the
Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).
SeaSim building at AIMS Cape Ferguson Headquarters
image: AIMS
Located at Cape Ferguson south of Townsville the facility is close to
quality seawater and at a distance to urban population.
According to the AIMS, these are ideal local conditions for
the $37 million initiative, which is to simulate ocean
conditions and the potential impacts of natural events and
human activities.
=>
With a focus on tropical marine environments, research topics include climate
change, coral bleaching, pest management, sediment and pollution, and seawater
technologies. SeaSim's capabilities allow scientists to investigate the
cumulative impact of pressures on marine ecosystems in a whole-of-ecosystem
approach.
Variables that can be examined under fine controlled conditions include light,
temperature, ocean acidity and salinity as well as marine sedimentation and
contaminants.
Click the image for a Sea Simulator youtube video.
One of the key research projects will be on the Crown-of-thorns
starfish, a marine invertebrate that feeds on coral and
occurs naturally on reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific
region. Outbreaks of the starfish can reach plaque
proportions and contribute to the loss of live coral cover.
In fact,
according to the AIMS, the starfish is responsible for a
greater decline in coral cover than any other threat in the
Great Barrier Reef.
Acanthaster planci (Crown of thorns) starfish and hard coral damage
after feeding;
However, finding ways to control the starfish through the study of its
early life history and the factors that trigger outbreaks
have been difficult because of the lack of suitable
experimental facilities.
These are now available through the new SeaSim infrastructure.
31 July 2013 - The construction of the largest solar power station
in the southern hemisphere will start from January 2014, after the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency(ARENA) reached financial
close with AGL Energy Limited (AGL).
A projected image of a 53 megawatt (MW) solar power station at Broken Hill. A second 102 megawatt station will be built at Nyngan.
image: AGL/First Solar
The project to be established across 2 sites in NSW will have a combined
capacity of 155 megawatt, 15 times larger than any other solar power
station in Australia.
The total costs of the construction are estimated at $450 million, of
which $166.7 million will be from ARENA with a further $64.9 million
provided by the NSW Government. The project will also benefit from
$40.7 million from the Education Investment Fund
which will fund solar power research by project partners, the
University of Queensland (UQ) and the University of
New South Wales (UNSW).
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A total of more than 2 million photovoltaic panels will be installed at
Broken Hill and Nyngan near Dubbo.
Under a partnership agreement with AGL, the Australian subsidiary of US
firm First Solar will construct and run the projects over the first
5 years.
Both projects will use First Solar's thin-film PV modules, which
according to the company have distinct advantages over traditional
crystalline silicon solar modules, including a better temperature
coefficient.
Click image to enlarge.
On the left is shown the temperature profile of First Solar and conventional silicon based modules as published in a paper in
Photovoltaics International.
The right image depicts the CDE technology, which combines waste cadmium (generated as a by-product of zinc refining) with tellurium (a by-product of copper refining) into cadmium telluride (CdTe), a highly stable compound. In module manufacturing, an extremely thin layer of CdTe is deposited and bonded to the surface of one sheet of glass and encapsulated by another sheet of glass, creating the complete module which is sealed with a laminate material.
image: First Solar
All PV semiconductor technologies drop off in efficiency as temperature
rises, and this loss of output is expressed in a temperature
coefficient, which in the case of silicon based modules is around
-0.5%.
In contrast, First Solar published in the journal Photovoltaics
International data showing that its cadmium-telluride (CdTe)
modules perform with a temperature coefficient of -0.25% per degree
Celsius. As a result, while First Solar modules appear to be less
efficient at lower temperatures, according to the data they
outperform silicon based modules at temperatures above 25 ℃.
Hence they may be better suited for the environmental
conditions prevailing at the NSW sites.
There is expressed discomfort within the R&D community that for the
first time since 1931 an Australian Government does
not include a Minister dedicated to science and research.
As it stands, the newly appointed Minister for Industry,
Ian Macfarlane, will have some responsibility for R&D
and innovation, including for the CSIRO.
But the emerging picture suggests that science policy will now be even
more fragmented across government portfolios than in the past.
In light of this we revisit a report Australia's Chief Scientist
Professor Ian Chubb released in July.
The report Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in
the National Interest: A Strategic Approach established that
while there is considerable public investment in the STEM sciences
in Australia, the returns are not optimal and urgently require a
more strategic approach.
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In 2012-13 the Australian Government invested around $9 billion in a
suite of 79 initiatives but these were fragmented across 14
portfolios.
Outline of the Strategy highlighting the primary purpose of STEM to achieve a better Australia by addressing clearly articulated goals.
And while we are still in the top performing group of nations, Australia's
scientific enterprise has become vulnerable through the combined corrosive
effect of rationing, ranking, short-term support through terminating programs,
erosion of infrastructure and the unpredictability of the critical medium to
long-term investment pipeline.
What is concerning is that Australian policy makers appear to lack the
national urgency found in the US, East Asia and much of Western
Europe to develop clear and cohesive strategies for advancing STEM.
Therefore the strategy paper includes a proposal for a coordinated
whole-of-government policy approach, directed either through an
enhanced PMSEIC or a new high-level committee. For example, in the
US this is achieved through a National Science and Technology
Council headed by the US president.
There also needs to be purpose and direction across the breadth of
government programs.
Short-term funding or a termination of funding should only used
sparingly, and only with a strategic purpose.
Despite the importance of STEM for Australia's economic and societal
development, the moral dimensions of its utilisation is a province
of society as a whole. "Science doesn't replace moral judgement. It
just extends the context of knowledge within which moral judgements
are made." However, the strategy paper cites a report by the League
of European Research Universities (LERU) which found that too little
new high quality knowledge is shared with the community or made
accessible to politicians and decision makers.
A major objective is therefore to initiate a refreshed Social Compact
about responsibilities and obligations related to STEM. This should
be facilitated by the Australian Government and involve governments,
community and STEM practioners.
The Compact should commit STEM practitioners to high ethical standards.
Another obligation would be to describe benefits, risks and limits
of knowledge when contributing to policy development. Research
outcomes of publicly funded STEM research should also be openly
accessible.
In return, the community would commit to agree to sustain public and private
STEM research investments comparable with best performing nations, while
allowing and respecting that the design and monitoring of STEM methods and
processes are up to the practitioner peer community.
However, the community can only fully appreciate STEM research if it becomes
more STEM literate, also in understanding scientific method, philosophy and
history of science. Therefore, a major emphasis of the strategy paper is on
laying out pathways how the decline in STEM education can be reversed. This
includes that federal and state government are urged to cooperate in changing
the education system across all its elements to better prepare students for a
future increasingly bound to STEM.
Another key focus of the strategy paper is on our innovation system
.
Innovation is seen as a key to improve Australian productivity and it has
been a focus of recent policy initiatives. For example, targeting
business innovation the former Government established
Commercialisation Australia in 2010 to support SMEs in bringing new
products to the market. The strategy paper acknowledges its success
but, in line with various previous reports, notes that there are
still structural barriers that inhibit the flow of people and ideas
between private and public sectors. A cultural change will be
required to minimise risk aversion and maximise risk management.
In 2011, just 4% of companies developed innovations new to the world.
This despite Australia's comparably strong research base. We contribute
around 3% of the global research output with a population share of
just 0.3%. However, in stark contrast to countries such as the US or
Switzerland, where researchers are predominately employed in the
business sector, Australia's research work occurs mostly in
universities and research agencies, which together employ around 70%
of all researchers.
A poor translation of research into new products has long been understood
as a major weakness of Australia's innovation system
Yet after decades of inducement through publicly funded investment and
incentive programs, business innovation involving universities or
publicly funded organisations is still relatively rare.
The strategy paper proposes the establishment of a National
Innovation Council to accelerate the commercialisation of
ideas stemming from publicly funded research.
A series of proposed actions also seek to enhance the flow of STEM qualified
people between the public and the private sector. However, ultimately stronger
collaboration between the sectors could be achieved with higher levels of
researcher employment in business.
Supplying business with a pool or graduates that bring the right kind of
skills will be crucial.
An estimated 75% of the fastest growing occupations require STEM skills
and knowledge.
And if Australia is to move towards a high-value, export-oriented
manufacturing sector it will require greater STEM competencies and
skill sets in the workforce.
This is also a global trend. The strategy paper cites the US as an
example, where an estimated 60% of the workforce of 2020 will
require skills held by only 20% today. Such changes in the demand
for a STEM skilled workforce will need to be addressed through
measures such as funding for skilling and reskilling, and
partnerships between prospective employers and education providers
for training 'work-ready' graduates.
There is demand.
However, in Australia a proper assessment of what business requires from
a STEM educated workforce is impeded by the lack of relevant
statistics and information. What is clear, though, is that the
current low entry of STEM researchers in the business sector
presents a lost opportunity for our economy.
More of our science and research has to flow into economic outcomes. But
at the same time Australia has to continue and increase its
contributions to world knowledge. Only then we can fully benefit
from the global flow of new ideas. After all, 97% of world knowledge
occurs elsewhere.
While the strategy paper identifies Australia's policy short termism as a
major impediment, it also breaks with the Australian tradition of
sharply delineating 'pure' and 'applied' dimensions of science.
"The community receives optimal returns from STEM (and other) investments
when the whole spectrum of research is fully supported."
Government investment for STEM is crucial also as business has only a
limited capacity for basic research, because of the high upfront
costs, uncertainty of outcome, openness of knowledge and the
potential re-use by others.
Nevertheless, with the recently released Strategic Research
Priorities a proportion of the support could be
appropriated selectively to focus on certain areas of research.
But as knowledge knows no borders, and global challenges are emerging,
there also is a need for more coordinated responses. The strategy
paper lays out a strong case that we need more international
collaboration and have to share capacity with neighbours that face
similar challenges.
"There is now an opportunity to share talents, skills, expertise and
infrastructure that arises rarely".
One key proposal put forward to extend regional research cooperation is the
establishment of an Asian-Area Research Zone. This could enable
to streamline resources in order to develop strategies and infrastructure to
tackle shared priorities within the region.
6 Sept 2013 - In 2011-12, Australian businesses continued to
increase their spending on R&D (BERD). However, as a proportion of
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) spending decreased slightly from 1.28%
to 1.24%.
According to new data released by the Australian Bureau of
Statistics (ABS), BERD was $18.3 billion in 2011-12, an
increase of 2% from the previous year, of which 96% was also funded
by the business sector.
As in previous years, almost all of the funds were spent in the research
fields of Engineering (62%) and ICT (30%), mainly undertaking
experimental development (62% of BERD) and applied research (32% of
BERD). Typical for Australia, only around 1% of BERD was directed
towards pure basic research.
Click image for an interactive infographics
Despite the overall increase of BERD, Queensland and Victoria reported a
significant downturn in spending - down $180 million and $141
million, respectively. This was offset by large increases in Western
Australia (up $320 million and South Australia up $215 million).
In relative terms, the South Australian business sector reported the
strongest increase in expenditure (26%). However, at 1.15% of its
Gross State Product (GSP), the State's level of BERD is still well
behind that of Western Australia (1.50% of GDP), NSW (1.40% of GDP)
and Victoria (1.21%).
Queensland's BERD as a proportion of GSP fell from 0.99% to just 0.88%.
The New South Wales' business sector is by far the largest contributor,
accounting for 35% of total BERD, while the second largest
contributor to BERD, Victoria, is losing ground. With a share of 22%
it is now only slightly ahead of Western Australia.
Victoria's poorer performance can be explained with the State's large
manufacturing base. While nation-wide Manufacturing is still the
major contributor to Australian BERD, accounting for 24% of R&D
expenditure, the sector spent 7% ($331 million) less on R&D in
2011-12 than in 2010-11. By contrast, the mining industry, with 22%
now the second largest contributor, increased its spending by 7%
($265 million).
...with the right performance enhancers
The potential of innovation for improving business performance has
been highlighted in a recent report from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Strong increases also occured in the financial and insurance services
sector (up 8%, $217 million) as well as the professional, scientific
and technical services sector (up 5%, $125 million). These
industries contributed each 16%.
A more detailed analysis of the ABS data highlights how spending on R&D
reflects the broader changes in the Australian economy (you can
explore this in the interactive infographic). A comparison of the
expenditures on R&D between industry sectors since 2005-06 reveals
that while Mining is closing in to Manufacturing, the finance and
insurance industries had the most significant increasesin R&D
expenditure. Their share in BERD almost doubled from 9.6% in 2005-06
to 16.4% in 2011-12.
The lion's share of BERD is carried out by larger firms. In 2011-12,
businesses with 200 or more employees accounted for 66% of
Australia's BERD. Those with 20-199 contributed a further 21%.
Interestingly, micro businesses (0-4 employees) reported the largest
relative increase from the previous year, up 18% ($147 million),
while large firms decreased their BERD spending, down 2% ($187
million). This is despite the strong performance of the mining
sector, in which large firms are highly represented.
The potential of innovation for improving business performance has
been highlighted in a recent report from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Click
image for an interactive infographic
The Selected Characteristics of Australian Business, 2011-12
broadly covers data from the agency's 2011-12 Business
Characteristics Survey which asked businesses about their
performance compared to the previous year, which innovations they
undertook during the period and their use of ICT.
Across all relevant indicators, including productivity, respondends
indicated markedly better performances when they also engaged in a
form of innovation activity (see figure). Thus, innovation-active
businesses were more than twice as likely to report an increase in
productivity than businesses that were not innovation-active.
It has to be noted, though, that the results do not discern how
innovation-activity relates to performance improvements.
=>
In line with previous reports in the series, many of the investigated
indicators were found strongly influenced by the size of the
individual businesses. For example, 38% of large businesses (200 or
more persons employed) reported collaborative activities, with 15%
engaging in joint R&D projects. By contrast, only around 12% of
micro businesses (up to 4 persons) were collaborating, with 3%
engaged in joint R&D projects.
Using intellectual property (IP) protection is also strongly dependent on
business size. More than 70% of business employing less than 20
people had no methods for IP, while almost 70% of large businesses
used some form of IP.
Overall, only 22% of Australian businesses use some form of IP
protection.
The results on business indicators reflect the particular characteristic
of the Australian business landscape which is heavily geared towards
smaller sized firms, although this varies between industry sectors
(see insert). Across all Australian businesses less than 1% are
large businesses with 200 or more persons employed, yet they
contribute 43% of the total economic output (total value added) of
Australia's private sector.
According to a recent report on Australia's small businesses by the
Department of Innovation, the share of small businesses with less
than 20 employees was almost 96% in 2011. This included 85% micro businesses
of which 61% were non-employing and a further 24% with up to 4 persons. Only
3.8% were medium sized (20-199 persons) and less than 1% large businesses
with 200 and more employees.
Around 84% of all small businesses are in the Services industry sector.
While a high proportion of small businesses (more than 80%) are found
across all industry sectors, their share share of employment and
contribution to a sector's activities varies markedly. Thus they employ
almost 86% of people working in Agriculture, forestry and fishing while
only around 15% in Mining and 31% in Manufacturing. Around half of the total
private sector workforce is employed in small businesses. Across all
industries, small businesses contribute around 34% of total value added but
this varies significantly between sectors. For example, the share of small
businesses in total value added is 9% in Mining, 20% in Manufacturing, 38%
in Services and more than 80% in Agriculture, forestry and fishing.
Similarly, innovative activity and its impact on business performance
differs with business size.
The ABS data show that in 2011-12 around 47% of businesses undertook a
kind of innovative activity (with 41% actually introducing one), an
increase of 8 percentage points from the previous year.
While 39% of micro businesses (0-4 persons) were innovation-active, this
was reported by 76% of large businesses (200 and more persons).
Across all businesses, 25% had an innovation still in development
yet this was the case for 54% of large businesses.
Not only the capacity for innovations but also the type of innovations
that available resources can be directed to varies with the size of
a business. Innovations introduced in large businesses were more
often related to improvements in operational processes (45% of large
businesses), organisational/managerial processes (47%) and marketing
methods (38%). Only 30% reported improved or new goods or services.
By contrast, smaller firms, of which 33% reported the introduction of an
innovation in 2011-12, are more focussed on the introduction of
goods and services than on other types of innovation. Thus, 17%
reported improved or new goods and services, while businesses
reporting operational or organisational/managerial processes and
marketing methods were less frequent, each introduced by around 15%
of micro businesses.
The strongest correlation with size was with innovations in
organisational/managerial processes, which presumably are more
important in larger corporations.
Interestingly, the ABS data do not reveal a direct correlation between
business size and encountering a barrier to innovation, such as
funds or cost of innovation. From micro to large employment size,
the percentage of businesses reporting a barrier ranged between 35%
and 53%, averaging at 45%. The occurrence of most examined barriers
were similar across all business sizes, while others did not reveal
a clear relationship to size.
For example, the lack of access to skilled workers was reported by around
18% of all businesses, including by a similar percentage of micro
businesses (14%) and large businesses (17%), while almost 25% of
small (5-19 persons) and medium sized (20-199) businesses reported
this as a problem.
Comparably important barriers experienced across all business sizes were
costs (14%), Government regulations and compliance (14%), and market
uncertainty (16%).
The lack of access to additional funds, overall the most frequently
reported impediment, is an exception to this. It was encountered by
a total of 20% of businesses, but while this percentage was similar
for micro, small and medium sized businesses (19%, 23% and 17%,
respectively), it was reported by only 10% of large businesses.
Less than 5% of all businesses found a lack of access to knowledge or
technology or the adherence to standards an impediment to
innovation.
...as profits are increasingly on the line
An increasingly important indication that businesses are advancing and
become more competitive is the use of ICT and e-commerce through the
Internet.
Here the ABS data reveal a clear connection between
innovative and web-based activities. This was especially significant
in smaller firms (to explore see the infographics). Thus, 54% of
micro businesses (0-4 persons) that had engaged in any form of
innovation during the period had also a web presence, which compares
to only 21% of businesses that were not innovation-active.
Click image for an interactive infographic
Published in seperate reports in
June and
August the ABS has detailed the use of the Internet by Australian businesses
as of 2011-12 (to explore some of the key stats in detail click on the second
infographic).
The ABS reports show that e-commerce is rapidly
becoming a major component of Australian business activity. The
worth of orders received by Australian business via the Internet
increased by 25% to $237 billion in 2011-12. Nevertheless, the
proportion of business receiving the orders remained largely
unchanged at 28%, although the proportion of businesses placing
orders via the Internet rose slightly from 51% in 2010-11 to 55% in
2011-12.
As depicted in the infographic, the way businesses
use ICT again varies strongly between industry sectors and the size
of businesses. For example, mining businesses have a relatively high
web presence but are less likely to receive an order via the
Internet. Agriculture, forestry and fishing has the lowest
proportion of businesses with a web presence, but is around average
in placing orders via the Internet.
In addition, social media is a growing component of
web based activities. Thus almost half (48%) of businesses in
the Arts and recreation services industry have a social media
presence.
Again notable is how business size determines the use of
ICT and the potential benefits from e-commerce, despite smaller
business being almost equally well connected to the Internet than
larger businesses.
The 1% of large businesses increased their income
generated through e-commerce from around $66 billion in 2009-10 to
around $129 billion in 2011-12. Over the same period, micro (0-4
persons) and small businesses (5-19 persons), which together account
for more than 95% of businesses, raised their income earned through
the web from $38.5 billion to just $48.9 billion.
While e-commerce and the use of the Internet for
interacting with clients is increasingly important, not every
business has a web presence nor has a need for it. In fact, this was
the most common reason why they had not set up a website, reported
by 64% of businesses. By comparison, lack of technical expertise
(23%) or too high set up costs (17.9) and ongoing maintenance costs
(13.5%) were less reported issues.
However, there is a wide range of processes, in which ICT
plays a role, such as for accounting. While overall financial
activities are the most common activities for business of all sizes,
indicated by 85% of respondents, other uses of ICT are more
variable depending on business size.
This includes working from home, which was far less
common in smaller businesses than in larger businesses (reported by
38% of micro businesses compared to 77% of large businesses).
The gap is shrinking, though. Over the period from 2009-10 to
2011-12, respondents from micro businesses had the greatest
increase (8%), indicating that they use ICT to work from
home.
New funding of $26 million over 6 years, announced in the August
budget of the Western Australian Government (see
'It's budget time'), launches the next phase of the
International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).
Night sky at MWA site
image: John Goldsmith
ICRAR was established in 2009 as a joint venture between
Curtin University and the University of Western
Australia.
International in its scope, the research institute was set up to create a
collaborative environment for scientists and engineers working with
industry on projects related to the Square Kilometre Array
(SKA) project.
In May 2012, the Australian-New Zealand partnership was tasked to host
components of the SKA telescope, in a split arrangement with South
Africa.
The project is to operate over a wide range of frequencies, from less
than 100 megahertz (MHz) to several gigahertz (GHz). In preparation,
the project partners set up 3 major precursor projects, the South
African MeerKAT telescope, and in Australia the
CSIRO-led SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP), launched last year as well as the
$51 million Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), constructed by an
international consortium of universities.
The MWA officially
opened its operations in July at the Western Australian
Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO), which is also
home to ASKAP.
A low-frequency radio telescop operating between 80 and 300 megahertz
(MHz), the MWA features entirely static (no moving parts) and is
capable of picking up radio waves that have travelled between 8
minutes (the Sun) and more than 13 billion years (soon after the Big
Bang).
Its prime objective is to survey the entire Southern Hemisphere, for
example to detect intergalactic hydrogen gas that surrounded early
galaxies during the so called reionization epoch. As with ASKAP, the
MWA generated data will be then processed at the 800 kilometres away
Pawsey High Performance Computing Centre for SKA Science in
Perth.
The Advisory Council on Intellectual Property
(ACIP) has provided further pieces to the ongoing process of
overhauling our patent system.
At the end of August, it released an option paper for its review of the
innovation patent system. It follows on from an issues paper released
in 2011.
In addition to this review, the ACIP has also started a review of
Australia's designs system, for which it released an issues paper in
September 2013.
Australia's system for innovation patents primarily targets small to
medium sized enterprises (SMEs). It was established in 2001 as a
form of second tier patent protection, which can be obtained
relatively quickly and cheaply with a lower inventive threshold than
is set out for standard patents.
In fact, the threshold for standard patents has just been further raised
through the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Raising the
Bar) Act 2012.
The idea behind innovation patents is that SMEs can protect incremental
inventions on the way to a marketable product. However, there are
concerns that by providing similar protection levels to standard
patents the system also opened the door to the unjustified blocking
of new technologies, particularly in the information technology
industry.
=>
Other concerns address the potential misuse of so called divisional
innovation patents, which people may acquire for tactical purposes
to protect higher-level inventions rather than to protect the
lower-level inventions the system was designed for.
But a study by VERVE Economics, commissioned by IP
Australia with a report
released in 2013, found that by and large innovation patents are
not used for strategic reasons. Around 90% of innovation patent
filings are made by SMEs or individual inventors, and the vast
majority are Australian applicants, which contrasts standard
patents. Their main purpose appears to be the protection of
innovations and enhancing the reputation of the firm. By contrast,
the low innovative threshold was found to play only a minor role.
In a recent
consultation paper on this issue, IP Australia therefore
proposed raising the threshold of the inventive step in innovation
patents to that of standard patents. The former Government was open
to this, despite concerns that such a move could effectively make
the innovation patent system obsolete.
The ACIP options paper now covers all possibilities ranging from the
potential abolition of the entire system and the option of keeping
the status quo.
IP Australia has released its Australian Intellectual Property
Report 2013, the first in a new annual series of reports on
the state of Australia's Intellectual Property System.
What makes this report an interesting read is that it is not just
providing data on trade mark and patent filings. Within the context
of an analysis of Australia's IP activity it also delivers a well
rounded review of Australia's position as a trading nation.
=>
A central message is that for advanced industrialised economies it is
innovation, not production, that drives growth. It is now less
important where products are assembled than who owns key resources
and new ideas, for which IP is a key. Thus, the iPhone is wholly
assembled in China but for just 2% of the overall profit.
Australia's investment in ideas as a percentage of GDP is below that of
other developed countries, especially innovation leaders such as the
US, Sweden and Switzerland. It has also not yet made the important
shift towards so called intangible assets (R&D, design,
organisational expertise and branding) which are important
facilitators of new product development and productivity
improvements.
For example, in the US the intagible stock of capital is equal to 91% of
tangible assets, whereas in Australia it is only 4%.
Australia is a net importer of technology and IP. Thus in 2011, according
to OECD figures, Australia spent $8.3 billion on technology but
earned only $4.9 billion. The IP Australia report shows that this
deficit is driven by more innovative regions, including Switzerland,
Japan, the US and EU-15, while we are net technology exporters to
less advanced regions in Asia and many non-OECD countries.
Australia is also in negative territory in terms of its IP trade balance.
Thus, over the past decade payments for IP were around 1%-1.5% of
the current account, while earning were at around 0.25% - 0.5% of
the current account
.
However, being a net importer of IP is not necessarily negative for the
economy as long as that knowledge leads to increased domestic
productivity.
Our role in the world of trading nations is still primarily defined by
the export of raw materials, and while we have benefited from the
strong terms of trade in mining, we are uncomfortably exposed to
fluctuating global commodity prices.
Among its efforts to lift Australia's innovation game, the former
Government also initiated an extensive overhaul of our national IP
system. This was also to align its standards with that of our major
trading partners. It is noteworthy, though, that according to the
latest Global IP Index, the effectiveness and administrative
performance of Australia's IP system already ranks globally third,
and every part of its system that was considered ranked in the top
ten.
Applications for patents and trade marks in Australia have now recovered
from a short dip during the global financial crisis (GFC), with
trade mark and design filings well ahead of pre-GFC levels.
Patent applications from Australian residents increased by 11% between
2011 and 2012, around 90% of filings were by non-residents. Of these
more than 40% were from US residents, followed by residents from
Japan (7%) and Germany (6%). By comparison, applications from
Chinese and South Korean residents accounted for just around 2% each
of total applications, although their number rose by 34% and 48%,
respectively, during the period.
The US is also the dominant overseas destination for Australians seeking
a patent elsewhere. Overall Australians filed 58% more patents
overseas than at home and in 2011, the US accounted for 44% of their
applications, while 30% of applications were in Asia and only 10% in
Europe.
The picture for trade marks is markedly different in that 66% of filings
in Australia were from Australian residents in 2012. This reflects
the fundamentally different purpose of trade marks to identify or
distinguish the source of a service or a good, while a patent grants
and inventor the temporary right to exclusively exploit his
invention.
As with patents, among the group of foreign applicants in Australia, the
US was also by far the dominant source country for trade marks,
accounting for 34% of applications, followed by Germany (6.5%) and
China (5.7%).
However, the IP Australia report emphasises that there has been a sizable
shift towards China in filings by Australian residents overseas,
with growth particularly strong during and after the GFC. In 2011,
China accounted for 19% of fillings, and surpassed New Zealand (17%)
and the US (15%) as the leading destination for Australian trade
mark applications.
A further 20% of applications were in other Asian countries.
IP Australia interprets this as a sign that market activity is shifting
towards Asia, as trade marks are often the first kind of protection
sought for a new product.
The report also provides an account of Australian state-by-state
activities. With patents, NSW and Victoria together account for
almost 90% of all applications, although including territories the
ACT has with 200 patents per million residents by far the highest
number of applications per persons (NSW: 139; Victoria: 119; Western
Australia: 106; Queensland: 105.)
However, Australia's currently weakest states in terms of their economy
are also are well behind in patent as well as in trade mark
activities, although due to the low absolute numbers these figures
have to be treated with caution. Nevertheless, per million
residents, South Australians produce only 88 patents, Tasmanians a
distant 27. Similarly, in their trade mark activity, South
Australians are with 1,431 filings per million residents well behind
other states and the ACT (Vic: 2129; NSW: 2084; ACT: 1675), only
just edging out Western Australia (1304)
October/November 2013 - Australia's major research funding agencies,
the
National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the
Australian Research Council (ARC), have awarded research
grants and fellowships worth a total of over $1 billion dollar.
Bucks for drugs
Click image to explore the infographic
The 2013 funding round of three NHMRC research support schemes and five
fellowship schemes will support 963 new projects with $551 million.
This year the agency received over 5000 applications for NHMRC
Project Grants, NHMRC Partnership Project grants,
European Union Collaborative Research Grants and NHMRC fellowships.
From this pool of applications only around 19% were selected for
funding.
NHMRC 2013 grants
In a breakdown the awarded grants include:
652 NHMRC project grants worth $423.5 million for investigator-initiated
research projects in clinical, biomedical, public health and health services
research;
6 NHMRC partnership projects worth $4.5 million for projects involving
researchers and policy makers to identify tailored, evidence-based solutions
that improve health practice;
12 European Union Collaborative Research Grants worth $4 million for
Australian researchers working in multinational research collaborative
projects; and
293 NHMRC fellowships worth $126.9 million, which comprise:
128 Early Career Fellowship grants worth $38.6 million;
60 Career Development Fellowship grants worth $23.9 million;
11 TRIP Fellowship grants worth $1.9 million;
78 Research Fellowship grants worth $54.6 million; and
However, as is explored in more detail in the infographic, the success
rate of organisations varied significantly.
=>
On balance, health and
medical research (HMR) organisations, such as the Walter &
Eliza Hall Institute, and larger universities had higher
success rates than smaller universities.
Thus half of the applications were contributed by a group of 24 top
performing organisations, which had an average success rate of 36%.
The remaining half of applications from 54 organisations had a
average success rate of only 12%.
Consequently, NHMRC research funding tends to be relatively concentrated in
few research organisations - just 5 out of 77 aplying institutions accounted for
more than 50% of total awarded grant funding.
In a state by state comparison, Victorian organisations were awarded the
highest amount, with $236.4 million for 414 grants. This accounted
for almost half of all NHMRC grant support, with Victoria's premier
university, the University of Melbourne, receiving
the greatest amount of funding of all research institutions ($80.1
million for 145 grants).
The toys are still mostly for the boys
The ARC has awarded 1177 research grants worth $522 million as part of
its Future Fellowships scheme (commencing 2013) and major grants
scheme (commencing 2014).
For its major grant scheme, the ARC Discovery Projects, the
success rate was relatively low with only 19.9% of applications approved, which
compares with 21.4% in the previous year. The total amount of awarded funding
was also slightly less although the value of grants approved over the life of
the projects was more than in the previous funding round, up by 1.5%.
ARC 2013 grants
In a breakdown the ARC grants will support:
703 projects under the Discovery Projects scheme;
201 projects under the Future Fellowships scheme;
200 projects under the Discovery Early Career Research Award
scheme;
63 projects under the Linkage Infrastructure,
Equipment and Facilities scheme; and
10 projects under the Discovery Indigenous scheme.
The ARC funding of Discovery Projects spread relatively evenly across all
states/territories (with the exception of the AT). However, there
were still notable differences in grant success even among larger
research intensive universities. Thus, the Australian
National University , the University of Western
Australia and the University of Queensland
had significantly higher funding rates (32%, 29% and 26%), than
Sydney and New South Wales universities (both around 19%).
Around 90% of successful Discovery Projects proposals address
National Research Priority areas.
Click
image to explore the infographic
As is detailed in the infographic, the ARC provided statistics on the
funding reveal the persistent gender gap across fields of science.
Thus of the 9951 participants named on all project proposals, only
2440 were female compared to 7485 males, a ratio of 0.32. And this
is not about to change as the ratio of female to male applicants was
even lower in the career determining age group 25-29 and 30-39 (0.27
and 0.28).
This is further aggravated by a much lower grant success rate of early
career females. Thus, females in the age group 25-29 achieved just
half the funding rate of their male counterparts.
This cannot be explained by just differences in the preference of females
for certain areas of research as the grant success rate spread
relatively even across all fields of science, ranging between 18.5%
and 21.5%.
Of 703 approved Discovery Project proposals, 443 foreshadowed
international collaboration with researchers in 63 overseas
locations. However, the ARC statistics also demonstrate that common
language and cultural links may still play an important role in the
choice for collaborators.
Thus the US and the UK together accounted for 43% of the 830 foreshadowed
instances of collaboration. Potential collaborations with the UK were indicated
by 133 approved proposals, while only 54 proposals foreshadowed such instances
with Chinese researchers. Yet according to the SCImago Journal & Country Rank,
China is now contributing more scientific papers in journals written in the
English language than the UK.
In parts this may be due to quality and focus of China's research. However,
the output and quality of German and Japanese researchers is comparable to that
of the UK. Nevertheless, with 70 and 32 collaborative instances, respectively,
researchers from these countries are far less often a choice of collaboration
for Australian researchers.
The clinical scope for regenerative medicine is undoubtedly great,
with much of the expectations focussed on stem cell therapies.
However, for most applications envisioned for human embryonic stem cells
(ESCs), and more recently human induced pluripotent stem cells
(iPSCs) and mesenchymal stem cells, 'potential' may still most
accurately describe the state of development.
Here we trace the progression of new stem cell therapies into clinical
practice, in Australia and abroad.
In a recent review covering the translation of stem cell discoveries, one
of Australia's most distinguished experts in the field,
Professor Alan Trounson, writes that there is great
momentum in the basic research across the breadth of potential
applications.
However, "the spectrum of translational studies is rather limited".
=>
Professor Trounson is a former professor of stem cell sciences and
founding director of the Monash Immunology and Stem Cell
Laboratories (Monash University). He also
founded the Australian Stem Cell Centre, co-founded
the Monash Institute for Reproduction and Development and was a pioneer in the development of human in vitro
fertilization (IVF).
Recently he announced that he would step down from his current role as
head of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
(CIRM), which was endowed with a budget of $3 billion over 10 years
by Carlifornia's taxpayers to help discoveries in stem cell biology
progression into the clinic.
The funding has global reach, with CIRM frequently co-funding
international research teams through international agreements,
including with the State of Victoria.
In November, a global survey of clinical trials evaluating stem
cell therapies was
published in the journal Regenerative Medicine.
Click image to enlarge
The study identified 4749 stem cell clinical trials registered worldwide. Of
these, 1058 were 'novel' trials, which the authors defined as trials that were
not observational in nature; did not involve an established stem cell therapy
for an established indication, such as hematopoietic stem cells for leukemia;
and did not investigate supportive measures...more
According to Professor Trounson efforts to boost translation are
urgently needed despite the general optimism for effective
therapies, as the absence of sufficient recognition for product
development by universities left the area without inducement for
academics to attempt translation.
At the same time, public
funding bodies find it difficult to fund industry for translation
and early clinical trial development as these are subject to at
times short term interests of shareholders rather than the long term
interests of the public.
The environment for businesses in the field is tough, although a
recent study has found that globally the extent of industry
involvement has grown rapidly since 2004 (see insert). There is
little venture capital around and the regulatory pathways for stem
cell therapies are often less clear than for other clinical
developments, which can cause costly delays.
Professor Trounson and coworkers have recently
proposed a partnership model to facilitate more focussed
collaborations between academia and biotechnology industry in the
absence of sufficient venture capital.
The thrust of the proposal is that public funding, such as provided
through the CIRM, will sustain projects to at least proof-of-concept
stage in humans (Phase IIb clinical trial).
However, not all areas of stem cell research face the many ethical and
regulatory obstacles that have stymied translational progress with
human ESCs and iPSCs (in fact, ESCs have so far been used in just a
handful of clinical trials).
The outstanding example is the transplantation of hematopoietic stem
cells, adult stem cells that can mature into blood cells.
While this clinical approach has revolutionised the treatment of blood
cancers. it has its own set of limitations.
Bone marrow, the most commonly used source for hematopoietic stem cells,
also contains immune cells, which can cause fatal complications.
Immune cells introduced through 'allogeneic' bone marrow, in which
case the donor differs from the recipient, they may start attack the
'foreign' tissue in their new environment. The condition is known as
graft versus host disease (GvHD). As a result, hematopoietic stem
cell transplants usually require the tissue donor to be either
identical (autologous) or immunologically closely related to the
receiving patient, and the use of immunosuppressant drugs.
GvHD is less frequently with umbilical cord blood, but its content of
hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is relatively low, and so far
researchers have failed to reliably expand hematopoietic stem cells
in the laboratory.
However, researchers at Australian company Mesoblast have advanced a
potential solution to the problem through the use of mesenchymal
stem cells (MSCs), which they found can promote the expansion of
hematopoietic stem cells before they are transplanted into patients.
Currently tested in a Phase 3 trial in patients with hematological
malignancies, the company hopes that this application will provide
patients with a life-saving source of hematopoietic stem cells in
cases where no matching donor is available.
With a current market capitalisation of around $2 billion a stellar
performer in the nation's biotech space, Mesoblast has built its
core business on the development of a range of therapies that are
based on MSCs and precursor cells that give rise to MSCs -
Mesenchymal Precursor Cells (MPCs).
While HSCs are destined to become blood cells, MSCs form a second tier of
adult stem cells that can differentiate into all cell types found in
tissues of the bone: bone tissue itself, fat tissue, cartilage and
so called fibroblasts as well as hematopoiesis-supporting connective
tissue. Types of these multipotent cells are present in a range of
tissues such as bone marrow, fat tissue, the umbilical cord and even
our teeth.
In addition to their capacity of transforming into specialised body
cells, MSCs also serve important regulatory functions in the body.
Factors released by these cells may act on target tissues to induce
blood vessel formation, prevent heart muscle death, reduce fibrous
scar tissue, improve bone and cartilage growth, and modulate the key
elements of the immune system, including monocytes and T cells.
Important for their potential use in therapies is also that these cells
appear not to trigger an immune response when transferred between
unrelated persons. Thus the transplanted cells can be used
'allogeneic' to the recipient without the need for immunosuppressant
drugs.
One feature of MSCs the company seeks to exploit is the capacity of MSCs
to reduce the body's immune and inflammatory responses. A
recent paper in the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow
Transplantation, indicates that due to this characteristic a
preparation of culture expanded allogeneic human MSCs can increase
the survival of children who after a bone marrow transplanatation
develop acute GvHD despite a treatment with standard
immunsuppressants.
In November, Mesoblast announced that through its
collaborator partner JCR Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd it
plans to register a MSC-based product for the treatment of
steroid-refractory GvHD in Japan. This step could be helped
significantly by a change in Japnese legislation under which stem
cell products may be approved as regenerative medicines, which may
only require the demonstration of safety in a Phase 2 clinical
trial.
If successful it would be the first allogeneic cell-based product
approved in Japan, and the result of the
acquisition of the culture-expanded mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)
business developed by US company Osiris Therapeutics.
The deal, announced in October, will cost Mesoblast up to $100
million not including royalty payments on potential future sales. In
return it will also get the rights to
Prochymal, which is in Phase 3 trials for acute GvDH and also
Crohn's disease. According to Osiris, it is the only stem cell
therapeutic currently designated by the FDA as both an Orphan Drug
and Fast Track product.
In addition to the now acquired drug developments, Mesoblast expects that
in 2014 it will also progress Phase 3 clinical trials in congestive
heart failure), orthopedics (spinal fusion and intervertebral disc
repair) and cord blood expansion in bone marrow transplantation).
Another Australian company has based its business model on MSCs.
Regeneus, which only since September lists on the ASX, has used a
different approach to rapidly progress its regenerative medicine
products into the clinic: the company has developed MSC-based
products for both humans and animals and by first targeting the
veterinarian market has found an effective testing ground for the
subsequent clinical application.
Indeed, Regeneus core cell therapy products, a treatment of human
musculoskeletal conditions and two related products for the
treatment of canine and equine musculoskeletal conditions, are
already commercially available.
The treatment is based on relatively simple proprietary method through
which adipose-derived regenerative cells, including MSCs, can be
obtained from a patient's own fat. As this provides enough cells for
a treatment, a patient's own cells can be administered, which
elegantly overcomes potential regulatory hurdles.
Undoubtedly, MSCs are attractive for regenerative medicine developments.
A recent comprehensive analysis of clinical trials listed worldwide
highlights that most of the increases in novel clinical trials
since 2006 are due to trials using MSCs.
.The study also found
that since 2009 the number of clinical trials with allogeneic
products has rapidly increased although there are still more based
on autologous approaches.
Nevertheless, MSCs are still newcomers in the regenerative medicine field
and their story is far more complex than can be explored here (For
an excellent review see Bianco et al (2013) Nature Medicine,19,
35–42; doi:10.1038/nm.3028). It is also important to note that while
adult stem cells, such MSCs and also hematopoietic stem cells
(HSCs), have the important capacity of self-renewal, the range of
cell types they can develop into is limited - consequently they are
considered to be multipotent.
This marks a crucial contrast to the pluripotent nature of human
embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and human induced pluripotent stem cells
(iPSCs).
The spectrum of potential applications for ESCs and iPSCs is huge with
envisioned replacement therapies hoped to bring about not only improved
treatments but potential cures for diseases ranging from neurological disorders,
cardiac diseases, hematologic diseases to diseases of the liver.
Parkinson's disease is one prominent example, in which already decades
ago the transplantation of fetal tissue rich in neural stem cells
showed a potential for an effective and lasting therapeutic approach
that could replenish lost dopamine receptors in the brain. Fetal
tissue are limited in supply, but grafts with human ESCs that are
directed to become dopaminergic neurons were effective in animal
models. However, there remain many problems, and not just legal and
ethical ones, that have so far marred the translation of human
ESC-based therapies such as for Parkinson.
Thus ESCs can form teratomas, a form of encapsulated tumor, which is a
characteristic also used to test the pluripotency of cell lines.
There is also still a limited body of knowledge about the basic
factors and mechanisms that control the maturation of an ESC to a
differentiated body cell.
But for clinical applications the most difficult hurdle may be that ESCs
based therapies usually require the need for drugs that suppress the
rejection of the 'foreign' cells by the recipient's immune system.
Not only is this likely to have serious side-effects, it is also not
clear whether these drugs will impact on the ability of the stem
cells to transform into the desired cell type.
There are examples to overcome this limitation. US firm ViaCyte develops
human ESCs for the treatment of type 1 diabetes, which they found
can be directed to become progenitor cells to functional
insulin-secreting cells. Recently they
reported the manufacture of these cells on a scale and
reproducibility required for clinical use. There strategy to prevent
immune rejection is to place the cells into thin plastic capsules.
Inserted under the skin of patients they will allow free flow of
oxygen, nutrients, and other factors such as insulin but protect the
cells from the patient’s immune system. [This strategy is
reminiscent of the approach of Australian/New Zealand company
Living Cell Technologies Limited . Its DIABECELL product
targeting the treatment of type 1 diabetes is based on pig insulin
producing pancreas cells which are enclosed in nanoporous alginate
capsules to prevent immune rejection.]
Since the early 2000s spare human embryos produced by in vitro
fertilisation and then grown in culture to the so called blastocyst
stage were made available to produce pluripotent and potentially
immortal human ESC lines.
Additional ESC lines stem from IVF embryos in which genetic profiling
before implantation revealed a disease causing genetic defect and
which provide invaluable study objects.
However, as the pool of cells lines rapidly grew, the challenge emerged
to ensure certain standards through which researchers can access
traceable, quality-controlled and ethically sourced stem cell lines.
This motivated the International Stem Cell Forum's
International Stem Cell Banking Initiative (ISCBI), which
was founded in 2003 with the aim to create a global network of stem
cell banks alongside of an agreed set of international standards for
banking, characterisation and testing of human ESC lines.
Coordinated by the UK Stem Cell Bank, it includes
13 member organisations, including the NHMRC.
A similar challenge now presents itself for researchers working with
human induced pluripotent stem cells.
Human iPSC are currently generated by forcing adult body cells to produce
certain gene regulating factors, so called transcription factors,
which then activate genes characteristic for the embryonic
pluripotent state of cells.
First produced in 2006 from mouse cells and then in 2007 from human
cells, iPSCs were hailed as a crucial breakthrough for the advance
of regenerative medicine: similar to ESCs they are pluripotent
(hence form teratomas), but they can be prepared from a patient's
own cells which are then less likely to cause immune rejection
(although this can still occur). They were also seen as a major
advance to somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a technology
successfully used to clone Dolly the sheep in 1997, but which does
lead to the destruction of a human egg and has so far failed to
produce stable human ESC-like cells lines.
A additional aspect is that in cases were simple genetic mutations
underly a disease it is feasible patient cells are used to form
iPSCs, which are then genetically corrected before being
transplanted back into the patient.
Despite the potential, the development with iPSC-based therapies is
still lagging that of human ESCs. But recently researchers in Japan
were reported
to undertake the world's first study in patients in which iPSCs are
tested for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration.
Starting in 2014, the study will build on
recent findings that iPSCs can be expanded and directed to
become photoreceptor cell types using culture systems that mimic the
development of embryonic retinal tissue. Transplanted into adult
mice, these tissue were then found to integrate into retinas and
form functional photoreceptor cells.
However, there remain significant roadblocks on the way to the clinic for
iPSC-based therapies. In parts these are based on the reprogramming
process. Thus the efficiency of standard procedures is still very
low, and associated with these methods is a heightened risk that
these cells form a tumour after the transplantation. But there are
further issues. Recent research suggests that iPSC lines vary
considerably in their genetic and functional makeup. Obviously, this
also poses again the challenge how to ensure that the cell lines
researchers around the world use for their studies are
well-characterized and quality controlled.
Associate Professor Jeremy Crook from the
University of Wollongong has
recently co-authored a peer-reviewed paper, which recommends to
adopt the experiences of existing, well-established human ESC banks
in human iPSC resource centers.
The authors urge the scientific community and their funders to consider
the dangers of pursuing massive hiPSC generation programs without
first ensuring that the focus is on key genotypes needed in research
and industry, and the appropriate ethical provenance and suitable
scientific quality is met in the delivery of cells.
The authors warn that failure to do so "would be an inefficient use of
public and private investments now being made in human iPSC
banking."
The authors warn of the legacy of large numbers of unqualified cell lines
that may be produced by inexperienced groups as they respond to
growing demand.
"It could take decades to resolve any ongoing issues from published work
on misidentified or contaminated lines alone. Just as important,
there could be a loss of public and political support if funding is
deemed to have been wasted."
The figure published in the journal Regenerative Medicine by US researchers shows the proportion of industry and publicly funded novel stem cell clinical trials worldwide since 1992.
In November, a global survey of clinical trials evaluating stem
cell therapies was
published in the journal Regenerative Medicine.
The study identified 4749 stem cell clinical trials registered worldwide. Of
these, 1058 were 'novel' trials, which the authors defined as trials that were
not observational in nature; did not involve an established stem cell therapy
for an established indication, such as hematopoietic stem cells for leukemia;
and did not investigate supportive measures.
These trials were analysed across a set of characteristics, such as the
degree of industry participation, the type of stem cell tested, the targeted
disease, and whether interventions were autologous or allogeneic.
The study found that the registration of novel stem cell clinical trials is
expanding rapidly around the world, particularly in east Asia, but also in
Australia, Brazil, India, Iran and Israel.
Since 2004 industry involvement has grown rapidly. Commercial sponsors were
involved in more than 25% of novel CTs in South Korea, Malaysia, Canada, Israel,
India, Australia and the USA.
However, the study makes reference to the observation that some companies
engaged in providing unproven stem cell therapies in clinics linked to 'stem
cell tourism'; register CTs as a marketing tactic or as a method to recruit
patients. According to the authors this practice adds a veneer of legitimacy to
the companies.
Further findings of the study include:
Since 2006, an increasing number and proportion of novel clinical trials
have tested mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow or adipose
tissue. A growing number of trials use hematopoietic stem cells for novel
indications, such as autoimmune diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases are the main target of novel clinical trials.
Most novel clinical trials remain focused on safety, and there is as yet
limited evidence of efficacy for many indications.
With a new Government still to find its way, many
key science and research programs of its predecessor will be
re-evaluated.
This includes initiatives supporting the development of renewable energies.
On 21 November the House of Representatives passed a
package of 7 bills with the primary objective to repeal the current
carbon price mechanism and the, at the conservative side of
politics, unloved Climate Change Authority. The
legislation is now to be debated in the Senate.
The Government also wants to remove the $10 billion Clean Energy
Finance Corporation and reduce the $3 billion the previous
Government had allocated for the Australian Renewable Energy
Agency by $435 million. In addition, a further $370
million ARENA expected to have available from 2014-15 will be
deferred to 2019-20.
The agency will still have a sizable funding of $2.5 billion and,
according to a statement
released in November, its funding vehicles - the
Emerging Renewables Program, the Accelerated Step
Change Initiative, the Community and Regional
Renewable Energy Program and the Regional
Australia's Renewables & Industry Program - will continue
accepting proposals.
In October, the new Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane,
who also has responsibility for aspects of Australia's innovation
system, expressed his concern about the "stop/start nature of
funding in the recent past". In an opinion piece
published on the Science & Technology Australia
website he wrote that the short-term focus of past investment has
left critical projects jeopardised, and very costly research
infrastructure underutilised. The nation's top researchers and
innovative industries would have to be able to "plan and get on with
the job of tackling our biggest challenges and grasping the greatest
opportunities."
The Minister has the commendable view that whatever the Government
commits to research must be undertaken in a strategic, consistent
way with a long-term vision for Australia. In this he is on the same
page with the newly formed Research Alliance, a broad-based grouping
of scientific, research, university and public and private sector
researchers, which recently issued a call to policy makers for a
strategic and stable plan for science and research.
Click image to explore
But producing a more strategic outlook for innovation in this country was
also a strong ambition of the former Government which commissioned
in 2008 a Review of the National Innovation System. Based
on this review a far reaching policy strategy was developed,
Powering Ideas: An Innovation Agenda for the 21st Century strategy.
It is regrettable that with the change in Government neither the
review nor the policy agenda it did inspire are likely to play much
of a role in the coming years.
It must be the ambition of any Government to leave their stamp on
history. However, a clever dog doesn't first wash the tree before
marking his new territory. Indeed, a strong new scent on top of the
old can leave a very recognisable legacy.
Minister Macfarlane's concerns indicate that he does understand an
important driver of science, research and innovation: consistency.
This requires, though, that policies developed by a new Government
seek to build on rather than terminate those of the previous.
Renewable energies is an area in which the Government should follow this
principle by lending continued support for both basic research and
industrial development.
Australia already has significant capacity in renewable energy
research - an area in which new technology usually means high tech
development - and because of its natural advantages it could benefit
more than other countries from new developments. However, this will
depend on the willingness of its leadership to risk investing in its
future - especially in times of financial constraints.
Globally renewable energies have emerged as one of the most innovative
areas.
A recent study by researchers from the US published in the journal
PLOS ONE
shows that there has been a remarkable departure in the historic
trend of low levels of energy patents. Patents related to renewable
energies grew most rapidly, and this despite a persistent low level
of R&D funding. For example, during 2004 and 2009 the average annual
growth rates for solar and wind patents were 13% and 19%. By
contrast, the number of new patents in nuclear energy remained low
despite sustained high levels of public investment.
In his opinon piece, Minister Macfarlane indicated that the Goverment
will continue the push of its predecessor for a stronger innovation
base in Australia. He wrote that while Australia's current
investment of around 2.2% of GDP in research places it near the
middle of the OECD table, the nation should aspire to be in the top
half of the OECD.
If this is the case, for a country that has at present few stakes in
globally competitive high-tech developments, an emerging sector such
as renewable energies, in which it also has natural competitive
advantages, offers opportunities that should not be missed.
16 October 2013 - The Australian Government
released Terms of Reference for the development of an
Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) in the lead up to a Green
Paper due in December 2013.
The ERF Terms of Reference were open for consultation between 16 October and 18 November 2013. They state that the Government is seeking business and community view on the design of the ERF including:
the likely sources of low cost, large scale abatement to come forward under the ERF;
how the ERF can facilitate the development of abatement projects, including through expanding the Carbon Farming Initiative and drawing on the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme;
the details of auction arrangements to deliver cost effective outcomes;
the governance arrangements that will support the ERF, including the role of key institutions such as the Clean Energy Regulator;
the details of the monitoring, verification, compliance and payments arrangements for successful bidders at auction;
transitional issues relating to the existing Carbon Farming Initiative; and
the design and operation of a mechanism applying to emissions above the business as usual baseline.
It will be followed by a White Paper in early 2014 for the ERF to take effect from July 2014, concurrent with the repeal of the carbon price legislation.
The ERF will be a major component of the Direct Action Plan initiative that is to replace the current carbon price legislation (A respective draft legislation package was
released on 15 October 2013).
Draft legislation for the repeal of the current price on carbon was
released 15 October 2013. Submissions closed on 4 November 2013.
The Government intends to end the price on carbon by 1 July 2014, with
2013-14 the last year for liabilities to incur even if the Parliament does
not pass the legislation until after 1 July 2014.
The draft legislation package also includes a bill for the abolishment of
the Climate Change Authority.
In conjuction with other existing measures, such as the Renewable
Energy Target, the ERF is provide sufficient incentives for
a reduction of Australian Greenhouse Gas emissions by up to 5% below
2000 levels by 2020.
The Government says that the ERF will be based on a market mechanism
designed to source the lowest cost abatement.
Businesses, farmers, households and other entities will be able to
receive support for investments in technologies that reduce their
emissions. However, the incentives will be capped to $300 million in
2015-16, $750 million in 2016-17 and then $750 million in 2016-17.
The ERF Terms of Reference were open for consultation between 16 October and 18 November 2013. They state that the Government is seeking business and community view on the design of the ERF including:
the likely sources of low cost, large scale abatement to come forward under the ERF;
how the ERF can facilitate the development of abatement projects, including through expanding the Carbon Farming Initiative and drawing on the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme;
the details of auction arrangements to deliver cost effective outcomes;
the governance arrangements that will support the ERF, including the role of key institutions such as the Clean Energy Regulator;
the details of the monitoring, verification, compliance and payments arrangements for successful bidders at auction;
transitional issues relating to the existing Carbon Farming Initiative; and
the design and operation of a mechanism applying to emissions above the business as usual baseline.
The new Australian Government is in the process of streamlining the complex environmental approval process for offshore petroleum projects in Australian seas.
Following up on a key election promise, it aims for a 'one-stop shop' procedure in all Australian jurisdictions. In broad terms, this concerns maritime zones that lie within coastal waters of states and the Northern Territory (up to 3 nautical mile off the coast) and Commonwealth waters (3 to 200 nautical miles from the coast).
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Australian offshore petroleum projects, if determined to potentially impact on matters of national environmental significance, have to be approved by the federal Minister for Environment. This decision is based on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Commonwealth Waters
For Commonwealth waters, the projects also require an assessment under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (Cth) (OPGGSA 2006) and associated OPGGSA(E) Regulations, which are administered by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA).
The assessments differ in their scope as the OPGGS Act assesses all proposed activities and their potential impacts on the whole environment. By contrast, the EPBC Act focusses on potential impacts on specific environmental aspects such as listed migratory species or World Heritage sites.
Nevertheless, several reviews have indicated procedural duplications.
In order to streamline the approval process, the incoming Government and NOPSEMA set up a taskforce, which was asked to demonstrate how a one-stop authorisation by NOPSEMA under the OPGGS Act could provide the same environmental protection as the current dual process regime.
A draft report of the strategic assessment and a proposed new approval program was released 22 November 2013 for public comment (closing date was 20 December).
If endorsed by the Minister for Environment, Australian offshore petroleum projects in Commonwealth waters would in future be solely assessed and accepted by NOPSEMA, essentially providing a 'one-stop-shop' approval process.
State and Territory jurisdiction
The second layer of the one-stop-shop approach concerns projects within State and Territory jurisdictions.
Currently, mining and other projects in State and Northern Territory waters that are likely to impact on matters of national environmental significance are required to undergo an approval process in the State as well as receive national approval under the EPBC Act.
The Franklin River: In 1983, an Australian High Court decision allowed the Australian Government to stop the Tasmanian Government's dam project
In the election, the Coalition pledged to reduce the regulatory burden on business by offering the states and territories to also administer the assessment under the EPBC Act - again labelled by the Government again as a one-stop-shop process.
The EPBC Act already provides a mechanism to streamline the environmental approval process through bilateral agreements between a state/territory and the Commonwealth. For example, only in 2012 the Queensland and Australian Governments updated an existing bilateral agreement with the objective to avoid duplication and efficiency of the assessment process.
The Australian Government will use this mechanism to achieve a one-stop-shop system. After having signed respective Memoranda of Understanding with all states and territories, the first new bilateral agreement was reached with the NSW Government at the end of December.
For projects that fall under state or territory jurisdiction. This will, following national accreditation of the NSW system, effectively create a one-stop-shop process by transferring the assessment of applications under the EPBC Act to the State.
However, in a recent 'Explainer' in The Conversation, University of Queensland senior lecturer Chris McGrathquestions the merits of the proposed system. Potential problems include that it could create a patchwork system accross Australia. He also points out that, as the EPBC Act is not repealed, only the decision maker is going to change. Yet the most important role of the EPBC Act may be compromised, which is to provide an appropriate level of oversight on state government projects.
"For proponents, most of the costs and delay comes in the environmental impact stage. There are already assessment bilaterals avoiding duplication of state and federal governments this stage. Given this, it is difficult to see where significant time and costs savings will be achieved by the policy."
The Government has, however, stated that it will retain control over decisions involving offshore Commonwealth waters, nuclear actions, and projects for which state governments are “likely to have a significant conflict of interest” as the proponent.
Australian research highlights the ecological importance and potential financial value of coastal carbon sinks.
It is widely appreciated that ecosystems on land, notably forests, are important sinks for atmospheric carbon. According to estimates reported by the IPCC in 2007, deforestation and land-use change accounts for 8-20% of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions.
Seagrass meadows, a significant sink for atmospheric carbon
image: NOOA
However, much less recognised is the amount of organic carbon stored in our oceans. So called 'blue carbon' initiatives try to change this. It includes the Blue Carbon research initiative by the GRID-ARENDAL centre, which supports the United Nations Environment Programme (see also our 2011 dossier 'Ocean Views').
In 2009, the project published a report according to which around 51% of atmospheric carbon captured by living organisms is taken up at sea. Of this amount an estimated 71% is fixed by coastal ecosystems, which include mangroves, salt marshes, seaweed and the often extensive beds or meadows of seagrasses.
However, seagrasses are now among the world's most threatened ecosystems. It is estimated that factors such as dredging and filling activities and the degradation of water quality through poor land-use practices have led to the loss of around 30% of seagrasses that existed at the beginning of the 20th century. Not only does this decrease the potential uptake of carbon from the atmosphere, but it also releases organic carbon stably stored in soils under seagrass meadows back into the ocean-atmosphere CO2 pool.
...Money still makes the work go round
Compared to terrestrial ecosystems few studies have addressed carbon sequestration and cycling in coastal ecosystems and this is especially the case with seagrasses and seaweeds.
This was highlighted by a Nature Geoscience article published by researchers including from the University of Western Australia's Ocean Institute in May 2012.
The study analysed compiled published and unpublished measurements of carbon stored in seagrass meadows around the world. This led to a conservative estimate that seagrass ecosystems store between 4.2 and 8.4 petagram carbon. Per unit area the carbon storage capacity of seagrass is similar to that of forests and stably accumulates over millennia.
Seagrass meadows, of which the largest areal stocks are found in the Mediterranean, may thus be far more important carbon sinks than previously realised, the researchers write.
However, they estimate that at present rates of seagrass loss up to 299 terragram carbon per year could be transformed from its organic storage form into inorganic molecules, such as CO2.
This has not only ecological but also economic implications. Thus, there could be a significant monetary value of the carbon fixed in seagrass meadows if it is accounted for in a carbon offset scheme.
In 2011, the Ocean Institute reported preliminary research suggesting that the extensive seagrass meadows in WA’s Shark Bay could store around $350 million tonnes of carbon equivalents. The researchers calculated that a carbon price of $23 per tonne of emitted carbon this would equate to $8 billion (see also our ARDR dossier 'Ocean Views' from 2011).
Complicating the issue is that so far studies on the carbon sink characteristics of seagrass are mainly based on a single species, Posidonia oceanica, which is commonly found in the Mediterranean Sea. Yet it is likely that the variability among seagrass species and their range of habitats affects their carbon storage potential.
In September 2013, a study led by Edith Cowman University researchers was published in the journal PlosOne in September 2013 which investigated 17 Australian seagrass habitats encompassing 10 different species. This equates to around 1/3 of all Australian seagrass species. Based on an analysis of the top 24 cm of sediment, the study shows an 18-fold variation in the carbon storage capacity of different habitats. Taking this into consideration, the researchers estimated that the carbon stored in the seagrass sediments may be only around one-third of that calculated based on datasets from the Mediterranean Sea.
Nevertheless, based on this calculation the Australian seagrass ecosystem, which covers around 92,500 square kilometres of Australia’s coastline, could store a total of around 155 million tonne of carbon. Assuming a 2014-15 fixed carbon price of $25.40 and a market price of $35 per tonne of carbon by 2020 the researchers calculated a total value of our seagrass meadows of between $3.9 and $5.4 billion.
The authors estimated that per year Australian seagrass meadows take up around 1 million tonne or around 0.6% of the country's total annual CO2 emissions. According to the authors, this emphasises the value of this ecosystem for the nation.
All they need is light...
One factor that poses a threat to seagrass meadows is the rise in sea levels as in deeper waters seagrass may be deprived of the light it needs to stay alive.
However, research from the University of Queensland's Global Change Institute and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions suggests that early intervention could be effective in minimising the impact.
In August 2013, the researchers published a study in the journal Global Change Biology, in which they used Australia's Moreton Bay as a laboratory to investigate seagrass meadows under the scenario of rising sea levels.
Moreton Bay is listed as a an area of international importance under a convention on wetlands known as the Ramsar Convention.
The researchers used a habitat distribution model to predict the interactive effects of known factors stressing seagrasses - sea level rise, changes in water clarity and land use. They estimated that under a scenario of water levels rising by 1.1 metres, as may occur by the end of the century, seagrass cover will decline by 17%.
However, they found that the potential loss could be reduced to around 5% through a coastal retreat strategy designed to improve the light conditions at the deep edge of seagrass meadows. This would include the removal of impervious surfaces, such as roads and houses, from newly inundated regions.
12 December 2013 - At the request of the newly elected Australian Government, NBN Co Limited undertook a strategic review on the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN).
Constraint by a tight time line of just over five weeks, the review's objectives included analysing the progress and the estimated cost of the NBN project under the previous Government's fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) objective, as well as assessing NBN Co's financial and operational status. It was also to explore alternative strategies of NBN Co and the NBN rollout.
Key design features of the National Broadband Network (NBN) prior to the September 2013 election:
The NBN was to be rolled out by the Government Business Enterprise NBN Co with the aim to create a wholesale-only, open-access communication network;
93% of Australian premises were to be provided with Fibre-to-the-node broadband with download speeds of up to 100 mega bit per second (Mbps), and the remainder covered with fixed wireless and satellite technologies providing download speeds of up to 12 Mbps;
NBN Co's latest corporate plan estimated that the rollout network would be completed by 2021 at a total capital expenditure of $37.4 billion and peak funding $44.1 billion.
Expert input was provided by advisory firms Deloitte, the Boston Consulting Group and KordaMentha.
The NBN Co report, which is only available in a substantially redacted version, provides a scathing judgement of the company's operations under its former leadership. This, it states, caused significant failures in reaching the company's objectives as set out in its Corporate Plan (see box).
According to the report, "the culture and leadership of the organisation are widely seen to be a major problem."
The main findings of the Strategic Review for a continued rollout of a fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) network include:
As of 30 September 2013, the number of premises passed by the rollout were 48% behind the estimates in NBN Co's latest corporate plan. And of the 227,483 premises passed only 153,977 were found serviceable by NBN Co.
The completion will be delayed delayed by three years until 2024.
The delays in the FTTP rollout will result in lower average revenue per user and higher levels of non-subscription with $13-14 billion less revenue generated by the FY 2021;
The estimated capital expenditure will increase from $37.4 billion to $55.9 billion and the peak funding requirement will be $28.5 billion higher ($72.6 billion) in FY2024 than projected in NBN Co's latest Corporate Plan.
Among the factors that contributed to this were an "unrealistic assessment by key internal and external stakeholders of the complexity and time required to complete the task" and "blind faith" in the achievability of the Corporate Plan, "notwithstanding clear factual evidence to the contrary".
The report further attests the previous leadership of NBN Co a "lack of deep internal experience in complex infrastructure, construction projects and project management".
The review explored various alternative scenarios as to how best to proceed with the NBN project, including continuing the implementation of the FTTP plan under more efficient operational settings. On the basis of this, the review recommended as the best option an optimised multi-technology approach, which would deliver access to at least 50Mbps to ~90% of the fixed line footprint (that is premises with access to fixed broadband) and 100Mbps to 65-75% by 2019.
An optimal mix of technologies in the fixed line footprint could included the FTTP option for around 20-26% of premises, and for further 44-50% of premises access to fibre-to-the-node (FTTN). FTTN technology entails that broadband services are transported through fibre optic lines to a node, a common network box, from where it is then distributed to premises through various forms of wire (copper, cable or fibre). NBN Co estimates for the Australian context that FTTN would cost around $350 - $700 per connected premise compared to around $1,100-1,300 per premise for FTTP.
In addition, NBN Co proposes to connect around 30% of premises through upgraded Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) cable networks, in which fibre optic cables transport broadband signal to a node server to then be distributed to the premise through existing coaxial cables (however, as technology journalist Adam Turner details in a commentary for the Sydney Morning Herald, the technology can have considerable pitfalls at the user end.) The upgrade of an existing, fully deployed and connected HFC network could cost around $100 per premise.
Apart from cost savings, the plan could deploy broadband services to most of the 8-10% in the fixed line footprint area that currently have no or very low levels of broadband two years earlier than with all other investigated scenarios. It estimates for the fixed line footprint that:
around 40-45% would have access to at least 25Mbps by 2016;
around 90% at least 50Mbps by 2019; and
98-100 percent would have at least 25Mbps by the end of 2020.
Compared to the previous FTTP deployment, NBN Co claims that its new proposal would provide an upgradable path at lower cost, provide substantially earlier revenues, with peak funding expected to be around $41 billion compared to the revised outlook of around $73 billion now estimated for the FTTP rollout.
The Broadband Availability and Quality: Summary Report was released by the Australian Government on 23 December 2013.
It is the first release of its broadband availability and quality analysis.
The data are to inform NBN Co on currently underserved areas, which may then be prioritised in the NBN rollout wherever feasible.
A full report is expected to be released in the coming months.
Overall, the analysis estimates that 1.4 million premises (13%) are in areas of inadequate broadband infrastructure, often in regional or remote areas, where fewer than 40% of premises can access a fixed broadband service.
Click image to enlarge; Percentage of Australian premises in each fixed broadband availability and fixed broadband quality band.
graph from the Broadband Availability and Quality: Summary Report
Broadband Availability and Quality: Summary Report
Key findings for Australian premises:
9.9 million premises or (91%) have access to fixed line broadband services.
3.1 million premises (28%) have access to a high speed broadband platform (fibre-to-the-premises, fibre-to-the-node, hybrid fibre coaxial networks or fixed wireless networks).
8.8 million premises (81% have access to 3G mobile broadband services and 6.4 million premises (59%) have access to 4G services.
All Australian premises are covered by satellite broadband, although due to a capacity ceiling not all premises can access a service.
Accessible peak download speeds are 25 Mbps and 110 Mbps for around 3.1 million premises (28%), less than 24 Mbps (copper) for 7.1 million premises (65%), while 0.7 million premises (6%) premises have no access to fixed broadband services.
3.7 million premises with access to xDSL broadband services over copper are located in areas with an estimated peak median download speed of less than 9 Mbps, and 920,000 in areas with an estimated peak median download speed of less than 4.8 Mbps.
The most common form of fixed broadband subscription is provided through Digital Subscription Line (DSL) technologies, which broadly defines digital technologies transmitted through the existing telephone network and, as shown in the figure, these greatly range in peak download speeds
.
Click image to enlarge
graph from the Broadband Availability and Quality: Summary Report
The CSIRO Broadband Impact and Challenges report is based on a series of surveys with members of community and business, as well as on other data on the potential economic and social benefits of next generation broadband.
The broader objective of the research was to reveal how and why the Internet is used and this is influencing individuals and organisations.
There are a range of opportunities that may come from faster broadband, such as improved health, education and government service delivery, better communication across distance and a revitalisation of regional centers. For business it promises improved service delivery, reduced costs of running a business and better access to new markets.
The research findings does support this expectation. But patterns of online behaviour were found to vary significantly across sectors of the community. For example, older people are in the majority online but their use is less frequent and covers fewer activities compared to younger people.
The standard of living also influences somewhat how people use the Internet. Thus compared to the better off, people in lower socio-economic circumstances use the Internet just as often but more frequently to access social networking sites and less often for email. They also have less often desktop computer at their disposal.
However and more importantly, around 20% of people do not use the Internet at all. Across all age groups and socio-economic backgrounds, the research found lack of skills and confidence rather than the cost of Internet services to be major barriers.
Thus even among non-users on low household incomes ($30,000 per year or
less), lack of skills was selected as a main reason by the majority (62.5%) of respondents, whereas less than a third indicated affordability as a problem.
As the report points out, it is ironic that those that are likely to benefit the most from Internet use, older people and the less well-off, are also most at risk of being left behind.
The small hiding from the world
Using compiled data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics the researchers also investigated what factors underly the relative reluctance of particularly smaller sized Australian businesses to engage in Internet-based activities.
The findings suggest that the potential benefits of ICT developments and how to realise them are often not well understood.
Click image to enlarge; Profitability changes over five years, for businesses which reported increased IT investment in 2007 (red line) compared to those which did not (blue line).
Engaging with the Internet or investing in ICT does not automatically create economic benefits. Instead, the benefits depend on how this is done and they often take considerable time to realise. Thus, the researchers found that investments in a web presence or IT technology may take five years to return greater profits.
The various identified barriers for small business to successfully engage with the Internet include:
not understanding the benefits of online applications;
lacking the time or financial resources to implement and manage online applications;
a perception that current business practices are adequate; and
lack of access to trusted ICT suppliers or funds for outsourcing ICT skills.
While the study reveals deficits in the digital readiness of the Australian community and the broader business sector, the possible solutions are less forthcoming.
The authors write that the challenge will be for to design effective means of engagement and training that target individuals and business owners who lack relevant confidence and skills. "Evidence suggests more strategic training initiatives are needed to support these sub-groups."
The rising costs in electricity prices can be largely attributed to the need for investments in network infrastructure to meet peak power demands. Thus an estimated $45 billion in electricity network infrastructure is expected for the period 2010 to 2015 alone.
Click image to enlarge
Concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) could provide a cost competitive alternative to expensive network upgrades, according to a collaborative study funded by the
Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
For more than two decades CSP has been commercially used to generate electricity. At the end of 2013, worldwide capacity of installed CSP plants reached around 3 gigawatts (GW).
But in Australia, despite its abundance of solar resource, there is at present only one demonstration plant. A major prohibitive factor for the technology is the still significant gap between the overall cost of CSP generated electricity and the potential revenue from grid-connected systems (around $100 megawatt hours for large systems).
However, the Breaking the solar gridlock study suggests that in various parts of Australia the decentralised generation of electricity using CSP plants could avoid expensive system upgrades for the transmission of centralised electricity generators, and thus become cost competitive.
The Breaking the solar gridlock project provides interactive graphics that let explore areas of network constraints potentially attractive for CSP. The maps are available
here
At the same time, its use would increase the share of renewable energy in Australia's electricity system.
CSP generated power can potentially be used all day as it can be stored and easily used in conjunction with with other energy sources, such as biomass or natural gas. Thus grid integration is relatively straightforward compared to other renewable energy options.
The study results indicate that, assuming current expectations of investments, approximately $0.8 billion of planned network upgrades could be avoided through the installation of CSP in areas in which the amount of solar radiation is each day more than 21 mega joules per square metre. A further $0.5 billion in expenditure would be possible in areas that have less sun exposure.
Around 533MW of cost effective CSP could be installed in the next 10 years, potentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions by around 1.9 million tonnes per year.
Hence, the overall conclusion is that CSP could play an important and economically efficient role in Australia's electricity system.
Partners in the Breaking the solar gridlock study were the Australian Solar Thermal Energy Association (AUSTELA), the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney, the University of NSW, Ergon Energy and IT Power. Seven power network companies operating in the NEM also provided essential data.
More information: www.arena.govspace.gov.au; the "Breaking the solar gridlock" research report including maps on areas potentially suitable CSP is available here.
In December the Australian Governmentreleased a Green Paper on its new Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) initiative.
The Direct Action policy includes the Emission Reduction Fund, the 20 Million Trees and
the One Million Solar Roofs programmes, and the Solar Towns and Solar Schools initiatives.
The ERF is the core component of the Government's Direct Action Plan, which aims to reduce emissions to 5% below 2000 levels by 2020.
To this end, the plan, which is modelled on the United NationsClean Development Mechanism, will encourage low-cost and effective emissions reduction opportunities.
The United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is the first global, environmental investment and credit scheme of its kind, providing a standardized emissions offset instrument.
It allows a country with an emission-reduction or emission-limitation commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to implement an emission-reduction project in developing countries. Such projects can earn saleable certified emission reduction (CER) credits, each equivalent to one tonne of CO2, which can be counted towards meeting Kyoto targets.
The mechanism was designed to stimulate sustainable development and emission reductions in developing countries, while giving industrialised countries some flexibility in how they meet their emission reduction or limitation targets.
Administered by the Clean Energy Regulator, the ERF is expected to provide credits for emissions reductions from 1 July 2014. The proposal entails the Government purchasing the lowest cost abatement through a reverse auction, which is then secured by a forward contract.
Click image to enlarge -
According to Department of the Environment estimates (detailed in Australia’s Abatement Task and 2013 Emissions Projections, 2013), Australia faces a cumulative emissions reduction task of around 431 million tonnes CO2 equivalent (MtCO2-e) from 2014 to 2020, or 131 MtCO2-e in 2020 alone.
graph: Department of the Environment, Australia’s Abatement Task and 2013 Emissions Projections, 2013. Note: The Kyoto Protocol allows over-achievements in the first commitment
period be credited in the second commitment period as ‘carry over’ surplus Kyoto units.
Businesses will be able to propose the quantity and price of emissions reductions they are willing to offer. The lowest-cost bids will then be selected by the Clean Energy Regulator.
Funding will not be provided for activities that are already occurring as part of normal business practice.
The Government has allocated initial funding of $1.5 billion over the forward estimates for the ERF and established an Expert Reference Group to provide advice on the ERF design.
The Green Paper is open for comments until 21 February 2014.
The proposed ERF mechanism is based on a mechanism akin to a reverse auction.
In an initial step, businesses will be able to submit bids at any time. At regular intervals the Clean Energy Regulator will then run tender rounds and select eligible offers on a lowest-cost priority basis up to a benchmark price ( the maximum amount it would
pay per tonne of emissions reduced).
Once the supply of emissions reductions is well established, the Clean Energy Regulator will move to a more formal auction process.
Future auctions will take place several times a year, depending on the supply of projects. Successful bidders then can enter forward contracts with the Government.
It is proposed that the ERF will build on the Carbon Farming Initiative which will continue to operate while the ERF is implemented.
Based on the current trajectory, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is likely to double from preindustrial levels over the next 50 years.
Computer models simulating our future climate under such conditions have produced a broad spread of temperature scenarios that span from 1.5 to 5 ℃. This variance is largely due to differences in how clouds and their feedback on global climate are accounted for.
In a study published in Nature in January, Professor Steven C. Sherwood and coworkers report a mechanism for the formation of low-level clouds, which removes much of this uncertainty. However, the authors show that climate models that are correctly simulating this feedback tend to be constrained towards more severe future warming scenarios, indicating increases by at least 3 ℃ with a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Click image to enlarge
Low-level clouds have been attributed a major role in climate sensitivity. They form below around 3 kilometres from the surface and cover a large fraction of the tropical ocean.
As clouds in general, they reflect incoming sunlight and thus prevent heat from reaching the surface. And with low-level clouds this is not offset by a similar contribution to the greenhouse effect. Consequently, changes in low-level cloud cover can cause strong feedbacks, which may either exacerbate or alleviate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers have identified competing processes that can affect low-level cloud formation.
Generally it is understood that as the climate is getting warmer it causes more evaporation from the oceans. The increase in the amount of water vapour, itself a powerful greenhouse gas, could increase the amount of low-level clouds, which would then have a cooling effect on global climate.
However, there are also strong convection processes at work.
Updraughts transport air containing water vapour through the planetary boundary layer, the lowest part of the atmosphere below around 2 kilometres. If the air further ascends to the upper layers of the troposphere it eventually forms heavy rain and the air returns to lower altitudes.
Competing with this process is 'lower-tropospheric mixing' in which the moist air exits the updraught at much lower altitude and retains most of the water vapour without forming rain. The result of this is a reduction in the total cloud cover as less water vapour reaches higher cloud forming regions. And relative to a given amount of precipitation (rain, but also snow, sleet, hail or even mist), more moisture is taken out of the planetary boundary layer, in which most of the low-level clouds are formed.
The researchers show that lower-troposheric mixing increases in a warming climate and dries the boundary layer at a much higher rate than moisture is evaporating from the surface.
They found that climate models that project global mean temperatures increase at the lower end of the spread of 1.5 to 5 ℃ assume unrealistically weak lower-troposheric mixing.
Based on the study's observational data, a doubling of CO2 will most likely result in a 4oC increase, with a lower limit of 3oC.
A study led by Professor Matthew England and published in Nature Climate Change explains why, despite increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHG), the global average surface air temperature has stayed more or less steady since 2001 - but is likely to significantly increase again in future.
Professor Matthew England and colleagues detail a dramatic acceleration in trade winds, which has invigorated the circulation of the Pacific Ocean. As a consequence, more heat is taken out of the atmosphere and is transferred into the subsurface ocean, while bringing cooler waters to the surface.
However, once the winds abate, it is expected that the heat will be rapidly returned to the surface.
The strengthening of the Pacific trade winds began during the 1990s, but the increase had not been accounted for in climate models. Hence, they have failed to correctly capture the observed hiatus in warming.
Once corrected, they closely align to current observations.
In the context of the paper it should be noted that scientists have long been aware that temperatures do not rise in a continual upward trajectory.
In a background briefing organised by the Australian Science Media Centre, Professor England highlighted the effect of the Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) on global mean temperatures (see figure).
Similar to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the IPO effects a change in climate that relates to sea surface temperatures (SST). But while the ENSO cycles typically last around 18 months, IPO events can span up to 20-30 years, and the effects manifest themselves mainly in the northern and southern Pacific.
On a larger scale, the IPO also influences global mean temperature, which over the past hundred years has either plateaued or increased depending on the state of the cycle.
Click image to enlarge - Shown are temperature measurements over the last century in relation to cycles of the Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation cycles (IPO).
Image: Professor Matthew England
Currently we are in a cycle in which a slow down in the warming was expected. Nevertheless, given the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, the extent of the plateau did surprise scientists.
It can now be explained with the finding that trade winds have accelerated by an extent that had not previously been recorded.
Click image to explore - In a series of figures the strength and direction of trade winds are shown, as well as how this influences sea surface levels and temperatures across the Pacific region
Figures: Matthew England as published in Nature Climate Change. The images were sourced from a background briefing at the Australian Science Media Centre.
In addition to the impact on global mean temperature, other parameters are also affected. Thus, the strong trade winds cause uneven sea surface heights across the Pacific region. While a general rise in sea levels is expected in a warming climate, higher sea levels are observed in the west compared to the eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean.
And similar trends are found for sea surface temperatures in the Pacific as well as surface air temperatures across the region.
On 24 December 2013, The Australian Government approved $285 million over seven years for 12 ARC Centres of Excellence. The funding will commence in 2014.
The 12 centres, which were selected from a pool of 22 proposals at a success rate of 54.5%, will collaborate with 106 organisations from 44 countries. This is expected to leverage more than $392.2 million in cash and in-kind support.
An ARC statement announcing the funding highlighted the new $23 million ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, which is located at the University of Adelaide and is led by Australian Laureate Fellow Professor Tanya Monro.
The centre's approach will step across the conventional constraints of research fields as it aims to probe molecular processes within living systems. According to Professor Monro, this poses measurement questions that cannot be addressed with existing technologies. Thus, the centre will draw on new nanoscale tools that are currently developed in in a diverse range of areas that comprise optical physics, biomolecular science, surface chemistry, and nanomaterials.
These tools are to be used in projects addressing three fundamental biological concepts:
The Spark of Life theme will explore in and around developing embryos;
The Origins of Sensation theme will involve probing immune signals linked to touch and pain in the central nervous system; and
The Inside Blood Vessels theme will explore the role of the endothelium within blood vessels and the damaging effects of plaque.
With three approved proposals that were awarded a total of $75 million, Monash University is by far the most successful administering organisation of ARC Centres of Excellence 2014 applications. They comprise:
the ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging - $28 million; director: Professor James Whisstock;
the ARC Centre of Excellence in Convergent Bio-Nano Science and Technology - $26 million, director: Professor Thomas Davis; and
the ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function- $20 million, director: Professor Gary Egan
The other successful centres were:
ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (University of Queensland)- $20 million, director Professor Janeen Baxter;
ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (Australian National University) - $28 million, director:
Professor Nicholas Evans;
ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (University of Wollongong)- $25 million, director: Professor Gordon Wallace;
ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrated Coral Reef Studies (James Cook University) - $28 million, director Professor Terence Hughes;
ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers of Big Data, Big Models, New Insights (University of Melbourne)- $20 million, director:
Professor Peter Hall;
ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics (University of Adelaide)- $23 million, director: Professor Tanya Monro;
The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology (University of Western Australia)- $26 million, director Professor Andrew Millar;
ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision (Queensland University of Technology) - $19 million, director: Professor Peter Corke; and
ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (Australian National University) - $22 million, director Professor Murray Badger
As the topics of modern research become ever more complex, scientists increasingly see the need for collaborative approaches across the usual boundaries of scientific expertise.
However, interdisciplinary work is not without challenges, as was recently highlighted in 'The Character of Interdisciplinary Research' report which the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA) released in January.
It is the second in a series of three studies through which ACOLA seeks to encourage and maximise outcomes from this type of collaborative approach.
It follows on from the Strengthening Interdisciplinary Research report in 2012, which found that the general value of bringing together insights from multiple disciplines and practitioners is broadly accepted. However, the study also revealed that the measures needed to really embed interdisciplinary research in the academic mainstream are not.
In a university statement, the report's author, Professor Gabriele Bammer from the Australian National University, highlighted the two essential problems: "First, interdisciplinary research is treated as if it is one entity, when in fact there are very different types of interdisciplinary studies. Second, the methods are never adequately documented".
The Character of Interdisciplinary Research study by Professor Michael Webber built on the recommendations of the first report and examined projects dealing with topics around environmental sustainability. It identified characteristics of successful interdisciplinary research and critical challenges including training, funding and institutional structures.
The study found that, at least in the investigated field of sustainability, there is a lack of knowledge how to practice interdisciplinary research, and there are few training options for researchers.
And there are significant challenges and barriers to be overcome.
Thus, because of the diversity of methodologies and backgrounds of collaborators additional time is required to develop trust between researchers and relations with stakeholders.
Interdisciplinary team: getting the mix right is crucial
The study also found that large projects or centres may not necessarily be the most effective for this type of research.
Barriers on the institutional level include the existing university structures which may mitigate broader inquiry. Interdisciplinary research can also inhibit career progress as the academic job market is organised around disciplines.
Attracting funding and publishing outcomes can also be difficult. Competitive funding is usually reviewed within disciplines, and the general peer review and research funding environment is often not welcoming to this type of research. And there is a lack of high-impact interdisciplinary journals.
The report identified 13 considerations for projects to be successful. They include:
Leadership - at least one leading member should have project management skills;
Skills mix - in addition to an appropriate mix of skills in the project team, the right mix in non-discipline skills is essential (e.g. project management, communications, facilitation and stakeholder management, data analytics and statistics); and
Result ownership - the role of commercialisation in the research programme needs to be understood, and include agreement on protocols for intellectual property.
The findings of this report will now be road tested in the third phase of the project called
Assisitive health technologies for independent living: a pilot study. The project will comprise a 'live' scenario of an interdisciplinary approach that enables elderly and disabled Australians to live at home longer.
17 December 2013 - With cuts to research on the horizon, the Australian Government's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) brought a
redirection of funds towards three major fields of medical research: type 1 diabetes, dementia and tropical disease research.
The funds are totalling $103 million and are drawn from the budget of the
Australian Research Council.
Established in 2010 by JDRF, the CRN is a collaboration between researchers, institutions, patients, industry and international networks that aims to enhance the translation of type 1 diabetes research. In 2012, the initiative received an initial $5 million from the Australian Government with a further contribution of $35 million promised by the then opposition.
CRN's primary objective is to increase diabetes type 1 clinical trial activity and capacity in Australia, facilitate patient inolvement in clinical trials and more broadly enhance research collaboration. At present it funds 12 projects involving 45 researchers across 29 Australian research institutes.
The remaining $68 million redirected from the ARC budget will support the development of treatments for dementia and tropical diseases.
The Government's MYEFO further includes a reduction of $10 million over the next three years from the ARC Centres of Excellence programme.
Science & Technology Australia has released a statement in which it raises concern about the Australian Government's decision to remove $61 million from the ARC's Discovery Program and $42 million from the ARC's Linkage Program over the forward estimates.
Its president Dr Ross Smith said that the cuts would further limit the capacity of these 'world class' grants, which already have a success rate of below 25%. Governments needed to set priorities for research but that priority setting was very different from political picking and choosing.
“Peer review is simply the best way of ensuring tax-payers dollars are invested in world class research every time.”
21 February 2014 - The Australian Government has announced it will invest $186 million in the 16th round of the Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) program. The funding will go towards the establishment of three new CRCs, while also providing for the extension of four existing projects.
The three new CRCs are:
The Rail Manufacturing CRC ($31 million) which will develop rail related products, technologies and supply chain networks.
The Data to Decisions CRC ($25 million) which will develop robust tools for the extraction of information from big data with the aim to reduce national security threats.
The Space Environment Management CRC ($19.8 million) which will monitor, analyse and manage space debris and develop technologies and strategies that could help preserve the space environment.
The four extended CRCs are:
The Hearing CRC ($28 million) which is developing new devices, therapies and service delivery models related to hearing disorders.
The Cancer Therapeutics CRC ($34 million) which is discovering new drugs for major cancers and is developing tailored and personalised treatment for children with cancer.
The Capital Markets CRC ($32.4 million) which is developing operational technology solutions that enhance the integrity and efficiency of financial and health markets.
The CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation ($15.5 million) which will target sheep wellbeing and productivity, the value-based trading of sheep meat and the delivery of affordable technologies for the sheep industry.
Applications for the 17th round of the CRC program will open on 3 March 2014 and close 3 July 2014.
The CRC program, which is designed to link academic research with industry, was established in 1990 to deliver significant economic, environmental and social benefits.
According to a 2012 review by the Allen Consulting Group, CRCs have met these expectations. Allen Consulting estimated that the 117 CRCs that existed up to June 2012 generated a net economic benefit of $7.5 billion, exceeding the costs by a factor of 3.1.
Most of the economic impact of the CRCs was found to occur in the agricultural sector.
Beyond the economic success, the review also identified significant environmental and social benefits for the Australian community.
Allen Consulting did highlight that the value of the CRCs is founded in the unique structure of the program, through which the centres and the CRC partner organisations gain the capacity to tackle projects that require more time and resources than is normally available.
Recently launched CRC's include (updated 14-04-2014):
The CRC for Living with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), which will receive $31 million in Commonwealth funding over the next eight years, was launched 06 Mach 2014. It's research will take a whole-of-life approach. To this end it will bring together a very diverse group of professional backgrounds including occupational therapists, educators, biologists, psychologists, Governments, international organisations, community groups and industry. A major research focus will be the development of new behavioural tools that aim for the correct diagnosis of at?least 50% of autistic children by the age of two, and 70% by the age of three.
The Cooperative Research Centre for Alertness, Safety and Productivity was
launched on 29 January 2014.
It aims to reduce fatigue-related injuries by 9,000 each year, potentially saving the health system almost $2 billion in costs. The Australian Government committed $14.48 million over seven years to its establishment.
The Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre was launched on 10 December 2013, established with a contribution of $47 million over eight years from the Australian Government. The CRC will conduct coordinated and interdisciplinary research aimed at improving disaster resilience and reducing the human, social, economic and environmental costs from bushfires and other natural hazards.
In early 2013, the former Gillard Labor Government proposed to ammend the just 2 years earlier introduced R&D Tax Incentive for a more targeted support of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It was part of the A Plan for Australian Jobs (APAJ) policy, through which the Government responded to the Smarter Manufacturing for a Smarter Australia report.
With the proposed amendments large companies with turnover of $20 billion or more would not longer be entitled to the non-refundable 40% R&D Tax offset.
Following the September 2013 election, the Government decided to proceed with this proposed tightening of elegibility to the R&D Incentive as part of the Tax Laws Amendment (Research and Development) Bill 2013.
In July 2011, the R&D Tax Incentive replaced the previous R&D Concession. It includes two components:
a 45% refundable tax offset for eligible companies with an aggregated turnover of less than $20 million per year; or
a non-refundable 40% tax offset for all other eligible companies.
Having passed the House of Representatives, the Senate referred the Bill to a Senate Economics Legislation Committee with written submissions now closed and a public hearing held on 24 February 2014. The committee is expected to report to the Senate by 17 March.
However, the proposed ammendment has raised concerns. In January, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) released a statement which describes the proposed changes as flawed. The statement quotes ATSE's submission to the Senate Standing Committee, in which it warns that "passing the Bill would have severe impacts on Australia's productivity".
ATSE also questions the claim that the Bill would have no impact on
business expenditure on R&D in Australia given that a significant proportion of business expenditure on R&D in Australia is performed by large companies.
And it further points out that with the proposed changes large Australian companies could be disadvantaged because all their income (whether earned in Australia or overseas) could be assessable. By contrast, for foreign companies undertaking R&D in Australia the assessable income would only affect what they derived from Australia.
R&D Tax Incentive expert Kris Gale from Michael Johnson Associatescommented in his blog that the issue is a "fundamental one". "If the Bill is passed, Australia will have the only R&D tax jurisdiction in the world that excludes otherwise eligible participants on the basis of size. A dangerous precedent will have been set that signals that controlling the cost of the program is best done by removing legitimate R&D performers from the system."
17 February 2014 - The Australian Government has
released the Terms of Reference for a review into the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme. By existing law a review of the RET is due in 2014.
The Government also announced the appointment of a four member independent review panel, which will be chaired by Dick Warburton. The panel will primarily consider the contribution of the RET in the reduction of emissions, its impact on electricity prices and energy markets, as well as its costs and benefits for the renewable energy sector, the manufacturing sector and Australian households.
The Government expects a report from the panel by the middle of this year for it to provide input into the Energy White Paper process.
Australia had a mandatory renewable energy target (MRET) since 2001, which was expanded to the current RET scheme in 2009 with bipartisan support.
It is designed to achieve a 20% share of renewable energy in Australia's energy production by 2020. However, given that it does not apply to Australia's exported energy the share of renewables in the nation's total energy production would amount to only a fraction of the 20% targeted for electricity production.
Since January 2011, the RET scheme consists of two parts:
The Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme (SRES) creates a financial incentive for households, small businesses and community groups to install eligible small-scale renewable energy systems through Small-scale Technology Certificates (STCs). The STCs are created at the time of installation and are equivalent to 15 years of expected system output.
The Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) is based on Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs), which are created for each megawatt-hour of eligible renewable electricity produced by a renewable power station.
The RET is administered by the Clean Energy Regulator.
18 February 2014 - Following the October 2013 announcement of $559 million in health and medical research grants (see Bucks for drugs), the NHMRC has released the outcome of another funding round for 2013 grant applications.
The new funding totals $133 million for projects across five NHMRC schemes:
11 Program Grants worth a total of $101.6 million will support multi-disciplinary team-based research;
7 Partnership Project grants worth a total of $4.4 million will support collaborative research between researchers and policy makers;
24 Development Grants worth a total of $14.7 million will support early proof-of-concept projects targeting commercialisation;
3 Targeted Calls for Research grants worth a total of $2.8 million will support projects into Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD); and
108 Postgraduate Scholarships worth a total of $9.5 million.
New South Wales will receive the highest amount of funding with $38.8 million for 47 grants, followed by Victoria with $38.4 million for 58 grants.
However, on a per capita basis South Australia is the clear winner of this funding round. Per 100,000 residents the State attracted more than $1.0 million in grants, around twice as much as NSW, which scored $0.5 million.
With grants worth $44.5 million, cancer research was again the field of research that attracted most of the funding. It was followed by indigenous health research ($14.1 million) and cardiovascular disease research ($13.9 million).
Program grant recipients* are:
Professor Richard Harvey, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute ($10.6 million) - The project will apply genomics and stem cell biology to identify evidence based therapies for treating heart disease and stimulating regeneration of heart cells.
Professor James Paton, University of Adelaide (8.8 million) - The dynamic interactions between major disease-causing microbes and their human hosts will be studies with the aim to develop improved vaccines and novel treatment strategies.
Professor John Kaldor, University of New South Wales ($10.4 million) - The program will study the biology of sexually transmitted infections, and assess new clinical strategies for prevention and treatment of these infections and their consequences.
Professor Ranjeny Thomas, University of Queensland ($11.8 million) - Chronic diseases can be triggered by inflammations as the body responds to infections. The research will study who is genetically at risk of inflammation and how related chronic diseases can be prevented or treated.
Professor Angel Lopez , University of South Australia ($6.7 million) - The research will study the mechanisms that control blood cell formation and how abnormalities play a role in leukaemia; through drug design and clinical trials the program will then direct a pathway from discovery to clinical translation.
Professor Anne Kelso, University of Melbourne ($13.6 million) - Involving seven research groups, the project will determine what factors lead to severe influenza outcomes, and how novel vaccines and treatment strategies could be used to mitigate the disease.
Professor Richard Lewis, University of Queensland ($9.2 million) - Novel peptides from cone snails and spiders could lead to better treatments of pain as they modulate specific channels in nerves that are critical to the transmission of pain signals to the brain. The project will evaluate and optimise these new targets to establish a clinical potential.
Professor Richard Bryant, University of New South Wales ($10.6 million) - the research will develop and evaluate clinical and population-based programs that address post-traumatic mental health needs.
Professor David Whiteman, The Council of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research ($6.3 million) - the program aims to increase our understanding of common cancers, such as of the skin, ovaries and uterus.
Professor Andrew Sinclair, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute ($5.5 million) - Bringing together expertise in human genetics, molecular and developmental biology, the project will investigate genes important for sex development. This aims to identify gene defects that cause disorders of sexual development (DSDs).
Professor Graham Giles, Anti Cancer Council of Victoria ($8.1 million) - The research will study the role of genetic, epigenetic and lifestyle factors in the development of colorectal and prostate cancer. Through the analysis of population and family-based datasets the researchers aim to establish improved predictors of a person's cancer risk.
*Indicated are the main chief investigator, the administering institution and the funding over a five year period. Funded program grants are to commence in 2015.
6 February 2014 - The Australian Government has released an Issues Paper as a first step towards the
Agriculture Competitiveness White Paperannounced in December last year.
The initiative will complement a series of related initiatives which include:
the White Paper on Developing Northern Australia due at the end of 2014;
the National Commission of Audit;
a Plan to Boost Productivity and Reduce Regulation which aims to reduce red and green tape by $1 billion each year; and
the Energy White Paper.
The Issues Paper is currently open for submissions until 17 April 2014 and will inform a Green Paper, which is due in the first half of 2014, for the White Paper then to be finalised by the end of this year.
With the Agriculture Competitiveness White Paper the Government intends to address a range of issues concerning Australia's agriculture sector. Under the Terms of Reference released in December 2013, an appointed taskforce will consider the following issues:
food security;
improving farm gate returns, including drought management;
access to finance;
competitiveness through the value chain;
regional communities;
inputs along the supply chain;
effectiveness of regulations affecting the agriculture sector;
enhancing agricultural exports; and
effectiveness of incentives for investment and job creation.
The White Paper will not address industry competitiveness issues associated with the fisheries and forestry sectors nor will it cover human nutritional health issues.
Through the White Paper the Government seeks to set out a pathway for strengthening Australia's agricultural industries, which in the first half of the 20th century contributed around 25% of the nation's gross domestic product and 70-80% of Australia's exports. However, similar to other advanced economies the share of the sector in the nation's total economic output has since declined. This is largely due to the growing economic importance of services industries and the mining sector.
In 2011-12, the agriculture sector accounted for just 2.4% of GDP. With around two-thirds of its produce destined for overseas markets, the sector contributed 5.7% to Australia's total exports.
Click image to enlarge. Share of Agriculture in Australian exports in 2011-12.
graph sourced from ABARES 2012
Still, in 2012-13 the sector's gross value of production was almost $48 billion and as is pointed out in the Issues Paper, the impacts on business activities downstream the value chain are significant - Australia's food and beverage processing was worth $91 billion, and food retailing $136 billion in 2011-12.
In 2012-13, agricultural industries employed 278,000 people with a further 225,000 employed in food, beverage and also tobacco manufacturing. This represents a relatively small share of Australia's total workforce, but the sector provides significant employment outside of urban centres. Thus, the majority of the around 136,000 Australian agricultural businesses are located in rural and regional Australia.
The Issues Paper details major challenges but also opportunities for the sector. They include:
increasing competition from overseas suppliers;
new production technologies and consumer attitudes to their application;
advances in the digital-economy;
increasing globalisation of supply chains;
competition for prime agricultural land; and
increasing frequency and intensity of adverse weather events.
The paper's overarching message is that Australia's farming sector needs to increase agricultural output, which may be achieved by:
increasing yields through productivity growth;
transitioning to more intensive production systems in existing areas, including through
additional water supplies and new dam and irrigation infrastructure; and
converting previously undeveloped sites to agriculture through development of water and other infrastructure.
Traditionally, Australia's farms have relied on strong growth in productivity as input costs have historically outstripped prices received for products. According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), between 1961 and 2006 the productivity of agricultural industries grew on average 1.6% each year, but this growth has slowed over the past 15 years, in parts due to the impact of drought and a declining investment in agricultural R&D.
And as is noted in the Issues Paper, the risks associated with drought are likely to increase in the future.
Hence, stakeholders are asked to consider what drivers and constraints may influence the adoption of better business structures or practices that could prepare for these challenges.
Nevertheless, one of the major issues remaining for farmers dealing with income fluctuations is better access to capital, which may be addressed through improved business structures and alternative sources of finance. A recent measure is the Farm Finance Program, a scheme that offers concessional loans of up to $650,000 at a variable interest rate. At present, the pool of funds available are capped at $40 million in 2013-14 and $30 million in 2014-15.
Another major aspect is foreign investment.
Foreign ownership in agricultural land and businesses is overall still very low. However, the Issues Paper points out that in 2011 around half the milk and 40% of the red meat produced in Australia were processed by foreign-owned firms. Foreign-owned milling groups accounted for almost 60% of Australia's raw sugar production and 50% of wheat exporters operating in Australia were in foreign hands.
In this context it is noteworthy that just a few months ago the Government rejected a proposed 100% acquisition of GrainCorp Limited (GrainCorp) by US firm Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), arguing that it would be contrary to national interest. GrainCorp's ports network handles around 85% of eastern Australia’s bulk grain exports.
In 2011-12, the Commonwealth provided assistance worth $1.4 billion for the agriculture sector. Primary producers received 15% of total industry assistance, which compares with 19% for manufacturing, 7% for mining and 45% for services.
Another contentious issue relates to subsidies and its impact on the sector's competitiveness and restricted access to overseas markets. Subsidies for Australian farmers are low by OECD standards, with an estimated producer support* of 3% in 2012. This compares with 7% in the US, 19% in the EU and 14% in Canada. Australia's subsidies are also lower than in many emerging economies such as China (17%) and Indonesia (21%).
The Government's major vehicle to overcome access barriers for exporters is to enter free trade agreements (FTAs), of which seven are now in force with countries that account in total for 28% of Australia's total trade. In progress are agreements with China and Japan and in December 2013 Australia concluded negotiations with Singapore.
In addition to this, there are potential technical barriers to food trade that relate to food safety and quality, and biosecurity. The Issues Paper stresses that Australia’s biosecurity system faces increasing challenges, including changing global distribution of pests and diseases as well as increasing movement of goods and of people.
*The producer support is an indicator of the annual monetary value of gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers to support agricultural producers*
Tracing the history of agricultural policies in Australia, a new report from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARES) shows how the deregulation of the sector and the removal of distorting producer support led to strong agricultural productivity growth.
Forward looking, the report details a framework of the main factors influencing the sector's performance, while also revealing opportunities for further reforms.
ABARES released its analysis in February, in a report that contributes to a broader OECD project on best national agricultural policy practices.
The analysis reveals that historically distortions in resource allocation within agriculture were a main contributor to inefficiencies. These resulted from wide disparities in levels of assistance that were entrenched across Australian industries.
But since the late 1970s, these support measures that aimed to maintain and stabilise farmer returns were wound back by successive governments.
As a result, decision-making in the sector became more responsive to market forces. It also set off a trend towards larger farms, often a result of more efficient businesses taking over the resources of exiting inefficient enterprises. And as the ABARES reports shows, a trend towards larger farms is associated with higher productivity changes and is largely due to changes in production technology that larger firms are more able to afford. A lack of access to skilled labour or available cash flow may also be more significant barriers for smaller firms wanting to innovate.
Looking to the future, the ABARES report demonstrates that production- and trade-distorting support has now largely been addressed and further efforts directed toward removing price distortions or increasing exposure to competition are unlikely to have significant impact on productivity.
Click image to enlarge
ABARES framework of agricultural productivity determinants
The sectors is now strongly market-oriented but is facing significant external pressures due to increased competition for inputs, such as labour. These contribute significantly to relatively high procuction costs in this country. Adding to this are higher costs of agricultural exports that result from the current high exchange rate.
Much of these pressures relate to the structural changes in the Australian economy that are driven by the resources boom and Australia's historically high terms of trade.
There are still unnecessary regulatory burdens and, as the ABARES report details, other emerging factors which curtail the sector's productivity growth. These include natural resource pressures associated with climate change and shifts in societal expectations regarding technology, the environment and animal welfare outcomes.
Opportunities for supporting agricultural productivity growth include:
reducing regulatory burdens;
improving the efficiency of the rural RD&E system;
building human capital through improving labour availability and skills; and
ensuring incentives facilitate more efficient resource use across farms.
In fact, there are signs of increasing costs associated with regulation. In 2009, the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked Australia 3rd against 148 countries in the overall burden of agricultural policy costs, but it has since lost ground and is now ranked 20th (WEF, 2013).
Issues that are likely to have ongoing implications on productivity include
moratoria on commercial release of genetically modified crops but also concerns around foreign ownership of agricultural land, agribusinesses and agricultural food production.
In December 2013, the Parliament passed
a package of three Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bills. It is essentially identical to legislation introduced into Parliament by the previous Government but which lapsed before passing the Senate prior to the election.
The bills are to provide greater consistency of governance across the five statutory and ten industry-owned RDCs. They also provide mechanisms for all RDCs to access government matching funding for voluntary contributions made by businesses to an RDC.
In addition, they provide RDCs with the ability to use some funds for marketing purposes.
The beneficial role that governments could play extends to increased investments in RD&E and an efficient agricultural innovation system, as innovation is an established key driver of productivity growth.
There are also opportunities in providing better access to essential infrastructure, such as transport, water, energy and telecommunications facilities. This is an area that could present bottlenecks especially for an expanding sector producing key commodities for export markets.
At the industry-level, policies should be avoided that impede structural adjustments such as the exits of inefficient farm businesses. This includes drought and rural assistance programs which have been found to more hamper than facilitate necessary adjustments.
ABARES December 2013 edition of Agricultural Commodities forecast Australian farm exports to be around $38 billion in the financial year 2013-14.
Farm production is set to increase by 2.9%, while the gross value of farm production is forecast to increase by 6.3% to $50.9 billion.
13 March 2014 - The UK Government will invest more than ?100 million (around $184 million) in the construction phase of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
ASKAP antennas at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory.
Image: www.skatelescope.org
Making the announcement, the UK Science Minister David Willetts underscored the enormous amount of data that is expected to flow from the billion dollar global initiative to establish the world's largest and most sensitive radio telescopes.
According to
estimates by IBM, SKA will produce a few Exabytes of data per day, and will require storage of between 300 and 1500 Petabytes of data each year. By comparison, the large Hadron collider at CERN produces around 15 Petabytes each year, which is 10-100 times less than is expected of SKA.
Australia is one of ten SKA member countries, with Western Australia and South Africa co-hosting the project. The Australian state will be home of two SKA Phase 1 telescopes which will be located in the Murchison region and comprise a low-frequency aperture array of 50 array stations, each equipped with 10,000 individual antennas, and a 96-dish survey telescope. Their construction is expected to commence in 2018, with a major precursor project, the Australian SKA Pathfinder, currently being in the commissioning phase.
ASKAP is one of three SKA precursor projects and its array of 36 antennas will be included in the 96-dish SKA survey telescope.
First ASKAP continuum image obtained with 6 antennas
Image: www.skatelescope.org
The CSIRO, which constructs ASKAP, recently reported the first continuum image produced with six of the antennas. This was made possible by processing data using the ASKAP Central Processor, also known as Galaxy - a real time computer at the iVEC Pawsey Centre, which officially
went live in February 2014.
The progress provides an engineering testbed in preparation of using all 36 antennas together.
March 2014 - The good news story of Western Australia's resources boom has still some meat in it.
The continued strong demand for iron ore from China together with a weaker Australian dollar has seen the value of Western Australia's mineral and petroleum sector increase by 15% between 2012 and 2013, setting a new record of $113.8 billion.
The WA Government's Mineral and Petroleum Industry 2013 Reviewreports that iron ore accounted for $68 billion or 76% of all WA mineral sales in 2013, on the back of a record export volume of 556 tonnes iron ore, up 16% over the previous year.
Gold, the State's second most valuable mineral commodity, added another $8.7 billion or around 10% of total sales value. However, the value of gold exports decreased by around 7% from the previous year, as the 3% increase in production only partially offset a fall in the price of gold. In US dollar terms, gold was on average 16% cheaper than in the previous year.
The review confirms that new capital expenditure has peaked as major projects transition from the construction into the operational phase. Nevertheless, the "dominance of the resources sector in the nation's economy is expected to continue given the number of projects which have been expanded or developed, in particular iron ore and LNG".
Sovereign reputation
Meanwhile, Australia's reputation as a prime destination for resource investments has strengthened in 2013, despite the political controversy over the Mining Tax or the price on carbon policy.
According to the Fraser Institute Survey of Mining Companies 2013, Western Australia's resource sector is now the world's most attractive investment destination.
The Fraser Institute's 2013 edition of its annual survey of mining companies considered geologic and economic factors relevant to mineral exploration but also the overall policy attractiveness of 112 global jurisdictions.
The combined scores achieved in the composite 'Best Practices Mineral Potential Index' and the 'Policy Perception Index' (PPI) resulted in an overall score of the investment attractiveness of a region.
For the assessment of the PPI, policy factors were considered that include the administration of current regulations, environmental regulations, regulatory duplication, the legal system and taxation regime, uncertainty
concerning protected areas and disputed land claims, infrastructure and others.
The Canadian Fraser Institute found that in the Policy Perception Index (PPI) category Australia improved its reputation in every State and Territory in 2013, with WA ranked 6th of 112 surveyed regions, followed by South Australia ranked 11th.
Click image to enlarge
Victoria was the only jurisdiction that dropped in its PPI ranking to 33rd of 112 regions, down from 24th of 96 regions in 2012.
In the overall investment attractiveness, WA outclassed every other surveyed region, with the Northern Territory (17), South Australia (20) and Queensland (21) the next best placed Australian jurisdictions.
Seaming ahead
February/March 2014 - Santos Ltd has released a Preliminary Environmental Assessment (PEA) for its Narrabri Gas Project which, if going ahead, could be the State's largest CSG project.
It follows a Memorandum of Understanding the company signed with the NSW Government in February, and which designates the project as a 'strategic energy project' and details the broader conditions for the project's approval process.
Click image to enlarge.
The Santos Narrabri Gas Project includes:
up to 850 production wells;
an estimated $1.6 billion in royalty payments over the estimated 25 years of life of the project;
$160 million for a Regional Community Benefit Fund (if matched by the NSW Government); and
a pipeline to be constructed for the transport of gas to the NSW market.
The $2 billion project targets coal seam gas reserves in the Narrabri area north west of the State. According to Santos, it could potentially supply half of the State's natural gas needs and this would coincide with an expected increase in domestic demand for gas when Queensland is commencing the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG). At present, NSW receives more than 95% of its natural gas from interstate.
The project includes up to 850 production wells across 98,000 hectares southwest of Narrabri within in the Gunnedah Basin, which is prospective for both coal seam methane and conventional hydrocarbons. Around 70% of the development would be in the forests of the Pilliga, and the remainder on agricultural land. .
The company's PEA, which precedes a more detailed investigation of issues in an Environmental Impact Statement, lists a series of potential hazards. These include that relate to the Pilliga Forest being prone to bushfire.
And while there are not plans to use hydraulic fracture for the stimulation of gas production, the PEA does address potential hazards for the region's water reservoirs and the NSW Great Artesian Basin.
According to the PEA, the coal seam dewatering process is unlikely to pose a risk for the Basin and upper Quaternary aquifers, but there are still potential risks for the Namol catchment, which since over 100 years has supplied water for agricultural use.
Groundwater in the Namol catchment supports an irrigation industry worth in excess of $380 million, apart from supplying water to towns and industries in the area.
Activities such as drilling and installation of wells, the management of produced water, permeate and brine, as well as the dewatering of aquifers during operations could all impact on groundwater, including through leakage from poorly constructed gas wells, cross-contamination and subsidence.
The project could also have potential impacts on surface water, including through contamination due to chemical spill or fuel release as a result of accidents and leakages.
The Australian Grains Genebank, a $6 million project for the storage of around 300 million plant seeds from around the world, has opened its doors in Horsham, Victoria.
The Victorian Government and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) each contributed around $3 million towards the centre's establishment and have pledged to support its operations with annually $600,000.
The AGG is led by Dr Sally Norton and amalgamates the Tamworth Australian Winter Cereals Collection, the Tropical Grains Germplasm Centre in Biloela and the Temperate Field Crops Centre in Horsham.
From Horsham to Norway: Ten thousand seeds from the AGG were recently delivered to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway by former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fisher.
Image: Screenshot from AGG youtube video, and insert provided by the Crawford Fund
This provides a single nationally focused program through which Australian and international researchers can access grains genetic resources, including for the creation of new plant varieties.
With 2.7 kilometre of shelf space at -20 ℃ the AGG has capacity to hold 200,000 packets of seed and more than 2,000 different crop species.
And the project also supports global initiatives that are aimed at preserving crop seeds for the future. Recently, ten thousand seed samples made their way from the AGG to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, where around 800,000 seed samples from around the world are stored as a kind of global insurance policy.
27 February 2014 - In Round 3 of the $7.5 million Manufacturing Productivity Networks program the Victorian Government will co-invest $838,000 in nine business networks.
The grants are provided on a dollar for dollar basis and will support collaborative manufacturing projects involving a total of 175 businesses.
The program is part of the A More Competitive Manufacturing Industry
strategy and includes two separate streams, which invest up to $50,000 over one year in the planning and up to $600,000 over three years in the implementation of significant projects.
12 March 2014 - The Small Technologies Cluster's (STC) MedTech Boardroom Stimulator program is a new initiative through which the Victorian Government provides free mentoring from leading entrepreneurs to local businesses across the medical technologies (medtech) sector.
The assistance employs a virtual boardroom scenario, allowing participating companies to identify collaborative opportunities, refine strategy and brainstorm specific challenges.
19 February 2014 - NSW has a new public-private research fund targeting infectious diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans.
Hendra virus and the Australian bat lyssavirus are examples for the around 50 diseases that are known to be transmitted from animals to humans in Australia, and which are a funding focus of a new public-private fund.
The initiative is a partnership between the NSW Department of Primary Industries and the National Foundation of Medical Research and Innovation (NFMRI), formerly known as the Sydney Hospital Foundation for Research.
Through the new joint initiative, $400,000 of joint funding will be available for research into new vaccines, medicines and new diagnosis tools. Successful projects will also have access to biosecurity expertise at the NSW DPI and the department's extensive networks of medical practitioners, scientists and industry leaders.
12 March 2014 - After Adelaide is already well on track to become the first Australian capital city with free Wi-Fi access throughout its CBD, Melbourne may follow suit.
The Victorian Government has announced Expressions of Interests to deliver a similar free Public Wi-Fi pilot program in the centres of Melbourne, Ballarat and Bendigo.
The Government hopes that the experience of a reliable free Wi-Fi access will help lift productivity and draw more businesses and entrepreneurs into the State.
Expressions of Interest are open until Thursday 17 April 2014. The Government then expects to award contracts in mid-2014, as a first stage in a larger roll-out of public Wi-Fi.
12 March 2014 - The Victorian Government has released a Draft Recommendations Paper for its 10 year Agriculture Industry Action Plan, which is to be the first whole of government and industry strategy undertaken for the NSW sector.
A sector with tradition...
According to beef producer Lucinda Corrigan, head of an industry task force preparing the strategy, there is a growing urgency to adopt such an approach. It will need to address opportunities and challenges ahead of the sector, the community concerns around agricultural production systems as well as issues around food safety and security, resource use, climate change and animal welfare.
The Draft Recommendations is the next stage of public consultation, after an Issues Paper released in July 2013 received 44 submissions.
The NSW Agriculture sector is with more than $15 billion (2012) a significant contributor to the State economy and vital for its regional areas - around 30% of employment in rural communities involve primary industries services and activities.
Wheat is the most important crop commodity in the State, contributing $2.2 billion to gross agricultural product, followed by cattle and calves ($1.6 billion) and cotton ($1.3 billion).
With its 41 recommendations the taskforce broadly addresses issues including:
maintaining the sector's profitability, productivity and innovation in the face of declining terms of trade;
maximising the efficient use of human capital through a focus on workforce and skills;
reviewing the business and regulatory operating environment in NSW;
investigating new models for investment and ownership within the industry;
developing partnerships, supply chains and operating environment that can capitalise on potential market and export opportunities; and
improving long term market development by effectively connecting with community.
During the Victorian Government's latest Super Trade Mission to India, Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips announced a new agreement under which India's technology distribution company Tesscorn will supply aerosol monitoring equipment manufactured by Ecotech Australia to Indian research bodies.
This extends the range of Ecotech products already offered by Tesscorn, which includes the Polar Nephelometers for the study of climate change.
At the end of last year, Ecotech's success in exporting environmental solutions was recognised at the 51st Australian Export Awards.
February 2014 - An onboard 'Detect and Avoid' (DAA) system for unmanned aircrafts, developed by Queensland researchers and industry partners, has delivered real time warnings that allowed a ground control station to manually avoid collisions.
Click on image for a youtube video of the RESQU trial
Demonstrated in trials at an airfield north-west of Brisbane, it is believed to be a world-first in a competitive race for technology that could lead to the routine use of unmanned aircraft in controlled civilian airspace.
Current regulations do not allow such operations because of concerns about possible collisions with other aircrafts and safe landing operations. But with these technology advances, the tremendous potential of UA may soon become available for a wide range of civilian tasks, such as in disaster management the continuous mapping of floodwaters and fire-fronts, the assessment of damage to infrastructure and the location of disaster survivors.
The DAA research is part of the $7 million RESQU (RESilient QUensland) project by the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA), a specialist research centre of the Queensland University of Technology, and its industry partners Boeing Research and Technology Australia and Insitu Pacific*.
RESQU follows on from the previous very successful $10 million Smart Skies Project, which explored new technologies for the efficient utilisation of both manned and unmanned aircraft.
With the RESQU undertaking, the collaborative research tackles a range of issues that currently limit the more widespread use of UAs. Thus, in addition to the DAA Systems, two other streams of research explore the critical barrier of appropriate safety regulations and an automated emergency landing system for UAs.
And in a fourth stream of research, the project will develop a sensing and platform automation for Miconia weed surveys.
More information: www.arcaa.net; *The RESQU project is supported by the Queensland Government, QUT, industry partners BR&T-A, Boeing subsidiary Insitu Pacific and the CSIRO
Australia's mining sector is in a process of transition, as new investments in projects are in decline while existing projects enter the production phase.
This is the overall message from the following report on recent developments, which also show that this does not equate to an end of the mining boom. Earnings from exported commodities are expected to increase driven by China's demand, especially for iron ore, and the commencing export of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG).
Click to enlarge
Our latest States roundup highlighted the strength of Western Australia's recource economics, with a survey by the Canadian Fraser Institute finding the State globally the most attractive region for resource investments in 2013.
Nationally, the Resources and Energy Quarterly - March Quarter 2014 report by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economicsforcasts that the value of Australia's mineral and energy commodity exports will increase to $199 million in 2013-14, up from $176 million in the previous year.
This is despite softening commodity prices putting some downward pressure on export earnings.
Further outward looking, the BREE report predicts that Australia's resources and energy commodity export earnings will increase by 8% each year from 2013-14, to a total of $284 billion in 2018-19. This will be driven by the substantial increase in production and export volumes of some commodities.
Notably, exports of LNG are set to increase by 22% each year between 2012-13 and 2018-19 to then reach 79 million tonnes, which will see the overall value of energy exports increase, in real terms, to reach $119 billion.
However, the value of resources exports is likely to peak in 2016-17 at around $136 billion as prices for iron ore are expected to further moderate, and despite a projected growth of iron ore exports by an average yearly rate of 8.2% to total 847 million tonnes in 2018-19.
Coal exports volumes are also projected to increase over the medium term.
The major factor underpinning the unabated growth in Australian resources and energy exports will be demand from China, which maintained an upward trajectory in 2013 despite a slowing in the economic growth rate. As shown earlier this year in the BREE-Westpac quaterly update on the Chinese resources sector, steel production increased by 9% to a record 775 million tonnes, reflected in a record 820 million tonnes in iron ore imports, and China is implementing policies to curb coal use, coal consumption nevertheless increased by 2.6% to 3.61 billion tonnes in 2013.
In times of the reapers...
While production and export earnings from existing mining projects are on the increase, the investments in new projects are on a downward trajectory.
click image to enlarge
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on Australia's mineral and petroleum exploration activities showed for the December 2013 quarter a significant decline in investment. The quaterly trend estimate for total expenditure in mineral exploration was down 9.8% or $58 million to $536 million (seasonally adjusted: 12.5% to $533 million), which represents a 33.7% fall from the estimates for the same quarter in 2012.
Notably, the fall in investment was more pronounced, down 27.5% from the previous quarter, in projects that explore new deposits, while total expenditure in exploration of existing deposits fell only 6.2% less.
The trend estimate for total petroleum exploration also fell in the December 2013 quarter, by 3.1% or $33.4 million to $1.052 billion (seasonally adjusted it fell 10% or $112 million to $1.014 billion.
...its about wooing the sowers
The Australian Government has released a discussion paper* on its proposed Exploration Development Incentive, which is to primarily target junior exploration companies that want to access capital for the exploration of new mineral resources (Submissions closed 4 April 2014).
The Incentive, which the Government proposes for projects undertaken from 1 July 2014, would allow investors to deduct the expense of mining exporation against their taxable income. The proposed scheme is capped at $100 million over the forward estimates and designed to provide tax credit to Australian resident shareholders who invest in 'greenfields' exploration, that is the exploration of unexplored or incompletely explored areas, in Australia.
In another measure to spur the slowing exploration investment, on 08 April the Government announced the 2014 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release. It comprises 30 areas across four basins in Commonwealth waters off the Northern Territory, the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands, and Western Australia.
...going fishing (for oil)
23 October 2013 - The Australian Government expects a record investment of around $580 million over the next three years as a result of Round 2 of its 2012 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release (see also our previous story Hydrocarbonic investments).
Over a six year period the total investment could be up to $730 million, according to a statement released by Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane.
Around $540 million guaranteed investments stem from three proposals that target a new oil and gas exploration area offshore South Australia in the Great Australian Bight (see 'Tough Bight to chew on' in our previous story). The sites of exploration are approximately 200 to 300 kilometres west to south-west of Ceduna. The permits were awarded to Chevron Australia New Venture Pty Ltd (2) and a joint venture of Murphy Australia Oil Pty Ltd and Santos Offshore Pty Ltd (1).
A further two permits are offshore Western Australia and were awarded to a venture of Woodside Energy Limited and Mitsui E&P Australia Pty Ltd, and to Shell Development (Australia) Proprietary Limited.
Seven further areas released did not receive compliant bids, with one further bid still under consideration.
Of the 30 permits, 26 will be open for the common work program bidding process, in which applicants are selected on a 'best deserved' basis. These areas are located in the highly prospective Northern Carnarvon and Browse Basins and the under-explored Bonaparte Basin, and further include a large work program area in the frontier Eyre Sub-basin of the Bight Basin off the WA coast (Also read our previous story 'Tough Bight to chew on' in 'Hydrocarbonic investments'.
But for the first time since the 1980s, there are also four more mature exploration areas which are available for cash bidding, which means that applicants offer cash bids with the exploration rights to be won by the highest bidder.
All releases are supported by pre-competitive geological and geophysical data and analysis undertaken by Geoscience Australia.
The Great Australian Bight (GAB) is one of the lesser
explored areas for petroleum, but has recently attracted
renewed interest, especially after Geoscience
Australia reported in 2007 that a survey in the GAB
had identified areas with excellent source rock potential
for black oil.
Petroleum exploration in the Bight Basin has a history of over
50 years but so far only 10 wells have been drilled, and
this may reflect significant challenges. Nevertheless, it is
considered as one of the most prospective underexplored
frontiers in the world.
In 2011, BP acquired 4 exploration permits in
the GAB, covering an acreage of some 24,000 square
kilometres, which are some 300 kilometres offshore in water
depth of up to 5,000 metres. In the following year the
company completed a three-dimensional marine seismic survey
and it is now in the process of planning for exploration
wells. The company expects drilling to start in 2015-16,
subject to respective approval, and this would bring the
total investment by the company to $1.437 billion.
To this end the company has entered contractual arrangement for the
use of a $755 million harsh environment semusubmersible
drilling rig in the initial drilling operations.
3D
Model of a Semisubmersible Drilling Rig.
photo: Hyundai
Heavy Industries
The environmental concerns are significant, though, as part of
the acreage stretches into the Great Australian Bight Marine
Park, and the 4 oil exploration wells are to be in or
adjacent to this zone. As BP details on its website, the
conditions are extreme, because of the depth and the force
of the waves building up from the Antarctic.
The company is also involved in a $20 million environmental
study in the GAB (see story
Taking a Bight.
BP is not alone seeking for oil in rough southern waters, with
Bight Petroleum holding 2 exploration permits in
the GAB. However, reflecting the considerable environmental
concerns, at the end of May 2013 the Australian Government
determined that a proposed 3-dimensional marine seismic
survey across 3,000 square kilometres would have to go
through a full federal environmental assessment process.
Nevertheless, there is heightened interest in the GAB and
further 3 frontier areas in the GAB's Ceduna Sub-Basin were
included in the 2012 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage
Release.
If you drill, baby, drill up north...
The Queensland Government has also taking another step towards unlocking its black gold.
Click image to enlarge
In April it announced the release of more than 16,400 square kilometres of land across six areas for petroleum and gas exploration.
The released areas cover under-explored land in the state's north-west and south-west, and are considered to be frontier areas with little or no previous exploration with the potential for both conventional and unconventional petroleum resources, and also oil resources as well.
03 April 2014 - New research released by the Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) revealed a link between Australia's mobile broadband connectedness and its productivity and overall economic growth.
Click image to enlarge
Commissioned by ACMA and the Centre for International Economics, the Economic impacts of mobile broadband on the Australian economy, from 2006 to 2013 study surveyed 1,002 Australian businesses.
It found that in 2013 mobile broadband led to an estimated increase in Australia's economic activity of $33.8 billion, of which $26.5 billion was attributed to time savings for businesses using mobile broadband.
Mobile communications, which include mobile broadband, account for only 0.5% of the Australian economy. Yet, as the report highlights, they have profound impacts on the productivity of the broader economy, particularly in the current economic environment of slowing overall productivity growth. "Without mobile broadband, this means that Australia's productivity and economic growth would have been lower still and that the Australian economy would be $33.8 billion smaller in 2013."
However, the report also notes that mobile broadband development is strongly influenced by Government policy. Spectrum allocation is seen as critical by the industry and could potentially constrain or reduce the future economic value of mobile broadband.
Further key findings of the report include:
The productivity of the mobile sector increased by 11.3% per year from 2006 to 2013.
In 25% of businesses mobile broadband adoption led to reduced business operating costs.
Growth in mobile broadband productivity, use and demand has led to greater competition and affordability as the average cost of a mobile telecommunication connection decreased by 21% between 2006 and 2013.
Over the next five years, mobile data use is expected to grow rapidly driven by the increasing uptake of 4th generation mobile broadband (4G). While 4G data traffic is expected to increase by 76% each year between 2013 and 2017, mobile data use is set to increase by 38% each year, from an estimated monthly average of 22.2 petabyte (PB) in 2013 to 81.1 PB in 2017.
Improving the rollout or putting the cart before the horse?
09 April 2014 -An
updatedStatement of Expectations issued by the Australian Government to NBN Co ahead of an independent cost-benefit-analysis has received mixed responses from media commentators.
The Statement gives the company the go-ahead for the use of an optimised multi-technology model in the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN). This was recommended in NBN Co's Strategic Review released in December 2013 (see story Strategic cable salad).
Through the flexible deployment of technology considered by NBN Co as best suited for a particular area to deliver optimised economic returns, it is claimed the project could save around $32 billion while still delivering at least 25 megabits per second to all premises and 50 megabits per second to 90% of fixed line premises.
The Government expects NBN Co to include existing hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) cable networks in the rollout, in addition to fibre-to-the-node, fibre-to-the-premise, fibre-to-the-basement, fixed wireless and satellite.
Public investment in the estimated $41 billion project will be capped at $29.5 billion, with the remainder to be funded by the private sector.
And further, NBN Co is to prioritise areas identified as poorly served by the
Government's Broadband Availability and Quality Report to the extent commercially and operationally feasible.
Reactions in media reports have largely focussed on the timing of the announcement, ahead of the independent cost-benefit analysis for which the Government has appointed a Panel of Experts. The Panel, led by business man and former secretary of the Tasmanian Department of Premier and Cabinet, Michael Vertigan is not expected to report before mid-2014.
There is also a Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Networkunderway, which tabled an interim report in March. It states that there are "significant concerns with the accuracy and
reliability of the Strategic Review". And further: "The Committee concludes that the Strategic Review does not comprise a sufficient information base for the NBN Co Board or the Minister to adopt an alternative deployment path for the NBN." Predictably, this conclusion was rejected in a Dissenting Report" by Senators from the Coalition.
Obviously, the interpretation of these developments is a matter of political persuasion. However, in any case the Government's move to speed up the process has left it open for criticism.
Thus Renai LeMay writes in an article in the online publication Delimiter:
"I have only one question for Minister Turnbull today, and I suspect it is one of those that will forever go unanswered: How can the Minister possibly justify the Government's decision to go ahead with the 'Multi-Technology Mix' for its broadband project, when it has not completed a cost/benefit analysis into the project? And, if the Minister will allow me a relevant follow-up question: Does the Minister consider it incredibly hypocritical to go ahead without a cost/benefit analysis, having ranted on for three straight years in Opposition about how appalling it was for Labor to have done the same?"
However, the Financial ReviewcitesOvum research director David Kennedy saying the document's release was not premature.
"I think this leaves NBN Co enough flexibility," he said. "There's nothing in the statement of expectations that is inconsistent with what the government has said in the last six months."
And according to a piece by Supratim Adhikari in the Business Spectator, the Government's decision to effectively lock NBN Co into pursuing a mix technology strategy puts the final nail in the coffin for Labor’s full-fibre initiative.
"Realistically, that option was taken of the table last year but the subsequent months have been one steeped in inertia and uncertainty both for NBN Co and the telco sector.
The decision to hand down the final instructions to NBN Co without the benefit of a cost-benefit analysis looks to have been dictated by the desire to fill this policy vacuum."
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull responded to crticism writing in his blog that the Statement of Expectations would give the NBN Co management a lot of flexibility in the choice of the best technology for a location. "The reason for providing the SoE now is simply so that the NBN Co has the formal approval from Government for continuing with its move to a multi technology approach."
In many countries wind energy is the fastest growing renewable energy source, although wind energy production is largely concentrated in Europe and the US. In highly densely populated Germany, as of December 2013 there were 23,645 wind energy projects installed on land providing 33.729 megawatt of energy. But the industry is also experiencing rapid growth in India and China.
In Australia, which has vast wind energy resources, primarily in the western, south-western, southern and south-eastern coastal regions of the country, the industry has also seen a significant expansion. As previously reported, the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE) Energy in Australia 2013 report estimates that by mid century wind energy could produce around 21% of Australia's electricity.
However, there are concerns that in Victoria planning restrictions and health concerns may have impacted on the industry. While this has led to the stalling of some projects, the State's 420 megawatt Macarthur Wind Farm, the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, just became fully operational (January 2013).
In South Australia wind power has surpassed 1,200 megawatt total installed capacity, contributing almost 30% to the state's electricity production. Already it is the nation's largest producer of wind power, accounting for more than 35% of the nation's total wind energy production. And in February another major project gainedSA Government approval, the $1.5 billion, 600 megawatt CERES wind project on the state's Yorke Peninsula.
Click image to explore an interactive infographic
But given the signficant ramifications for the industry, the concerns about the impact of wind turbines on health have to be addressed and it is the focus of an ongoing investigation by the NHMRC. On 25 February, the agency released a draft Information Paper: Evidence on Wind Farms and Human Health, which was based on an independent systematic review on the possible impact of wind farms on human health. Its major finding is that "the existing body of evidence relating to wind farms and health remains small and mostly of poor quality and further high quality research is needed."
In essence, this says that there is at present simply not enough information available to make any definite assessement of whether wind farms can pose health risks or not.
The review was released as a background for the ongoing investigation, and the NHMRC has asked for further input to feed into its new guidelines (closing date for submissions was 11 April).
However, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) released a statement on 17 March, according to which the evidence does not "support" the view that wind farms cause adverse health effects.
CERES published the statement, which appears to preempt the final conclusion of the NHMRC inquiry, on its website in support of its commercial interests.
The release of the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) White Paper on 24 April 2014 provided long awaited details about the core policy element of the Australian Government's Direct Action strategy
(for a previous story on the ERF Green Paper see Emitted future).
Prior to the White Paper, the Climate Change Authority (CCA) published the final report of its Targets and Progress Review in February 2014. The report presents an alternative view on how Australia should proceed with its emissions reduction effort, while it is also providing factual context to the Government's new policy proposal.
And more recently, on 9 May 2014 the Government made its Emissions Reduction Fund Draft Legislationavailable for public comment. The main bill of this package is the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Amendment Bill 2014, which essentially expands the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) to allow crediting of emissions across the Australian economy.
Click image to enlarge
Australia's abatement task that aims for an emissions reduction target of at least 5% below 2000 levels by 2020 has become significantly less daunting, mainly due to recent changes in the activity of Australia's emissions-intensive industries.
In fact, Australia's emissions intensity has been in a steady decline for several decades, on the back of structural changes in the economy, notably the increasing share of less energy intensive services industries. As the CAA report points out, Australia's emissions were broadly the same in 2012 as in 1990, despite a doubling in the size of the economy.
Nevertheless, as can be explored in more detail in the infographic, in the absence of effective emissions abatement policies Australia's emissions are expected to rise to 17% above 2000 levels by 2020. This is mainly driven by the expanded production of LNG and new coal mines.
The previous Government's carbon price mechanism was implemented to counteract this development by inducing lasting structural changes across the economy as industries were encouraged to adapt to the costs associated with emissions. It is now to be replaced with the Direct Action strategy, which is instead focussing on individual projects that remove CO2-e from the atmosphere over a limited time span. Thus projects will receive a reward (issued as credits) only for a single 'crediting period', which typically will be seven years. However, the Government says that over time funded activities are likely to become business as usual, and therefore will not require further support.
In his press release announcing the ERF draft legislation, Environment Minister
Greg Hunt said that the 'carbon tax' was a massive policy failure, costing $7.6 billion in its first year of operation without meaningful reduction. Notably, though, the Government's ERF White Paper is based on an abatement task that has significantly benefited from the two years the carbon price mechanism and the CFI have been operating (see infographic and insert).
Australia's Emissions Projections 2012 document, which formed the basis of the previous Government's carbon price policy, forecast that the carbon price mechanism and the CFI would together drive a cumulative reduction of 755 million tonnes CO2-equivalent (Mt CO2-e) between 2013 to 2020. For Australia then to achieve its minimum target of reducing emissions by 5% below 2000 levels by 2020, an 'abatement challenge' of 155 Mt CO2-e would have to be met in 2020. Under the carbon price mechanism this was to be achieved through a mix of domestic abatement and abatement sourced overseas.
However, in 2013 new modelling underpining the CCA's Targets and Progress Review suggests that because of a drop in the activity in emissions-intensive sectors of the economy the target could be reached through the cumulative reduction of 591 Mt CO2-e over the period 2013-2020, and the abatement of 131 Mt CO2-e in the year 2020.
The Government's ERF White Paper further eased the cumulative abatement task to 421 Mt CO2-e by taking into account the impact of two years under the carbon price mechanism and the Carbon Farming Initiative as well as surplus reductions achieved in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol*. The required abatement for the year 2020 would still remain 131 Mt CO2.
*The Kyoto Protocol allows countries which in the first commitment period over-achieve in meeting their Kyoto target to credit this against the target for the second commitment period. Australia's Abatement Task and 2013 Emissions Projections, released in 2013, estimated a carry over surplus of 121 Mt CO2-e. This has since been revised up to 131 Mt CO2-e, reducing the cumulative reduction challenge between 2013 and 2020 to 421 Mt CO2-e.
The Government says it is firmly committed to the 5% target reduction, and will achieve this without an extra new taxation regime. And in contrast to the carbon price mechanism, its Direct Action, with the ERF its core policy, will achieve the emissions target solely through domestic reductions.
Click the interactive infographic to explore
In the ERF White Paper, the Governmet has pledged to extend its original commitment of $1.55 billion to up to $2.55 billion that could be used to write contracts.
While this pledge was confirmed in the Budget 2014-15 papers, the actually committed nallocation of funds to the
Clean Energy Regulator, the body that administers the ERF, total only $1.15 billion over the forward estimates ($75.5 million in 2014-15; $299.8 million in 2015-16; $354.5 million in 2016-17; and $416.9 million in 2017-18).
The budget papers state, however, that costs for the administration of the Fund will be met from within existing resources of the Department of the Environment and the Clean Energy Regulator.
Click to enlarge
The ERF is comprised of three major elements:
Crediting emissions reductions - Community members can undertake activities that lead to emissions reduction that would not otherwise have occurred and receive from the Government Australian Carbon Credit Units for the reduced emissions. A new Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee will replace the current Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee under the Carbon Farming Initiative to provide expert advice on suitable methods for the verification and creditation of the reductions.
Purchasing emissions reductions - Emissions reductions will be purchased through a reversed auction process in which successful bidders can enter contracts with the Government for future payments against the delivery of emissions reductions. Administered by the Clean Energy Regulator, auctions for ERF contracts are proposed for the second half of 2014 and will then run quarterly. Prior to the first auction, a commercial consultant will test the market to ensure the conditions of the contracts are appropriate.
Safeguarding emissions reductions - Around 130 business with emissions of 100,000 tonnes of CO2 or more will be subject to a safeguard mechanism that will set absolute emissions baselines based on existing data and will safeguard the value of funds spent under the ERF. It will come into effect on 1 July 2015.
Under the proposed CFI Act, the Clean Energy Regulator will be responsible for registering projects and issuing Australian carbon credit units for verified emissions projects. The process of registering projects will be similar to the current CFI.
The units will be issued for each tonne of CO2-e reduced or stored in the land, whereby the emissions reductions have to be 'additional' to what would have occured if the project had not taken place. This requirement is already part of the existing CFI legislation, which includes a test to ensure credited activities are beyond 'common practice' . However, this test will be removed and replaced with the basic requirement that the projects are new - that is their start dates after the ERF implementation - and are unlikely to occur as a result of other government programmes.
The proposed bill includes the example of expanding the capture of methane in a coal mine. This could now be defined as 'new abatement' by reference against historic levels of methane capture.
The amendments will remove a requirement in the current CFI legislation that projects must not involve native forests or materials obtained from their clearing. Instead, their will be a general requirement that a method for reducing emissions should have no adverse environmental, social or economical impacts.
The current distinction between Kyoto and non-Kyoto projects, the latter of which are not considered in the achievement of Australia's climate change targets, will also be removed. While in the first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol these included increasing soil carbon, reducing harvesting in native forests and revegetation, it has since lost much of its relevance as non-Kyoto projects now only include the management of wetland areas and that of feral animals.
A crucial element of the ERF will be how to determine genuine and additional emissions through the use of estimation methods.
There is a clear emphasis on creating a faster and more efficient process in the implementation of a new emissions estimation method, as according to the Government the current process under the CFI has not enabled the timely development of widely-applicable methods for the most prospective emissions reduction activities. One of the changes would be a reduced public consultation period, from currently 40 days down to 28 days. Under the amended CFI legislation, the Minister would also be able to delegate his decision to the secretary of the Department or senior executive service level officers.
A new Emissions Reduction Fund Assurance Committee (ERFAC) consisting of nine members (including an unlimited number from the CSIRO) is to replace the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee (DOIC). However, while currently the Minister's decision is bound to the endorsement of a method by the DOIC, he now only has to take regard to the advice of the new ERFAC on its suitability. This includes advice on a new method meeting certain 'offsets integrity standards', including that it is supported by scientific evidence.
Taking a last stand
In its Targets and Progress Review report the CCA, which the Government is determined to scrap as part of its carbon tax repeal bills, strongly recommends that Australia should extend its commitment for emissions reductions from the current minimum of 5% to 15% below 2000 levels by 2020. Taking it even further, it says carryover Kyoto Units should be used to raise the effective target to around 19%.
The CCA report makes the case that based on all evidence available the 5% target is inadequate if Australia wants to contribute its fair share in the global effort that aims to keep average average global temperatures below 2 ℃. Its thrust is that it will become an improbable large task for future generations, as Australia's 5% target is already out of step with developments around the world.
The CCA refers to 2020 targets of countries such as the United States (17% below 2005 levels), the UK (34% below 1990 levels), and Norway (40% below 1990 levels). An Australian target of 15% below 2000 levels by 2020, plus carryover Kyoto Units would be more in line with the targets in these countries.
The cost of meeting this target would be manageable, the CCA argues. According to its modelling, this could be achieved with a minor impact on economic growth. A 15% plus carryover Kyoto Units would, using a mix of domestic and international reductions as intended under current legislation, slow annual growth in average per person income by just 0.02%, compared with meeting the 5% target.
or say it with Shakespeare: "Put out the light, then put out the light"
Click the image to explore a detailed infographic on Australia's general government debt (net and gross) compared to other countries, and how it has developed over time.
The Australian Government has handed down its first budget which is to fix a budget 'emergency' that has so far not been recognised by any of the major international rating agencies. Despite the promise of a targeted fund for medical research, for which funding is at present up to a hostile Senate, Science and innovation in this country will be hit hard, with significant cuts across areas of research, education and training.
We provide here a budget wrap up on R&D and also explore in more detail a major claim underlying the budget: the existence of a budget emergency.
To this end we base our analysis on global data from the 2014 World Economic Outlook recently released by the International Monetary Fund.
The Government says that in a business as usual scenario Australia would accumulate Government net debt of over $600 billion over the next decade.
However, this would still equate to just around 20% of GDP (assuming the economy grows at close to trend over the same period).
As can be explored in more detail in our infographic, Australia has at present undoubtedly a very low Government debt to GDP ratio compared to other nations, including most member countries in the OECD.
However, according to the IMF, this is also not likely to change over the foreseeable future.
Economic context:
According to the Budget papers, the international conditions are actually expected to improve, with a pickup in activity in advanced economies. China's growth is also forecast to be solid, and risks in general are more balance than they were just a few years ago. And while there are still legacy issues from the financial crisis, Australia's major trading partners are expected to grow above trend (4%) at 4.75% over the next three years.
Over the next four years the underlying cash deficit will reach $60 billion, down from the $125 billion projected in the 2013 MYEFO. Economic growth is forecast to be slightly below trend as falling resources investments are having an impact on the economy at least until 2015-16, although this is partly offset by higher resources export volumes and an expected increase in household spending.
In 2014‑15, net debt for the Australian Government general government sector is estimated to be $226 billion (13.9 per cent of GDP), which is lower than the 2013‑14 MYEFO estimate of $231 billion (14.2 per cent of GDP). By the end of the forward estimates, net debt as a percentage of GDP is expected to reach 14.0 per cent.
The budget forecasts that commodity export volumes will rise but that weak export prices will see a return to a modest trade balance deficit over the forecast horizon. And as the resources sector transitions into the exports phase of the mining boom, Australia's net income deficit is expected to widen due to the high degree of foreign ownership in Australia's resources sector (in absence of a minerals rent tax that could bring additional returns to the economy).
And as the data reveal, most developed countries entered the GFC in a phase of falling or stable debt in a time of positive global economic conditions but then shifted into a phase of increasing debt in the wake of falling tax revenue and increasing Government expenditure.
Another narrative of the Budget is to "redirect spending to productive investment". In support of this the Government refers to the establishment of a $20 billion Medical Research Fund and the deregulation of the Higher Education System.
However, the message becomes confusing in light of significant cuts made elsewhere in the nation's innovation system, which go far beyond the expected closure of 'green' programs addressing climate change (which potentially is the one of the greatest threats to public health in future).
Cartoon by Mark Eliott
It includes cuts across ARC programs plus an additional efficiency dividend from the agency of 3.25% ($74.9 million). There are reductions in the institutional funding of the CSIRO, ANSTO and the AIMS worth together $146.8 million. Savings of $124.7 million will come from reduced funding for Clean Technology programmes and the CRC programme. And far less widely known is the closure of a whole package of programmes that supported industry innovation, for savings worth a total of $845.6 million. Programmes such as the Australian Industry Participation programme, Commercialisation Australia, Enterprise Solutions, the Innovation Investment Fund, Industry Innovation Councils, Enterprise Connect, Industry Innovation Precincts, and the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Small Business and Building Innovative Capability programmes are now to be replaced by a single new Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme funded with $484.2 million.
CSIRO's time of pain:
As a result of the Government's funding cut totalling $115 million over the next four years and a continuing decline in external earnings, the CSIRO will significantly reduce its research program, with heavy job losses and multiple site closures. This is according to a statement by the CSIRO Staff Association released on 26 May. The cuts are detailed in an
Annual Direction Statement released by outgoing chief executive officer Megan Clarke. In a letter to CSIRO staff she wrote that these changes would "be painful for our teams and our people who have dedicated themselves to the future of Australia as well as to their families".
CSIRO plans to either scale back or altogether exit activities across a range of research areas. These include:
...read full story
The Government intends to save a further $1 billion from the closure of ten skills and training programmes. Instead it will establish a new Industry Skills Fund (ISF) from January 2015, funded with $476 million over four years. The Research Training Scheme will also be reduced and higher education providers allowed to charge students for undertaking higher degrees by research, including doctoral and masters degrees. This will save $173.7 million over three years but is unlikely to reduce the lack of access to skills,a recognised barrier to industry productivity improvements.
Selected budget items relevant to innovation in more detail:
General
The Australia-China Science and Research Fund will receive continued support with $10 million over four years, of which $7 million will fund five new Joint Research Centres focused on the translation of research in oil and gas, mining, mining services, medical research and advanced manufacturing.
An additional $65.7 million over four years will support the Marine National Facility to operate the new research vessel, the RV Investigator. The facility is run by CSIRO, which will contribute a further $21.2 million over four years from within its existing resources.
An additional $31.6 million over four years will support ANSTO in meeting the increased operating costs of its Open Pool Australian Lightwater (OPAL) nuclear reactor.
The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy will be continued, with $150 million provided in 2015-16.
The Future Fellowship scheme will be continued, with funding of $139.5 million, but the scheme will be restricted to Australian researchers.
$24 million over three years from 2014‑15 will facilitate a new Antarctic Gateway Partnership, a scientific collaboration between the University of Tasmania, the CSIRO and the Australian Antarctic Division of the Department of the Environment.
Higher Education
The Government will expand the demand driven funding system for higher education from January 2016, with savings estimated at $1.1 billion over three years.
A one-off 3.25% efficiency dividend will be expected from the ARC, saving $74.9 million over three year
The Government will reduce the income threshold for repayment of the Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) debts commencing in 2016-17 and will adjust the indexation of HELP debts from 1 June 2016. Savings will total $3.2 billion over four years.
The HECS HELP benefit will cease with total savings of $87.1 million
Industry Innovation
$484.2 million over 5 years from 2013-2014 will establish the Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme. It will be delivered through a single agency model by the Department of Industry. The funding will come from savings of $845.6 million made from a legacy of programmes implemented by the former Government and will cease from 1 January 2015. The programmes include:
Australian Industry Participation;
Commercialisation Australia;
Enterprise Solutions;
Innovation Investment Fund;
Industry Innovation Councils;
Enterprise Connect;
Industry Innovation Precincts; and
the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Small Business and Building Innovative Capability programme.
A further $124,7 million over 5 years will be saved from the Clean Technology (Investment and Innovation) programmes and the Cooperative Research Centres programme (reduced by $80 million).
$1 billion will be saved through the closure of 10 skills and training programmes, to be replaced by a new Industry Skills Fund (ISF) from January 2015. The Fund will be endowed with $476.0 million over four years and will support the training needs of small to medium enterprises which cannot be readily met by the national training system. Industries targeted will include: health and biomedical products; mining, oil and gas equipment technology and services; and advanced manufacturing, including defence and aerospace. Businesses will be required to make co‑contributions towards the cost of training on a sliding scale depending on the size of the enterprise.
The Automotive Transformation Scheme will be closed, saving $618.5 million over 8 years from 2013-14. Funding of approximately $1.0 billion over five years from 2013‑14 will remain available to support vehicle manufacturers and supply chain companies.
Health and Medical Research
A total of $200 million over five years - $40 million each year - are allocated to the
NHMRC and ARC for the funding of dementia related research projects. This will also help to establish a National Institute for Dementia Research.
A Medical Research Fund (MRF) will be established through savings in health expenditure until the funds reach $20 billion around 2019-2020. At maturation the protected fund will provide a flow of income that is to double current medical research funding, with an additional $1 billion per years available by 2022-23. Over the three years from July 2015, net earnings from the MRF will provide a total of $275 million for critical medical research projects.
$42 million over four years for the expansion of the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University. The funding will support research and training in virology, disease and vector control, as well as the development of new treatments and vaccines for tropical diseases.
$136.9 million in 2014-15 will be for the continuation of the
Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record system until the final report from a review of the system.
$9 million will be allocated to the NHMRC for the development of a more consistent national approach for the conduct of clinical trials and to simplify the agency's grant selection process.
Environment
The Government seeks to abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency through a repeal of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011. This would save the Government $357 million in 2017-18 and then a further $1.3 billion over the following 5 years. Funding of $1 billion over eight years will remain available to support existing priority projects.
The Carbon Capture and Storage Flagships will be curtailed, with funding reduced by $162.9 million in 2017-18 and a further $459.3 million over three following years to 2019-2020. A remaining $191.7 million will support existing projects.
The Sustainable Rural Water Use and Infrastructure Programme will be reduced by $407.6 million over six years.
The National Water Commission will be closed and its functions taken over by existing government bodies. This will save $20.9 million
$9 million for the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) at Griffith.
$40 million will establish a Great Barrier Reef Trust as part of the development of a Reef 2050 Plan, which is to provide a long term strategic approach to address key threats to the Great Barrier Reef.
The National Landcare Programme, one of the big ticket items in the environment portfolio, will be established with $1.028 billion over four years. The coalition announced the programme prior to the election in August 2013 with the intention to bring together the programmes Caring for our Country and Landcare.
The Australian Government's Green Army programme will be funded with $525.4 million over four years and support 250 environmental projects in 2014-15, 500 projects in 2015-16 and 750 projects in 2016-17.
Agriculture
Agricultural research will be boosted with an additional $100 million over four years. In partnership with Rural Research and Development Corporations (RDCs), the funding will support projects with an applied research focus and an emphasis on how the research outcomes would be used by farmers. The initiative is part of the Government's Economic Action Strategy.
The annual appropriation funding of the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) will be reduced by $11.0 million over four years from 2014‑15.
$20 million over four years are to strengthen Australia's biosecurity and quarantine arrangements by providing additional resources to address pest and disease incursions. The additional funding will complement existing state and territory government emergency response arrangements.
Communications
$100 million over four years are allocated to a mobile black spot programme targeting terrestrial and wireless broadband services in regional areas.
As a result of the Government's funding cut totalling $115 million over the next four years and a continuing decline in external earnings, the CSIRO will significantly reduce its research program, with heavy job losses and multiple site closures. This is according to a statement by the CSIRO Staff Association released on 26 May. The cuts are detailed in an
Annual Direction Statement released by outgoing chief executive officer Megan Clarke. In a letter to CSIRO staff she wrote that these changes would "be painful for our teams and our people who have dedicated themselves to the future of Australia as well as to their families".
CSIRO plans to either scale back or altogether exit activities across a range of research areas. These include:
Agriculture, Food and Health: Research in neurosciences and colorectal cancer will be stopped except in relation to nutrition.
Energy and resources: Convention oil and gas work will be reprioritised while geothermal research will cease completely and reductions will be made in other activities such as carbon capture and storage and efficient energy management. CSIRO will also stop research into liquid fuels.
Manufacturing, productivity and services: Activities in bioscience, nanoscience, device engineering and systems, and high performance metal industries will all be reduced.
Environment: Investment in urban water research will be cut including all work currently performed at the Highett Laboratory as part of the Water for a Healthy Country flagship. Total investment in social and economic sciences will fall. Overall investment in terrestrial biodiversity research will be reduced. Marine biodiversity will be defunded, especially research currently performed by the Wealth for Oceans flagship on bathymetry and marine habitat mapping.
Radio Astronomy: There will be cuts to research in radio astronomy, astrophysics and within the Astronomy and Technology theme. There will be a reduction in effort at the Parkes and Narrabri facilities and the Mopra facility will be closed altogether.
CSIRO has already lost more than 400 staff since last July, with another 300 full time positions previously announced to go as a result of the organisation's restructure. Now another 420 staff will have to go by the end of June 2015. And further 80 positions are forecast to be cut by June 2018 if CSIRO’s external earnings continue to decline as predicted.
In line with the recent Commission of Audit, the Annual Direction Statement reveals that CSIRO is struggling to repair, maintain and operate the organisation’s large and diverse property portfolio, with a $175 million maintenance shortfall.
CSIRO plans to close eight of its sites, of which some are due to consolidations and relocations of current projects underway including:
The Campbell, Crace and Yarralumla sites in Canberra will close.
Victoria’s Highett Laboratory will close.
Armidale’s Arding field station will be sold.
Sites now newly earmarked for closure include.
Aspendale Laboratories – a stronghold of CSIRO’s marine and atmospheric research;
The Griffith Laboratory in the New South Wales Riverina will be closed.
The Australian e-Health Research, located at the University of Queensland in Herston.
Megan Clarke has welcomed the continued funding for the Australia-China Science and Research Fund ($10m over four years) and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme (NCRIS) in 2015-16, and the continued investment in the Future Fellowships scheme. "We will await the progress of the new Medical Research Future Fund and the mechanisms for funding particularly in relation to CSIRO’s work in food and nutrition, e-health, biomedical manufacturing and vaccines and therapeutics for viruses coming from animals which are important areas for our Flagships and integrated health strategy."
Cyber security is becoming a pressing issue for Australian online users, and is a focus of the Australian Government's 2014 Stay Smart Online Weeklaunched on 2 June 2014. But as a report released by the
CSIRO in May highlights, the challenge is emerging across all sectors of society as we increasingly rely on digital services, including public services such as patient health records and taxation data.
While Australia's cyber-security capabilities were recently ranked second in the Asia-Pacific region, the Enabling Australia's Digital Future: Cyber Security Trends and Implications report reveals that our security capabilities are challenged in keeping up with technological developments. As a result we could become more vulnerable to threats such as the recent Heatbleed incident.
2014 Stay Smart Online Week:
The initiative is a partnership between all levels of government and around 1,700 private and community sector organisations to provide Internet users with simple steps they can take to protect their personal and financial information online.
According to a statement released by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, research by the Stay Smart Online 2014 initiative found that many Australians lack competence in the use of Internet-enabled mobile devices.
The research found that:
Australian Internet users are more concerned about deleting their browsing history (74%) than changing their passwords every six months (49%);
72% of Australians use Wi-Fi services in locations such as cafes, shopping centres and airports;
only two in five mobile users always read 'permission requests' before downloading an app to their tablet or smart phone;
young Internet users are twice as likely as the average Internet user to consider Internet speed more important than security of the connection;
one in four families with young children report they still have little or no knowledge about protecting themselves online;
one in five older Australians believe they have been a victim of an online scam or identify theft; and
the proportion of Australians securing or locking their smart phones increased by more than 10% since 2013.
The CSIRO report identified significant emerging vulnerabilities.
For example, by 2025 our electricity grid is expected to be highly automated with 'smart' digital meters in widespread use. The report explores the scenario of a cyber attack from inside through a 'not-so-trusted insider' causing major power outages across the country during a heatwave. The fallout of such an incident would be complex and potentially cost billions of dollars and include fatalities.
Snapshot of cybercrime in Australia:
Non-government estimates put the cost of cybercrime in Australia as high as $2 billion
annually, and according to Defence estimates 5.4 million Australians were victims of cyber crime in 2012.
Antivirus vendor Trend Micro estimated that Australia had the fifth highest level
of reported infections worldwide in 2008.
CERT Australia, the national computer emergency response team, reported
close to 7,300 cyber incidents in 2012. The following year, incidents increased, with approximately
8,500 reported by mid-August.
The advance of the digital healthcare systems is also yet to be matched by improved security and compliance processes. It is estimated that fraud from practitioners and cybercrime rings will cost the system around $16 billion by 2023. This would equate to around 10% of Australia's total healthcare spending.
The report focussed on energy, healthcare and government, but cyber crime will increasingly be an issue across all sectors of society.
According to the report's authors, the challenge ahead is not just technological. What is needed is a "cultural shift, extending cyber security responsibility out to every organisation, every government, and every individual".
Business, public-sector organisations and the broader public are urged to act now, including by embracing more open disclosure and working together when a breach occurs.
Other key considerations are:
the development of simplified digital systems that include 'hassle-free' security measures; and
investments in new systems that verify and protect an individual's digital identity from theft or fraud (the CSIRO is currently working on digital identity frameworks for use in Australia and the European Union).
The enormous growth in mobile service delivery through wireless communications requires available radiofrequency spectrum, for which demand could almost triple by 2020.
Click to enlarge;
Ngara technology - how it works
But the radiofrequency spectrum has practical limits and is hence a limited resource. Consequently, there is the possibility that we are heading toward a 'spectrum crunch', and the challenge will have to be met through advances in technology development and expanded infrastructure.
This is according to a new CSIRO report which canvasses a 'wireless' future with new digital services that are likely to have a pervasive impact on almost every aspect of our life. And the agency promotes its own Ngara technology platform as a tool to prevent potential spectrum bottlenecks in rural and remote Australia.
The Ngara technology platform was developed to deliver high-performance connectivity to rural and remote Australia, where constraints in both the network's 'backhaul' and 'access' technologies* limit capacity.
Ngara can be used to improve the efficiency of both the backhaul and the access component of the network.
*
A networks backhaul transports the main data traffic between places and is in remote and regional areas often based on microwave technologies, while access technologies connect users with the network.
The adoption of wireless is particularly strong in Australia with 2013 OECD data revealing that Australia has the highest rate of wireless broadband subscriptions per capita in the world. In June 2013, 7.5 million Australians accessed the Internet via their mobile phones, an increase of 510% within 5 years, according to data by the Australian Communications and Media Authority,.
But the authors of the A world without wires report argue that Australia needs to rapidly expand its infrastructure to prepare for future "game-changing" applications and social developments.
This is will also be necessary to prevent the digital divide between urban and regional/remote areas of the country to grow even further.
The report foreshadows the eventual replacement of digital TV and telephony services with Internet-based, personalised streaming services. Technologies that improve almost every aspect of our daily lives could soon be omnipresent, and digital service delivery the norm for government and business.
Yet according to the report it is wireless positioning systems that are set to revolutionise our way of life, for which the adoption of driverless cars in the transport grid is a prominent example.
The current plan for a National Broadband Network includes around 8% or 1 million premises for which fixed line broadband technology is not an economically viable option. Instead these premises will be serviced through fixed wireless technology or two satellites that are currently under construction.
By no means these are confined to remote or even regional Australia, but often are at the edge of cities, metro fringe areas and the outskirts of country towns.
In May, NBN Co released its redacted review of the progress made in the non-fixed line footprint, and identified substantial issues with the approach taken by the company.
Authored by the new NBN Co board and independently assessed by The Boston Consulting Group, the review found that the fixed wireless program is currently running behind target. The new NBN Co board is also critical of the company's "functional siloed organisation" which it says has hampered effective decision making. It also believes that the timeline for the satellite program is too optimistic, with a delay of up to 6 months likely which would push the launch of the satellites out to early 2016.
The review also found that the $3.5 billion allocated in the NBN Co's latest 2012-15 Corporate Plan for the non-fixed line footprint will not be sufficient to provide access to 100% of Australian premises. The funds for the construction of 1,400 fixed wireless towers, the launch of 2 satellites and the installation of end-user premises equipment were based on an estimated take-up rate of 22% to 25%, with around 230,000 premises connected in non-fixed line areas. However, the review estimates that the take-up rate will be 2-3 times higher, with connections to 440,000 to 620,000 premises required. While the Corporate Plan did allow for some additional capacity, this would still mean a shortfall of around 200,000 premises that NBN Co would not be able to service.
The review also notes that around 80,000 of these premises will be in the urban-fringe areas where Optus currently holds the 2.3GHz and 3.4Gz spectrum rights. This is the same spectrum NBN Co uses to service regional areas. But the company has so far not been able to secure an alternative spectrum for the urban-fringe areas, potentially leaving it with a substantial spectrum gap.
The review proposes four different scenarios to overcome the shortfall. Thes include to ramp up the number of base stations (1), extending where feasible the current Government's preferred Fibre-To-The-Node (FTTN) fixed line option to the non-fixed line footprint (2), the construction and launch of an additional satellite (3) and an additional satellite implemented in a partnership with an external party(4).
The preferred option for the non-fixed line footprint, scenario 2, could include a mix of technologies in 2021 with 57% serviced with fixed wireless, 40% with statellite and 3% with FTTN. While this would come at an additional cost of $1-1.3 billion this would be in line with the NBN Co's 2013 Strategic Review and not have a significant impact on the overall estimated peak funding of $41 billion.
According to the Canadian Fraser Institute 2013 survey of global business leaders, Australia is already one of the most attractive destinations for investments in the world, with WA even taking out the top spot (see story Sovereign reputation'.
But the Australian Government is continuing to "restore investor confidence in Australia's economic workhorse" with the release of its interim response to the 22 recommendations of the Productivity Commission (PC) Inquiry Report into Mineral and Energy Resource Exploration.
The inquiry dates back to September 2012, when the PC was tasked to investigate reform options that could address non-financial barriers to mineral and energy exploration projects, such as in the government approval process.
For a full list of PC recommendations and the Government's interim response click here
Of the 22 recommendations, the Australian Government has already implemented six through previous processes. In its interim response it agreed to a further five while noting the remainder.
Several recommendations aimed at deregulating the industry and removing unecessary red tape are directly or indirectly addressed with the Government's 'one-stop-shop' for environmental assessments and approvals, which is to be finalised by the end of 2014 (for details see story One for all).
The Government has also recently announced a new Exploration Development Incentive (see story 'Wooing the sowers" in 'Earthly delights') which is to specifically help the exploration activities of small and mid-sized mining companies (reminiscent of the R&D Tax Incentive scheme).
Other PC recommendations the Government has agreed to include that explorers compensate land holders for reasonable legal and other costs incurred in negotiating a land access agreement, including when an explorer withdraws from negotiations before finalising an agreement. Governments should also ensure that when uncertainty surrounds the environmental impacts of exploration, environmental approval decisions are evidence based and regulatory settings evolve with the best available knowledge.
Nine new exploration permits potentially attracting more than $372 million in investment over the next six years have been awarded as part of Round 1 the Australian Government's 2013 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release.
Click image to explore the awarded permits in an infographic
As can be explored in more detail in our infographic, all but one of the awarded permits are located in the Carnarvon, Browse and Bonaparte Basins offshore from Western Australia (including one within the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands). It underscores the regions potential for petroleum discoveries. The one exception, a permit located offshore Victoria in the Otway Basin, was awarded to Origin Energy Resources.
The nation's progress with the establishment of a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) is still marred by the complexity of the task, and some shortcomings in its implementation.
Yet, it is a very worthwhile effort to pursue, according to an Australian Government commissioned review of the project.
While the PCEHR review found overall strong support for the implementation of the system, some experts in the field have publicly called on the Government to scrap the project entirely.
Thus, David Glance, the director of the Centre for Software Practice at the University of Western Australia, wrote in The Conversation that while the idea of shareable information through an Internet-based electronic heatlth record "is a good one", the PCEHR has a fundamental problem: it relies on time-poor GPs to ensure that the data is complete, accurate, timely and relevant. But, the GP does not have control over what happens to the record, writes Mr Glance.
In just six weeks a three member team led by Richard Royle, the executive director of the UnitingCare Health Group, prepared the review and submitted a report to the Australian Government in December last year. The report including 38 recommendations was released to the public on 19 May 2014, alongside of transitional funding of $146.6 million over 12 months which were allocated in the federal budget to keep the project alive until a decision over its future has been made.
The PCEHR is widely seen as a core element of a broad range of health related activities using information and communications technology. These are generally referred to as 'eHealth' and also include gateway websites, such as the Government's Healthdirect website, and virtual communities - Internet based social networks supporting and informing members on health issues (for a broader review of eHealth click here).
Booze&Company estimates of benefits resulting from digitizing the healthcare sector
Acknowledging the spread of potential activities, the report canvasses an ecosystem of eHealth, the creation of which will require an understanding of the current fragmentation of the industry, the specialisation of private organisations, and the need for policies that are conducive for increased industry investment and engagement.
The potential benefits of a functional eHealth system are significant. Management consulting firm Booz and Company (now Strategy&) estimated?in 2013 that up to $7 billion in direct costs could be saved each year by digitizing the healthcare sector, apart from the expected substantial improvements in customer experience. This is broadly backed by the international experience, which shows that data aggregation and management can greatly benefit the healthcare system.
However, the firm's analysis, which is referred to in the review's report, also brought to light the persistent concerns among industry with Australia's approach to eHealth, such as the lack of strategic direction, the poor understanding of the potential benefits from eHealth, a lack of stakeholder engagement and the poor execution of eHealth initiatives.
Key recommendations of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record Review
Rename the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) to My Health Record (MyHR).
Restructure the approach to governance, dissolve NEHTA and replace with the Australian Commission for Electronic Health (ACeH) reporting directly to the Standing Council on Health (SCoH).
Transition to an ‘opt-out’ model for all Australians on their MyHR to be effective from a target date of 1st January 2015. This recommendation is subject to the completion of the minimum composite of records (recommendation 21) and the establishment of clear standards for compliance for clinical users via the Privacy and Security Committee.
Develop and conduct an education campaign for consumers and clinicians about the impact of the change to an opt-out process and the strength of security and privacy in the system.
Immediately update the MyHR strategy to actively enable decentralisation of information across multiple data repositories, with information being linked using the Healthcare Identifier (HI).
Reset the policy standards and frameworks necessary to enable interoperability, in a decentralised model, plus commercial models that ensure providers can generate an acceptable return on the investments made in shared infrastructure.
For a full list of the 38 recommendations click here.
Progress towards a more digitized healthcare system has been made, though.
Since 2008, Australia has a National eHealth Strategy for the?establishment of core foundational elements in support of eHealth services across Australia (an updated 2013 National eHealth Strategy has been commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments).
And the PCEHR review found broad agreement among stakeholders that?there is now a solid foundation of national eHealth infrastructure. This includes the Healthcare Identifier (HI), the National Authentication Service for Health (NASH), the Secure Messaging Delivery (SMD) standard, and the National Product Catalogue (NPC).
The submissions to the review revealed overwhelming support for an electronic health record as a critical component of Australia's future eHealth ecosystem. However, there is little love among stakeholders for the centralised approach adopted by the agency overseeing the PCEHR implementation, NEHTA. The review panel is especially critical of its strategy to create a single data repository, as it does not make sufficient use of systems developed by the private sector, such as the repositories created by the Pathology and Diagnostic Imaging industry, which enable storage sharing and viewing of tests and/or records. Hence the report includes a set of recommendations that target a more decentralised approach that enables information from third party repositories to be linked through the HI.
On the whole, the governance process is perceived as being too bureaucratic and as not effectively balancing the needs of government and private sector organisations.
Given these concerns and the reservations industry holds against NEHTA, the review panel recommends to restructure the approach to governance and to dissolve NEHTA. The agency is to be replaced with the Australian Commission for Electronic Health (ACeH) reporting directly to the Standing Council on Health (SCoH)
There are also issues with the current 'opt-in' model for the PCEHR, including a lack of focus on those who could most benefit from an electronic health record, such as the chronically ill and people in remote areas. Consequently, the panel recommends to transition to an 'opt-in' model for all Australians, while conducting an education campaign that informs clinicians and consumers about the process and the strength of security and privacy in the system. The panel proposes to make the 'opt-out' model. This should be conditional on a minimum composite of records, which initially are to include data on demgraphics, current medications and adverse events, discharge summaries and clinical measurements. This, the panel argues, would increase the value proposition for clinicians to regularly turn to the electronic records.
Other key concerns with the PCEHR include a lack of integration between current systems, a single sign on and ease of navigation remain obstacles. The review mentions also a persistent divide between clinicians who are concerned with data accuracy under a patient controlled model and consumers who identify the personally controlled nature of the electronic record as fundamental.
Not only since the recent federal budget is reality sinking in that while increasing life expectancies and comfortable life styles are welcome results of social progress, they are going to present headaches for Governments because of ballooning healthcare costs.
However, this is based on the assumption that there is no significant change in the way healthcare is administered.
The expectation is that the emerging health information technologies (HIT), such as personal e-health records, will significantly reduce the incidence of human errors and increase efficiency in the administration of healthcare.
But this hope is not uniformly shared, with scepticism especially entrenched among health professionals.
Chronic diseases are already a formidable economic challenge. Thus the bill for the care of the chronically ill reached $64 billion in 2008, half of the total health expenditure in that year. Between 2004 and 2008 the percentage of Australian aged 65+ having three or more chronic diseases rose from 23% to more than 80%, and the combined costs of chronic diseases and an ageing population could well exceed $200 billion by the mid of this century.
By then, overall government health expenditure is projected to be about half of all government taxation revenue.
For example, a 2013 survey by Deloitte suggests that the move from paper to electronic means has been slow in the US and there are still reservations regarding the potential benefits of HIT technologies. Thus, 71% of physicians surveyed believed that the promise of reduced costs resulting from increased use of HIT was inflated and that it will cost more, not less. And 6 out of 10 physicians believed that the hospital-physician relationship would suffer as physician privileges are put at risk due to compliance with hospital standards for meaningful use.
Similar points were raised in a 2013 conference paper by reserearchers from Griffith Business School. The literature review of journal articles on HIT adoption in Australian hospitals found that there is very little research done on the systematic benefits of HIT in hospitals. And getting health professional on side may be the real challenge. Thus the authors refer to a study which investigated the role of executive leadership in adoption of HIT. Their doubts about the value of HIT was found to have a significant inhibiting effect – "they were not convinced of the business case for HIT in their hospital and this doubt impaired adoption".
However, the push towards eHealth is strong, in Australia and elsewhere. Thus a report released by the CSIRO in March strongly argues that emerging digital technologies could not only help address the upcoming economic challenge, but at the same time deliver improvements to service quality and availability, especially in rural and remote settings.
"Much of the data on which these advances rely is already available to clinicians and administrators, or will be soon," the report authors found.
Our hospitals are at present the major drain on resources, accounting for around 40% of health expenditure. And hospital expenditure is growing by almost 6% each year.
New advanced modelling and analytics technologies, for which CSIRO's Patient Admission Prediction Tool is an already advanced example, could assist managers to more efficiently allocate hospital resources by predicting flows of patients and clinical staff. And the increasing adoption of telehealth options, such as the in-home patient monitoring of patients at risk using real-time video and data streaming, promise to reduce the strain on hospital capacity and capital resources.
The report points to local and international trials of telehealth tools for chronic disease management, such as 'guided self-monitoring' tools, which they say could reduce emergency department admissions by between 20%-60%.
In Australia, these new technologies may be of particular importance for improving healthcare delivery in rural and remote communities, where they also could be used to address issues such as staff training and timely access to health services.
Australia has been slower in embracing the potential of HITs than some other comparable nations such as Canada, the UK and the Netherlands. Nevertheless, the train is now rolling, not only to provide better health solutions and information services for the bush, but also in pursuit of new commercial opportunities.
Recent examples include the launch of a telehealth project in Miles, QLD late last year. The project is run by the University of Queensland's Centre for Online Health in a collaboration with gas company QGC Pty Limited (formerly Queensland Gas Company). The company has invested $1.3 million to expand telehealth services in the Western Downs to reduce the need for travel through a range of new telehealth services.
Earlier last year, the Australian Government's Australian Indigenous Clinical InfoNet online resource went live, establishing a platform for information on relevant chronic diseases (cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease and chronic respiratory disease) in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
The CSIRO is currently conducting two eHealth trial projects under the Broadband-enabled Telehealth Pilots Program.
The $5.47 million Home Monitoring of Chronic Disease for Aged Care project involves six health organisations and two companies, iiNET and TeleMedCare (TeleMedCare home-monitoring products were a focus of an ARDR opinion piece by Professor Branko Celler, published in 2008). The research will investigate whether home monitoring of chronically ill and elderly patients can reduce hospitalisations and improve health outcomes, quality of care and reduce costs to the community and the health system.
The $1.96 million Satellite Broadband-enabled Indigenous Tele-Eye Care project is currently testing a low-cost eye screening system called Remote-i for the remote delivery of specialist eye care to indigenous and older Australians living in rural and remote areas. It is one of the first of its kind, studying clinical outcomes and technical performance over satellite broadband.
And in March this year, the University of Newcastleunveiled a new Global eHealth Research and Innovation Cluster which aims to accelerate the development of new health technologies and achieve their commercialisation within five years. The cluster has a collaborative, multidisciplinary research approach bringing together not only a broad range of professional expertise across a wide range of fields, but is reaching out to Government, industry and community partners.
Virtual reality clinical training, web-based weight loss programs and gaming technology brain training are examples of innovations that are already under development at the university.
03 June 2014 - A collaborative research project between the
CSIRO and solar energy firm Abengoa Solarhas reported the highest level of 'supercritical steam' ever produced using solar energy.
Scheme of a supercritical solar thermal power plant.
Image: CSIRO
The Advanced Solar Steam Receiver Project achieved a steam pressure of 23.5 megapascals at temperatures of up to 570 ℃ using the two solar thermal test plants at the CSIRO Energy Centre in Newcastle.
The power plants feature a total of 600 mirrors (heliostats) directed at solar receivers, and by employing a fully automated control system that predicts how the heat is delivered from every mirror the researchers were able to maximise the heat transfer without overheating or fatiguing the receiver.
Image: CSIRO
According to CSIRO, their record could lead the way to greater efficiency of solar power plants. And given that at present such supercritical steam driving electricity generating turbines are a domain of the most advanced fossil fuel burning plants, the goal post of solar thermal energy becoming cost competitive appears now to be in sight.
However, the research partners acknowledge that the commercialisation of the technology is still a long way off.
...and a sunny baseload promise
The $5.7 million project, to which the Australian Renewable Energy Agency contributed $2.8 million, is part of a larger ARENA co-funded research collaboration between CSIRO and its Spain-based commercial partner. The ultimate goal of this research is the cost competitive production of baseload electricity through solar power.
Click image to enlarge -
Abengoa uses molten salt as heat transfer fluid to provide a thermal storage system for baseload electricity production. For nighttime operation, the thermal energy stored in the hot tank is used to generate steam as the energy demand requires, and the salt is subsequently stored in a cold tank, ready to start the cycle again in daytime operation.
Scheme: modified from a depiction by Abengoa Solar describing its baseload molten salt tower technology used in a 100 MWe demonstration plant in Spain.
As announced by ARENA in May, the partners will construct a 20 megawatt electrical (MWe) solar thermal power station in Perenjori, a region in south-western Western Australia that has very high solar irradiation resource.
The project will use Abengoa's molten salt tower technology, which is based on a heat transfer fluid made up of sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate. As shown in the figure, the system can store solar energy harnessed at day time and then drive steam turbines at night time.
According to ARENA, the tower technology shows higher potential for cost reductions than alternative solar thermal options, including parabolic trough and linear fresnel. "This is because they allow higher temperatures, resulting in higher efficiency and lower storage costs".
The project will also be the first large-scale commercial application of CSIRO's heliostat technology developed in Newcastle by employing a heliostat field made up of over 200,000 m2 reflectors.
Through the integration with the local electricity network, the power station could potentially provide up to 100 gigawatt hours of electricity each year - enough to cover the needs around 15,000 homes.
12 June - The Australian Government announced that seven new Research Hubs will be created through grants totalling almost $24 million over the life of the projects.
The funding is provided under the ARC administered Industrial Transformation Research Program scheme, a legacy program of the former Gillard Government and established as a component of the ARC Linkage Program. The program also includes the Industrial Transformation Training Centres scheme, for which, however, so far no funding round has been advertised for 2014.
The motivation behind the Research Hubs scheme was to encourage collaborative R&D projects that target issues relevant to industry, and bridge the persistent gulf between publicly funded research and private enterprise. There was also the expectation that the scheme would attract significant investment from the international business community.
According to the ARC, in the latest round of the scheme (Round 2 for funding commencing in 2013) projects list 26 industry partner organisations, including multinational companies such as BHP Billiton Iron Ore Pty. However, the overall cash and in-kind support from international collaborators is small, accounting for less than 4% of the over $36 million partner organisations have indicated to contribute to the approved projects.
Four out of seven new Research Hubs will target the resource industry, including the ARC Research Hub for Advanced Technologies for Australian Iron Ore at the University of Newcastle
Image: University of Newcastle
Of the three Strategic Research Priority Areas that guide the scheme, 'Lifting productivity and economic growth' was targeted by 12 out of 15 funding proposals and will now be the focus of 6 of the 7 approved Research Hubs. Only one project will address 'Managing our food and water assets', while the area 'Promoting population health and wellbeing' did not attract any funding.
With grants totalling around $7 million for two Resarch Hubs, the University of Adelaide is the top recipient of grants in this funding round, in which four out of the seven approved projects that address issues concerning the resource sector. The remaining projects target the food and agricultural industries (2) and the manufacturing industries (1).
The projects were approved at an overall success rate of almost 47% and comprise:
ARC Research Hub for transforming waste directly in cost-effective green manufacturing - University of New South Wales (approx. $2.2 million)
ARC Research Hub for Advanced Technologies for Australian Iron Ore - University of Newcastle (approx. $3.3 million)
ARC Research Hub for Basin GEodyNamics and Evolution of SedImentary Systems (GENESIS) - University of Sydney (approx. $2.7 million);
ARC Research Hub for advanced breeding to transform prawn aquaculture - James Cook University (approx. $5.0 million);
ARC Research Hub for genetic diversity and molecular breeding for wheat in a hot and dry climate - University of Adelaide (approx $4.3 million)
ARC Research Hub for Australian Copper-Uranium - University of Adelaide, (approx. $2.5 million); and
ARC Research Hub for Transforming the Mining Value Chain -
University of Tasmania, (approx. $4.0 million)
27 June - A new round of grants under the ARCLinkage Projects scheme will provide a total of $88.2 million for 251 collaborative research projects.
However, the success rate for the approved Linkage Projects, which are to commence in 2014, was only 35.9%, down from the 39% in the previous year. And with fewer proposals considered on the outset (699 proposals the 2014 round versus 785 in the previous year), the number of approved proposals has dropped by 18% from the 2013 round, and overall funding for the Linkage Projects has reduced by more than 13%.
The University of New South Wales was the most successful administering organisation with 30 approved grants for projects worth a total of almost $32.5 million*. It was followed by the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne, which each had 24 projects approved, worth approximately $24.2 million* and $22.42 million*, respectively.
Explore infographic
The approved projects will involve 415 partner organisations, and leverage a total of around $170 million in cash and in-kind contributions (almost 2$ for ever dollar funded throught the ARC).
Close to 17% of these contributions stem from collaborating international organisations. However, it is notable that 48% of collaborators were from the US and 25% from the UK, which is significantly more than could be expected on the basis of their comparative research strength. For example, Germany and the UK make a similar contribution to global research publication output, yet Germany accounted for just 10% of collaborators. Hence, cultural linkages may still be a major facilitator in forming research partnerships.
Nevertheless, 19% of research partner organisations are now from China, which does reflect its growing importance for Australia.
10 June 2014 - Somewhat overshadowed by the suprise decision of Germany to pull out of the Square Kilometre Array Project (see insert), the CSIROreported promising test results from its Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope.
Run, Lola, run...?
Earlier in June the German Government informed the SKA director-general of its intention to end the country's SKA membership by June 2015.
The decision shocked the SKA community, but is it a sign of doubts in the value of this massive international undertaking? The SKA Organisation's take is that Germany is responding to difficult economic times. True, resources are still scarce, they always are, but Germany is actually experiencing very good economic times, and has increased investments in other areas of science.
Germany's withdrawal will undoubtedly hurt the project, with the US also being haphazard in its support. But the German Goverment has also dealt a substantial blow to its own research community, with up to 400 scientists believed to be affected.
Indeed, German research organisations could altogether be excluded from using the infrastructure, due to a recent decision by the SKA consortium that restricts access to the infrastructure to financially contributing countries. Ironically, Germany supported this decision, which at the time was primarily directed at the US and its reluctance to provide financial support.
Leaving SKA will also make it difficult, if not impossible, for German enterprises to benefit from SKA contracts.
So why the decision?
According to the German news magazine Der Spiegel, it is simply a matter of priorities, with the German Government taking the view that there are too many other major infrastructure projects closer to home, which hence promise better returns. High up on the list are the European XFEL, an international research facility which is currently constructed in Northern Germany and will generate extremely intense X-ray flashes from 2017. And the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), a new international accelerator facility for the research with antiprotons and ions, is also located in Germany to house some 3000 scientists from all over the world.
Whatever the reasons, the question that now lingers is who will be next?
The radio telescope, which is in its commissioning phase, is constructed as one of two precursors of SKA, and will eventually form a key component of the project. It comprises an array of 36 antennas, each 12 metres in diameter, which were assembled in June 2012 to work together as a single instrument.
And ASKAP is equipped with a novel phased array feed receiver that creates separate (simultaneous) beams to provide a wide-field-of view of the sky. The novel technology developed by the CSIRO is described as resembling a chequerboard. Placed at the focal point of the dish it forms multiple 'beams' from the sky which allow researchers to view a greater area of the sky than is possible with a traditional radio telescope.
Click image to enlarge - 12h image of an ASKAP test field.
The test was carried out with 6 of the 36 antennas scanning nine overlapping regions or 'beams' together covering an area of around 50 times the size of the full moon. The beams?were captured simultaneously through the phased array feed technology and assembled to a single?image entirely made up from radio waves.
According to CSIRO, the test confirmed the power of the phased array feed technology, which its says is "ground breaking" and potentially could find use in applications outside of radio astronomy.
As the telescope tracks radio sources, the phased array feed is kept in a fixed orientation to the sky. This is made possible through the special axis of rotation built into each ASKAP antenna, and eliminates?artefacts from bright sources at the edges of each beam as observed with conventional telescopes.
ASKAP is still in its early phase of commissioning, but already was able to produce the image twice as fast as any comparable telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. When completed it is expected to?do this 25 times faster still, making it then the world's premier survey telescope for centimetre-wavelength radio astronomy.
IP Australia's second update* on the state of our intellectual property system reports that the number of Australian patent applications continues to grow strongly, up by 13% in 2013. Demand for design rights grew by 7%, plant breeder's rights by 9%, while trade mark filings remained fairly steady.
In fact, globally patent filings reached unprecedented levels in 2012, but the trend is not necessarily reflecting more research productivity, instead it is likely to be a result of the increasingly global nature of commerce which motivates inventors to seek additional filings of the same invention in multiple countries.
In Australia's case the heightened patenting activity in 2013 was also to a significant part driven by the former Government's IP Laws Amendment (Raising the Bar) Act 2012. The reform, which came into full effect on 15 April 2013 and raised the requirement for receiving a patent, was preceded by a rush of applicants to get their patent applications and examinations requests filed under the old system. IP Australia recorded nine times the monthly average in April 2013, and consequently an increase in the number of direct filings with IP Australia in excess of 24% year-on-year, more than five times the average yearly growth in direct filings recorded over the past decade.
By contrast, filings with the international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), ususally the more preferred route of acquiring a standard patent, showed a more modest yearly growth of 8.1%.
Click image to explore the infographic - Business investment in intangibles
The report does not only present a detailed account of Australia's IP activity but also includes a broader reflection on the role of IP for productivity and economic growth.
Australia's overall investment as a percentage of business value added, which in economics describes the total sales revenue minus external input costs in a given period, is high by international standards. But Australian businesses are far less competitive in their investments into so called 'intangibles', wich include IP and, according to an OECD definition, also the economic value of design, branding and firm-specific human capital. Based on the OECD definition, Australia's investment in IP was 7.9% of of business value adde , around half that spent in other OECD countries including the US (see infographics).
Yet, intagible investments are significant drivers of productivity, accounting for around 20% of productivity growth in the US and the EU.
Around 90% of the 29,717 patent applications filed in 2013 stemmed from non-residents. Half of these (13,161) were from US residents, which highlights the very tight commercial relationship between the two countries. By comparison, only 6.5% of non-resident applications were from Japan (1,751), the second most common origin of foreign applicants.
Conversely, about three times as many Australian residents sought patents overseas than at home, with around 60% targeting the US, the European Patent Office and China. The US alone accounted for almost half (42.9%) of patents filed abroad in 2012, more than Australians filed at home.
However, this is not unusual given that the US is the world's largest economy.
Nevertheless, there is a continuing global shift of IP activity towards Asia, following the regions rapid economic expansion in recent times. Thus in 1995, Asia's share of international patent applications was only 8% but has since risen to around 40%, with China now being the biggest source of global patent applications.
While Australian innovators are filing more patents in Asia now compared to the 1990s, the quantity of filings in Asia has stayed relatively constant since 2004.
This contrasts Trade Mark filings, where China became the top destination for Australian applications in 2011. In 2012, almost half of all Trade Mark filings abroad were in just three jurisdictions: China (18.3%), New Zealand (15.4%) and the US (13.5%).
While patent applications directly filed with IP Australia are on the rise, the number of patents granted by IP Australia fell in 2013 by 3.5% to just 17,112. And only 7% granted patents were requested by Australian residents despite their 10% share in applications. A reason for this may be that compared to resident applications a higher proportion of non-resident applications are filed by organisations rather than individuals, and these tend to have a higher chance of success.
Standard patents are in high demand, while provisional filings, which allow applicants to claim an early priority date, continued a decade long negative trend with applications decreasing by 10.6% between 2012 and 2013. Applications for innovation patents, which are currently under review by the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property, also decreased by 10% in 2013, ending a seven year period of positive growth.
Stated protection
In 2013, Western Australia led the growth in the number of patent applications, up 39.7%, driven by the mining industry.
As a result, in that state the most popular of the eight International Patent Classifications were 'fixed construction' (25.3%), which includes patent applications related to earth or rock drilling. Across Australia, however, most Australian resident patent applications fell under the 'human necessities' section (25.9%), followed by 'performing operations and transporting' (17%), 'physics' (16.8%) and then 'fixed construction' (16.1%).
On a per capita basis (per million residents), the most applications were from residents in the ACT (209) followed by NSW (153), Western Australia (140) and Victoria (134). Residents in South Australia (104) and Tasmania (43) are far less engaged in IP, which may reflect the comparatively more difficult economic situation in these states.
The Australian Government's Green Paper On Developing Northern Australia, released in June, envisions significant opportunities for an economically already thriving region of Australia, with the resources industry at the core of its economic expansion.
The Green Paper is part of a process towards a broader policy framework for the region's ongoing economic development, which the Government plans to detail in a White Paper within the next 12 months. To this end, it has also formed a National Strategic Partnership with the governments of Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The six possible policy directions canvassed in the Green Paper
Figure modified from Green Paper On Developing Northern Australia
In line with the former Government's Australia in the Asian Century White Paper, much of the renewed focus on Australia's North is based on the expectation that the economies in the Asian region will continue to rapidly expand and increase their demand for Australian products, notably from mining and energy but also agriculture, tourism, education and health services industries.
The projections for the region are indeed impressive. By 2050, Asia could account for half of global output. And while energy demand in major advanced economies is expected to remain fairly steady, emerging economies in Asia will drive up global energy demand by around a third by 2035. China and India will become the world's largest importers of oil and coal, respectively.
Against this likely backdrop, Northern Australia's prospects are bright. Not only has it a competitive export advantage over Australia's southern states because of its proximity to Asia, but it also includes one of the few developed tropical economies in the world.
Click image to enlarge - Northern Australian employment by industry in 2001 and 2011; arrows indicate the notable changes in Mining and Agriculture, forestry and fishing.
Figure modified from Green Paper On Developing Northern Australia
The Tropics feature a unique set of economic opportunities and challenges, and as the 'tropical economy' develops, demand for the expertise of Australia's northern universities around tropical medicine, infrastructure, land and water management is set to grow. (For example, James Cook University is currently collaborating in the development of a state of the Tropics report, which will assess critical issues facing the global tropical region and the resulting opportunities).
Innovation and technology also target other characteristics that are unique or particularly relevant to the region. These include conservation and climate change issues, Indigenous knowledge, and creative industries.
There are a range of agricultural opportunities, such as a new aquaculture industry and the expansion of established industries such as cattle and sugar. The crododile meat and skin industry is also expected to enjoy growing demand. And the outlook for non-traditional crops, such as chia and sandalwood, and the commercial production of dragon fruit, farmed prawns and poppies is also promising.
But while such opportunities could broaden economic activities, the Green Paper makes it clear that this is unlikely to change the overall reliance on natural resources.
Indeed, the dominance of the mining sector has even increased as other industry sectors have not kept pace. In fact, the tourism industry is in decline with numbers of visitors down by 15% from 2005 levels. Yet the industry across the country grew by 18% over the period.
And the data presented shows that as employment in Mining doubled in the decade to 2011, it halved in Agriculture, forestry and fishing (see figure).
Northern Australia's current economic expansion relies on its natural resources, which include world class deposits of iron ore, uranium, base metals, bauxite and oil and gas.
The region contains around 35% of Australia's coal reserves, which are the world's largest economic demonstrated resource of recoverable coal.
All of Australia's known manganese ore and diamonds are in the north, along with almost all of Australia's phosphate rock. There are also over 70% of Australia's known resources of iron ore, lead and zinc, as well as significant deposits of silver, bauxite, tungsten and molybdenum.
Gas continues to drive capital expenditure, and the level of investment is now twice that of the rest of Australia, with six LNG projects on the way. These include the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG
Projects in Western Australia, the Ichthys LNG project in the Northern Territory and Shell's Prelude floating LNG project. The north also has significant tight and shale gas resources that could eventually be more productive than Australia's current oil and gas projects.
The region accounts for 55% of Australia's exports value, with exported goods totalling $121 billion
in 2012-2013. Of these, 84% were coal, gas, petroleum and crude materials including iron ore.
According to Access Economics, northern Australia will account for around 42% of Australia's economy by 2040, up from currently 35%, but high growth tends to be concentrated in certain mining regions.
The Green Paper also makes the case that to realise the economic potential of northern Australia the region will have to attract substantial private investment in the face of significant barriers and risks that concern environmental, economic and social issues.
Encompassing a vast area of around three million square kilometres north of the Tropic of Capricorn, northern Australia is populated with around 1 million people and spans a diverse set of communities and industries across parts of Western Australia, Northern Territory and Queensland.
Urban centres such as Darwin, Townsville and Cairns are already expanding rapidly - in fact, Darwin grew by more than 190% over the past 40 years, faster than any other Australian capital city - and infrastructure bottlenecks are emerging. For example, the Queensland Government has warned that without additional water storage Cairns is about to face a shortfall of around 20,000 megalitres by 2055.
There are often issues with the high costs of infrastructure and service delivery, the competition for skilled labour, the still sparse population, and also regulatory and approval processes that some businesses claim are often unnecessarily costly, lengthy and inefficient. The Paper also cites concerns that current labour market arrangements limit business growth by imposing higher costs.
The challenges hampering development in the north may not be unique to the region but they often are more complex and acute, the Paper points out.
The fragmented energy network system supplying the north might be a case in point. There are five energy networks, whereby those in the Northern Territory and northern Queensland are government owned, while in northern Western Australia ownership is mixed. Off grid systems opperate outside these networks in towns and communities, and these are either managed by the jurisdiction's energy service provider or are privately supplied and contracted.
But water and the climate are undoubtedly the most critical issues.
The extended wet seasons with average temperatures above 33 ℃ and featuring frequent tropical cyclones are projected to get even more challenging. Over the last century, Australia's north has warmed between 0.7 and 0.8 ℃ and this trend is set to continue, with CSIRO research projecting that the number of days above 35 ℃ will increase, as will the frequency of intense cyclones as well as coastal inundation events due to sea level rise and storm surges.
More than 60% of Australia's total rain falls in the north, but it is largely concentrated along the far northern coastal areas. The average annual rainfall ranges from 300 mm to over 1,000 mm across the region, with around 60% of the rain coming down in the lower reaches of the river basins, close
to the sea, where it is hard to capture. Less than 3% of northern Australia's rain falls inland, according to the CSIRO.
Compounding these challenges are the very high evaporation rates across the region, which over large parts of the year can exceed rainfall rates. Together with other factors unique to the region it is not surprising that in the past a number of large scale irrigation ventures have failed (the Paper cites a sorghum and maize cropping project in Lakeland Downs in the early '70s and the Territory Rice project in the late '50s).
While the Government has ambitious plans for the North - broadly laid out in the Coalition's pre-election 2030 Vision for Developing Northern Australia - it says it aims to achieve them mainly through low cost or no cost actions that promote a more efficient use of existing funding arrangements and maximise private sector investment.
Canvassed policy options include:
the establishment of a new Cooperative Research Centre on developing northern Australia;
increased funding for water infrastructure, such as new dams (with the obvious challenge of high evaporation rates), through a Water Project Development Fund;
the development of a 15 year rolling infrastructure priority list;
the relocation of some Commonwealth agencies to the north;
and improving land use arrangements.
Clearly, the development of incentives to increase migration from interstate to the north is part of the plan and practical options will be explored in a White Paper. But while policy options such as special taxation arrangements are discussed in some detail, the Paper emphasises that any propsal in this direction would need to be carefully examined, including their impact on other parts of the country.
Here you find stories covering recent developments in our universities. These and related stories can also be found in the dedicated 'university' page (see 'sections' in the ARDR menu at the top of the page.)
Space for the future
15 July - The Australian National University (ANU) has officially opened its new Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre (AITC), which features the only facilities in Australia dedicated to the engineering of space equipment right from the design stage through to being launch-pad ready.
The Australian space sector is now generating around $1.6 billion in revenue and employing over 4,000 scientists, engineers, policy makers and support personel. And the expanding sector has many small and medium sized businesses for which the AITC could become a major hub, which will provide businesses with the opportunity to come together and take on larger projects.
The Giant Magellan Telescope will be the world's largest and most powerful telescope when it is completed in 2020. ANU is leading Australia's involvement in the GMT delivering a Telescope Integral-Field Spectrograph and adaptive-optics solutions for the project.
The infrastructure has already attracted two major contracts, including a $5 million design contract for one of the first instruments to be installed on the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the GMT Integral Field Spectrometer.
A second contract worth $6.4 million covers the development of a space junk tracking system for the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute.
Silicon carbide (SiC) is a compound of silicon and carbon that occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite (shown in the photo). Synthetic silicon carbide is used in high endurance applications such as car brakes and car clutches but also in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and high-temperature/high-voltage semiconductor electronics.
Image: Wikipedia
Griffith University has announced that Chinese high-tech company SICC Materials Co Ltd committed $1 million over 10 years to the university's Queensland Micro and Nanotechnology Centre (QMNC), which is developing platform technologies for the affordable production of silicon carbide devices for industry.
The research includes the development of silicon carbide on silicon substrates which are unique in the world, and are made possible through a large silicon wafer fabrication processing capability that is part of the centre's Queensland Microtechnology Facility.
The partners also agreed to ongoing information sharing, staff exchanges and the creation of the Griffith University and SICC Joint Research and Development Centre.
There is the hope that this could kick-start the establishment of a new silicon carbide industry in southeast Queensland with many potential applications that include better quality and cheaper lighting and more efficient engine combustion. Silicon carbide is also bio-compatible and may therefore find use in medical bio-sensing.
Elaborating on this vision at the agreement's signing ceremony, Griffith's vice-chancellor Professor Ian O'Connor highlighted the desirable properties that silicon carbide devices could offer for high power, high frequency applications, including significantly superior electrical, mechanical and thermal properties compared to standard silicon devices.
3 June - A joint project by the University of Queensland and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) aims to identify elite sweet sorghum lines with high and stable sugar production and to develop these into plants that can be cultivated on a large scale.
Because of its lower glycaemic and insulin indices the consumption of sorghum isosmaltulose instead of conventional sugar could have significant health benefits, such as a reduction of tooth decay and improvements in the management of diabetes.
There may also be environmental benefits as sorghum is adapted to the hot semi-arid tropics and produces sugar at levels equivalent to sugarcane but in a shorter time frame and with lower water usage. The crop's use could therefore lead to more efficient farming and environmental management.
The project has received one of only two available grants from the Queensland-Chinese Academy of Sciences (Q-CAS) Collaborative Science initiative, which supports important scientific and technical research collaborations that aim to deliver future economic, social and environmental benefits for Queensland and China.
Griffith University's Institute for Glycomics, one of only six facilities in the world focussing on the role of glycans and carbohydrates (sugars) in disease prevention and cure, will diverge from its normal target to assist the Australian sugar industry.
Supported by a $1.1 million research grant, the institute will collaborate with Sugar Research Australia to improve the management of aspects of raw sugar quality.
14 May - The University of Western Australia has announced that Perth's Watermans Bay Marine Centre will be refurbished at a cost of $11 million for the establishment of the Indian Ocean's first seawater facility for broad marine research.
The facility will be part of the Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre (IOMRC) project, which is set to become the largest marine research capability in the Indian Ocean Rim. Its flagship project, the $62 million Indian Ocean Marine Research Centre, in currently under construction at the UWA's Crawley campus.
The Indian Ocean Rim is part of the world's third largest ocean and includes 26 countries.
Image: Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS)
At its completion in 2016, it will house 240 scientists with expertise in the areas of oceanography, marine ecology, fisheries, geochemistry, governance, marine technologies and engineering. Their overarching mission will be to study the sustainable use of resources, environmental protection and climate change in one of the world's largest and least explored marine environments.
Four leading Australian marine research organisations are involved in the IOMRC - the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), the CSIRO, the Department of Fisheries WA and UWA's Oceans Institute - whith the Australian Government contributing $34 million to the project through its Education Investment Fund.
More information: www.uwa.edu.au
Mindfully online
An estimated 45% of Australians aged 16-85 suffer from mental health-related conditions such as depression, anxiety or substance use disorder. For these patients, e-health services could provide effective support through telephone, mobile phone, computer and online applications.
A $6.5 million initiative led by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) will now aim to increase the number of users of e-mental health services by at least 20% by the middle of 2016. This is not to replace existing psychological services, but to expand access to mental health support, including through the training of more than 15,000 practitioners in the use of e-mental health services.
Aside of QUT, the project will also involve the Menzies School of Health Research, the University of Sydney, the Australian National University and the Black Dog Institute.
June 2014 - RMIT University has recently launched a multidisciplinary Health Sciences Research Hub , which will focus on the physical and psychological results of treatments following clinical interventions.
The facility will bring together practitioners in Chinese medicine, manual therapies, nursing and psychology in order to critically assess the effectiveness of clinical interventions and to conduct laboratory-based and clinical research across a broad spectrum of health areas, primarily targeting chronic diseases.
The spectrum of clinical tools that will be available to researchers include electroencephalography (EEG) and neurosensory testing; blood and vascular analysis; spirometry and measurement of exhaled gases; musculoskeletal, balance and gait analysis; pain analysis; cognitive testing; face recognition and eye tracking; and polysomnography and sleep analysis.
21 May - Deakin University has officially opened its new carbon fibre research facility, which it says is one of only a few of its kind in the world.
Deakin's Carbon fibre research facility in Geelong
Image: Deakin University
The $34 million Carbon Nexus Facility in Geelong features a pilot scale carbon fibre line capable of producing up to 55 tonnes of aerospace grade carbon fibre each year and a smaller single-tow research line.
As part of the $103 million Australian Future Fibres Research and Innovation Centre (AFFRIC), it will house over 20 researchers and technicians who will explore the fundamental science underlying the development of industry-relevant low-cost and high-performing carbon fibre materials.
Exceptionally strong and light, these new materials are increasingly replacing traditionally used materials, such as steel and aluminium, across a wide range of industries including the aerospace and the automotive industry.
Deakin's industry partner in the project is the not-for-profit Victorian Centre for Advanced Materials Manufacturing (VCAMM)
The emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with global reach and sometimes thousands of participants is far from universally appreciated. However, the possibility of providing access to students with diverse background and irrespective of their location, only restricted by the availability of the Internet and a computer, opens up an entirely new world of teaching.
Its a brave new world of teaching, and possibly a tool for democratising education, "according to a feature article on the topic published in the NY Times in 2012.
Total number of MOOCs around the world June 2013 and June 2014.
The graph is based on data by the MOOCs directory wwww.mooc.co
But while the debate about the pro and cons of this new form of teaching continues, the numbers of MOOCs made available by higher education providers is on a stellar rise (see figure), also in Australia.
One of the most advanced platforms for MOOCs is the
edX platform, an online not-for-profit learning initiative founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in May 2012, with further members now including the University of Texas System, the University of California at Berkeley, Wellesley College, Georgetown University and the University of Tokyo.
In June, the University of Adelaide
announced that it had joined the edX club as a full contributing member with four MOOCs in development under the name of AdelaideX.
According to Professor Pascale Quester, the university's deputy vice-chancellor and vice-president, edX has many attractions including that it also can enhance the experience of on-campus students.
"In some cases, it will enable us to dedicate even more time to classroom interaction as part of our small group discovery experience...", he said in a university statement.
Meanwhile, Monash University has its first MOOC underway with 11,000 students registered in its Creative Coding course. Launched in June, the multidisciplinary course is covering information technology and art and design, and offers training in practical programming concepts and skills without that prior knowledge of programming is required.
18 July - The complex challenges of balanced land use will be the focus of a $1 million new collaborative initiative between the University of Newcastle and the NSW Government.
The International Centre for Balanced Land Use will be based at the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER), the university's national hub for energy and resources research.
The initiative comes on the back of significant industry and government investments for NIER, which include $30 million for technologies that target the abatement of methane emissions from coal mining and $3.2 million for a research hub in advanced technologies for Australian iron ore.
3D printing is in vogue. Articles such as recently published in the Wall Street Journal (How 3-D printing will change our lives) and the tech focused ZDNet herald a 3D printed future closing in on us, with the expectation that in the not too distant future it may become a mainstream technology akin to computers and the Internet (Affordable 3D printing: New materials, new horizons).
In July, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the technology could have the potential of reviving Australia's ailing manufacturing industry, but more investment was urgently needed, even if the Government decided to fund a new Cooperative Research Centre with a focus on 'additive manufacturing' processes involving 3D printing. The resulting windfall of around $40 million for the sector would still fall way short of what is needed to make Australia's manufacturing industry globally competitive.
However, recent developments demonstrate that the Australian university landscape is in hot pursuit of realising the potential of the new technology.
In July, the University of Adelaide announced that a metal and ceramics 3D printer was installed at its Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), which would also be accessible to industry and other research organisations - a first in the State.
Object printed by the 3d metal and ceramic printer
photo by Elizaveta Klantsataya
According to IPAS director Professor Tanya Monro, the technology will not only allow manufacturers to prototype products directly from designs in just hours, but also could be used to improve manufactured parts in ways not possible through traditional manufacturing processes.
Professor Tanya Monro announced in August that she will leave IPAS to take up the position as deputy vice-chancellor (Research) at the University of South Australia
An example for this is IPAS researchers have published in the journal Optical Materials Express. In the paper they describe how printed dies can be used to extrude improved glass products for the fabrication of optical fibres.
The first business to take advantage of the new 3D printing capability will be global mining technology company Maptek, which plans to manufacture the optical chassis of their 3D laser scanner product I-Site, a device used for mining surveys.
RMIT University has also jumped on board of the 3D printing train, most recently through a new partnership with China's Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences that aims to establish a new collaborative centre focussed on 3D metal printing R&D.
The centre will be located at Chongquing, China's third largest producer of motor vehicles and the of motorcycles. It will complement the Centre for Additive Manufacturing, which was launched at RMIT's new Advanced Manufacturing Precinct (AMP) in June 2011.
An entirely different example of 3D printing is the emerging bio-printing technology, which allows researchers to fabricate scaffolds of tissue that can be used for research or medical purposes.
Click on the image to access a video from the Boston Hospital & Medical Centre demonstrating the bioprinting process.
Image: Video screenshot
In July, the University of Sydney announced that its researchers had made a "giant leap towards the goal of 'bio-printing' transplantable tissues and organs for people affected by major diseases and trauma injuries.
In collaboration with researchers from Harvard, Stanford and MIT, the researchers bio-printed artificial vascular networks mimicking the body's circulatory system.
They then covered the 3D printed structure with a cell-rich protein-based material and applied light to solidify it. After removing the bio-printed fibres, the network of tiny channels coated with human endothelial cells self organised to form stable blood capillaries in less than a week.
The work of the researchers suggests that bio-printing can fabricate large 3D micro-vascular channels capable of supporting life with enough precision to match individual patients needs.
Ultimately,this may overcome a major challenge that has so far frustrated the engineering of larger tissues and organs, how to create the complex network of blood vessels and capillaries required for the supply of each tissue cell with oxygen.
2 July 2014 - The Australian Academy of Science will develop strategic decadal plans for Australia's chemistry, agricultural science, and earth sciences to ensure the nation's success in these key disciplines.
The project is supported through the ARC Linkage Learned Academies Special Projects scheme, which will also fund the Australian Academy of the Humanities to map the humanities and to identify opportunities for collaboration and knowledge exchange in the Asian region.
The ARC funding provided to the projects totals $834,160.
2 July 2014 - The Australian Government has released operational details for its new Exploration Development Incentive (EDI), which is to be effective from July 2014.
The paper was released while the legislation is still in its final stages.
The proposed scheme is intended to boost 'greenfields' mineral exploration projects, which now have reached a 10 year low. This type of exploration includes activities such as geological mapping, geophysical surveys, and systematic search for areas containing minerals.
Under the proposal, small mineral exploration companies will be able to issue exploration credits to shareholders, which Australian residents can claim as a refundable tax offset.
To restrict the scheme to junior explorers, only companies with no taxable income (in the year they participate in the EDI), and which also have not yet started resources production (including their affiliates) will be eligible.
The Government has capped the costs of the scheme at $100 million over three years ($25 million in 2014‐15, $35 million in 2015‐16, and $40 million in 2016‐17).
July/August 2014 - The ARC has awarded 16 new Australian Laureate Fellowships together worth $42 million, and 150 new
Future Fellowships together worth $115 million.
Glory at the top
In a state by state comparison, NSW was the big winner in the 2014 round of the Australian Laureate Fellowships scheme accounting for six fellowships worth a total of $15 million.
This was as much as Queensland's and Victoria's universities achieved combined, with these states accounting for three fellowships each, worth at total of $8 million.
Fame does not come overnight: 12 of the 16 new Laureate Fellows can look back on more than 21 years of research since they were awarded a PhD, while only one made it within the first 15 years.
2014 Australian Laureate Fellows
NSW
Professor Rose Amal, The University of New South Wales
Professor Veena Sahajwalla (Georgina Sweet Award), The University of New South Wales
Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn, The University of Sydney
Professor Peter Robinson, The University of Sydney
Professor Ian Paulsen, Macquarie University
Professor Antoine van Oijen, University of Wollongong
QLD
Professor Michael Bird, James Cook University
Professor Peter Harrison, The University of Queensland
Professor Justin Marshall, The University of Queensland
VIC
Professor Joy Damousi (Kathleen Fitzpatrick Award), The University of Melbourne
Professor Thomas Davis, Monash University
Professor Kate Smith-Miles (Georgina Sweet Award), Monash University
ACT
Professor John Dryzek, University of Canberra
Professor Matthew Spriggs, The Australian National University
WA
Professor Ian Small, The University of Western Australia
SA
Professor Alan Cooper, The University of Adelaide
In a previous story on the 2013 Laureate Fellowhips (XY still the norm) we highlighted the extreme dominance of male researchers among our science elite. And this concern remains, as just four females (25%) were selected in this year's round due to the low number of female contenders, who accounted for only 19 (21%) of the 90 applications. Three of the successful female candidates will receive additional funding for their mentorship of young female scientists.
The main objective of the Australian Laureate Fellowships is to attract and retain top researchers of international repute, including researchers
of foreign nationality. But while ten foreign researchers did try to reach our shores, only one was successful: Professor Antoine van Oijen, who joins the University of Wollongong.
None of the fellowships were awarded to Australian nationals returning to Australia.
The 150 four-year Future Fellowships awarded to mid-career researchers were selected from a pool of 840 applications, 32% less than in the previous year.
Among the applicants and successful candidates were twice as many males than females.
Important objectives of the scheme are to attract expertise from outside of the country and to strengthen international research relations.
Foreign nationals and Australians returning from overseas accounted for 28 and 7 fellowships, respectively, and successful proposals indicated plans to collaborate with researchers from 45 overseas locations.
In 37% of the 364 indicated instances of international collaboration research partners are located in the UK (14%) and the US (23). By comparison, China and Japan together accounted for only around 8% of indicated international collaborations.
Click image to enlarge - The graphs explore how the awarded fellowships support medical research across states and territories.
More than 82% of the 150 successful applications will address a Strategic Research Priority area, with 'Lifting productivity and economic growth' the top ranked area followed by 'Promoting population health and wellbeing'.
However, applications relevant to our agricultural industry had by far the highest chance of getting approved. Thus, proposals addressing 'Managing our food and water assets' had a 32% success rate, while the overall success rate of applications was just 18%.
The discipline group "Physical, Mathematical and Information Sciences' accounted for almost half (46%) of the approved proposals, followed by 'Humanities and Creative Arts, Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences' (30%), and 'Biological Sciences, Biotechnology, Environmental, Medical and Health Sciences' (24%).
15 July - The Australian National University has officially opened the doors to its new space engineering infrastrucure, the Advanced Instrumentation and Technology Centre (AITC).
It is unique in Australia in that it provides for the engineering of space equipment right from the design stage through to the launch-pad ready stage.
Announced at the launch, the ANU has recently signed two major contracts for the AITC, including a $5 million design contract for one of the first instruments to be installed on the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the GMT Integral Field Spectrometer. The instrument, one of three developed with the telescope, will not only have the ability to take detailed images of the sky, but also obtain spectra from across a continuous region of the field of view.
Giant Magellan Telescope
A second contract worth $6.4 million will contribute to the development of a space junk tracking system for the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute. As part of the project, ANU researchers will provide technological support for industry partner EOS to build an adaptive optics system for a ground-based telescope system.
The Australian space sector has gained significant size in recent years, now generating around $1.6 billion in revenue and employing over 4,000 scientists, engineers, policy makers and support personel. With the establishment of a space hub in Australia, the many small and medium sized businesses that make up the industry may now be better able to form collaborations and take on larger projects.
10 July 2014 - The Australian Government has formally approved a $35 million investment into Type 1 juvenile diabetes research, an initiative first announced in the 2014-2015 federal budget.
The funding will be provided under the ARC's Special Research Initiative for Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes and led by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).
The program is open for applications until 24 October 2014.
Also announced in the budget was the Special Research Initiative for Tropical Health and Medicine, a $42 million over four years program that will supportJames Cook University's new Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine.
While Australia's strength in basic medical research is well recognised, the translation of discoveries into practice and policy outcomes remains a major challenge - often described as crossing a 'valley of death'.
In July, the NHMRC took another step towards addressing this with the launch of the Advanced Health Research and Translational Centre program.
In recent years, several universities have taken a more integrated approach towards health research, such as through the establishment of Academic Health Science Centres.
And while the nation's primary funding body for health and medical research, the NHMRC, is focussed on early stages of medical research, it is increasingly directing some of its efforts towards maximising community benefits. This includes the launch of a
Research Translation Faculty in 2012, and the formulation of a priority action targeting the translation of health research outcomes in its 2013-2015 strategic plan.
Crossing the 'valley of death'. The NHMRC increasingly recognises the need for better support for health research translation.
This cartoon by the NHMRC (modified from Belie Mellor) is part of the agency's 2013-14 Strategic Plan.
The new NHMRC Advanced Health Research and Translational Centres will be modelled on similar initiatives in the UK, the Netherlands and the US (for example the John Hopkins Hospital, university and associated centres), and will usually include hospitals and universities and medical research institutes that foster collaboration between research, healthcare and teaching professionals.
The agency also clarifies on its website that the initiative is not intended to undermine or discourage the progress made towards Academic Heath Science Centres, but "to promote stronger nodes of excellence in Australia’s heath care system". The program is not about providing additional funding. Rather, the agency aims to recognise and celebrate health precincts in which existing partnerships perform at the highest level of international practice and share a vision, strategy and purpose.
August 2014 - The NHMRC has awarded research grants and fellowships worth a total of $71.2 million, including 74 new NHMRC Research Fellowships totalling $54.6 million for Australia's top performing medical researchers.
Click image to explore an interactive infographic.
Health professionals who also undertake research often have the important advantage that they can directly relate their discoveries to a clinical context. The NHMRC supports this through its Practioner Fellowships program, with 17 fellowships worth $8 million awarded in this round of funding.
Another four grants worth a total of $4.5 million will fund research under the one-off Mental Health Targeted Call for Research (TCR) into Indigenous youth suicide programme.
As is shown in our accompanying infographic, the lion's share of the announced funding went to researchers in Victoria, which underscores the state's comparative strength in the health and medical research area.
In line with cardiovascular disease being the leading cause of death in Australia, cardiology was the most funded field of research. However, despite its relative importance for delivering health care services, Primary Health Care (PHC) was one of the least funded fields of research, and this reflects the still limited research capacity in this area. Since 2000, the Australian Government tries to remedy this through its Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Strategy.
Among the various measures targeting special areas of medical research, the Australian Government's 2014-2015 federal budget included an additional $200 million for dementia research.
This recognises the increasing burden this broad category of typically age-related mental disorders places on Australia's society. There are currently over 320,000 patients diagnosed with dementia, and it is estimated that the number of patients could increase to around one million by 2050.
The funding package has two main objectives, firstly to urgently scale up dementia research into preventions, treatments and possible cures, and secondly to better coordinate and translate research outcomes into practice.
In August, the NHMRC provided further details on the implementation of the Boosting Dementia Research iniative, as part of which it announced a new $32.5 million Dementia Research Team Grants scheme. Modelled on the NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence program, the grants will fund five teams with each up to $6.5 million over five years.
The $200 million special initiative will also include:
$62.5 million for large scale research projects, provided through existing NHMRC grant schemes;
$9 million over four years for research into the prevention and treatment of dementia at the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research, which is housed within the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland;
$46 million for capacity building grants, which aims to attract researchers across a broader range of expertise into dementia research, and includes $26 million for research focused on the social, economic and cultural impacts and complex consequences of dementia; and
$50 million for the new NHMRC National Institute for Dementia Research, which will focus on expanding dementia research and facilitate a rapid translation of nationally and internationally acquired research evidence into policy and practice.
The Australian renewable energy industry is experiencing a shake up, after years of stellar growth.
If the scrapping of the nation's first carbon price mechanism sent a message that the new industry is in for a difficult ride, the recent Warburton Review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) confirmed that the political wind coming from Canberra has changed direction.
But for Australian renewables the climb towards profitability was always going to be difficult independent from political circumstance.
Take the fate of Petratherm's Paralana geothermal project in South Australia as an example. It was launched with much fanfare in 2009, backed by the Australian Government, which pledged to contribute $62.8 million through the Renewable Energy Demonstration Program towards the establishment of a 30 megawatt geothermal power station.
In June last year, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) scaled back the offer to a $24.5 million contribtution towards a much smaller 7 megawatt project, while offering another $13 million for an applied geothermal research project that was to prove the commercial potential of Petratherm's geothermal technology.
However, both investments were subject to Petratherm being able to raise an additional $5 million in equity, and this proved too much of a hurdle, despite the company reporting significant progress in the technology development.
In July, the company announced that it had to forego both grant offers, as it was not able to raise the required private investment.
This limited capacity of early stage geothermal projects in attracting investors is not new. In fact, the problem was extensively explored in the 2011 ACRE Geothermal Directions paper and a report by the Allen Consulting Group from the same year (covered in Flexible renewal on hot rocks in our Sep-Dec 2011 ARDR issue).
The key conclusion of both reviews was that for most companies the capital required to demonstrate the viability of geothermal energy for electricity production will be out of reach. But even with a co-investment model as pursued by ARENA, the bar to private capital in the small and risk-averse Australian market my prove to high, particularly in the current uncertain political climate.
A most recent report by an International Geothermal Expert Group, which was convened by ARENA, concludes that the Australian geothermal sector, which peaked in 2010 with 414 recorded appications for exploration licences, is now in a funding crisis as investors and partners pull out. As a result, activity in the new sector has all but stalled.
Led by Professor Quentin Grafton from the Australian National University, the group analysed the barriers and the potential of the Australian geothermal sector out to 2020 and 2030. In addition, the report delivers a broad global overview of the technology development, showing that globally geothermal generation capacity is steadily expanding.
In 2010, geothermal projects reached world-wide a capacity of 10,715 megawatt electricity and 48,493 megawatt directly used heat, with the US being the world's largest generator of geothermal electricity.
Development of global geothermal electricity production capacity
Figure adapted from International Geothermal Expert Group report Looking Forward: Barriers, Risks and Rewards of the Australian Geothermal Sector to 2020 and 2030.
In Australia, however, the technology's best prospects may be confined to remote locations that are off the grid.
Geothermal energy has unique challenges, such as the uncertainty over the resource and the cost effective extraction of the energy. But the report confirms that it is the upfront costs, which are largely due to the high costs of drilling before a resource can be proven, that now prove to be the main barrier for investors.
Drilling costs have skyrocketed over the last decade as the high price of oil and gas resulted in heightened exploration activity. Accordingly, the report finds that for Australian geothermal energy commercial survival will hinge on drilling costs coming down substantially.
Cost competitiveness with fossil fuel power generation could be reached by around 2030, although utility-scale power from geothermal projects would require a high carbon price environment and most favourable (least-cost) scenarios. Even then there may be lower cost renewable alternatives such as wind (see figure).
Click image to enlarge - Levelised costs of energies projected for 2030
Looking forward, the IGEG group paints a rather bleak picture of past ARENA funding outcomes, which it says did not set the sector on a path of delivering cost competitive utility-scale geothermal energy generation. While the agency could revamp its funding strategy by placing stronger emphasis on R&D, its own survival is in doubt given as the House of Representatives passed the ARENA Repeal Bill 2014 on 1 September 2014.
While geothermal is a known high risk area, the fortunes of large scale solar are also turning.
In August, Silex Systems Limitedannounced it would not go ahead with its 100 megawatt Mildura Solar Power Station, and terminate a $75 million conditional support for the project from ARENA, as well as a $35 million conditional grant from the Victorian Energy Technology Innovation Strategy Fund. According to the company, it based its decision on the low wholesale electricity prices and the uncertainty surrounding the Renewable Energy Target (RET).
Missing the target
The independent Review of the Renewable Energy Target, announced by the Government in February this year, delivered its much anticipated report in August.
The review, a statutory requirement of the RET legislation, followed on from a review by the Climate Change Authority (CCA) in 2012, which at the time found that the RET legislation had an important role to play in supporting renewable generation.
Richard (Dick) Warburton, currently the chairman of Westfield Retail Trust and an incidentally also a self-proclaimed climate change skeptic, chaired the four member panel of the second review, which now concluded that the scheme should be significantly scaled back.
The panel based this recommendation on changed circumstances in Australia's electricity market and the availability of lower cost emission abatement alternatives - notably the Government's Direct Action strategy (although the scheme is not yet implemented and the Government is yet to provide detailed costings).
While the clouds appear to darken over Australia, there is still some sunshine breaking through.
In August, ARENA offered a $101.7 million grant to Spanish renewables firm Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) for its 56 megawatt Moree Solar Farm in NSW. The project is still one of Australia's largest photovoltaic solar projects to date*, after it was drastically downsized from a 150 megawatt proposal previously selected for a $306.5 million conditional grant under the former Solar Flagship program.
Back in 2012, the then $623 million project failed to reach financial close, a fate shared by Queensland's $1.2 billion Solar Dawn thermal solar energy project, with 250 megawatt the largest Solar Flagship project that almost saw the light of the day.
However, the Moree Solar light version, estimated to cost a modest $164 million, is now secure, after the project reached financial close in August. The company announced that it would immediately commence construction to establish Australia's first large-scale plant that uses a single-axis tracking system featuring panels that follow the sun to maximise power output.
As Australia's solar industry still hopes for a sunny future, ARENA is pouring new money into solar R&D. In August, the agency announced $21.5 million for 12 projects leveraging a total of $70 million. The projects, which range from enhancing existing technologies to advancing emerging technologies in solar photovoltaics, solar thermal and solar storage, include:
$7 million for three projects led by the University of New South Wales, including the development of an innovative tandem solar cell using perovskite, an emerging material that can be paired with silicon to produce cheaper and more efficient solar panels.
$5 million for CSIRO led projects that will design an heliostat mirror and control system for the cost-effective deployment of central-tower solar thermal installations.
$9 million for five projects by the The Australian National University, which is working with Australian solar cell manufacturer Tindo Solar on the optimisation of solar modules for Australia’s unique and demanding conditions.
$750 thousand for a University of Technology Sydney project to develop improved renewable energy storage using lithium-sulfur batteries, currently the most cost-effective technology for large-scale energy storage.
*by far the largest Australian solar photovoltaic project is constructed by AGL, comprising of a 102 megawatt plants at Nyngan and a 53 megawatt plant at Broken Hill.
...oppinions abound on RET
The discussion surrounding RET legislation is in full swing, with some of the cricism directed at the credibility of the Warburton Review panel itself, especially its chair.
Looking beyond the passion of political affiliations, we refer here to a series of pieces published in The Conversation, among them an opinion piece by Iain MacGill, Jenny Riesz and Peerapat Vithayasrichareon from the the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets at UNSW. In Why the renewable target should be ramped up, not cut they highlight highlight weaknesses in the modelling that formed the basis of much of the Warburton Review.
The former deputy vice chancellor of the University of Melbourn Emeritus Professor Frank Larkins put forward his point of view in Renewables still have a long way to go to compete with fossil fuels. He aruges that renewable energies still suffer from the problem of consistency, that is supplying enough energy 24 hours a day, due to the irregularity of weather patterns and the lack of efficient storage options.
However, Professor Mark Diesendorf, who is director of the Institute of Environmental Studies at UNSW, contradicted this view in Renewable energy is ready to supply all of Australia’s electricity, writing:
"But Professor Larkins is several years behind developments in renewable energy and its integration into electricity grids. In fact, we already have technically feasible scenarios to run the Australian electricity industry on 100% renewable energy — without significantly affecting supply."
The independent Review of the Renewable Energy Target, announced by the Government in February this year, delivered its much anticipated report in August.
The review, a statutory requirement of the RET legislation, followed on from a review by the Climate Change Authority (CCA) in 2012, which at the time found that the RET legislation had an important role to play in supporting renewable generation. In the context of a price on carbon as the main mechanism to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, the CCA reasoned that confidence in a sustainable policy framework was critical for investors.
Richard (Dick) Warburton, currently the chairman of Westfield Retail Trust and an incidentally also a self-proclaimed climate change skeptic, chaired the four member panel of the second review, which now concluded that the scheme should be significantly scaled back.
The panel based this recommendation on changed circumstances in Australia's electricity market and the availability of lower cost emission abatement alternatives - notably the Government's Direct Action strategy (although the scheme is not yet implemented and the Government is yet to provide detailed costings).
The report's findings rely to a large extend on the modelling of various scenarios by consulting firm ACIL Allen, although the panel acknowledges the limitations of the type of analysis undertaken.
The overarching objective of the current RET legislation is to ensure that at least 20% of Australia's electricity is generated from renewable energies by 2020. The production of renewable energy is rewarded through renewable energy certificates which are issued for each megawatt hour of produced energy and purchased by energy retailers. These are obliged to surrender a set number of renewable energy certificates, determined on the basis of their electricity market share, to the Clean Energy Regulator (or pay a shortfall charge).
The RET operates in two seperate schemes:
The Large-scale renewable energy target (LRET) - certificates are created with each megawatt-hour of renewable electricity generated. Under the scheme annual targets are set which ramp up to 41,000 gigawatt-hours of produced renewable energy by 2020.
The Small-scale renewable energy scheme (SRES) - at the time of installation of small-scale systems, certificates are created on the basis of the expected electricity they will produce.
The panel finds that the RET broadly met its objectives. But if its primary objective was to encourage renewable energy generation, it was even too successful.
According to estimates by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE), in 2013 Australia generated aound 33,000 gigawatt-hours or 14% of its electricity from renewable sources. Of this generated renewable electricity, 19,500 gigawatt-hours were supported by the RET scheme, and produced from sources including wind (42%), solar (19%), hydro (14%), and solar water heating (14%).
But circumstances have changed. The RET legislation was amended in 2010 based on the assumption that electricity demand would steadily increase to around 300,000 gigawatt-hours in 2020. Instead, demand for electricity has decreased by an average of 1.7% each year. As a result, rather than serving increased demand, new renewable energy capacity replaced output from existing coal-fired power stations, with 4,155 megawatt capacity mothballed since mid-2012.
Click image to enlarge - ACIL Allen projections of the percentage of the share of renewable energies in Australia's electricity market out to 2030
The report also questions whether the target of 41,000 gigawatt-hours set under RET legislation for the LRET by 2020 can be met, as it would require the construction of 9000 MW of new renewable capacity.
The panel makes the case that to achieve the objective of renewables energies supplying 20% of the expected electricity demand in 2020 (dubbed a 'realistic scenario') the LRET target should be scaled down to 25,500 .
And even a more radical move, the scrapping the RET altogether, could be considered as according to the ACIL Allen modelling most of future demand for electricity could be met with existing coal power capacity (figure).
This would then also revert what the panel views as a "transfer of wealth among participants in the electricity market" that is currently driven by RET.
However, modelling presented in the report also indicates that the RET legislation played only a minor, possibly even a positive role in the 78% increase in electricity retail prices that were recorded nationally over the past five years.
RET does add around 4% to retail prices, but the panel found that the supply of renewable electricity at a time of falling demand put downward pressure on wholesale prices, although the net effect was not clear.
However, the ongoing cost of the scheme is the sticking point. The review estimates that $22 billion in cross-subsidies would be required for the remainder of the scheme. While this would encourage around $15 billion in investments, it would be at the expense of investments in other parts of the economy.
This also raises doubts over the potential employment benefits generated by the emerging industries.
The RET has encouraged significant employment through investment in renewables, but a study from Deloitte suggests that this was more than offset by jobs lost in other parts of the energy sector where RET resulted in reduced investment.
The $482.2 million over five years Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme announced in the 2014 federal budget is taking shape, with a phased delivery of services having commenced in July 2014.
The 2014-15 federal budget allocated $484.2 million over 5 years from 2013-2014 for a new Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme. It will be delivered through a single agency model by the Department of Industry. In parts the initiative replaces previous programmes that supported industry innovation. Their closure was announced in the 2014-15 budget and included:
the Australian Industry Participation programme;
Commercialisation Australia;
the Enterprise Solutions programme;
the Innovation Investment Fund;
Industry Innovation Councils;
Enterprise Connect;
Industry Innovation Precincts; and
the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Small Business and Building Innovative Capability programme.
The programme will provide a national network of more than 100 private sector advisors, and comprises the three elements:
Business Management;
Research Connections; and
Commercialising Ideas.
Services that have now started include:
Business evaluations by advisors for eligible business. Among the elegibility critieria are that businesses operate within certain sectors of the economy, and have a turnover or operating expenditure of between $1.5 million and $100 million ($750,000 and $100 million for businesses in remote Australia).
After having participated in a business evaluation (or an Enterprise Connect Business Review), businesses are assisted in the implementation of recommended improvements through co-funded Business growth grants worth up to $20,000.
Research Connections, which identifies 'knowledge gaps' within small and medium businesses and facilitates engagement with research organisation
Speaking at the 2014 PM Science Prizes ceremony may not have been his most comfortable moment, but Prime Minister Tony Abbott got his main message across: his Government wants more commercial outcomes for its investment in science and research.
Just prior to the event, Education Minister Christopher Pyne and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane, released a discussion paper on how Australia could better capitalise on its publicly funded research strengths. It complemented the Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda announced two weeks earlier, and the chief scientist's proposed national strategy for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) released on 2 September.
Innovation is often misunderstood as R&D, which is nevertheless often closely tied to innovation outcomes. Innovation is a very
complex set of activities that may be described as any action that creates or improves a product, process or service.
The reinvigorated policy push for a better return of commercial or 'greater good' benefits to Australia's research investment is not a major shift in goal posts. Rather it reflects concerns shared across the political spectrum that the nation will need to lift its innovation performance for improving its productivity and economic competitiveness. A major review in 2008 chaired by Dr Terry Cutler indeed highlighted that Australia is not making the most of its potential. And these concerns are currently also addressed by a Senate inquiry into innovation, for which submissions closed in July (a report is expected in July 2015).
Based on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australia is indeed in need of a boost in productivity growth, which after a decade of strong gains turned into negative territory for most of the years since 2004-2005, and over the whole of this period declined by 0.8%.
The effects of this on the broader economy were largely masked by an expanding resources sector driving strong increases in gross national income. But investments in the resources sector are now in decline and this makes Australia's productivity issue harder to ignore.
However, it has to be noted that the task of determining and interpreting productivity data is a difficult beast to tame.
In the 2012 Australian Innovation System Report, University of Queensland economist Professor John Quiggin pointed out that the strong growth in productivity Australia experienced in the 90s was in parts due to a 'jobless recovery', as Australia came out of a recession and the existing workforce was simply forced to work harder. Entering a phase of more sustainable working conditions then led to slower productivity growth.
Professor Quiggin also noted that productivity growth was slowed as some of the vast amount of capital flowing into mining was invested in projects that would not have been economical at the prices prevailing in the past. Indeed, a recent report from the Productivity Commission shows that between 2011-12 and 2012-13 labour productivity and output increased by 2% and 2.2%, respectively, while labour input rose by just 0,1%. Yet, multifactor productivity fell by 0.8% as a result of a 6.1% increase in capital input - and the figures show that this was largely due to Mining recording an exceptionally high capital growth of 16% in that year.
But economists are far from being unison on what causes our current struggles with productivity, perceived or real, and in how far this even matters for Australia's economic future. For example, a discussion paper by economist Professor John Foster, also from the University of Queensland, questioned the validity of multifactor productivity estimates by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the Productivity Commission altogether.
The essential conclusion from his paper is this:
"There has been much discussion of Australia's supposed 'productivity crisis' based upon estimates of multi-factor productivity growth. It has been shown here that it is easy to establish that such estimates are invalid and preliminary evidence suggests that economies of scale, rather than multifactor productivity growth, are likely to have been driving economic growth.
However, there is a growing body of national and international research that shows significant deficits in our capacity to innovate, and this limits not only Australia's economic potential, but also our progress in other areas of national wellbeing.
Dr Cutler's Review of Australia's Innovation System, which analysed the complex drivers and barriers of innovation in this country, revealed weaknesses in how we support the pathways of bringing new ideas to the market. The review formed the groundwork for the Rudd/Gillard Government's Powering Ideas: An Innovation Agenda for the 21st Century, which canvassed a longer-term vision for facilitating innovation, including how to better support innovative firms in the critical early phases of product development.
This led to a review of our IP system and initiatives especially targeting smaller and medium sized companies (SMEs) in their development - such as the R&D Tax Incentive and (the now again axed) Commercialisation Australia.
The Australian Innovation System Report series began to monitor improvements in the system, and the annual reports showed in detail that Australia was indeed not doing well in producing original goods, with very little high-tech products making their way from here to global markets.
This is despite Australia having closed in to the OECD average in terms of overall spending on R&D (GERD) relative to its GDP.
Australia's spending on R&D: Gross expenditure on R&D per GDP was 2.20% in 2010 compared to 2.35% for the OECD average. This was largely driven by increased spending by businesses on R&D (BERD), which grew at a compound annual growth rate of 11% since 1992-3 to $17.9 billion in 2010-11, and again in 2011-12 by 2% to $18.3 billion (for more details read our story 'Fly like a BERD').
The export of goods and services more than doubled in value from $146 billion in 2003-04 to $315 billion in 2011-12, and also rose as a percentage of GDP from 15.6% in 2000 to 16.2% in 2012. But they were not a result of more new innovations sold to the world.
Rather, they were largely due to growth in the export of raw commodities as the export of minerals and fuels more than quadrupled from $35 billion to $161 billion. Their share in Australia's GDP almost doubled in the span of just five years (5.9% in 2007 to 9.6% in 2012). By contrast, according to the 2013 Innovation Systems Report the absolute value of medium to high technology exports (Elaborately Transformed Manufactures, ETMs) increased by just $1 billion between 2001 ($26 billion) and 2011 ($27 billion), and their share in total exports dramatically declined from 17% in 1999-2000 to 9% in 2011-12.
Recent international analysis, including by the 2014-15 Global Competitiveness Report, the Global Innovation Index and the German Innovation Indicator, underscore that Australia's transition away from a resource based economy towards a knowledge-based economy is hamstrung by many factors. These include deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and issues of too much regulation providing significant barriers to our innovation.
But the reports consistently demonstrate there are systemic weakness in the way we capitalise on new discoveries and ideas, and these may root deeply in cultural issues with a lack of innovative drive in our businesses being at the core of our low innovation performance. There appears to be an entrenched culture in our business leadership that is too risk averse and lacks scientific epertise in its decision making. But the reports also suggest that our publicly funded research is missing focus on marketable outcomes, despite an often cited relatively high research output.
In 2012, Australian scientists authored 3.9% of the world's publications, and we had a share of 5.3% of publications in the top 1% highly cited natural science and engineering journals) suggest that little of this work is transformative leading to commercial applications.
Slippery slope
The 2014-15 Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) indicates that Australia's economic competitiveness is steadily loosing ground against other leading nations.
According to the Global Competitiveness Report, the relative importance of innovation for productivity gains depends on the stage of development an economy has reached.
Click image to enlarge.
It defines three broad stages of economic maturity:
Factor-driven economies compete primarily based on low-
skilled labour and natural resources;
Efficiency-driven economies operate in a higher wages environment and must begin to improve productivity through more efficient production, such as better
training, efficient goods markets, well-functioning labour and financial markets, the ability to harness existing technologies, and a large domestic or foreign market.
Innovation-driven economies are most advanced, and sustain higher wages and standard of living through the production of new and/or unique products, services, models and processes.
Indicators or 'pillars' of productivity underpinning 'Basic requirements' and 'Efficiency enhancers' of economies are important, especially in the earlier stages of economic development, but have limits to which they can be improve productivity, by contrast to innovation.
There are 35 countries that have reached the innovation-driven stage of development, including Australia, although its strong reliance on the export of resources and basic commodities is more a feature of less advanced factor-driven economy.
According to the GCI report, countries in which mineral products make up more than 70% of total exports are in the less advanced factor-driven category.
The annual report series by the World Economic Forum compares countries based on the quality of their institutions, policies, and other factors that determine the level of their productivity. Australia achieved its best result in 2009, when it was ranked 15th. It has since slipped down the list and was ranked 22nd out of 144 assessed countries in the 2014-15 GCI update. Placed at the lower end of the second tier of the world's most competitive countries there is now a significant gap to the best performing countries.
The GCI summary report describes Australia's economy as a highly regulated labour market, an assessment supported by surveys with business executives, who identified restrictive labour market regulations as the greatest impediment for doing business in Australia.
Notably, though, five out of the ten most competitive economies (Sweden, Finland, Japan, Germany and the Netherlands) also scored low in this area.
For example, Australia and Sweden were similarly ranked in the indicators 'Flexibility of Wage Determination' (132 vs 134) and 'Hiring and Firing Practices' (136 vs 100). Yet the emphasis in the broader assessment of both countries is quite different.
In the case of Australia, the GCI report notes the strength of its financial system (6th) and its education system (11th), although Australia scored low in its science and maths education (38th) - skills particularly relevant for innovation.
While the Swedish higher education and training system was ranked lower (14th) than that of Australia (11th), the WEF report notes that Sweden has created the right set of skills for an innovation-based economy, with ICT adoption among the highest in the world and firms performing among the highest in the world in terms of innovation capacity.
In contrast to Australia, Sweden strengths are in areas most relevant to advanced economies. Thus the GCI report finds that Sweden:
"has managed to create the right set of conditions for innovation and unsurprisingly scores very high in many of the dimensions that are key to creating a knowledge-based society."
Against the 144 assessed countries, Australia's economy ranked 17th in the subindices Basic Requirements and 15th in its Efficiency Enhancers. Importantly, though, it ranked only 26th in its innovation and business sophistication, indicators of particular importance for the competitiveness of advanced economies. And this particular weakness becomes even more pronounced in a direct comparison with the top performing countries as shown in the figure below.
Click on image to enlarge -
The importances of certain subindices of competitiveness depends on the stage of economic development...
While the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) attends to broader economic conditions, the Global Innovation Index (GII) has a more narrow focus on parameters that underpin a country's innovation activities.
In its 2014 update, the project assessed 143 economies across 81 indicators and its results reveal the close relation between economic competitiveness and innovation capabilities. This is especially the case for advanced economies. Eight out of the top ten countries in the GCI were also in the top ten of the GII (see figure below), with Switzerland heading both lists.
Click image to enlarge; The top ten best performing countries in the 2014-5 Global Competitiveness Index and the 2014 Global Innovation Index.
What sets these innovation leaders apart from the pack is that less advanced economies are more dependent on technology transfer than they are on original R&D.
Australia 17th position overall was based on a relatively strong performance in its innovation inputs (see insert)
, in which it was ranked 10th, while its innovation outputs came only 22nd, demonstrating the low efficiency of Australia's innovation system, which overall achieved a score of 0.70, below the average of 0.74 of all 143 countries.
The GII evaluates in the inputs category factors including infrastructure, institutions, human capital and research, market sophistication and business sophistication, while outputs are based on knowledge and technology outputs and creative outputs. The relationship between inputs and outputs is then described as the efficiency of an innovation system.
The essence of this is that we sustain very competitive fundamentals of innovation, such as our public research base and highly ranked research organisations, but we do not use these advantages for outcomes that are on par with the most competitive countries. In fact, on this measure we are outclassed by countries such as Malta, Estonia, and also China which now tops the ranking of patents filed since 2011.
Australia particularly struggles in the broader areas of Business sophistication (placed 26th) and Knowledge and technology outputs (placed 31st), which is in broad agreement with the findings in the GCI and other similar studies.
Despite being ranked 12th in the per capita output of scientific and technical articles, the generated knowledge has low impact. Its firm base has a low share of high and medium-high-tech manufacturers (54th), and a low percentage of its total trade stem from original high-tech exports (56th). And the general diffusion of knowledge into the economy is also comparably low (78th).
Adding another perspective to this is the German Innovation Indicator, which is conducted by a consortium of reputable European research organisations led by the German Frauenhofer ISI.
Released as a report and in form of an interactive web-based tool it compares the innovation capacity of a selected group of now 35 of the most advanced economies. These are assessed across 38 indicators which fall into five subcategories: economy, science, education, governance and society.
It is quite clear that Australia struggles in areas that are crucial for productivity growth in innovation-driven economies, such as the capacity to produce new and different goods and technologies, and the development of sophisticated production processes and business models.
The capacity of countries depends on a complex system in which various players - business, government, research organisations and consumers in domestic and external markets- interact with each other.
However, the private sector plays the central role in driving innovation capability, and weaknesses in this area can override strengths in other areas of the system. Thus the OECD's
Oslo Manual states:
"the most significant innovation capability is the knowledge accumulated by the firm, which is mainly embedded in human resources, but also procedures, routines and other characteristics of the firm".
IP Australia's second Intellectual Property System Report makes the important observation that while Australia's businesses are very competitive in their overall investment as a percentage of business value added, most of the money is spent on fixed physical assets such as machinery equipment.
Australian businesses are far less competitive in their investment into so called 'intangibles', a broad term that encapsulates firm assets and activities including software and databases, R&D and intellectual property products, the economic value of design, branding and firm-specific human capital.
Based on the OECD definition of intangibles, Australia's investment in intangibles was 7.9% of business value added , ranked 16th out of 21 countries in the OECD (see infographics below).
Yet, as the IP report points out, intangible investments are significant drivers of productivity, accounting for around 20% of productivity growth in the US and the EU.
Click image to explore the infographic - Business investment in intangibles
Nevertheless, Australia's business spending on R&D (BERD) has increased significantly over the past decade - a measure that generally correlates with a more competitive economy (it is one of the indicators against which competitiveness is assessed). But this relationship is complex with numerous variables determining the actual impact of potential innovation resulting from such investments.
According to ABS data, Australia's level of product and process innovations remained steady or declined since 2006-07, while that of less technological managerial, organisational and marketing innovations increased.
Notable is also that the increase in Australian BERD occurred mainly in Mining and the Financial and Insurance Service industries, which lifted their combined share in total BERD from 26% in 2006 to 37% in 2012. Consequently, the contribution of Manufacturing, the sector typically associated with higher end technological products, declined from 36% to now 24% over this period (shown in infographic below).
Click image for an interactive infographics
However, much of Australia's apparent problem with business innovation may be rooted in the structural characteristic of the Australian business landscape, in which 99.7% of all firms are small to medium size entperprises (SMEs). Collectively they account for 58% of national output and 71% of employment.
While this is quite comparable with other innovation-driven countries - for example in both Sweden and Germany SMEs make up around 99.5% of all firms (OECD Factbook 2013), Australia has a higher percentage of micro-businesses of less than ten employees, which is second only to Greece in the OECD (OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2011).
A policy brief on SMEs released by the OECD in 2000 suggests that only a small subset of SMEs (5%-10%) are exceptional innovators that drive new product development, and these are usually found in knowledge-intensive sectors (such as IT or biotechnology). Often they are located in regions of intense economic activity and clustering and may be part of formal or informal networks of firms, which are more likely to attract venture capital investment. While for firms operating at small scale the removal of regulatory burdens is clearly an important step to spur development, for these exceptional innovators to be successful, access to venture capital investment in the early phase of product development is crucial. However, this type of funding entrepreneurial activity is volatile by nature and not only dependent on access to well functioning capital markets but also on high-quality management capable of dealing with financiers.
The OECD brief highlights, though, that for many manufacturing SMEs networking and collaboration has been the avenue to become internationally competitive. For this to occur it often requires government assistance, such as through export credits and promotion agencies, but it also relies on certain managerial capabilities that are often missing in smaller sized firms.
Various reports have indicated that Australian businesses are poor collaborators relative to businesses in other countries in the OECD, which to some extend is caused by the relative distance to international markets, a hurdle that makes it particular difficult for SMEs. Thus, according to 2006-2008 data presented in the 2012 Innovation System Report, the proportion of Australian businesses collaborating on innovation ranked only 26th out of 30 OECD countries.
That size does matter has been consistently shown in reports by the ABS. Smaller firms more often encounter barriers such as lack of access to financing, difficulties in exploiting technology, limited managerial capabilities, and are less capable of forming international collaborative networks.
Last year, a global survey on innovation, the General Electric (GE) Global Innovation Barometer, reported that 92% of Australian respondents believed SMEs could be just as innovative as large companies. While this would suggest that the existing barriers to SMEs need not to be prohibitive to innovation, the report also highlighted that for smaller firmst to jump the hurdles the framework conditions have to be favourable.
In many ways they are not. For example, 89% of respondents believed that the Australian financial environment should be more open to venture capital, and only a third believed that Australian private investors support business innovation, which is far below the global average. Australia's lower company spending on R&D, unfavourable taxation policies and incentives for R&D and training, and lower Government procurement of advanced technology were all identified as areas requiring attention.
Notably, the availability of science and engineering skills ranked lowest on a list of relative strengths of the Australian innovation market. Attracting and retaining talent was indeed cited by 83% of Australian respondents as the most important barrier to successful innovation - 10% higher than the global average. And the GE report authors remarked that the inability to convert a high-quality education into a population of scientists and engineers indicates a growing need to encourage the next generation to understand the opportunities associated with a career in the sciences.
Consecutive Australian governments have pursued policy strategies, such as the 2010 innovation agenda Powering Ideas and now the Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda, that aimed to induce a more innovative culture in the broader Australia's business landscape, including through initiatives tailored to the needs of SMEs.
There are sound arguments for governments to focus on SMEs, and less on their larger counterparts, not only because of their overwhelming presence in the Australian economy but also because they are likely to be more reliant on government help and hence are likely to be more responsive to government support.
According to 2011-12 ABS survey data on Australian business innovation, innovation-active business are around twice as likely to report an increase in productivity, with other positive effects such as greater export capability and employment. But smaller firms benefit more yet engage less in innovation than larger firms as shown in our infographic below (see also stories 'Fly like a BERD' and '...with the right performance enhancers').
In 2011-12, around 47% of businesses undertook some form of innovation, but it was reported for only 39% of micro-businesses against 76% of large businesses. This is also reflected in the spread of business expenditure on R&D (BERD). While BERD has increased significantly over the past decade, investments are heavily concentrated in larger businesses of 200 or more employees. These make up only around 1% of all business but accounted for 66% of Australia's BERD in 2011-12. More than 85% of innovation-active businesses spent less than $50,000 on R&D in 2010-11.
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Click image for an interactive infographics
...the human factor
While the size of organisations may matter to overcome certain barriers, there is a growing acknowledgement that the 'human factor' especially the effect of leadership, is the main overarching driver of innovation (see insert), and of course this is influenced by cultural and historical characteristics of a country.
The 2014 Global Innovation Index report emphasises the importance of the human factor for driving innovating. And it concludes that nurturing of human capital at all levels, and retaining as well as attracting talent are crucial elements of a well functioning innovation system. At the same time, the migration of skilled workers, often feared as a 'brain drain', should be seen as brain skills circulation as human resources become remote-although-accessible assets of expanded networks.
The report further points out that knowledge, innovative skills, and personal qualities (such as entrepreneurship, leadership, creativity, and risk propensity) need to be developed from early childhood, and education systems in which the focus is too narrowly focussed on test results may fail in stimulating creativity, critical thinking, and communication skills that innovative societies require.
From the list of the ten best performing countries in the GII ranking, it cannot be ignored that most - including the seven European countries and the US - have developed a culture for innovation over a long time, and this is likely to have translated into business practices that are conducive for driving new ideas to the market.
In 2009, the Australian Management Practices and Productivity global benchmarking report suggested that a large proportion of Australian firms are mediocre, especially in their approach to people management.
"This is a key differentiating factor between Australia and better performing, more innovative countries".
And a subsequent conference report concluded that large companies were generally much better managed than small ones, also in their approach to innovation.
The Innovation Systems Report 2012 includes an analysis suggesting that around 70% of businesses of our businesses have some degree of innovation culture, but 44% have an adhoc approach and 6% do not practice it despite having a strategy in place. Only 18%, mostly large businesses, are strategic innovators.
And a key message of the GE Global Innovation Barometer report for Australia is that
"Australian business leaders are risk-adverse and struggle with responding to an ever-changing global environment." It is a message that reverberates through most related domestic and international reports.
And as highlighted in the 2014 GII report, important attributes of leadership need to be nurtured from early childhood.
Underlying this is that firms do not operate in isolation, but are shaped by attitudes and characteristics of the broader society, which in the case of Australia has built its wealth primarily on the exploit of primary goods rather than high end technology exports.
Very much the same message is given in a study by the University of Melbourne and the Australian Institute of Management, which concluded from a survey of 2,400 business professionals from all sections of industry and government that poor leadership is the main reason organisations fail to innovate. The report Innovation: The New Imperative, which was published in October 2013, identified three main barriers to innovation that were all leadership related. It found that:
organisations are too risk adverse;
employees do not get rewarded for innovating; and
it takes an exceptionally long lead time to develop ideas.
The report's focus is on the systematic innovation capacity of Australian organisations, which it says requires a holistitic and integrated approach. And the survey highlights that this approach leads to substantial benefits showing that businesses with a proven innovation are threefold more likely to have higher revenue growth, profitability and productivity.
One of the key messages of the report is that innovation performance is correlated with certain practices, which, although not as such specified, can be broadly described as part of the 'intangible capital' of organisations.
They include:
aspects of strategy and leadership;
a strong customer focus;
the embracing of risk and change;
human resource management and a culture that supports innovation; and
strong innovation process management and a focus on sustainability.
Further building blocks of innovation success are culture and communications; operations and partnerships; and knowledge and technology (see list of predictors of business performance).
Interestingly, the report identified innovation leaders (top 25%) and laggers (bottom 25%) across a set of indicators but did not find significant differences related to size, sector or location.
However, the report was able to discern certain indicators that predict innovation leaders.
Among the most signficant predictors is the assignment of a person or a team responsible for innovation. Leaders were almost three times more likely to have done so, and their managers were also getting far more involved in innovation projects.
There are also notable differences in the customer focus, in that leaders were found to more actively seeking feedback and input from customers and they were three times more likely to collaborate with outside partners.
Leaders were four times more likely to have strategy for managing risk in place, and were three times more likely to take on calculated risks.
And how significant cultural aspects may play a role in innovation success is also indicated by the finding that teamwork was far (almost ten times) more emphasised in leaders, which also were far more inclined to use employees as a source of ideas than laggers.
As leadership and organisational culture shifts into the focus of analysis why our business are underperforming innovators, Griffith University researchers and collaborators are now conducting two new projects to investigate aspects of leadership in Australian businesses, and how it can guide technological innovation, reduce business risks, and enable more effective mnagement.
It seems likely that changing a pervading culture won't be an easy task, and will need more than just tinkling at the edges of macroeconic and regulatory settings but will require a more long-term vision for cultural change in our businesses.
More information: *a 2014 of the GE Global Innovation Barometer is now available, while the latest country specific report for Australia was in released in 2013.
2 September 2014 - Australia's chief scientist Professor Ian Chubb has released a proposal for a national strategy for science and technology for Australia, through which Australia could lift its capacity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
The Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Australia's Future report builds on a previous position paper in 2013 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the National Interest: A Strategic Approach report covered in our story 'Strategic desert', and feeds into the Australian Government's National Industry Investment and Competitiveness Agenda.
Australia is now the only country in the OECD without a long-term strategic approach for science and technology, which has been fundamental for the economic prosperity of many advanced economies. The paper refers to the US as a prime example, where science and technology contributed to roughly half of all economic growth over the past 50 years.
A strong basic research base with deep international links, a culture of risk, reliable pipelines of STEM graduates and established career pathways for scientists are shared attributes that characterise the best performing countries. In addition, their broader population tends to have a high level of STEM literacy that supports discovery and entrepreneurship.
Australia does not belong to the group of most competitive countries, and the paper's basic proposition is that neither size nor geography are to blame for this, but rather there is a lack in capacity to organise and grasp opportunities that these areas present.
Prior to the release of his proposal, Professor Ian Chubb wrote in an editorial in Science Magazine: "My real concern, however, is the lack of a strategy that would help us maximize the value of the science resources we do have."
To change this the current fragmented policy approach for science and technology and the monitoring of innovation outcomes that is split across many levels and portfolios of government needs to improve. For this the chief scientist proposes the implementation of his long-term strategy with progress measured by periodic reports.
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The initiative broadly aims to :
build competitiveness;
support high quality education and training;
maximise research potential;
and
strengthen international engagement.
The report also takes aim at the often claimed superior performance of Australia's research base, which is said to'punch above its weight', but in reality is outperformed by many of the most innovative countries in the OECD. Worse still, there is not enough in innovative output materialising from the produced knowledge.
There is considerable investment in STEM but to maximise its returns individual actions would have to be:
aligned to clearly articulated national goals;
focussed on priority areas where we have comparative advantage or critical need;
scaled appropriately to achieve far-reaching and enduring change.
Global progress relies on a continuous flow of new ideas and their application, and Australia's STEM pracitioners need Government support and long-term ambitions and direction, certainty for investors and positive signals for students to successfully participate int his process.
Public investment in large-scale research infrastructure and basic research does not crowd out private activity but lowers the risk for investors
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And through the development of strategic research priorities currently developed (in fact, the chief scientist did released Strategic Research Prirorities in 2013 under the previous Government) a proportion of research investment should go into areas of identified national importance.
Improving international engagement is an important targets of the strategy, for example through a proposed fund that supports international collaboration through fostering strong government-to-government linkages, with a focus on establishing an Asian Area Research Zone. STEM engagement could also be leveraged by providing a framework for science diplomacy as a tool in Australian diplomacy.
But the primary concern of the paper is that the current lack of a coherent national strategy for science, technology and innovation had negative flow on effects for our businesses, with Australia recently ranked 81st out of 143 nations (Global Innovation Index, Cornell Univeristy 2014) in its capacity to produce innovative outputs such as new knowledge, better products, creative industries and growing wealth.
Just 1.5% of Australian firms produced new to the world innovations in 2011, compared to 10-40% in other OECD countries. Australian businesses are less engaging with research organisations, with large business and small-medium sized businesses ranking 28th and 27th, respectively, on business to research collaboration in the OECD.
The report notes a culture of risk aversion and inward focus in the nation's businesses, with little recognition for the value of scientists as employees. Only 30% of Australian researchers work in industry, which is just about half the average across OECD countries.
The chief scientist wants Australian Governments to address this through mechanisms that lift the uptake of STEM across the workforce, but especially in businesses, and also to encourage greater participation of women and marginalised sections of society such as Indigenous students. Assistance programmes raising awareness and use of STEM capabilities, and the teaching of commercialisation skills in research training programmes are among the suggested initiatives that could help increase the share of scientists in the business workforce.
Cultural deficits around entrepreneurship also includes a comparably poor collaborative culture. The paper notes that through encouraging more collaboration businesses could find a way to potentially spread risk, access new markets, stimulate investment in Australian R&D and stay informed about global technology trends.
And as intellectual property issues are frequently cited barriers to collaboration, Austalia needs a flexible IP framework with capabilities such as open access regimes and agile use of patent and technology transfer strategies.
The chief scientist recommends to encourage an entrepreneurial culture through measures such as targeted university courses, or by facilitating new ways of equity funding and the inclusion of innovation and entrepreneurship into mainstream school curicula and assessments.
Many of the paper's recommendations are based on intiatives in other countries, such as the United Kingdom's Technology Strategy Board, which through a single body approach concentrates investments in areas most likely to produce economic outcomes.
Another example is the US Government's Small Business Innovation Research Programme, which makes the US Government the biggest venture capital funder in the world. This, the chief scientist proposes, could be drawn upon to establish a national scheme that fosters growth in Australian SMEs. There should also be mechanisms in place, including services under the Government's Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme, that link industry to STEM capabilities, and incentives for bringing ideas to global markets.
The chief scientist proposes an Australian Innovation Board, a single agency that is to draw together existing Australian programmes to better coordinate and drive business innovation.
Among its responsibilities would be to identify and support innovation priorities, the establishment of new models for collaboration, and supporting innovations by local companies.
While business is most important for creating marketable outcomes from research, the chief scientist emphasises that optimal returns on STEM investments are made when the whole spectrum of research - from basic to applied - is fully supported.
The culturual issues around Australia's STEM capacity extend to the broader society, though, and the chief scientist proposes avenues for better communication between those practicing in STEM fields and the community.
Changes across all levels of the education system are needed to lift the general level of STEM literacy. Thus, curricula and assessement criteria should be used, from primary to tertiary level, to promote the development of long-lasting STEM skills. This will also be required to establish a reliable pipeline of a STEM skilled workforce and businesses should be more engaged in this process to ensure that STEM graduates are aligned with actual workforce needs.
The Government will also have to address the current shortage in qualified teachers, and incentives should be given to increase the attractiveness of STEM teaching careers.
The Industry Growth Centres are a key component of the Australian Government's Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda and assist business in selected areas of the economy.
The industry-led initiative, which is based on similar examples overseas such as the US Small Business Administration's Regional Cluster Initiative and the UK's Catapult Centres, will primarily focus on the poor collaboration record of Australia's industry sector: Australia ranked last out of 33 selected OECD countries in the proportion of its businesses collaborating with reseach insitutions on innovation in 2013.
This is believed to be a major impediment to Australia's innovation output, and will also be a major issue to be considered by the newly established Commonwealth Science Council (for details see
Repository of scitech wisdom).
Industry Growth Centres are expected to:
develop priority actions for improving competitiveness in their sector;
assist in improving the regulatory environment;
assist the formation of commercial partnerships;
enhance industry capabilities, such as their ability to enter global value chains and improving workforce skills
inform the research sector of industry needs and commercialisation opportunities.
The Government will invest a total of $188.5 million in initially five Industry Growth Centres targeting industries in which Australia is presumed to be especially competitive:
food and agribusiness;
mining equipment, technology and services;
oil, gas and energy resources;
medical technologies and pharmaceuticals; and
advanced manufacturing sectors.
Following a staged rollout from 2015, the centres will run as not-for-profit organisations and each receive funding of $3.5 million per year, although they are expected to become self-sustaining after a four year period. If successful, the Government will extend the programme and seek to establish further centres.
The Government will also provide $60 million for grants delivered under the new $484.2 million Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme for the commercialisation of promising ideas. Individual grants of up to $1 million will be offered but will need to be matched by the company.
The announcement of the Industry Growth Centres, which have similar objectives to the ceased Innovation Precincts program initiated by the previous government, received a mixed response.
According to an article by Louise Yaxley, published on the ABC news website, Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said that some of the existing ARC Centres of Excellence could be replaced with the Growth Centres, and the initiative may also affect Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) programme.
More information: http://minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/macfarlane
The Australian Government's complemented the release of its new Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda with a new discussion paper, Boosting the Commercial Returns from Research, through which it aims to achieve better returns from its R&D investments. Submissions closed 28 November 2014.
The discussion paper cites recently released global assessments, including the Global Innovation Index (GII), which suggest that Australia has problems in capitalising on its relative research strength...read full story
14 October 2014 - With its Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda (IICA) the Australian Government has delivered an overarching plan that is embedded in a broader economic agenda and proposes initiatives that touch on aspects of industry, science and research, as well as education and broader social policy areas.
While the often used description of an 'innovation system' is not spelled out in the document, it nevertheless encapsulates the sense of the term by highlighting the numerous factors that determine the success of R&D and innovation, and ultimately drive economic prosperity and competitiveness.
Its broader objectives overlap with many of the former Governments 'Powering Ideas' innovation agenda, although it differs markedly in its scope and emphasis.
The IICA's four overarching ambitions are:
less regulation, lower taxes and more competitive markets;
a more skilled workforce;
better economic infrastructure; and
industry policy that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship.
Key initiatives include:
changes to the Employee Share Shemes, including the restore arrangements in place prior 2009;
a reform of the vocational education and training system;
the acceptance of international standards and risk assessments for certain product approvals;
an enhanced 457 and investor visa programmes.
As expressed by its title, the agenda has a strong focus on industry policy, with the aim to drive innovation and entrepreneurship while reducing industry dependence on government 'handouts'. Through this the Government intends to stimulate better commercial returns for its investment in science and research (at present around $9 billion per year).
Many of the policies supporting the agenda have previously been announced. They include the $484 million
Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme and the $476 million
Industry Skills Fund, which are to be delivered in a streamlined
Single Business Service approach through www.business.gov.au. The programmes will take on some of the functions of previous separate industry programmes such as Commercialisation Australia, the Innovation Investment Fund and Industry Innovation Councils and ten skills and training programmes. Their closure was announced in the 2014-15 federal budget and provided the Government with substantial overall savings (see 'From clever back to lucky' .
Nurtured success
The $482.2 million over five years Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Programme announced in the 2014 federal budget is taking shape, with a phased delivery of services having commenced in July 2014...read full story
Together, this set of programmes is meant to provide mechanisms that will facilitate a better supply of skills and improve collaboration between industry and research organisations.
The IICA also includes $188.5 million for the establishment of Industry Growth Centres, which will have similar objectives to the previous Government's proposed Innovation Precincts. However, they potentially also overlap with the ARC Centre of Excellence program and the Corporate Research Centre program (see insert 'Growthly innovative' for more details).
Growthly innovative
The Industry Growth Centres are a key component of the Australian Government's Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda and will assist business in selected areas of the economy.
The prime objective of the industry-led initiative is to strengthen collaboration between industry and research organisations. The Government will invest a total of $188.5 million in initially five Industry Growth Centres
...read full story
Issues around taxation and government regulation take up a considerable part of the agenda. The Government intends to improve the business environment by reducing red (and green) tape including through the previously proposed One-Stop Shop system for environmental approvals.
And in a new policy initiative Australian regulators will be directed to not impose additional requirements on the approval of products or services that have already passed trusted international standard and risk assessment processes. Exceptions would then require a demonstrated good reason.
While broader changes to business taxation are expected to result from a White Paper on the Reform of Australia's Tax System, the Government has proposed to improve the tax system treatment of employee share schemes (ESS) from 1 July 2015, at a cost of $200 million. These schemes provide incentives for employees through shares or share options in the company they work in, and the paper refers to studies which show that such ownership schemes can improve workforce productivity. The proposed changes include that options would not be taxed anymore at the point of being received but at the point of being actually converted to shares by the employee, as was the case prior to legislative amendments in 2009. The move is expected to especially benefit smaller firms and start-ups, which also will benefit from other changes to the ESS arrangements.
There is also a pledge to increase domestic and international competition. In addition to pursuing free trade agreements, such as with Japan, South Korea and China, the Government is proposing to develop a 'trusted trader' programme through which customs procedures could be streamlined for 'trusted' exporteurs.
It may here be noted that a Competition Policy Review is currently underway, with a draft report released on 22 September 2014. It is likely that its final report on will result in further regulatory changes.
Access to a skilled labour force has been a consistent barrier to innovation in businesses, and several initiatives in the agenda are targeted towards addressing this. The Government has previously announced measures such as the $439 million over five years Trade Support Loans programme supporting apprentices, and also the $476 million over four years Industry Skills Fund, which will become effective from 1 January 2015 to support especially small and medium sized businesses in their training needs. As we detail in an accompanying piece on Australia's innovation (Of leaders and laggers), these smaller firms often lack managerial capacity and access to skills necessary for them to benefit from innovation opportunities. As with the Industry Growth Centres, the Industry Skills Fund will also prioritise certain areas of the economy in which Australia is more competitive or has special advantages (see 'Growthly innovative'.
The Government has now also announced that it will invest an additional $12 million in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The move was welcomed by chief scientist Professor Ian Chubb as it follows on from his recommendations in his STEM Strategy Paper.
Hurray, a plan!
2 September 2014 - Australia's chief scientist Professor Ian Chubb has released a proposal for a national strategy for science and technology for Australia, through which Australia could lift its capacity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
...read full story
In addition, the Government intends to facilitate better access to skills provided from outside the country, through changes to the 457 visa programme and the Significant Investor visa programme, following recommendations by the Review of the Integrity of the 457 Programme.
The paper foreshadows that other observations and recommendations made by the chief scientist will find consideration, including through the work of the newly established Commonwealth Science Council (see story Repository of scitech wisdom. This includes further policy changes to provide greater incentives for collaboration between research and industry, and the promotion of intellectual property arrangements that facilitate rather than hinder collaboration and commercialisation efforts.
As part of its Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda, the Australian Government has transformed the Prime Minister's Prime Ministers Science and Engineering Council into a new advisory body, the Commonwealth Science Council.
Chaired by the Prime Minister, the council will advise the Government
on areas of national strength, current and future capability, and ways to improve the connections between government, research organsiations, universities and business.
In addition to standing members the Minister for Industry (the deputy chair), Education and Health, and the chief scientist, the council will include five scientists, researchers and educators and five
business leaders.
The Australian Government's complemented the release of its new Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda with a new discussion paper, Boosting the Commercial Returns from Research,
through which the Government seeks to consult with stakeholders on how to achieve better returns from its R&D investments (submissions closed 28 November 2014.
The discussion paper refers to recently released global assessments, including the Global Innovation Index (GII), which suggest that Australia has problems in capitalising on its relative research strength. In 2013, Australia contributed 3.85% of the world's research publications with 0.3% of the world's population, which ranked it 9th in the OECD. It is also relatively competitive in input factors, ranking for example 11th out of 34 OECD countries based on its gross R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP.
Key government investments supporting public and private R&D include in 2014-15:
$2.7 billion for competitive research grants and other research support;
$1.9 billion through performance based block funding;
$2.4 billion for the R&D Tax Incentive; and
$1.8 billion for Australian government research activities.
Additional announced initiatives include $150 million for extending the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and (subject to yet to be secured funding) a new Medical Research Fund with a targeted capitalisation of $20 billion by 2020.
But the GII ranked its innovation efficiency as just 81st out of 143 assessed countries (see story 'Of laggers and leaders' for details).
One of the major factors behind this is believed to be the low proportion of businesses that collaborate with higher education and public research institutions on innovation: In the OECD, Australian large businesses rank 29th and its small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) rank 30th against this indicator. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics report Innovation in Australian Business 2012-13 , just 3% of Australian innovation-active businesses sourced their ideas from higher education institutions, and 9.7% reported collaborative arrangements with higher education institutions.
There could be a role for intermediaries to help connect research and business in Australia, similar to the German Frauenhofer Institutes and the UK's Technology Strategy Board and Catapult Centres.
Other indicators highlighting the poor transfer of knowledge from publicly funded research to the private sector include:
Australia has a comparably low proportion of researchers working in business, with around 60% working in higher education (compared to just 30% in Germany, Canada and Sweden;
Australia ranks 23rd out of 32 OECD countries on the percentage of total research publications that are co-authored by industry and the research sector;
Australia ranks second last of 17 OECD countries on new-to-the-world innovation.
Australian public research organisations that strongly promote collaboration with industry include:
the CSIRO, which works with around 3,000 clients each year, incuding more than 20% of the ASX top 200 companies and 1300 SMEs; and
the Cooperative Research Centres, which link researchers with business and other end users across a range of sectors.
But there are also significant road blocks hindering the direct flow of public research into the business world, which, for example, is highlighted by Australia ranking lower than the US, Europe, Canada and the UK in the number of public research spin-off companies. The discussion paper links this to a generally lower entrepreneurial culture within research organisations.
The Government argues that incentives for the commercialisation of publicly funded research need to shift, including through adjustments in grant funding mechanisms. Also relevant will be to articulate national priorities of research that focus Australian research efforts on areas of comparable strength or national importance. Indeed, many innovation leaders have developed such targeted strategies. For example, Germany established a High-Tech Strategy 2020 that directs research resources towards the areas climate/energy, health/nutrition, transport, safety and communication.
Australian universities are at present strongly focussed on academic excellence, and outside of the health and medical research area there is little researcher mobility between public and private research organisations. The lacking focus on industry is also reflected in PhD programmes that place limited focus on industry relevant skills.
As industry experience and the solving of industry problems are not generally part of the metrics demonstrating academic exellence, researchers often face an opportunity cost if they spend more time on enrepreneurial activities. And there are also potential disincentives for researchers to embark on commercial activities as universities generally assert their ownership of IP created by their staff members. By contrast, revenue sharing arrangements could provide better financial incentives for researches. The paper mentions a scheme at the University of Cambridge, which developed an IP licensing arrangement under which net income for the first 100,000 pounds is directed to the researchers at a rate of 90%.
Key initiatives and discussion points through which the Government seeks to address Australia's innovation weakness include:
the Commonwealth Science Council established to advice on important science and technology issues facing Australia (see Repository of sci-tech wisdom;
the development of 'national priorities for research' that align areas of national research excellence with Australia's industrial strenghts.
changes to competitive research grants and research block grant arrangements to achieve greater focus on industry and end-user engagement.
leveraging of more collaboration between public research and industry;
adjustments to the R&D Tax Incentive to encourage research-industry collaboration;
the development of a roadmap for long-term research infrastructure investment and strengthening the existing focus of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Sheme (NCRIS) on outreach to researchers and industry;
a range of initiatives relating to intellectual property (IP), which will be supported through the release of an IP toolkit and include the strengthening of IP guidelines for researchers, the examination of a potential to link research funding to the dissemination of IP, and the establishment of an online point of access to commercially-relevant research for business
increases of industry relevant research training option, including the recognition of PhD candidates with existing industry experience.
Adding another perspective to this is the German Innovation Indicator, which is conducted by a consortium of reputable European research organisations led by the German Frauenhofer ISI.
Released as a report and in form of an interactive web-based tool it compares the innovation capacity of a selected group of now 35 of the most advanced economies. These are assessed across 38 indicators which fall into five subcategories: economy, science, education, governance and society.
While having an overall focus on Germany's innovative capacity, it is an exhaustive interactive web-based tool that complements the GCI and GII reports. This is also because it differs in the methodology in how innovation capacity is assessed, and the weight that is given to certain indicators.
Nevertheless, the latest 2014 edition of the Innovation Indicator corresponds with the GCI and GII in three of the five top ranked countries (Switzerland, Singapore and Finland), and in each case Switzerland is heading the list. And similar to the GCI and the GII, the Innovation Indicator ranked Australia's economy 17th out of 35 countries.
Here more of interest, though, is how the Innovation Indicator assesses Australia's innovative capacity against other economies across certain categories or subsystems, which comprise industry, state, science and research, society and education. Each category represents aggregates of certain relevant indicators, of which some contribute to several of the subsystems.
For the purpose of this article we determined for each category Australia's score as a percentage of the average score of the top ten countries. The graphic representation of this analysis reinforces the view that Australia has comparable advantages through its education system, ranked 7th, although, as in the GCI assessment, its maths and science education was rated lower, ranked 16th. Its society, which includes the public's generally positive attitude towards new technologies, is also rated highly - ranked 3rd.
However, Australia significantly lags in the three other major categories, and this includes the area of science where we often are said to be 'punching above our weight'. On the positive side, Australia ranked 6th in the number of scientific articles (covered by the Scientific Citation Index, SCI) published relative to the size of our population, and the country's share among the top 10% of most highly cited publications also ranked highly (8th, as did the quality of our research institutions (8th).
However, Australia was only 18th in the number of publications that were part of an international collaboration, and 18th in the field-specific impact of its published material, a measure that takes into account how often work is cited by other researchers in the field.
Notably, though, Australia was ranked 14th in the number of patents per capita stemming from public research, suggesting that Australian research is less focussed on potential commercial applications as is the case for many of our competitors.
Some elements of government activities, analysed under the State category, are less conducive to innovation than in the best performing countries. This includes the demand for advanced technological innovations through government organisations (rank 21) but also relate to government investments in public education and skills development.
After changing the overall strategy of the National Broadband Network (NBN) project earlier in 2014, the Australian Government is taking steps towards a broader reform of the telecommunications sector. In December 2014, it released a policy paper detailing a new regulatory environment for
NBN Co, the company tasked with the NBN project, and its market competitors.
In 2013, the Australian Governemnt commissioned an 'independent' review of the NBN project. Named after its chair Dr Michael Vertigan, the Vertigan review produced three reports:
the Statutory Review of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, released in July 2014;
the Cost-Benefit Analysis of Broadband, released in August 2014; and
the NBN Market and Regulation Report, released in October 2014, which deals with the overall structure and regulatory framework for Australia's future broadband market.
In this the Government took up recommendations from the Vertigan review, which produced three major reports on different aspects related to the NBN, including the first cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of the project.
Broadly beneficial
The Vertigan review's CBA broadly supports the Government's decision to walk away from delivering fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) technology to 93% of Australian households and instead pursue the multi-technology mix (MTM) approach proposed in NBN Co's 2013 Strategic Review (read here for details).
The Government's MTM approach aims for a flexible deployment of high-speed (at least 25Mbps) broadband technology to all Australian premises by 2020. A range of technologies will be considered and delivered in urban, rural and remote Australian areas based on economic considerations.
The option of free access to fibre-to-the-premise infrastructure remains in areas already serviced at the time of the strategy change. The remainder of households and businesses will now be covered with a range of technologies, including fibre-to-the-node and related fibre-based technologies (fibre-to-the-basement (FTTB) and fibre-to-the-distribution point (FTTDp, hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) cable, fixed wireless and satellite. Compared to FTTP, the deployment of these technologies will be less costly and will potentially make use of existing infrastructure.
By 2019, around 90% of premises within the fixed-line footprint are expected to have access to broadband with download speeds of at least 50Mbs.
The plan contrasts with the previous Government's strategy which aimed for a most equitable nation-wide broadband network with the best, but also most costly technology available. The delivery of fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) technology to 93% of Australian premises was to provide download speeds of 100Mbs, while the remaining 7% of premises were to be covered with fixed wireless and satellite technologies. The project was to be completed by 2021, although NBN Co's 2013 Strategic Review indicated a delay by three years to 2024.
The CBA draws on NBN Co's financial analysis but broadens its scope to economic benefits for the entire community.
Its key conclusion is that nationwide access to high-speed broadband could deliver total benefits in excess of $40 billion.
Friendly takeover
December 2014 - New agreements NBN Co struck with Telstra and Optus are expected to speed up the completion of the NBN project and reduce overall costs of the rollout through the use of the telecommunication companies' copper and HFC cable infrastructure.
...read more
Factoring in project costs, the net benefits for society were found to be positive for both the FTTP-focussed strategy and the MTM approach, if compared to a theoretical scenario that assumes a stop to the current rollout of high-speed broadband network with no further investments in high-speed broadband infrastructure. However, while the net benefits with MTM were estimated at $17.8 billion, the previous FTTP-focussed strategy may have delivered only $1.8 billion. The gap of $16.1 billion are a result of the assumed faster delivery of the MTM technology and lower upfront investment.
This conclusion assumes that around 72% of investment costs in a 'FTTP only' fixed network would not be matched by corresponding benefits, a conclusion that is based on complementing research on future broadband demand.
Interestingly, though, the review report details a scenario of an unsubsidised rollout of high-speed broadband by private operators, which would not reach the 7% of premises located in commercially less attractive urban fringes and rural/remote areas. Nevertheless, the net economic and social benefits compared to the scenario of a stop to the rollout were estimated at $24 billion. Thus the politically preferred option of connecting all Australians with high-speed broadband will come at a net cost of around $6 billion.
The CBA relies on estimates how future bandwidth demand by Australian households will unfold. The expert panel acknowledges that predicting the willingness of households - and where applicable businesses - to pay for high-speed broadband is a key uncertainty. But it believes that the FTTP focussed rollout was particularly vulnerable as it was locked in on the expectation that demand for high-speed broadband would rapidly grow. The MTM approach avoids the sunk costs associated with the FTTP deployment and thus is more 'future proof', also as it could be upgraded at a later date (However, the review report does not mention the potentially arising inequities as households would have to pay for the upgrade themselves, while the upgradability of the connection would depend on the technology deployed in their area).
Independent research, commissioned by the review, suggests that demand for bandwidth and download speed will be slower than assumed in the original NBN planning. It also suggests that at this point in time households would be prepared to pay more for additional download speeds at the lower end of the spectrum than for higher speed brackets. Thus consumers on broadband with download speeds between 1Mbs and 5Mbs were found to value an additional Mbps at $1.50/month, but only 70 cents/month when connected with download speeds of 50 Mbps, and those connected with 90Mbs were not prepared to pay more for additional speed. And a survey by the University of South Australia indicates that at present households favour faster access to better broadband than a delayed delivery of broadband at even higher speeds.
Obviously, though, this could change rapidly as new, more bandwidth-demanding applications become available.
Nevertheless, the review revealed that net benefits of the multi-technology option, with the possibilty of future upgrades, would be greater than with the FTTP scenario even if consumer demand did grow four to five times faster than currently predicted. In fact, the CBA analysis considered a broad spectrum of possible future scenarios and found that the MTM NBN outperformed the FTTP centred approach in 98% of their simulations, and assuming it is upgraded to FTTP as sufficient consumer demand emerges, the MTM network outperformed FTTP network in 100% of simulations.
It's the competition, stupid
The structural and regulatory framework in which NBN Co and competing broadband network providers are operating is also up for significant change.
In December 2014, the Government released two policy papers in which it sets out its plan to reform the telecommunication sector. They include:
The proposed changes are based on recommendations made by the Vertigan review's NBN Market and Regulation Report, which encompassed industry structure, infrastructure-level competition, service provision and market regulation.
The panel did not overtly criticise the decision of tasking a government-owned company, NBN Co, with the deployment and operation of a high-speed broadband network on a wholesale-only basis. However, it set the tone by describing the NBN project as "highly unusual" among comparable countries in that it establishes a de facto, structurally separated, network monopoly and is reverting to government ownership and taxpayer funded telecommunications infrastructure.
Thus the panel's view is that "relying on NBN Co as an integrated entity to be the principal means of delivering those services is deeply problematic". And in light of NBN Co's current shift towards an MTM rollout, the company's current control over the full spectrum of these technologies bears 'unacceptable risks' for consumers by inhibiting competition and effective regulation.
The review recommendations include major structural changes to NBN Co, including the disaggregation of the company into competing business units that would result in roughly equally matched networks
However, while not ruling out such a restructuring in the future, the Government does not intend to pursue this during the project's implementation, because of its high estimated costs and the negative impact this could have on the rollout.
The Government says it has three overarching principles for its changes to the regulatory regime, which it describes as 'a very significant shift from the current model':
regulation should allow competition at both the retail and wholesale/infrastructure levels;
to the greatest extent possible, industry players should be treated consistently under the regulatory framework; and
new high-speed broadband access networks should be vertically separated.
But it will take up other recommendations of the Vertigan Review, with the aim to provide a more competitive regulatory framework and to make NBN Co more 'competition ready'.
In particular, the Government plans target the 'unsustainable' model under which NBN Co receives competitive protections in commercially attractive areas for it to be able to cross subsidise its substantial non-commercial serices in urban fringes and rural/remote communities. The costs for the cross-subsidies are currently embedded in the NBN Co's wholesale access prices, and the Government will task the Bureau of Communications Research to assess potentially more transparent funding arrangements.
Key regulatory changes in brief:
Transition period 2015-16:
Effective from 1 January 2015, new carrier license conditions will require providers of high-speed broadband networks to provide services to residential customers on a functionally separated basis.
NBN Co will adopt a wholesale price cap model with flexibility to adjust prices on a non-uniform basis. The price caps for urban or regional areas would be retained at levels approved by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The Bureau of Communications Research will assess the costs of NBN Co's fixed wireless and satellite services and provide options for replacing the current cross-subsidy arrangements.
To facilitate a possible restructure or disaggregation following the completed rollout, NBN Co will be required to maintain separate accounts for its satellite, fixed wireless, FTTX, HFC and transit network.
New regulatory framework from 1 January 2015:
A structural separation of new high-speed fixed line broadband networks will become the default regulatory position.
Competitively neutral arrangements will be established for the funding of the NBN's non-commercial fixed wireless and satellite services.
Legislation will be introduced requiring NBN Co to operate as the broadband infrastructure provider of last resort.
It also wants NBN Co to replace the current uniform wholesale prices with price caps, as this could provide scope for reduced offerings in some of the more competitive urban markets.
A further issue raised by the Vertigan review concerns new housing developments. At present NBN Co delivers its broadband infrastructure free of charge, which the company funds through internal cross-subsidies. The Vertigan review panel noted this as an unfair advantage over private sector infrastructure deployment companies.
The Government proposes a new policy to take effect in March, under which developers and home-owners of new developments would be required to meet some of the costs for broadband infrastructure upfront. However, the cost recovery will be capped to prevent material impact on housing affordability. The NBN Co will also trial alternative models to recover infrastructure costs, as was promised in the 2013 election.
These and other proposed new measures, such as a new two-year carrier license requiring high-speed broadband providers to be functionally separated in their network and retail operations, are to be implemented during a transition period (2015-16). The structural separation will then become a default requirement with the start of the new regulatory framework on 1 January 2017. The Government will then also seek to legislate NBN Co as the telecommunications infrastructure provider of last resort.
December 2014 - New agreements NBN Co struck with Telstra and Optus are expected to speed up the completion of the NBN project and reduce overall costs of the rollout through the use of the telecommunication companies' copper and HFC cable infrastructure.
The amendments to the Definitive Agreements with Telstra from June 2011 are still subject to a number of Conditions Precedent, including the approval of Telstra's revised Migration Plan by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The new deal with Telstra maintains Telstra's original value estimate of its infrastructure ($11.2 billion).
According to a statement from Telstra, the main change is that Telstra is no more required to progressively disconnect all premises from its copper and HFC broadband networks. If used for NBN services, Telstra will instead transfer ownership, including the operational and maintenance responsibilities, for its copper and HFC infrastructure to NBN Co. And Telstra will keep access to the HFC assets to deliver Foxtel pay TV services.
A similar agreement was reached with Optus, which will also, where applicable, progressively transfer ownership of its HFC network to NBN Co. The amendments to the original agreement between NBN Co and Optus from June 2011 are also subject to approval by the ACCC.
The amendments to bot deals with Telstra and Optus will not lead extra costs to the taxpayer, but will allow NBN Co use of existing infrastructure in the NBN rollout.
There are also separate negotiations under way to include Telstra and other parties in the planning, design, construction and maintenance services, with NBN Co potentially benefitting from Telstra expertise and capabilities.
3- December 2014 - The demand for data and content from internet sources is continuing to rapidly increase , while growth in the number of Australians having a home internet connection has stabilised at 14.7 million (81%) as of June 2014.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), tabled a Communications report 2013–14 in Parliament in December, details that in 2013-14 fixed-line data downloads leapt 53% from the previous year's levels. Mobile handset downloads surged by 97%, but data downloaded via fixed-line services still accounted for 93% of all data downloaded in 2013-2014.
Click image to enlarge - Growth in number of adults over 18 years ('000s) with a mobile phone and no fixed-line telephone.
infographic: ACMA/Roy Morgan
Seven out of 10 Australians own three or more different devices to connect to the internet, also reflected in a growing popularity of portable devices: 76% of connections were made with mobile phones, followed by laptop comptuters (74%), desktop computers (67%) and tablet computers (54%).
There is also a growing number of Australians who have 'cut the cord' and use only mobile phones. Around half of the 25- to 34-year-olds follow this trend, which has resulted in a continued decline of fixed-line telephone connections, decreasing in 2013-14 by 2% to 9.19 million services.
The accelerated use of the internet in the daily life of Australians is also driving the economic value of transactions on the net. Revenue from the sale of goods and services by businesses operating in Australia reached $246 billion during 2012-13, a $10 billion (4%) increase, while expenditure on online advertising grew during 2013-14 by 19% to total $3.99 billion, accounting for 30% of media advertising expenditure in 2013-14 compared to 20% in 2011-12.
10 December 2014 - A snapshot of the changing face of Australia's industry highlights the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for Australia's economy.
The inaugural Australian Industry Report 2014 by the Chief Economist's office shows there are risks outside our control, such as a potential 'hard landing' of China's economy and, "possibly the greatest risk", unsustainable debt levels in developed countries. Trade-exposed industries also suffer under the persistenly high dollar, and the increasing competition from low wage countries.
But as our terms of trade are expected to fall, there will be downward pressure on the dollar, and productivity should pick up as the Mining boom enters the less capital intensive production phase. In addition, Australia's flexibility in the labour market should help businesses as market conditions are softening.
Today, Australia is a $1.6 trillion economy, with over 11.5 million people employed and more than 2 million actively trading businesses, which are in constant flux, with 239,000 businesses entering and 301,000 exiting the market in 2012-13.
But Australia is still in the phase of transitioning into a knowledge based economy, with employment growth trending towards higher skilled occupations. While this benefits individuals with higher levels of education, they are not immune from potential negative impacts of technological progress. For example, the emergence of advanced robotics may affect jobs at all skill levels, including medical doctors.
The report recounts the ongoing structural change that saw Australia evolve from a pre-industrial economy dominated by Agriculture in the 19th Century, then contributing 30% to gross domestic product (GDP), to being driven by Manufacturing in the 1960s, when the industry provided one in four jobs. As the economy modernised, with improved processes and investment in better equipment, employment in Manufacturing decreased.
In line with the general trend in the OECD, the Services Industry now creates most of the work in Australia, and is contributing two thirds of the nation's GDP.
These changes reflect a 'typical' progression of economies and are to a large degree a response to technological advances - for which the emergence of robotics is just one example. Other factors include globalisation, and changes in policy. But the report also notes trends in the preferences of Australian consumers, who over the past 50 odd years have steadily spent less on goods and more on services as a percentage of their disposable household incomes.
In Australia's case, the extend of the shift away from Manufacturing towards Services is similar to other commodity exporting countries (New Zealand and Canada).
Click image to enlarge; Shares of output of selected industries
While the decline of Manufacturing and also Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing is a long term trend, it has accelerated since 2003-04, and this can be attributed to the expansion of Mining. Overall, Australia has displayed some symptoms of 'Dutch Disease', named after the decline of Dutch manufacturing after the discovery of North Sea natural gas reserves in the 1960s.
There are concerns that the shift from Manufacturing towards Services could hamper productivity growth. According to the report, these concerns are warranted, although they do not take into account the emergence of 'modern services'. For example, activities such as financial services, engineering, architecture and consulting can trade digitally stored services, similar to manufactured goods.
Another major driver of structural change is Australia's ageing population. The Health Care & Social Assistance industry has seen strong growth reflecting the increasing demand for health services. And the industry's growth in employment has more than accounted for the losses experienced in other industries.
But the Health Care & Social Assistance industry is heavily government subsidised, which could pose a problem for future budgets. On the upside, markets such as China may age even faster than Australia, presenting opportunities for the industry.
In any case, the shift from Manufacturing and Agriculture to Social and Business services is likely to continue at least for the next few decades.
The recent fall in Mining investment with the dollar still trading high has caused pain in some areas of the economy, although an expected decline in the terms of trade will put significant downward pressure on the dollar. There are also positive signs that multifactor productivity will improve as the capital intensive investment phase of the Mining boom transitions to the production phase.
Policy initiatives, such as new trade alliances, influence strutural change in the economy. The report also provides a domestic example, predicting that the removal of carbon pricing, in conjunction with rising gas prices, will see significant gas powered generation capacity displaced by cheaper coal generation for base load electricity generation.
A recent major initiative is the Government's Industry Innovation and Competition Agenda, which includes the establishment of Industry Growth Centres. These will target five selected sectors which were selected as the most promising for Australia's economic future (see also our dossier 'How to reinvent a country':
Food and Agribusiness - the sector has around 182,000 actively trading businesses (June 2013), employing 527,000 persons, and generating $58.3 billion in output in 2013-14...read more
Mining Equipment, Technology and Services - the very diverse sector has an estimated 104,000 mainly smaller firms, employing 386,000 persons, and generating an output of around $65.4 billion in 2012-13...read more
Oil, Gas and Energy Resources - with growing energy demand from Asia, Australia is well placed to benefit from its natural endowment with resources. Characterised by high capital intensity (32.9%), the sector employs around 128,000 and generated an output of $53.9 billion in 2013-14, and export revenue of $43.0 billion in 2012-13...read more
Advanced Manufacturing - the sector includes a wide range of firms that manufacture high complexity, high specificity and high value goods, or add value to a product and hence often take part in global value and supply chains...read more
Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals - while Australia is a net importer of medical and pharmaceutical products (and the gap is widening), Australia has a competitive edge in this area because of its strong medical research base...read more
The report's general findings support the view that these sectors should receive special attention because they play to Australia's competitive advantage. It also emphasises that facilitating structural change, rather than resisiting it, is likely to pay economic dividends in the long-run.
As of June 2013, the five sectors together comprised 309,000 actively trading businesses, around 15% of the total business population in Australia. And in 2013-14, they accounted for 16% of total industry Gross Value Added (GVA) and 11.6% of total employment.
In 2011-12, they jointly contributed around 36% of business expenditure on R&D, while their share in the value of exports was around 26%.
And the report found that the survival rate of firms in these sectors is generally much higher than the national average.
However, there are stark differences in performance and structure.
In 2013-14, for example, the five sectors had a combined labour productivity of $81.30, much higher than the $69.20 for industry overall. However, labour productivity in the Oil, Gas & Energy Resources sector was $203.20 per hour, the next strongest performer, Mining Equipment, Technology & Services, achieved $87.30, while Food & Agribusiness and Advanced Manufacturing performed below the industry average.
In its analysis, the report also exposes interesting general characteristics of the Australian economy and how it is embedded into the world.
Driven by globalisation, economies are increasingly participating in global value chains (GVCs) as they either provide inputs into other the exports of other countries (forward participation) or use foreign inputs for their own exported products (backward participation). Because of the high share of raw materials in its exports, Australia's forward participation is with 31.3% significantly higher than the average for other OECD countries (23.5%). By contrast, it is the second lowest in the OECD in backward participation - only 12.5% of Australian exports were generated using foreign inputs.
International trade has become more important, with globalisation and the falls of tariffs and subsidies, and within the past two decades it increased its share in Australian GDP from around 25% to 47%. The downside to this is that the Australian economy is now more exposed to international shocks.
China has become our major trading partner. But if taking into account global value chains, that is the trade in value added, the EU comes still first (19.5% EU vs 15.4% China). Nevertheless, the linkages formed with China are increasing, as exports of goods and services grew by an average of 22.5% in the five years to 2013, with half of this growth on account of iron ores and concentrates. But our export have become more complex. China's demand for our raw materials is expected to remain high, but we also export services to China, and these have grown by a yearly average of 8.9% in the 5 years to 2013. Since 2010, China is now our largest export destination for services.
The US and the UK are still by far the dominant sources of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Australia, but China has emerged as a significant contributor, with now 3.5% of the total FDI stock in the nation. Most of the Chinese inward FDI (84.6% in 2012) is in the Mining and Gas industries, while contrary to popular belief only 1% was in Australian agricultural farming and agribusiness sectors.
The Mining investment boom is set to peter out: in 2013-14, investment fell by 8.2% and is anticipated to decline further going forward. But Mining projects continue to generate significant revenue - the sector's value added increased in volume by 9.5% in 2013-14 to reach $131.8 billion (in current prices) as Iron Ore mining grew by 22%. The problem is that in the production phase project's, most of which are run by foreign-owned companies, are expected to contribute less to GDP growth than they have in the past.
In fact, the share of Mining in Australia's GDP is with 8.3% still relatively small, on par with the Financial & Services, which contributed 8.4% to GDP in 2013-14 and is still growing strongly, by 5.3% in 2013-14. However, structural change driving this growth is exposed to short-term volatility strongly linked to investor confidence.
A slightly smaller share (6.4%) of GDP is now attributed to Manufacturing, which was hardest hit by the effects of Australia becoming less competitive than a decade ago. However, the sector is actually increasing its output, just less than other parts of the economy, thus setting the pace of the economy's structural change.
2 December 2014 - With another review of the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) programme underway, this time led by business leader David Miles, a new CRC is taken up work on lowering the risk for satellites to be hit by space debris.
In a statement Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane highlighted the importance of the project, which the Australian Government is funding with $19.8 million. Thus, he refered to international studies that show the amount of space debris continues to rise, and potentially threatens the availability of important satellite-reliant technologies.
Space junk orbiting earth (image: NASA)
Yet only around 10% of the close to 300,000 major space debris objects are currently monitored. NASA even estimates there are more than 500,000 pieces of "space junk" that orbit earth at speeds up to 28,100 kilometres per hour, enough to damage a satellite or a spacecraft
“Australia is a world leader in optical space tracking, a key technology for protecting satellites, and has the existing infrastructure and data for effective research, making it the ideal country to host the CRC.”
The Space Environment Management CRC will tackle this problem, bringing together international and Australian space researchers and companies that include NASA Ames Research Centre and Lockheed Martin from the US, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology from Japan and Australia's Optus and EOS Space Systems. Also supported by experts from the Australian National University (ANU) and RMIT University, the team will traffic space debris, improve predictions of space debris orbits and predict and monitor potential collisions in space. To then assist in preventing potential collisions, it will also investigate how the orbits of space debris could be modified.
Youtube video presenting the new partnership in agricultural research.
5 December 2014 - The National Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Precinct (NAESP) at CSIRO’s redeveloped $200 million Black Mountain site in Canberra was launched in December.
The precinct, a collaborative effort between the Australian National University (ANU) and CSIRO, will receive funding of $18 million from the Australian Government's Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF).
The funding will be used for the upgrade CSIRO's facilities adjacent to the ANU and to enable access to supercomputing systems at the National Computational Infrastructure facility.
NAESP's objective is to foster research and innovation essential in food security in the context of global population growth and climate change. In support of this, the project partners plan to establish a new Centre for Genomics, Metabolomics and Bioinformatics, with the expectation that NAESP will become a one-stop shop for integrated plant breeding and natural resource management. This could then also create opportunities for new biologically-based industries.
17 December 2014 - Round two of the Australian Government's 2013 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release delivered seven permits, which could potentially translate into investment of more than $600 million over the next six years.
Click image to explore infographic
The awarded projects are located in Commonwealth waters offshore Western Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory, and add to the nine permits previously awarded in the first round of the 2013 release (see insert with our previous story "...for offshore manna".
The total amount of guaranteed investment resulting from the 2013 acreage release is $238 million over the next three years, most of which will be in Western Australia, as summarised in the infographic.
Eight of the areas offered in Round 2 did not find successful bids and were reverted to vacant acreage (5) or re-released (3) for bidding.
...for offshore manna
Nine new exploration permits potentially attracting more than $372 million in investment over the next six years have been awarded as part of Round 1 of the Australian Government's 2013 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release...read more
Key details on specific permits awarded in Round 2 include:
VIC/P70 (released as V13-2) is located in the Gippsland Basin off the shore Victoria. It was awarded to Liberty Petroleum Corporation, which proposed an $81.3 million guaranteed work program of 2D and 3D seismic interpretation, petroleum systems study, prospect lead and development, gas marketing study, development concepts, capex study and two exploration wells. The $50.9 million secondary work program consists of geological and geophysical studies, one exploration well and post well studies.
NT/P85 (released as NT13-1) is located in the Bonaparte Basin off the shore of the Northern Territory. It was awarded to Santos Offshore Pty Ltd and Origin Energy Resources Limited, which proposed a $28.3 million guaranteed work program of geotechnical studies, 1,600 km? of 3D seismic acquisition, processing and interpretation. The $36 million secondary work program includes geological and geophysical studies including updating deposition models with regional data and an exploration well.
WA-505-P (released as W12-7) is located in the Roebuck Basin off the shore of Western Australia. It was awarded to Apache Northwest Pty Ltd, which proposed a $9.2 million guaranteed work program of 393km? of 3D seismic acquisition, geotechnical studies, 393 km? 3D seismic reprocessing, rock physics/quantitative interpretation and 3D seismic inversion studies. The $20.4 million secondary work program consists of geotechnical studies including prospect mapping and risk assessment and one exploration well.
WA-506-P (released as W13-6) is located in the Northern Carnarvon Basin off the shore of Western Australia. It was awarded to Statoil Australia Theta B.V, which proposed a $50 million guaranteed work program of 2,000 km 2D seismic survey, 10,000 km multi-beam swath bathymetry data, acquisition of 50 piston core samples, 2D seismic interpretation and studies, 3,500 km? 3D seismic acquisition and interpretation. The $216 million secondary work program consists of two exploration wells, 2,500 km? of 3D seismic survey, analysis and interpretation.
WA-507-P (released as W13-7) is located in the Northern Carnarvon Basin off the shore of Western Australia. It was awarded to Odyssey O&G Pty Ltd and Black Swan Resources Pty Ltd, which proposed a $2.25 million guaranteed work program of geological and geophysical studies, 1,587 km2 of 3D seismic data purchase, 3D seismic interpretation, amplitude analysis, seismic reprocessing and petroleum system analysis. The $30.75 million secondary work program consists of interpretation of reprocessed seismic data, rock physic studies, reservoir and play analysis, prospect ranking and modelling, geochemical studies and one exploration well.
WA-508-P (released as W13-4) is located in the Browse Basin off the shore of Western Australia. It was awarded to Pathfinder Energy Pty Ltd, which proposed a $2.12 million guaranteed work program of geological and geophysical studies, 1,000 km of 2D seismic reprocessing, 221 km2 of 3D seismic acquisition, mapping and analysis of petroleum systems. The $61.2 million secondary work program consists of geological and geophysical studies, economic evaluation and risk assessment, engineering studies and one exploration well totalling.
WA-509-P (released as W13-5) is located in the Browse Basin off the shore of Western Australia. It was awarded to Pathfinder Energy Pty Ltd, which proposed a $10.62 million guaranteed work program of geological and geophysical studies, 1,000 km of 2D seismic reprocessing, 1,411 km2 of 3D seismic acquisition, mapping and analysis of petroleum systems. The $61.2 million secondary work program consists of geological and geophysical studies, economic evaluation and risk assessment, engineering studies and one exploration well.
The Australian Government is progressing with its plan to create a single environmental approval process for projects that may impact on nationally protected matters (see also our previous story 'One for all'.
Under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the process towards implementing the proposed "One-Stop Shops" reform requires new bilateral assessment agreements as well as new bilateral approvals agreements.
The Australian Government has now negotiated assessment bilateral agreements with all States and Territories, although the agreements with New South Wales and Queensland are still at the draft stage (28/01/2014 www.environment.gov.au).
The Government has also released draft bilateral approvals agreements, which it reached with the Governments of South Australia and Western Australia. These are available for public comment until 2 February and 13 February, respectively.
For One-Stop Shops to become reality, the agreements will have to meet the approval requirements set by both the Commonwealth and the respective States/Territories.
But Environment Minister Greg Hunt has pointed out that the agreements would provide the broadest scope for accreditation of processes under the Mining Act 1971 and the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act 2000 possible under national environmental law.
Mr Hunt said that the reform could save businesses around $420 million each year.
The Agriculture Competitiveness White Paper will complement related inititatives including the Action Plan to Boost Productivity and Reduce Regulation, the White Paper on Developing Northern Australia and an Energy White Paper.
Raising Australia's competitiveness in agriculture will be the main objective of a Agriculture Competitiveness White Paper commissioned by the Australian Government.
In its lead up, Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce released a Green Paper in late October, which summarises almost 700 submissions from stakeholders. However, as spelt out in the paper, the presented ideas do not necessarily indicate what the Government plans to do, and in parts cross over into other areas currently under review, such as the Harper Competition Review and the Taxation White Paper.
Click to enlarge - Share of production cost in selling cost of product.
The overarching objective of the White Paper will be to improve the returns at the farm gate, in the context of continually falling value of final product over time.
The paper accentuates the importance of the family farm, which the Government views as the cornerstone of Australian agriculture. And it recognises that there are major sustainability issues that particularly affect these smaller types of agricultural businesses.
As a figure in the paper shows, the share of the average cost of production in the selling cost of product has dramatically fallen since 1900, from around 85% to around 10% in 2000. This has been compensated by becoming more productive but also through structural changes within the sector.
Australia's agriculture in brief:
Click image to enlarge - Value of farm production
In 2013-14, the total value of farm production was $54 billion.
Agriculture contributes around 2% to Gross Domestic Product.
In 2013-14, farm exports were worth $41 billion and accounted for around 12% of goods and services exports, with China, Japan and the US the top three markets.
Beef and wheat are the largest agricultural production by value.
As part of the post-farm gate supply chain, the Australian food and beverage processing industry was worth almost $88 billion in 2012-13, refelecting structural changes in the sector.
In outer regional and remote areas, agriculture accounted for between 10% and 15% of direct employment.
Interestingly, counter to the market-driven trend toward larger corporations, the paper argues that the concept of a family farm being small and inefficient is a misrepresentation of the reality. The paper's authors reflect on the deep connection of farmers in family businesses with their land, while noting that science and evidence rather than an emotive debate should drive policy.
The paper acknowledges that long-term sustainability of the sector also hinges on addressing issues, such as excessive exploitation of resources in some areas, including through the over-allocation of water licenses in the Murray-Darling. According to the paper, farmers manage 52% of Australia's landmass and account for the majority of water usage.
Yet, its key focus is the removal of unnecessary impediments and regulations that stifle innovation, productivity, investment and growth in jobs.
Agriculture in Australia is traditionally an export driven industry, with a high proportion of wool, sheep meat, beef and veal, wheat and sugar destined for international markets.
Click image to enlarge - Australia's food production in a global context.
Asian markets have become more important and demand is likely to grow. However, it is only in wool that Australia has a significant global market share (20.2%). Overall, Australia produces only around 1% of global food production, while our major competitors, including Brazil and Argentina, have still much lower productivity levels than Australia. This means competition is likely to get worse for our industry in future.
According to the paper, a key issue for Australia's agricultural sector will be to build more fresh water infrastructure if it is to maintain or even improve agricultural production. The argument to support this is that Australia's population growth has led to a steady decline in freshwater availability, from around 5.5 megalitres per person in 1980 to around 4 megalitres per person, a trend that is likely to continue in the future in the absence of intervention.
The paper presents a range of initiatives stakeholders proposed, which broadly addressed the following eleven issues.
Infrastructure, which includes the building of new transport infrastructure, and improving existing infrastructure and transport regulation. Access to reliable and affordable communications systems was also a concern.
Working with States and Territories, which includes a series of issues related to regulation, such as excessive work health and safety requirements. Protecting the resource base was also a concern, for example the adverse impacts of mining on agriculture. Stakeholder also proposed various changes to State/Territory policies to strengthen farm businesses.
Competition and regulation, which includes improving market competition, the strengthening of competition laws, such as revisions to the Competition and Consumer Act to limit breaches of market power provisions, and improvements to regulation.
Finance, business structures and taxation, which includes a range of suggestions to improve access to finance, and tax system efficiency and equity.
Foreign investment, with conflicting views from stakeholders suggesting to further restrict foreign investment, while others proposed to attract more.
Education, skills and training, and labour, which includes a series of suggestions to promote clear career pathways, the strengthening of agricultural education and labour availability.
Drought, with proposals to increase drought preparedness and better support during droughts.
Water and natural resource management, with proposals suggesting improvements to water infrastructure and markets, such as investment in new dams, and natural resource management initiatives, including more targeted pest and disease management and control.
Research, development and extension, which includes proposals to strengthen the RD&E system, including through enhanced access to the R&D Tax Incentive. There is also a need for better coordinated cross-sector research (possibly through a new research body), with collaboration, cross-sector and transformational research and extension presenting gaps in the current RD&E system. It also includes suggestions to improve the rural Research Development Corporations to drive tangible outcomes.
Biosecurity, with proposals ranging from improving legislation to improving the biosecurity system, such as better information and intelligence tools.
Accessing international markets, with initiatives targeting Australia's overseas market efforts, and Australia's export and import systems.
According to a recent report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES), India's foot consumption is set to rise by 136% between 2009 and 2050, driven by population and personal income growth across the continent.
Click image to enlarge - India's agrifood consumption 2009/2050
However, there are marked difference in the expected increase in demand across food industries. Thus, demand for fruit is set to increase by 256%, vegetables by 183% and dairy products by 137%. Together, these industries account for 77% of the total projected rise in food consmption by 2050.
India is a net exporter of food, but food imports have increased and are expected to rise further over the coming decades.
Especially vegetables will be in high demand, with imports estimated to reach a value of US$58 billion by 2050. Dairy and wheat imports will also predicted to increase, to around US$13 billion and US$15 billion, respectively.
The What India wants: Analysis of India's food demand to 2050 was released in November 2014 as part of the What Asia wants series.
Australia's recent prolonged drought was far from being a historic anomaly for eastern Australia during the past thousand years.
A study published by the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in the journal Geophysical Research Letters shows that droughts lasting longer than five years are indeed a normal part of the country's long-term climate variability.
The researchers used a 1000 year Antarctic ice core record obtained 100 km southeast of Australia's Casey Station to shed light on eastern Australia's long-term drought patterns. Through this they also gained important information about the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), still a relatively poorly understood phenomenon that is closely linked with drought patterns in Australia and the US.
The ice core drilling was at Law Dome, about 100km southeast of the Australia's Casey Station. (image insert: www.antarctica.gov.au
According to the World Meteorological Organization the IPO displays cycles of 15-30 years, which are caused by fluctuations in atmospheric pressure. When the IPO is low, cooler than average sea surface temperatures occur over the central North Pacific, and this extends over the entire Pacific Basic. The opposite is the case when the IPO is high. These positive cycles result in above normal Pacific sea surface temperatures and modulate the climate variability caused by the interannual El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The result of this interplay is a significantly heightened risk of droughts occuring in Australia dring positive IPO cycles.
Two positive phases were recorded during the 20th century, between 1922 and 1946, and again between 1978 and 1998.
However, until now the relatively short instrumental climate records limited the tracking of drought occurences to about a century ago. Now the researchers revealed a clear pattern of Australia's rainfall rising and falling back a thousand years.
This should provide policy makers and planner with better estimates of the likelyhood of long droughts, as well as their duration, for improving the management of water resources. This could be expecially important in light of warnings that future warming will potentially exacerbate the impact of future mega-droughts.
September 2014 - As requested by the World Heritage Committee in 2011, the Australian and Queensland Governments released a discussion paper on a 35 year plan for the long-term sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef.
The Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan aims to protect not only the enormous ecological and cultural importance of the reef, but also the economic value it represents for Australia, with activities in the area worth around $5.6 billion.
The Great Barrier Reef was listed as World Heritage Area in 1981, when it already supported a range of commercial and non-commercial activities. Almost all of the property is now within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, one of the world's largest marine protected areas, and a strict zoning plan is in place.
However, the adjacent catchment area has undergone significant development, with activities such as land clearing, agriculture, mining, industrial and urban growth. And as the paper details, the consequences of these developments are only now being understood and addressed.
But the greatest risks for the Reef remain, such as climate change, poor water quality from land based run-off, impacts from coastal development and some fishing activities.
The plan builds on the 2014 strategic assessment of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and adjacent coastal zone. It represents an overarching framework for the protection of the Outstanding Universal Value of the reef, which is set out across six themes:
water quality;
biodiversity;
ecosystems health;
heritage;
community benefits;
economic benefits; and
governance.
The proposed framework addresses each of these themes systematically along a complex set of desired outcomes, overall objectives, specific targets and proposed actions (for details see the plan).
Given the complexity of the framework, the implementation of the plan will hinge on successful partnerships between community, industry and government, for which the Healthy Partnership Program in Gladstone is highlighted as a successful example.
The document also proposes the establishment of an Integrated Monitoring and Reporting Program, through which each component of the framework and their cause-and-effect links could be monitored and understood. The results would then be reviewed against the set out objectives, outcomes and targets, and the results used to adapt the management responses.
Annual reports available to the public will document the progress of the plan's implementation, including key activities such as the development of the Integrated Monitoring and Reporting Program.
The discussion paper was open for comments until 26 October 2014.
December-March 2014/15 - Australia's new marine research vessel,
the RV investigator is now officially in service, supported by $85 million from the federal purse.
The new vessel, which is owned by the Marine National Facility and operated by the CSIRO, features $20 million of purpose built scientific equipment facilitating research areas including oceanographic, biological, atmosphheric and geoscience research.
The range of potential research objectives will cover the discovery of new oil and gas reserves, the study of deep ocean marine life, and the harnessing of weather related data in remote locations such as the Southern and Indian Oceans.
All of the data collected using the Investigator are intended to be made public
Click image to enlarge
In December 2014, in the lead up to the first voyage of the Investigator, hydrographers tested the sonar systems of the vessel to create the first 3-D images of the ocean floor around Tasmania at a depth of more than 3000 meters. This was the cutoff depth for the sonar on CSIRO's previous research vessel, the Southern Surveyor.
According to the CSIRO, the Investigator's onboard technology is capable of mapping the sea floor in 3-D to any depth, and through its sub-bottom profiling system researchers can investigate its composition up to a 100 meters into the actual sea-bed.
As can be seen in the figure, the use of the Investigator has now significantly extended the mapped area of sea floor that surrounds Tasmania.
Happy in the cold
The RV Investigator is designed
to operate in water temperatures between -2 ℃ and +32 ℃, and between January and March this year the vessel's capability to operate in cold water was successfully put to the test.
The travel to the 65 degree south line, around 90 miles from the Antarctic continent, is the most southerly voyage ever undertaken by a vessel of the Marine National Facility.
The tests ranged from sonar mapping of the seafloor, the commissioning of equipment used for collecting aerosol data to operating on-deck scientific equipment.
At the end of March the vessel will commence its first research voyage, and then be used for the deployment of deep sea oceanographic moorings in the Southern Ocean.
18 March 2015 - Global IT firm CISCO has announced it will invest US$15 million over five years in a Cisco Internet of Everything (IoE) Innovation Centre in Australia.
One of eight globally, the centre will include locations in Perth at Curtin University and in Sydney at Sirca, a not-for-profit firm supporting data-intensive financial research in universities.
Click image to enlarge
The Cisco centres are to catalyse and showcase IoE innovation and development, which Cisco describes as the intelligent connection of people, processes, data and things to the Internet.
The centres bring together a broad spectrum of stakeholders, ranging from customers and businesses to government organisations and universities, and they facilitate activities that include the development of proof of concepts, features and functionalities, as well as rapid prototyping.
The initial ecosystem partners of the Australian Cisco IoE Innovation Centre include Sirca (owned by 40 universities across Australia and New Zealand), Curtin University and Woodside Energy.
Cisco estimates that IoE based solution could deliver US $19 trillion of economic value worldwide over the next decade, and a recent Cisco study?identified Australia as one of the countries with the greatest potential to benefit from IoE. According to the report, the value of IoE activities for the Australian economy could amount to more than US$74 billion over the next 10 years.
In March, the Australian and Queensland Governments jointly released a 35 year plan for the long-term sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage Area (see also our previous story "Reefing up").
As part of the Reef 2050 Long Term Sustainability Plan (Reef Plan), the governments announced new funding commitments targeting the reef's health, including an additional $100 million from the Australian Government for the Reef Trust initiative.
Established in 2014 with $40 million, the Reef Trust will consolidate investments in projects that aim to improve the reef's health. The Trust's funding priorities are advised by an independent scientific panel, which is chaired by Australia's chief scientist Professor Ian Chubb.
In total, the Government will spend around $200 million over five years for measures designed to improve reef resilience.
Click image to enlarge
*Priority Areas for pollutants are as defined in the Reef Water Quality Protection Plan 2013:
Key objectives of the Reef 2050 Long Term Sustainability Plan include:
reducing dissolved inorganic nitrogen loads in priority areas by at least 50% by 2018, and 80% by 2025;
reducing pesticide loads in priority areas by at least 60% by 2018; and
reducing sediment loads in priority areas by 20%, and 50% by 2025;
achieving a net improvement in the condition of natural wetlands and riparian vegetation by 2020;
stabilising or increasing the populations of Australian dolphins, dugongs and turtles by 2020; and
protecting the Fitzroy Delta including North Curtis Island and Keppel Bay.
The Queensland Government has also pledged an additional $100 million, which over the next five years will top up its annual $35 million investment into improving the area's water quality, conducting scientifc research and encouraging better environmental practices in businesses.
Click image to enlarge
The total invesments Australian governments will make in the GBR are estimated at around $2 billion over the next decade.
The Reef Plan further includes a decision by the Australian Government to permanently ban the dumping of material from capital dredging in the GBR marine park, while Queensland will restrict capital dredging for the development of new or the expansion of existing port facilities to areas within established ports. The State Government will also prohibit the sea-based disposal of dredge material from these sites in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.
According to federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt, these measures will translate to "zero capital disposal anywhere in the entire 345,000sq km Marine Park. Together, the 345,000 square kilometre Commonwealth ban (100% of the Marine Park and 99% of the total ban) and the 3000 square kilometre Queensland ban (1% of the total ban) will cover 100% of the World Heritage area."
But some experts believe this is not going far enough. For example, Queensland University's Professor Terry Hughes argued in an expert comment published on the The Conversation website that while the Australian Government's ban was a step in the right direction, the new measures would not change the amount of dredging per se, only where it can be dumped.
"For example, Townsville Port is still proposing to dredge 10 million cubic metres of material, which will likely kill off the few corals that still survive around Magnetic Island."
With the inclusion of the GBR in the United Nation's World Heritage list in 1981 the Australian Government accepted an obligation to ensure the reef's "identification, protection, conservation, presentation and transmission for current and future generations", for which the foundation was laid in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act in 1975.
In 1994, the Australian and Queensland Governments jointly prepared a 25 year strategic plan, aimed at protecting the Reef through an integrated planning approach. And in 2009, the first five-yearly Outlook Report assessed the reef as one of the world's most healthy coral reef ecosystems.
However, the report described the ecosystem as being at a crossroad. While climate change was identified as a major long-term threat to the reef's health, its resilience to meet the challenge was found to be weakened through pressures such as a declining water quality from catchment run-offs, a loss of coastal habitats through coastal development and the impacts of fishing and poaching.
In 2011, the World Heritage Committee noted with "extreme concern" the approval of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) developments on Curtis Island near Gladstone as another potential danger for the 'Outstanding Universal Value' of the World Heritage Area. And it threatened to place the GBR on the World Heritage 'In Danger" list when it will again meet in Germany in July 2015.
Queensland is also in the business of coal, with the Carmichael Coal and Rail Project, approved in 2014, establishing Australia's largest coal mine in the Galilee Basin in the state's south west.
Together with other major coal projects approved in the area, including GVK Hancock's Alpha Coal Project, major port expansions adjacent to the GBR are in the planning. And it now appears also to find the backing of the newly elected Queensland Government, which in March announced that it has agreed to the expansion of the Abbot Point Coal Terminal, under the condition that dredge spoil will be dumped on land.
The findings in the recent Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014 may alleviate some of the committee's concerns, although it confirmed a need for further intervention. According to the report, the northern third of the Reef is in relative good health, while the reef's southern parts coninue to be under pressure by run-off from land-based activities. In addition to sediments and pesticides, high amounts of nutrients enter the ecosystem, notably nitrogen and phosphorous, and these have been linked to frequent crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks that have contributed to the decline of coral cover over the past decades.
However, the 2014 report found that since 2009 the annual load of sediments reduced by 11%, pesticides by 28% and nutrients by 10%.
This improvement may be attributed to the Reef Water Quality Protection plan, which was first established in 2003, and then updated in 2009 and again in 2013. The plan represents a joint commitment by the Australian and Queensland Governments to diffuse the pollution from broadscale landuse, with a broader target that by 2020 the water quality entering the reef from broadscale landuse would have no detrimental impact anymore on the reef's health and resilience. Its detailed ambitions for reduced loads of nitrogen, sediment and pesticides have been taken up and extended in the reef plan (see above).
The elefant in the room, however, remains climate change and the reef plan received substantial criticism for not adequately addressing this problem. University of Sydney's Professorial Fellow Ian McCalman wrote in The Conversation that "these much-trumpeted new water policies deliberately ignore the dire long-term threats to the reef that are contained in the now unutterable words "climate change". They are akin to investing in cures for a patient's skin diseases while ignoring their cancer symptoms."
In April, scientists from the James Cook University published a paper in Nature Climate Change, in which they criticise the Reef Plan for not tackling climate change, and instead continuing to expand Australia's coal and coal seam gas industry.
The paper states that the GBR has lost half of its coral cover over the past 40 years. It also points out that "global warming has triggered two major bouts of coral bleaching on the GBR, in 1998 and 2002, causing extensive and widespread loss of corals". The authors propse a six point plan to restore the Great Barrier Reef, which includes that Australia takes a lead role in tackling climate change by transitioning away from fossile fuels. It also calls for a complete ban on dumping both capital and maintenance drege spoil within the World Heritage Area.
However, the presented views are not undisputed among scientists, as was reported in a Nature News article in 2014.
The plan's overarching goal is instead geared at strengthening the Reef's resilience against the various potential impacts climate change related outcomes, such as ocean acidification, sea temperature changes, rising sea levels and altered weather conditions .
While climate change is mentioned as the greatest risk to the health of the reef, the challenge would have to be dealt with in a global effort to which Australia will contribute through the Governments Direct Action policy objective. This includes a commitment to reduce Australia's emissions by five per cent below 2000 levels by 2020, which to achieve will largely depend on the success of the Government's $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF; see insert).
Reductionists at auction
February 2015- The Australian Government has announced that businesses will be able to submit their bids for emissions reductions into the first competitive Emissions Reduction Fund auction on 15 April 2015. The bids will have to specify a certain price per tonne of emissions reductions...read full story
Complex coral reef structures make up only around six per cent of the GBR area, yet they provide critical habitat and food for many species in the ecosystem. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, their survival is believed to be threatened by rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification, which is the result of the seas absorbing around 25% of CO2 emissions.
Crown-Of-Thorns Starfish; image AIMS
In February, scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) published in the journal Scientific Reports that rising sear surface temperatures are potentially contributing to outbreaks of the coral eating crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci). The study found that under certain conditions, such as enhanced nutrient flow, a 2 ℃ increase in sea temperature can increase the probability of the starfish's survival by 240%.
Ocean acidification could impact the entire marine ecosystem from plankton at the base to fish at the top. Many marine organisms build shells based on calcium carbonate. Aragonite structures that form coral reefs could be at risk from a combination of stresses, a lower pH and higher ocean temperatures.
For example, an often cited study by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studiesreported in 2008 that ocean acidification lowers the temperatures at which corals bleach.
The to date most comprehensive study on the likely impacts of climate change on Australia and its surrounding waters is the Climate Change in Australia 2015 report, which was released by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology in March (see also our story 'Its the climate, stupid').
According to this report, there is a very high level of confidence that sea surface temperatures around Australia will increase, although the magnitude of the warming will depend on the future global emissions trajectory. Under a high emissions scenario, which assumes atmospheric CO2 concentrations reaching 940 parts per million by 2100, the near-coastal sea surface around Australia is projected to warm around 0.4-1.0 ℃ by 2030 and around 2-4 ℃ by 2090.
There is also a very high level of confidence that ocean acidifcation will continue, at a rate that is likely to be proportional to the level of CO2 emissions, and this will lead to a net reduction in the sea pH and its aragonite saturation state, a measure for the capacity of marine organisms to build aragonite structures.
However, how this will affect the long-term outlook for corals is less certain, reflecting the complexity of such projections for biological systems.
Still, the effects arising from atmospheric CO2 concentrations increasing between 540 ppm (medium emissions scenario) and 940 ppm (high emissions scenario) by 2100 are likely to have an impact on the long-term viability of corals.
It's the climate, stupid
With each of its five assessement reports the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raised the level of confidence about the planet's unfortunate climate trajectory and that human activities play an important part in it. In their latest report in 2014, the IPCC concluded that anthropogenic activities are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
Yet their is still considerable uncertainty about important drivers of regional weather outcomes. An example for this is our understanding of extreme El Niño and La Niña events and how they will affect Pacific nations in the future read full story
With each of its five assessement reports the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) raised the level of confidence about the planet's unfortunate climate trajectory and that human activities play an important part in it. In their latest report in 2014, the IPCC concluded that anthropogenic activities are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
Yet their is still considerable uncertainty about important drivers of regional weather outcomes. An example of this is our limited understanding of extreme El Niño and La Niña events and how they will affect Pacific nations in the future.
No childplay
Not only do isolated El Niño and La Niña occurences account for devastating droughts, floods and hurricanes, an extreme El Niño also often creates conditions that are conducive for an extreme La Niña. This greatly exacerbates the socio-economic burden of affected countries. For example, the El Niño event in 1997-98, which some regard as the strongest such event in the 20th century, was directly followed by an extreme La Niña.
Click image to enlarge: The ENSO cycle
The El Niño/La Niña events are part of a cycle described as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), in which the interaction between Pacific Ocean and the atmosphere triggers feedback loops that changes their normal state for several seasons. This causes extreme weather events in many parts of the world, such as droughts, floods, and enhanced hurricane activity.
During El Niño events the central and eastern-tropical Pacific become warmer than usual, while La Niña is characterised by a cooling of these areas. The resulting temperature gradients across the Pacific alters the region's atmospheric circulations, which in turn influences the rainfall pattern in the region.
In a normal (neutral) ENSO state trade winds transport warm moist air and warmer surface waters towards the western Pacific region. El Niño events lead to a weakening of these trade winds, resulting in cooler than normal temperatures and less rainfall in northern Australia. The opposite is the case for La Niña, as trade winds strengthen and intensify the Australian monsoon, with increased rainfalls to northern and eastern Australia.
Recent studies led by Australian climate scientist Dr Wenju Cai from the CSIRO are now indicating that global warming will lead to more frequent extreme episodes of La Niña and El Niño.
The work on El Niño, published in Nature in 2014, projected a twofold increase in extreme El Niño events, as the surface warming of the eastern equatorial Pacific is expected to warm faster than the surrounding ocean waters.
A year later, in January 2015, Dr Cai and colleauges wrote in a paper in Nature Climate Change that their research also projected a near doubling of extreme La Niña events, from one in every 23 years to one in every 13 years.
It is notable, and perhaps counterintuitive, that a warming climate will result in more occurences of extreme cooling in the central and eastern-tropical Pacific that characterise the La Niña phenomenon.
The work on El Niño...projected a twofold increase in extreme El Niño events.
...their research also projected a near doubling of extreme La Niña events, from one in every 23 years to one in every 13 years.
The authors based their research on a series of state-of-the-art climate models, and they found robust agreement among the different approaches. One of the factors that explain their projections is that the occurence of an extreme El Niño tends to trigger an extreme La Niña. Thus, the climate modelling data indicate that around 75% of the increase in La Niña events will follow on from extreme El Niño events.
In a Nature Climate Change News&Views story on the La Niña paper, Dr Antonietta Capotondi from the US University of Colorado commented that individual model representations of La Niña could still be inaccurate, but that climate models "are the only tools we have for understanding the intricacies of global warming".
And she notes that more occurrences of devastating weather events, and more frequent swings of opposite extremes from one year to the next, must be seriously considered in preparing for global warming.
...more occurrences of devastating weather events, and more frequent swings of opposite extremes from one year to the next, must be seriously considered in preparing for global warming.
Still more couple trouble
Yet, ENSO is not the only coupled ocean-atmosphere variability influencing Australia's climate. CSIRO's Dr Wenju Cai led another study published in Nature in 2014, in which the researchers dealt with the likely response of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) to global warming.
The IOD affects the climate and rainfall variability in countries surrounding the Indian Ocean Basin, including Australia, and its phases - positive or negative - are believed to either strengthen or weaken the impact of extreme ENSO events.
In the twentieth century, extreme positive IOD events occured every 17.3 years, and according to the authors such events led in 1961, 1994 and 1997 to catastrophic floods in the eastern tropical African countries and devastating droughts in eastern Indian Ocean rim countries.
Similar to extreme ENSO events, the researchers project that for this century the frequency of extreme positive IOD events could increase threefold, with one event occurring every 6.3 years.
The research underscores that despite the remaining uncertainty about the reliability of individual modellings, the overall message points towards a considerable worsening of Australia's climate conditions.
The research underscores that despite the remaining uncertainty about the reliability of individual modellings, the overall message points towards a considerable worsening of Australia's climate conditions.
Hot map down under
How climate change will potentially impact on Australia was detailed in a study jointly released by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology in 2015.
Climate Change in Australia 2015 is to date the most comprehensive climate report prepared for Australia and follows a previous assessment in 2007. The study used data from observations and from simulations that were based on 40 global climate models and used a range of scenarios of greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions during the 21st century including:
a low emissions scenario: 450 parts per million (ppm) CO2 by 2100;
a medium emissions scenario: 540 ppm CO2 by 2100; and
a high emissions scenario: 940 ppm CO2 by 2100.
How the globe is changing:
Global mean near-surface air temperature has risen by around 0.85 ℃ from 1880 to 2012 (0.12 ℃ per decade since 1951). Under various possible emissions scenarios global mean temperature is projected to rise between 0.7-1.3 ℃ and 2.6-4.8 ℃ during this century, while global mean sea level will increase between 26-55 centimetres and 45-82 centimetres.
The researchers assessed eight defined Australian regions, and also rated their level of confidence in the results. Each of these regions differ substantially in individual climate-related aspects. But the authors are highly confident that compared to changes resulting from natural variability, the degree of warming will already be large across all of Australia by 2030 (around 0.5-1.5 ℃), and very large by the end of the century, although the magnitude of the warming from 2030 onwards will strongly depend on the global emissions trajectory.
...the degree of warming will already be large across all of Australia by 2030 (around 0.5-1.5 ℃), and very large by the end of the century, although the magnitude of the warming from 2030 onwards will strongly depend on the global emissions trajectory
Thus, average temperatures are projected to increase by 0.6-1.7 ℃ under the low emissions scenario compared to 2.8-5.1 ℃ under the high emissions scenario.
While the warmer overall climate will result in more frequent and hotter hot days, the authors are less certain about Australia's future rainfall.
In fact, natural variability is likely to determine rainfall in the eastern part of Australia until 2030, and this may also be the case for Australia's north.
The outlook is more dire for Australia's southern parts. Since the 1970s, the south-east and south-west of the continent have experienced less rain in the cooler months of the year. This trend is projected to continue, with the winter decline in the south-west potentially reaching 50% by 2090 under a high emissions scenario. And while the projections for the summer and autumn months are not yet clear, the authors are higly confident that overall soil moisture will decrease in Australia's south, coinciding with increases in the average forest fire danger index and a greater number of days with severe fire danger.
They are also highly confident that southern Australia will spend more time in drought, and that droughts will be more often severe.
They are also highly confident that southern Australia will spend more time in drought, and that droughts will be more often severe.
While the amount of rainfall in the northern and eastern parts of Australia may at least in the shorter term (2030) stay within the boundaries of natural variability, the nature of rainfalls is likely to change. Already, heavy daily rainfall has accounted for an increased proportion of total annual rainfall over much of Australia since the 1970s. The report projects that throughout Australia extreme rainfall downpours will increase in intensity, especially in the country's north.
Tropical cyclones may become less frequent, but a greater proportion of cyclones may be high intensity storms with stronger winds and greater rainfall.
Tropical cyclones may become less frequent, but a greater proportion of cyclones may be high intensity storms with stronger winds and greater rainfall.
Sea you later?
The report also warns of the major impact climate change will have on our coastal areas.
The authors are very confident that throughout this century Australia's sea levels will rise in line with projections for global mean sea levels (see insert above), and that the rate of the rise will be faster than over the past four decades, or the 20th century as a whole. This rise is likely to continue beyond 2100 and will be the major driver of significant increases in extreme sea levels.
How much coastal structures will have to be raised to maintain the current level of breaches will depend on the global emissions trajectory and the location, and this will need to be considered in future planning and adaptation activities.
For example, under the highest considered emissions scenario (940 parts per million in atmospheric CO2 by 2100), Sydney's coastal structures may have to be raised by at least 0.84 metres by 2090.
Sea temperatures will continue to warm, but as oceans absorb around 25% of current carbon dioxide emissions they are also continue to become more acidic. While a net decrease in pH was observed with all examined emissions scenarios, the degree of acidification will most likely be proportional to the amount of CO2 emission increases.
But how this may affect marine ecosystems is highly complex and hence difficult to assess to a degree of certainty. Potential impacts could include a range of issues such as the reproductive health, organism growth and physiology of marine species, their composition and distributions, the marine food web structure and nutrient availability.
The authors are, however, highly confident that as the ocean's pH decreases with rising emissions it will further reduce the aragonite saturation state in the ocean.
Aragonite is made up of calcium carbonate and used by corals to form their hard reef structures, and by many other marine organisms such as oysters, clams, lobsters, crabs and starfish to build hard shells. The process depends on the aragonite saturation state and is highly sensitive to changes in the pH, as ocean acidification leads to a general reduction in the concentration of carbonate in the seas. Thus, a lower pH in the ocean makes it harder for these marine organisms to build shells or form and repair reef structures.
The changes in pH and aragonite saturation state do not occur uniformly around the Australian coast, with the largest decreases projected for the mid-latitude and northern Australian coast. The authors have medium confidence that the drop of the aragonite saturation state under the high emissions scenario would have significant negative impacts on the long-term health, diversity and viability of corals. But significant changes are also likely to occur along Australia's southern parts, and will have serious impacts on key marine species, such as pteropods at the base of the food web, on aquaculture and other industries.
February 2015- The Australian Government has announced that businesses will be able to submit their bids for emissions reductions into the first competitive Emissions Reduction Fund auction on 15 April 2015. The bids will have to specify a certain price per tonne of emissions reductions...read full story
The Government's Clean Energy Regulator will purchase the lowest-cost abatements by entering contracts that guarantee a payment for emissions reductions delivered over the life of the contract. The purchase of abatements will be through the issuing of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCU).
Projects entered into the auction need to be registered and eligible under an approved method.
So far, there are 29 ERF methods available for the agriculture, commercial building energy efficiency, forestry, landfill gas and waste sectors.
Methods currently in development cover emissions intensity in transport, coal mine waste gas and aggregated small energy users, while further methods for the land sector will include soil carbon sequestration (storage), herd management, savanna fire management and fertiliser use efficiency.
In March, the Australian Government announced the third major installment of the 2014 NHMRC health and medical research grants. It included $98.3 million for 11 program grants, which are the agency's largest grants and support teams pursuing long term broad, multi-disciplinary and collaborative research in some of the most complex areas of health and medical research.
The chance of winning NHMRC support has traditionally been low, but it is now getting even tougher for Australian health and medical researchers. The overall success rate for application based grants dropped from 22% in 2013 to 18% in 2014. Accordingly, the success rate for NHMRC Project Grants, which account for the bulk of the agency's funding, also significantly dropped, from 16.9% in 2013 down to 15.0% in 2014.
Click infographic to explore
In total, the 2014 funding round has delivered $776 million* for projects and research fellowships across a diverse range of grant schemes (see insert), which compares to $792 million** committed in the previous year.
As we highlight in our updated infographic of NHMRC funding, Victoria remains the big winner of grant support, not only in absolute funding but also relative to its population size. On a per capita basis, the worst performing states were Tasmania and Western Australian. Interestingly, though, in the case of Western Australia this was less a result of a lower success rate than due to a lower number of applications. In fact, South Australian researchers had an overall lower success rate (15%) than their Western Australian counterparts (17%) but relative to its population size the state attracted significantly more funding ($57 and $34, respectively).
2014 NHMRC grants worth $781 million were awarded across the following schemes:
58 Career Development Fellowships - $24 million;
19 Centres for Research Excellence projects - $47.3 million;
125 Early career fellowships - $39.4 million;
2 International Collaborations Grants - $1.2 million;
27 NHMRC Development Grants - $15.2 million;
74 NHMRC Infrastructure Grants ($6 million Equipment Grants and $32.7 million Independent MRI Infrastructure Grants) - $38.7 million;
The new funding also includes several grant extensions.
Notably, our analysis of the NHMRC data across the funding years 2013 and 2014 highlights the persistent gender bias in the NHMRC funding outcome. Females in senior research positions are generally underrepresented in the Australian research landscape, despite being strongly represented at the more junior levels. For example, 63% of applicants for Early Career Fellowships were female, but male applicants were significantly more likely to receive funding (success rate males: 25%; success rate females 20.9%).
And throughout the range of available grants, women have a much lower chance to receive NHMRC funding.
Of 4596 female applicants, 18% were successful compared to 20% of 6248 male applicants (chief investigators where applicable). This disadvantage was particularly pronounced for Career Development Fellowships targeting mid-career researchers, with 17.9% of 196 male applicants successful compared to just 10.2% of 235 female applicants.
The amount of distributed research money highlights the size of the gap: male researchers (chief investigators) received almost twice as much research funding than their female peers.
In March, the NHMRC released a new gender equity policy through which the agency hopes to improve the retention and progression of women in health and medical research. In its statement to the media the agency highlighted that while in 2014 female researchers accounted for 63% of all early career researchers, their share then dropped to just 11% for NHMRC's most senior or experienced fellowships.
By the end of 2015, the gender policies of NHMRC funded institutions will need to include a strategy that addresses the low number of women in senior positions in health and medical research. The policies should also have:
mentoring and skills training strategies that promote and seek to increase women's participation;
the provision of parental/maternity leave and carers leave, and transitional support to encourage return to work;
working arrangements that cater for individuals with caring responsibilities;
remuneration equity between men and women with the same responsibilities;
employment strategies that encourage the recruitment, retention and progression of women in health and medical research; and
strategies to address the need for the provision of support for childcare.
Funding priorities in 2014
A major portion of the NHMRC's funding is directed towards the government's nine National Health Priority Areas (NHPA), which comprise Arthritis, Asthma, Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, Dementia, Diabetes, Injury Mental Health and Obesity. The NHMRC's 2014 funding round provides a total of $434 million for research in these areas, with cancer research topping the list ($157.7 million) followed by cardiovascular disease research ($106.7 million).
Dementia research is attacting a comparably small amount of funding ($26.7 million or 6% of total NHPA directed funding). However, this is about to change with the Government's $200 million Boosting Dementia Research initiative, which aims to scale up Australia's research capacity in dementia.The initiative, jointly administered by the ARC and the NHMRC, will provide:
$150 million to support projects towards finding preventions, treatments and cures for dementia. It includes:
- $95 million for additional large scale research projects, with $32.5 million for a special round of NHMRC Dementia Research Team grants providing up to $6.5 million over five years for collaborative research teams;
- $9 million for projects at the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research; and
- $46 million for new NHMRC-ARC fellowships, which were announced in January and will target researchers in the early stage of their career.
$50 million will support efforts towards the translation of existing and new research into better care for dementia patients. This will involve the establishment of a new NHMRC National Institute for Dementia Research.
More information: www.nhmrc.gov.au; *does not include $5.7 million for two research facilities, extensions of existing postgraduate scholarships and additional People Support co-funding also announced in March 2015.
**does not include further $18.8 million which were committed for 2012 projects (NHMRC Parthernships and John Cade Fellowship in Mental Health Research).
In July 2014 we reported on the launch of the NHMRC Advanced Health Research and Translational Centre program (see Celebrated Translation, through which the agency aims to recognise highly performing health precincts in Australia. In March, an international panel of experts selected four such centres out of 12 applications. They include:
Alfred Health and Monash Health and Partners Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre;
Melbourne Health Care Partners Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre;
South Australian Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre; and
Sydney Health Partners Advanced Health Research and Translation Centre.
Targeted revolution
A new NHMRC Targeted Call for Research (TCR)
initiative will provide up to $25 million across five years for a project that explores genomics medicine for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease...read full story
A new NHMRC Targeted Call for Research (TCR) initiative will provide up to $25 million across five years for a project that explores genomics medicine for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Genomic medicine is based on the study of the function of genes and how their interaction influences growth, development and health throughout life.
This is expected to lead to applications that will transform medicine. And this is also made possible through recent technological advances, which caused a rapid decline in the costs for humane sequencing projects. For example, the Illumina HiSeq X Ten Platform acquired by the Garvan Insititute in 2014 can process around 20,000 genomes a year. It is estimated that run at capacity, the current cost of $10,000 for the sequencing of a human genome could drop to an estimated $1,000 each.
The TCR into Preparing Australia for the Genomics Revolution in Health Care is one of the largest grant initiatives in NHMRC's history and is part of the agency's effort to build a rigorous base of evidence for the use of genomics in the mangement of diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
To this end, the NHMRC is also engaging with stakeholders to address the health and ethical implications of genomic medicine, and has released resources on direct-to-consumer DNA testing late last year.
April 2015 - The release of the Australian Government's Energy White Paper drew mixed responses. Thus various political and academic quarters criticised a failure to properly address climate change, with some commentators pointing out that climate change was scarcely mentioned in the document.
Compared to the previous 2012 Energy White Paper, which had a stronger emphasis on renewable energy development, the focus has indeed shifted towards consumer needs. Thus, the overarching vision for the Australian energy sector is now to provide competitively priced and reliable energy to households, businesses and international markets.
This ambition centers around the three broader themes of:
1) promoting competition to create downward pressures on prices; 2) improving energy productivity to lower energy costs; and 3) increasing investments to stimulate innovation and resource development.
However, substantial parts of the policy paper deal with the more efficient, more productive use of energy, which not only could lead to economic benefits but also to a reduction in emissions.
The development of a National Energy Productivity Plan is a core initiative through which the government aims to improve national energy productivity by up to 40% by 2030, and it plans to align this with the nation's broader emissions reductions effort.
The trend is already set, as since the mid 90s the Australian economy has progressively become less energy-intensive. Energy productivity - the ratio of real GDP to primary energy consumption - improved at an average rate of 1.6% each year between 2000-01 and 2012-13. Much of this was driven by structural changes, such as the decline of the energy-intensive manufacturing sector and the rise of the less energy-intensive services industries, and the trend is likely to continue, with energy productivity forecast to improve by 1.7% each year.
The planned energy market reforms are to accelerate this development, especially by increasing the choice of energy services through greater market competition and flexible tariff structures. Better buildings, less fuel consuming vehicles and more efficient equipment and appliances are identified in the White Paper as areas that could provide substantial energy savings.
Click image for an interactive infographic on trends of electricity prices and network ownerships
The government's ambition is to implement a policy environment that is conducive for the development of new products, including new, and possibly less emission-intensive energy technologies. Nevertheless, it seeks to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, although it commits to support the current projects funded by the agencies.
There is also the nuclear option, which may be considered following a Royal Commission into the potential of a nuclear industry in South Australia, announced in February.
But the government insists that markets should be left to operate freely, "without unnecessary policy intervention". The removal of the 'carbon tax' and 'mining' tax' and the plan for priority energy market reforms that will increase competition (including through the current Competition Policy Review) are guided by this principle, and by the believe that changes in the energy sector should occur on a commercial basis and follow a least cost pathway to the consumer. The Renewable Energy Target (RET) and solar feed-in tariffs are seen as potentially distorting markets with unintended disruptions to competitive energy markets.
"A key to better market outcomes is to limit the role of governments in markets."
Consequently, the government strongly supports the privatisation of publicly owned energy assets, in this referring to a study by the Australian Energy Regulator in 2014, according to which privately owned assets are generally more productive.
The 2014-15 federal budget included a $5 billion Asset Recycling Initiative (a component of the Infrastructure Growth Package), through which states and territories are encouraged to sell assets and reinvest the sale proceeds in infrastructure projects. Under the five-year programme, states and territories can receive 15% of the price of the asset sold if all the sale proceeds were allocated for new infrastructure investment.
Its intend is to increasingly provide R&D support on a 'technology-neutral' basis, while warning against prematurely forcing new technologies in the energy market through government intervention. It also makes the point that according to the Australian Energy Market Operator, Australia now has a major oversupply of electricity generation capacity.
"The Australian Government will not be pursuing policies to 'pay' for exit of surplus generation capacity".
The potential storage of CO2 will remain an investment focus, which the government believes will be critical to Australia's continued reliance on fossil fuels and could open up a new export market for the nation's brown coal. The paper also refers to the potential of high efficiency, low emissions (HELE) coal combustion technology as a way to make the industry more sustainable.
The overall demand of electricity is in decline, but peak demand has not significantly changed, in large parts due to the rapid uptake of air conditioners. As peak demand determines network infrastructure costs, their use is heavily cross-subsidised.
According to the White Paper, this is also the case for consumers accessing electricity through distributed energy generation (DEG), typically solar rooftop panels, as they reduce total energy demand but still rely on reliable energy supply.
The paper refers to an analysis by consulting firm National Economics Research Associates, which suggests that South Australian consumers with north facing PV benefit by around $117 per year. It is noteworthy, though, that these figures are disputed, including by the Australian Photovoltaic Institute, as they may not adequately reflect that the use of solar is also reducing total demand for energy at peak time.
Australia's energy market is fragmented across multiple jurisdictions, and the government aims for greater harmonisation in energy policy and regulation, with the COAG Energy Council, which it chairs, providing a key mechanism for national energy market reform.
Gas and gas resource in Australia. Click to enlarge
Prices for electricity, as well as their trends, vary significantly between states (see infographic). But across the nation, they have risen by 50% between 2010 and 2013, largely driven by investments in poles and wires in response to increased peak demand and ageing infrastructure.
By replacing the current two-part tariff structures with cost-reflective tariffs for electricity the government expects consumers to use less energy at peak demand, thus reducing the costs associated with network capacity.
Around 60% of all consumers could benefit from this through reduced electricity bills. However, research by AGL, referred to in the paper, suggests that the remainder is likely to find their bills increased, including around 20% of hardship cases, 40% of concession/pensioners, 45% of families with a parent at home, and 40% of families with both parents working.
The market for gas is also rapidly changing, particularly in the eastern Australian market where the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has now commenced. Over the past decade prices already rose far above inflation, at around 8% per year, and as gas demand is expected to triple with the international exposure it will drive domestic prices further upwards to eventually match international prices.
The Energy Council is currently revising the Gas Market Development Plan to create a liquid wholesale gas market with transparent prices. In agreement with the Australian Government's position, the council has rejected recent calls for a gas reservation policy that could disconnect domestic prices from international market pressures. This, it says in the White Paper, would equate to a tax on the production of LNG and hence reduce profits. Instead, the government aims for a more integrated, diverse national energy market providing access to multiple alternative sources of gas, including through extended pipelines that could supply the eastern states with natural gas from the Northern Territory. The government also seeks to develop a strategy (Domestic Gas Strategy) to further promote the development of coal seam gas (CSG) and other unconventional gas resources.
Australia's energy sector in the world:
Fossil fuels are currently accounting for 68% of global electricity generation. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), their share is set to decline to around 55% by 2040, but their use will increase in absolute terms, from 15.5 terrawatt hours (TWh) to 22.2 TWh. Nuclear power is set to increase its share from 11% to 12% over this period.
According to the IEA World Energy Outlook 2014, "fossil-fuel subsidies totalled $550 billion in 2013 - more than four-times those to renewable energy - and are holding back investment in efficiency and renewables".
Australia exports around 80% of its energy production, and is among the world's largest exporters of LNG, coal and uranium. With $63 billion directly invested in LNG projects in Queensland, gas is behind Australia's still growing energy export potential. In 2013-14, the energy sector accounted for 7% of GDP and $71.5 billion in export earnings. Over the next five years Australia's yearly earnings from energy resources commodities are projected to reach $114 billion.
In 2013-13, Australia's energy consumption consisted of 38% oil, 33% coal, 24% natural gas and 6% renewables. However, while renewables still account for only a small fraction of total consumption, in absolute terms their consumption grew by 12%, while that of oil and gas grew by 1% and 2%, respectively. By contrast, the consumption of coal decreased by 6%.
In 2012-13, renewable energy accounted for 13% of electricity production (up 26%), while the share of coal decreased to 64% (down 7%).
However, in 2012-13 the overall production of energy grew by 9%, with coal up 8%, uranium up 18%, gas up 14% and renewables up 14%.
Australia imports around 80% of the crude oil it refines into liquid fuels, and around 44% of the refined liquid fuels that is used in Australia, while 75% of oil produced in Australia is exported.
New government initiatives to support the sector include the Oil, Gas and Energy Resources Growth Centre and the Mining Equipment, Technology and Services Growth Centre, and the $476 million Industry Skills Fund.
The $5.5 billion Growing Jobs and Small Business initiative may indeed be the most exciting bit in this year's 'dull' 2015-16 federal budget.
The pharmaceutical industries will also be happy about $1.3 billion towards the listing of new medicines and vaccines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Large savings affecting the scheme, up to $5 billion over five years were predicted by some in the media, did not eventuate.
There was even a small boost for the environment, with an additional $174 million provided for the Government's 'Green Army' initiative. Previously announced were an additional $100 million for the Reef Trust, which was established last year to oversee investments into projects that benefit the Great Barrier Reef (see 'Our beef with the reef').
And the Government gave medical researchers also something to look forward to with the first distributions from the Medical Research Future Fund - $10 million in 2015-16. However, this would require the legislation to be passed, which at present seems highly unlikely. Still, the MRF could potentially deliver around $400 million over four years in addition to NHMRC research funding.
Medical research was already the big winner in last year's budget, but with the funding boost from the MRF uncertain the year ahead will als bring slightly reduced health and medical research funding from the NHMRC, with expenses for grants estimated at $934 million compared to $949 million in 2014-15.
Enhancing Australia's capacity in dementia research will continue to be a focus in 2015-16, including through the establishment of a NHMRC National Institute for Dementia Research
And the agency will have a new funding initiative in which it will collaborate with the Austrade. The Developing Northern Australia budget measure, which is listed at a total cost of $15 million over four years, aims to position the north as a leader in tropical health. The program will commence in 2015-16 and support collaborative research on tropical disease and its translation into health policy and practice.
The government's overall annual investment in science and research will be maintained at around $9.2 billion. This includes funding for the CSIRO, which was hard hit in last year's budget with a reduction in funding of $111.4 million over the years 2013-14 to 2017-18.
No relief for the CSIRO
For 2015-16, the agency will receive from the government a total of $750 million, which compares to $745 million in 2014-15 and $778 million in 2013-14.
The organisation expects to top this up with $527 million ($516 million in 2013-14) from other independent sources, lifting its total budget to $1.29 billion. This compares to 1.31 billion it had at disposal two years ago.
The overall reduced funding is also reflected in the agency's lower staffing levels, which in 2013-14 averaged 5,523 people compared to an average of 4,970 people estimated for 2015-16.
Over the forward estimate, the Government has allocated a total of around $3 billion to the agency.
Across other areas of non-medical research and innovation there is little to be cheerful about.
Not in club med? - too bad
The ARC will have its budget significantly reduced, down from $904 million allocated in last year's budget to an estimated $818 million in 2015-16.
By comparison, the ARC's special appropriation budget, through which it provides grant support, was $884 million in 2013-14, but was then reduced to $869 million in last year's budget, and is now down to just $790 million in 2015-16.
The reductions especially affects the Linkage program, for which funding reduced by $51 million to $287 million.
Geo-tragic
Geoscience Australia will also have to do with significantly less money, mostly because of reduced earnings from externally funded projects.
Its estimated total revenues of $161 million are $25.4 million less than in the previous year.
Corporate pain good for commercialisation?
Unexpected were further cuts to the Corporate Research Centres (CRC) program funding, in total more than $26 million over four years, after the program was already hit by savings in last year's budget.
The CRC program is currently under review with a final report expected in June 2015. Also under review is the Australia-China Science and Research Fund, which was initially set up with $9 million (matched by China) for the three years from 2011-12 to 2013-14.
Taxing Tax Incentive
Another review is about to commence for the R&D Tax Incentive, the Government's main mechanism to support industry investment in R&D.
According to R&D Tax Incentive expert Kris Gale from Michael Johnson Associate, the proposed reduction in the corporate tax rate could deliver permanent tax benefit increases to 16.5 cents in the dollar for businesses that have a turnover of less than $2 million and make claims under the current 45% Refundable R&D Tax Offset.
This means that companies such as start-ups in tax loss could access cash refunds at the rate of 46.5 cents in the dollar.
However, according to the budget papers, the government still intends to reduce the head rates of the Incentive to a refundable tax offset of 43.5% if their turnover is less than $20 million, and to a non-refundable tax offset of 38.5%. This despite a related previous Bill having failed to pass Parliament earlier this year.
Mr Gale comments that when allied to announced reductions in funding areas such as the Entrepreneurs Infrastructure Program and the Co-operative Research Centres Program, the ambivalence shown to the Incentive is not a good news story for Australian innovation.
Some stay on the drip
There were few good news for Australia's science community.
The National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) will receive $150 million in 2016-17 to extend its operation to 30 June 2017.
A lifeline also for the Australian Synchroton in Melbourne, which is managed by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). The government will contribute $20.5 million to keep the Synchroton's doors open in 2016-17.
Nuclear manna
ANSTO will also get an additional $49.1 million, which supports its nuclear capabilities and the return of intermediate-level radioactive waste that was originally sent from Australia to the UK.
Related to this is the plan to establish a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility for the long-term storage and disposal of waste from the production of medicines, and science and industrial activities.
Dry-Fi for the bush...
There are few new initiatives addressing the $52 billion agriculture sector, with the exception of assistance for drought affected areas, which will be supported with over $400 million. This also includes $25.8 million for programs to manage pest animals and weeds in drought-affected areas.
However, there are a number of strategic priorities that indicate a big year ahead for the sector, notably the focus on developing the agricultural potential of Northern Australia, supported through a new $100 million fund for Improving Northern Cattle Supply Chain.
Strategic priorities for the year ahead include:
the Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper;
the White Paper on Developing Northern Australia;
water infrastructure through the Water Infrastructure Taskforce; and
the implementation of the Biosecurity Bill 2014.
The previously announced Rural Research and Development for Profit program is also on train to invest $100 million over four years in rural research (from 2014-15).
...and Wi-Fi promise
The NBN rollout will continue to be a focus, including the launch of two KA-band satellites in 2015-16 to improve broadband services in the bush.
The government has also earmarked $100 million over four years for the Mobile Black Spot program, which is to extend mobile phone coverage and competition in regional Australia (successful locations will be announced by 30 June 2015).
While the Department of Communication will have a significant increase in total program expenses from 2015-16, this is entirely due to 'Special Account Expenses' associated with the transfer of functions from the Telecommunications Universal Management Agency (TUSAMA) to the Department of Communications.
Other program expenses will decrease in 2015-16 and across the forward estimates.
NICTA alone in the world:
As announced in previous year's budget, government funding for National ICT Australia (NICTA) through the ICT Centre of Excellence program will stop from 2016-17 onwards, saving the government around $42 million a year.
NICTA is Australia's largest organisation dedicated to ICT research, and since 2002 has created 15 companies. The Government expects that because of its strong backing from the commercial sector it will in future be able to run independently from federal funding.
However, the tensions over the way forward became apparent last year when the NICTA's chief executive officer Professor Hugh Durrant-Whyteresigned (with Duane Zitzner subsequently appointed as interim CEO.
A media release from February this year shines a light on a way forward for NICTA through a closer alliance with the CSIRO, possibly as a single entity.
Government in the digital age:
A big ticket item of this year's Communication budget is the $254.7 million Digital Transformation Agenda, which is to improve digital access to government services and drive innovation. In its first phase the agenda includes $153 million for the implementation of a Digital Service Standard across all government agencies, more myGov services and the development of a new grants administration process across government.
There will also be $95.4 million for a new Digital Transformation Office, which from 1 July will run as an 'executive agency' within the Department of Communications.
April 2015 - In its recent report Research Engagement for Australia, the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) has proposed a metrics system through which engagement between university researchers and private and public sector partners could be measured.
Among OECD countries Australia rates low on knowledge transfer between the public and the private sector, and this contributes to the traditionally poor commercialisation of discoveries made in our universities.
New carrot from the boss
The 2015 Prime Minister's Prizes for Science will for the first time also recognise the practical and commercial successes of Australian scientists with a new award.
The new Prime Minister's Prize for the Commercial Application of Science will be awarded with the intend to encourage entrepreneurship in the research community and better collaboration between researchers and industry...read full story
This problem was also highlighted with the Australian Government's Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda (see our dossier 'Reinventing a nation'.
Click infographic to explore: Collaboration of firms with the public research sector in the OECD
While the ARC's Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) evaluations demonstrate that the research capacity of Australian universities is very competitive internationally, it fails to capture their engagement with the private sector. As a result, it provides little incentive for such cross-sector collaboration.
ATSE's findings underscore that research is an important but not a sufficient driver of innovation.
And the report shows that it is feasible to rank universities on their cross-sector collaboration in defined research disciplines using already collected data.
Drawing on existing data collections from the ARC, the report established three individual metrics that relate to a university's research engagement per full time staff, the share of national engagement activity and its engagement intensiveness. Together these metrics comprise the 'Research Engagement for Australia'.
All three metrics are based on measuring the external dollars provided by industry or other end users in support of the university research.
The data collections, obtained from the ARC, were detailed enough to distinguish between university income awarded to research-led investigations and income linked to cross-sector participation (such as industry). Importantly, the report's findings indicate that the new metrics system could rate additional collaborative activities in universities
Taken alongside the ERA results could provide a more complete picture of university research activities.
The 2015 Prime Minister's Prizes for Science will for the first time also recognise the practical and commercial successes of Australian scientists with a new award.
The new PM's Prize for the Commercial Application of Science will be awarded with the intend to encourage entrepreneurship in the research community and better collaboration between researchers and industry.
With this new prize the total prize money has risen to $700,000 across six prizes:
The PM's Prize for Science recognises a significant advancement of knowledge through science.
The PM's Prize for the Commercial Application of Science is awarded for the translation of science knowledge into a substantial commercial impact.
The Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year and the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year acknowledge the work of our best early to mid-career scientists.
The PM's Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools and the PM's Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools recognise excellence in science teaching with prize money shared equally between the recipient teacher and their school.
23 April - The first Emissions Reduction Fund auction, administered by the Australian Government's Clean Energy Regulator, has awarded businesses and individuals 107 contracts worth $660.4 million.
The contracts cover 144 project, which are expected to result in 47 million tonnes of green house gas abatement over a period of between three to ten years, at a per tonne cost of $13.94. The majority of the projects will target carbon sequestration methods, as well as landfill and alternative waste treatment methods, together accounting for 46.5 million tonnes of abatement.
According to Environment Minister Greg Hunt, the results mean a cut in emissions at around one percent of the cost of the previous price on carbon policy.
The Australian Government also believes it is well on track in achieving its target of reducing emissions by 5% from 2000 levels by 2020, which would require a reduction of 236 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent.
However, it is noteworthy that the $660.4 million spent account for 25.8% of a total of $2.55 billion allocated to the Direct Action policy, while the 47 million tonnes of bought abatement make up just around 20% of the necessary reduction of 236 million tonnes CO2-e.
Also, by contrast to the price on carbon mechanism, the Direct Action policy is entirely funded from tax revenue.
Better safe than sorry
In March, the Government released a discussion paper on the safeguard mechanism that is to ensure that the purchased emissions reductions are not offset by rises in emissions elsewhere.
Broader policy elements were already outlined in the Emissions Reduction White Paper released in 2014. They include that the mechanism will only apply to facilities with direct emissions of the equivalent of more than 100,000 tonnes CO2. This targets around 140 large businesses accounting for half of Australia's emissions. The majority of these firms (57%) are operating within the electricity sector.
The safeguard mechanism is to deter emissions increases beyond established baselines, which to set is complex and the task of the Clean Energy Regulator. Making this even more difficult is the government's directive that the policy is not to impose "unnecessary costs" on Australian businesses.
The method of estimating baselines will use historical data reported under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme, with baselines to be set at the highest level of reported emissions for their existing facilities over the period 2009-10 to 2013-14. This will establish reference points against which future emissions increases can be measured.
If baseline levels are exceeded over a certain monitoring period, businesses are required to reduce emissions and/or offset emissions increases by voluntarily surrendering eligible carbon units. For non-compliant businesses the Clean Energy Regulator can seek a civil penalty through the court. But the government emphasises that there is no intend to raise extra revenue.
The safeguard mechanism will include rules that also take into account new investments or significant expansions of existing facilities.
In developing the safeguard mechanism, the government has taking on board a number of requests by
business, such as to provide for flexibility in the design of the safeguard. Businesses can now also use carbon offsets to net off emissions as currently is the practice under voluntary carbon neutral programs, and they will be able to receive exemptions in case of exceptional circumstances.
Trend worries
Data presented in the Quarterly Update of Australia s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: September 2014 report indicate that a trend decline in emissions since September quarter 2011 reversed in the September quarter 2014 (see figure).
Quarterly trend emissions September quarter 2004-2014
Figure from Quarterly Update of Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: September 2014 report
The removal of the price on carbon policy was in July 2014.
The total year to September 2014 emissions were still down, though, by 0.6% from the previous year, as the demand for electricity declined and the share of renewables in the electricity generation mix increased. The decrease in emissions was only partially offset by increases in fugitive emissions and stationary energy (excluding electricity) sectors.
The ARC's Industrial Transformation Research Program (ITRP) will provide $18.7 million for four new research hubs targeting priority research areas such as sustainable agriculture, offshore oil and a future fibre industry.
Another $20.9 million will support five new training centres covering research areas such as mining, forestry and biosecurity.
The main objective of the ITRP is to support collaborative work between publicly funded research and the private sector. This was also highlighted by Education Minister Christopher Pyne at the launch of the ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production at the University of Adelaide, a previously funded ITRP project.
The new ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production will work with 12 partner organisations, including CSIRO, the Australian Wine Research Institute, the South Australia Research and Development Institute, Bio Innovation South Australia and Charles Sturt University.
Its research will target challenges for the Australian wine industry such as:
Climate change;
Water restrictions;
Changing consumer preferences; and
Rising wine alcohol content.
Among the specific research topics pursued at the centre are projects that investigate how smoke exposure triggers biochemical responses in the grapevine, and the possibility of reducing ethanol yield and enhancing the vine aroma through the use of different fermentation microbes.
Successful projects announced in this funding round are:
Research Hubs
$4.0 million for the ARC Research Hub for Legumes for Sustainable Agriculture (The University of Sydney) - director: Associate Professor Brent Kaiser;
$4.7 million for the ARC Research Hub for a World-class Future Fibre Industry (Deakin University) - director: Professor Xungai Wang;
$5.0 million for the ARC Research Hub for Offshore Floating Facilities (The University of Western Australia) - director: Professor David White;
$5.0 million for the ARC Research Hub for Computational Particle Technology (Monash University) - Professor Aibing Yu.
Training Centres
$5.0 million for the ARC Training Centre for Mining Restoration (Curtin University of Technology) - director: Professor Kingsley Dixon;
$4.6 million for the ARC Training Centre for Liquefied Natural Gas Futures (The University of Western Australia) - director: Professor Eric May;
$4.0 million for the ARC Training Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing (The University of Melbourne)- director: Professor Priyan Mendis;
$3.6 million for the ARC Training Centre for Forest Value (University of Tasmania) - director: Professor James Reid;
$3.7 million for the ARC Training Centre for Fruit Fly Biosecurity Innovation (Macquarie University) - Associate Professor Phillip Taylor.
To date, the ARC ITRP program has provided a total of $114 million for 18 Research Hubs and Training Centres.
14 May 2015 - The Australian Government won praise from the research community for its decision to keep the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) going for another two years, with $300 million allocated in the May budget. However, the funding is only meant to bridge the time until the government's review of research infrastructure is finalised, and a long term funding strategy is developed.
In 2015-16, NCRIS will provide $136.9 million for 27 facilities supporting a wide range of nationally significant research outcomes. These include new cancer testing methods, advances in quantum computing, a better understanding of the oceans, weather and climate, as well as improved crop productivity and more detailed environmental monitoring.
The new funding will also support international research initiatives like the Square Kilometre Array.
The 27 funded projects are:
Australian Animal Health Laboratory;
Astronomy Australia;
Atlas of Living Australia;
Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Facility;
Australian National Data Service;
Australian National Fabrication Facility;
ANSTO Nuclear Science Facilities;
Australian Phenomics Network;
Australian Plant Phenomics Network;
Australian Plasma Fusion Research Facility;
Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network;
AuScope;
Biofuels;
Bioplatforms Australia;
EMBL Australia;
Groundwater;
Heavy Ion Accelerators;
Integrated Marine Observing System;
National Computational Infrastructure;
National Deuteration Facility;
National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources;
National Imaging Facility;
Pawsey High Performance Computing Centre;
Population Health Research Network;
Research Data Storage Infrastructure;
Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network; and
Translating Health Discovery into Clinical Applications.
has its latest addition in the online one-stop for clinical trials, launched in May.
The website is part of the Australian Government's $9.9 million commitment to accelerate clinical trials reform, and is done in collaboration between NHMRC, the Department of Health and Sport, and the Department for Industry and Science.
The site will help patient's to get informed of the trials available across Australia, and how trials work, who can enrol, and what is required of patients. The site will also facilitate contacts between patients and a trial's lead researcher.
The Australian Government has awarded eight new offshore petroleum permits to bidders in the first round of the 2014 Offshore Acreage Release.
The new permits are targeting areas in Commonwealth waters off Western Australia and in the Territory of the Ashmore and Cartier Islands, off the northwestern coast of Australia. Together they could leverage $263 million in investment from Australia's exploration industry.
The government has also released 29 new areas for bidding in its 2015 round. Of these are 21 areas located on the North West Shelf off Western Australia and the Northern Territory in the Bonaparte, Browse, Roebuck and Northern Carnarvon basins.
While eight of the acreages are off Australia's southern margin in the Bight, Otway, Sorell and Gippsland basins, the main focus of Australia's petroleum exploration is still on the so called 'Westralian Superbasin' on the North West Shelf off Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The area includes the Browse Basin, which accounts for four of the new released exploration areas. One of Australia's most promising hydrocarbon provinces, it is already targeted by large gas projects, including the Inpex' Ichthys led gas development and Shell's floating LNG Prelude project.
But the Browse Basin is still to produce gas, while the Northern Carnarvon Basin is now an established oil and gas producing province. According to Geoscience Australia, 1.0 to 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are extracted from this basin each year, then converted to LNG and exported to Asian markets. And with 14 of the new acreage releases located in this area, the Northern Carnarvon Basin remains Australia's premier petroleum exploration site
Permission to Bight
However, the Great Australian Bight (GAB) is attracting renewed interest as an area with excellent potential for black oil (see also our 2013 article 'Hydrocarbonic investments' and ...going fishing.
As part of the 2015 release a large acreage block is located in the GAB's Ceduna-sub-basin, which according to Geoscience Australia hosts the largest underexplored deltaic system in the world.
Deltaic systems often hold great potential for the generation of hydrocarbons, and several modern deltas are major oil and gas provinces including the Mississippi, Niger, Congo and the Nile. Geoscience Australia analysis suggests that the Bight could be the next major one in Australia, based on its very thick interval of sediment that was deposited by a major delta some 90 million years ago.
Companies currently holding permits in the GAB include BP Australia, Chevron Australia Australia New Venture Pty Ltd, a joint venture of Murphy Australia Pty Ltd and Santos Offshore Pty Ltd, and Bight Petroleum Corporation - an international oil and gas corporation focussed on exploring the Southern Margin of Australia.
BP acquired four exploration permits in the GAB in 2011, which commits the company to investments worth $605 million. The project, progressed in a venture with Statoil, is now the most advanced in the GAB, with a 3D seismic survey concluded in early 2012 that confirmed the GAB's potential as a major reservoir for hydrocarbons. The venture is now planning to drill four exploration wells in late 2016.
Permits currently held for oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight
But, as we have highlighted in our previous articles, there are substantial environmental concerns associated with oil exploration in the GAB, also because of the extreme conditions that result of the depth and the force of waves building up from the Antarctic.
The Guardian Australia website reported in May 2015 on information submitted by BP to the Australian Government indicating that the transport of equipment from Singapore could take up to 32 days, while a containment response system in the US would need up to 25 days to arrive on site.
The BP documents detail that
"a worst case oil spill could cover an area of 175 kilometres by 200 kilometres, with a 7% chance the oil would reach Kangaroo island. Without a response, as much as 805 metric tonnes of oil would hit around 100 kilometres of coastline, around 19 days from the initial spill".
The company is acutely aware of public concerns in the southern state. In an opinion piece published in The Advertiser in April 2015, BP wrote that "we have learned over many years of operation, and specifically from the Deepwater Horizon accident. New BP drilling operations in deepwater must have access to capping equipment, must pre-plan their relief wells, and must be ready to demonstrate that their oil spill contingency plan takes account of representative oil spill risks".
The company further states that response arrangements are at present in the preliminary states, and that an oil spill management strategy would be released around a year before any actual operations commence.
2 June 2015 - The 11 international partners of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) project have signed off on the construction of the first generation of the telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert.
Giant Magellan Telescope GMTO Corporation
The agreement will now unlock over US$500 million of the around US$1 billion the project is estimated to cost. Only two nations outside the American continent participate (Korea and Australia), while seven of the 11 partner organisations are from the US.
The lack of European participation is explained by their own, fully tax payer funded project, the 40-meter European Large Telescope, which will also be at a site in Chile.
And a third giant telescope project is going to be built at a site in Hawaii, with participation from the US, China, Canada, India and Japan.
Australia's stake in the GMT project is based on a $93 million contribution provided by the Education Investment Fund and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy. This secured Australian National University (ANU) and Astronomy Australia Limited (AAL) a 10% share of the project and thus access for Australian astronomers and scientists to the telescope. Australian industry will also be able to contribute to the telescope's high-technology equipment.
The GMT is a segmented mirror telescope that employs seven of today s largest stiff monolith mirrors as segments. Six off-axis 8.4 metre segments surround a central on-axis segment, forming a single optical surface 24.5 metres in diameter with a total collecting area of 368 square metres.
ANU researchers and engineers at the ANU Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics also designed and built a key component of the project, a GMT Integral Field Spectograph, which will record spectra from each point across the field of view simultaneously and so allow researchers to take full advantage of the telescope s light-collecting power and high resolution.
Expected to be fully operational by 2014, the GMT is on course to be the first of a new class of extremely large telescopes, capable of producing images that have ten times the resolution of those captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Researchers will use the facility to search for Earth-like planets around nearby stars and the tiny distortions that black holes cause in the light from distant stars and galaxies. The research could reveal the faintest objects ever seen in space, and capture the light emitted by ancient and now extremely distant galaxies shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago.
3 June 2015 - The potential of using batteries for storing renewable energy has recently received substantial media coverage, especially after Tesla unveiled its 'Powerwall' battery suit for domestic use.
The world (especially outside Australia) is moving fast in building renewable energy capacity. But with it comes the need to efficiently store this energy either to be used off-grid or to feed into the grid outside times of peak demand.
Its not just Tesla rapidly progressing on this. Yes, even in Australia.
In 2015, Adelaide company ZEN Energy Systems is more than ten years in business, and the company claims that its battery storage system will be cost-competitive with the equivalent Tesla system and that it may even beat Tesla to market.
Another international example is German company Daimler, owner of the Mercedes-Benz automotive brand, which has now also entered the rapidly evolving home battery market.
By the end of this year it will sell power packs for residential use, each holding 2.5 kilowatt hours of electricity. They are produced by Daimler's subsidiary Deutsche ACCUmotive, which at present has also its first industrial-scale lithium-ion unit on the grid. The plant comprises 96 battery modules with a total capacity of more than 500 kWh, which will be gradually increased to 3000 kWh. The objective of this is to demonstrate that battery stored renewable energy can stabilise the grid and smooth load peaks, tasks usually performed by non-renewable power plants.
As these and other innovations progress, there is the expectation that within the next decade battery storage technologies will become a major industry, finding their use both in small domestic and very large commercial scale applications.
Still, there are open questions about the technical performance of battery energy storage systems in Australia.
A project by researchers from the University of Adelaide has recently been awarded $1.4 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to investigate this.
The project led by Associate Professor Nesimi Ertugrul will develop a mobile energy storage test facility the size of a shipping container, which will allow the researchers to study on-site how battery operated systems perform and integrate with energy infrastructure - both on-grid and off-grid.
While the work will initially target the South Australian Power Networks grid, it is expected to then also include sites across the country.
In addition to the ARENA funding, the project is drawing on funds from the South Australian Government, SA Power Networks, the Energy Networks Association and South Australian company Solar Storage. Together they provide a total of $650,000. With further in-kind support from industry partners the total value of the project will be more than $3.1 million.
With the official 'switch-on' of the Perth Wave Energy Project (PWEP) at Western Australia's Garden Island in February, Carnegie Wave Energy could celebrate the world's first grid-connected project operating multiple wave units.
The PWEP is also on train to become the first project that not only produces power but also freshwater, with both products supplied to the Australian Defence Force naval base, HMAS Stirling.
The power plant with a capacity of 700 kilowatt took around ten years to build at a cost close to $100 million. Both the Western Australian and Australian Government contributed significantly, with $10 million from the state's Low Emissions Energy Development (LEED) program and $13 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
(Click
image to enlarge)- CETO Power
and Freshwater technology
So far the news continue to be good. Thus, according to recent company updates, the three installed CETO 5 units have now accumulated more than 7,500 continuous operating hours, during which they had to sustain up to 4 metre high waves. The company was also able to retrieve a unit validating its 'hot swap' maintenance strategy.
Given their strong support of the project, both state and federal government's will be pleased with the progress.
And while Prime Minister Tony Abbott is ostensibly hostile towards renewable energies, his Energy Minister Ian Macfarlane sent a message of praise at the wave project's launch, describing it as "great evidence of a commercial success in renewable energy".
However, with less than 1 megawatt (MW) capacity, the PWEP is not a commercial project. Instead its primary objective is to demonstrate the principle viability of the technology and the gained experience will now feed into a four times bigger plant. While also located off Garden Island, it will employ three next-generation CETO 6 units, which each have a targeted capacity of 1MW.
A major difference to PWEP is that the units will be further out in deeper water, with a power generation system offshore inside a buoy, rather than onshore as with the CETO 5 technology. According to the company, the ability to move into deeper, more distant to shore wave resources increases the size of the commercial market for CETO.
Expected to go on-grid in 2017, this project will put the commercial viability of the technology to the test. The company says, with 3 MW capacity at a capital cost of $25 million it will be three-times cheaper on a dollar per MW basis than the PWEP project.
Again, the Australian Government is heavily involved with a $11 million contribution from ARENA and a five year $20 million loan facility from the Australian Clean Energy Finance Corporation. And the Australian Department of Defence is again sole customer for the produced energy.
The support may be well placed. Thus, Carnegie was recently selected from over 1,500 different sustainable projects for the shortlist 100 of the 2016 Sustainia Award.
And the international reach is growing. The company has established subsidiaries in the UK, Ireland and Chile, and it recently announced a collaboration agreement with Chile's private/public innovation centre Fundacion Chile for potential wave energy projects in Chile and Peru.
May 2015 - The review of the Cooperative Research Centre Program by David Miles, which was commissioned by the Australian Government in 2014, has found the program is valuable and effective, although there is room for improvement.
The Australian Government has accepted all of its 18 recommendations, which means the program will continue despite the renewed funding cuts detailed in the 2015-16 budget (another $26 million over the next four years). The government has also already put in place a new CRC Advisory Group, as was recommended by Mr Miles, and it will strengthen the commercial focus of the program.
In its broader conclusion, the report by Mr Miles is in line with previous assessments of the CRCs, including the Collaborating to a purpose review by Professor Mary O'Kane, which in 2008 determined that there was an ongoing need for such a large-scale program bringing research providers and end users together.
However, Professor O'Kane also found that the program, then in its 18th year, had lost some of its appeal to research providers and had not attracted firms in sufficient number to generate innovation on a whole-of-industry basis. Her recommendations aimed for a refreshed and modified program with a strong focus on end-users.
But in line with the broader public good objective pursued by the government at the time, she included as potential end-users the public as well as private sector.
Seven years later, the government has narrowed its policy aim towards promoting commercialisation as a prime objective, as was outlined in the recent Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda (see our dossier 'Reinventing a nation).
Accordingly, Mr Davis states in his report that the focus of his CRC review was to "determine the effectiveness of the program in supporting government's priorities for applied science and research". Hence, he recommends to put a stop to the 'dilution of funds' and put industry again 'front and center'.
The Government's new Growth Centres will now play the pivotal role in promoting collaboration and developing ideas that target industry needs in priority areas. Mr Davis suggests that the CRC program is complementing this as an 'engine of innovative research' by developing commercial products based on these ideas.
However, while there were concerns that this could limit the scope of the CRCs to priority areas targeted by Growth Centres, Industry and Science Minister Ian Macfarlane has indicated in a speech at the annual CRC Association Conference that this would not be the case.
As have previous reviews, Mr Miles also recognises that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for around two thirds of GDP, face significant barriers to collaboration, including often lack of funds. To boost their participation in CRC projects, he proposes a new more industry-focussed advisory body providing a more streamlined administration, with simplified selection and review process, shorter project timeframes and smaller budgets. This new body should also identify potential links with Growth Centres, and assess the progress of projects against expected outcomes.
Projects found to not progess as expected should not receive further funding, Mr Miles recommends.
Mr Miles' also recommends more flexible organisational structures and governance models, and changes to the lifespan of CRC, which should typically be between four to seven years, but not exceed ten years. And he also proposes to restrict funding to a maximum of $45 million.
Recommendations in brief:
Program to be continued but with a narrowed focus on industry partners, with the public good stream introduced in 2013 discontinued.
A streamlined application and reporting processes.
CRC program is to complement Industry Growth Centres targeting economic priority areas.
Establishment of a new smaller advisory committee (is established, with business leader Philip Clark as chair and other members including Dr Megan Clark, Dr Michele Allan and chief scientist Professor Ian Chubb)
A new CRC project stream is to provide for smaller collaborations, shorter duration (no more than three years, with no extensions), more specific research requirements, with a call for applications three times a year. This stream is expected to benefit SMEs in particular.
The existing CRC funding stream should have an application round once a year and the maximum duration of a CRC should be 10 years with no extensions.
Other Australian Government Departments should use the model for research to meet their policy needs and provide the core funding, with the CRC administered by the Department of Industry and Science to reduce costs (as is the case with the current Defence Materials Technology Centre).
All CRCs should be a company limited by guarantee (i.e. no flexibility in governance models) and use best practice IP arrangements.
Reaction
CRC Association chief executive Professor Tony Peacock has been an outspoken critic to the significant funding cuts to the CRC program in consecutive federal budgets.
However, the CRC Association has welcomed the review and its recommendations, although in a media statement it expressed its concerns with the exclusion of the 'public good' as a target of CRC activities:
"We prefer to use a term like 'national benefit' to describe some CRCs where the ultimate goals are not necessarily commercial goods or services. Many CRCs aim to provide significant and focussed 'national benefit' without aiming for commercial goods or services. For example, the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC produces highly packaged and sought-after information on each fire season. The CRC Association would deem it a poor outcome if CRCs such as this were excluded from the bidding process."
The CRC Association is also critical of restricting the CRC lifespan to 10 years, which it says should be determined on merit.
In June, Environment Minister Greg Hunt gave an example of how to make a pig look like a fashion model. "Certainty and growth for renewable energy" it said in the heading of a media statement in which he announced that the Australian Government's changes to the renewable energy target (RET) had passed the Senate.
Given that for more than a year the Australian renewables industry had to operate in an environment where nothing was certain and growth all but stalled, the outcome can indeed be interpreted as a period of calm after a war. The pig is not dead, but it surely is not looking Miss World either.
The deal the government struck with the opposition is a compromise deal that has gone halfway towards the recommendations made in the Warburton review of the scheme from August last year. It still will mean a significant curtailment of the RET, although the changes will solely effect the scheme's large-scale component, the LRET.
Missing the target
The independent Review of the Renewable Energy Target, announced by the Government in February this year, delivered its much anticipated report in August.
The review, a statutory requirement of the RET legislation, followed on from a review by the Climate Change Authority (CCA) in 2012, which at the time found that the RET legislation had an important role to play in supporting renewable generation...
...read the full story
In its previous version, the LRET had a target of 41,000 gigawatt-hours that electricity retailers were required to source from renewable energy providers by 2020. The new RET legislation scales this down to 33,000 gigawatt-hours, although this may still equate to around 23.5% of Australia's total electricity generation, above the target of 20% set out in the original RET. This is because the demand for electricity in 2020 is now projected to be significantly less than previously estimated.
The Warburton review panel suggested to reduce the 2020 target of the LRET even further, down to 25,500 gigawatt-hours, arguing that because of the decreased electricity demand new renewable energy capacity is now replacing output from existing coal-fired power stations, with 4,155 megawatt capacity mothballed since mid-2012.
But the established renewable energy industries will now have to accommodate a new player, as the burning of biomass, including from woodchips became an eligible form of renewable energy under the RET scheme.
The Australian Forest Products Association, which had lobbied for this change, has estimated that "between 3000 (2020) to 5000 Gwh (2050) of renewable electricity (i.e. up to 7% of the RET) could be utilised from available wood-related wastes in Australia".
The government describes the inclusion of biomass as a sensible way to make use of waste that otherwise would rot on the floor of the forest.
But Richard Deniss from the Australia Institute recently pointed out that with the LRET target reduced to 33,000 gigawatt-hours, the share of biomass could equate to around 15% of renewable energy supported under the LRET target.
The government had initially proposed to review the progress of the RET scheme every two years. However, under the compromise deal there will be no review of the RET until 2020, which should give the industry some certainty, at least for the near future. But the Clean Energy Regulator will provide annual updates on the progress towards the target and potential impacts on electricity prices.
There will also be a 100% exemption for emissions-intensive industries that are trade exposed and thus are constraint in passing on costs associated with the RET to consumers. Under the previous scheme, these businesses were seggregated into 'highly emissions-intensive ' and 'moderately emissions-intensive' and exempted to 90% and 60%, respectively.
Reactions:
The changes to the RET legislation are a compromise and hence the reactions to the deal were mixed.
For example, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has praised the changes as a win for consumers:
"The reduction of the target from 41,000 gigawatt hours is a sensible reform that acknowledges the changed circumstances of lower overall demand for energy than originally anticipated."
Others were less positive, with the Australian Solar Council pointing out that the wound back target will benefit wind energy, but be a "desaster" for 'Big Solar':
"The slashed target will quickly be taken up by wind alone. By 2017/18 when Big Solar is competing at scale there will be little space left. This is a poor outcome for Australia. It locks us into a single technology and ignores Australia'??s solar potential."
In an article published in The Conversation, Craig Froome from the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland points out that projections about future trends of electricity demand are marred with uncertainty, but that based on current demand more than the 41,000 gigawatt-hours targeted in the original RET would be needed to achieve a 20% share of renewable energy in Australia's total electricity generation by 2020.
But even with the current 33,000 gigawatt-hours target, the renewable sector will have to quadruple in size from its current level of output, Mr Froome writes.
According to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) and the CSIRO, the future of agriculture will be determined by five megatrends:
(1) population growth driven demand for food; (2) the emergence of a new middle class increasing food consumption; (3) more informed customers demanding that food production adheres to certain standards; (4) technological advances in production and transport; and (5) globalisation and climate change.
Food on the white board
4 July 2015 - A number of factors can be attributed to Australia's ongoing success in agriculture, including past policy reforms that made decision-making in the sector more reponsive to market forces.
"Instead, future opportunities for government to promote agricultural productivity growth may come from reducing regulatory burdens, improving the efficiency of the rural research, development and extension system, and building human capital through improving labour availability and skills."
Many of these issues find attention in the now releasedAgricultural Competitiveness White Paper.
To reduce red tape the government intends to establish Productivity Commission inquiries into the regulatory cost burdens placed on agricultural businesses. It also will undertake changes to the regulation of pesticides and veterinary products, and points out that a process for reducing red tape is already underway: the current One-Stop Shop regulatory reform of environmental approvals, which seeks to streamline assessments across jurisdications.
For greater efficiency of rural research the government will develop clearer and farmer-oriented priorities for its rural RD & E funding. And it will invest another $100 million into the Rural R&D for Profit Programme. Established with $100 million in 2014, the new funding will extend the program by another three years to 2021-22 [it may be noted though, that there were also significant cuts to regional Cooperate Research Centres (CRCs), and while a $75 million Developing Northern Australia CRC was promised, the funding is yet to eventuate and its focus would only partially target primary industries].
Labour availability and skills find also some attention, in more general terms through the $664.1 million Industry Skills Fund, and more targeted through changes to visa programs, such as the Seasonal Worker Programme and the 457 Working Holiday visas, providing easier access to foreign skills.
Foremost, though, the White Paper sends a message to Australia's regional communities, in which most of the 115,000 Australian farming businesses are run: not only are you not forgotten but we expect you to pick up part of the tab that is left as Australia's mining fortunes wane.
Pillar with heritage value?
Food production is traditionally an area of strength for Australia. We have a stable economic and political system, open
and competitive markets, good connections into global markets, world-class environmental practices, strong food safety systems and an abundance of land spanning tropical, subtropical and temperate farming zones.
However, the sector's relative importance for the economy has declined over the past few decades. We are now predominately a services economy. Agriculture, while producing goods worth $51 billion in 2013-14, contributes only around 2% to gross domestic product (GDP) and employs only around 2% of the workforce.
Nothwithstanding its relative decline, the Australian Government has marked the sector out as one of the five pillars of our economy.
Agriculture still underpins a significant part of the nation's manufacturing industry, and it continues to be a major export industry, accounting for more than 10% of the worth of Australia's exported goods.
Around 65% of farm production is exported, with China ($9 billion), Japan (($3.5 billion) and the US ($3 billion) being the top destinations. And export of Australian farm produce is likely to increase.
It is estimated that as global population could exceed nine billion by 2050, food consumption will increase by around 77%. In addition, especially in Asia the increasingly wealthy middle class are likely to opt for premium agricultural products. These developments will present opportunities for food producers, also in light of recent free trade agreements with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (and one with India in the making).
In the White Paper, the government also commits $30.8 million over four years to the removal of technical trade barriers in key agricultural markets.
Agricultural businesses will generally benefit from the $42 billion Infrastructure Investment Program directed towards roads and rail. In addition, the White Paper details other major infrastructure investments that will directly or indirectly support the sector. Thus, the government commits $500 million to the establishment of a National Water Infrastructure Development Fund, which is to provide the planning and construction of new and improved water infrastructure (it includes a previously announced $200 million component targeting the development of Northern Australia).
Dammed to dam
The White Paper emphasises the need to increase Australia's water storage capacity, mainly through more dams and groundwater storage.
High potential projects include the Ord Stage 3 irrigation scheme in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, Pilbara groundwater development options in Western Australia, Rookwood and Eden Bann weir projects in Queensland, Nathan Dam in Queensland, modification to the Wellington Dam in Western Australia, and development of the Emu Swamp Dam in Queensland.
The controversial Queensland Nathan Dam and Pipelines project on the Dawson River (shown in image) is an example for one of the dams considered by the government. Proposed by SunWater Ltd it is yet to receive environmental approval. The dam would have a capacity of up to 888,000 megalitres and supply mining, power and agricultural businesses in the Surat Coal Basin and the Dawson-Callide sub-region of Queensland. It was first suggested over 90 years ago, but held up by various environmental concerns, including the critically endangered boggomoss snail. But the project received renewed interest because of the water needs of new mines created in Central Queensland.
According to ABS data, agriculture, mainly through irrigated agriculture, accounted for 65% of all water consumed in Australia in 2012-13. The amount of water needed for agriculture is likely to increase, also with the planned expansion of Australia's agriculture into Northern Australia. At the same time, the government's own estimates project that due to an increase in Australia's population, water storage capacity per person will fall from currently 4 megalitre to 3.3 megalitre by 2030, and even further in the years after. This is assuming no new storage, such as through dams, is created.
The critical importance of water availability for Australia was highlighted by the $10 billion National Plan for Water Security in 2007, and the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDB Plan), the latter also reflecting the difficult task of supporting farming communities while ensuring sustainable environmental outcomes.
The government has committed almost $13 billion to projects supporting the MDB Plan, including with investments in better infrastructure, irrigation efficiency an improved irrigation water delivery systems. But it also wants to reduce the regulatory burden placed on irrigators, including by extending the period for the MDB Plan and the Water Act reviews to 2026 and 2024, respectively. In this it follows recommendation made by an independent review of the Water Act 2007, which presented its report at the end of last year. The review also recommended to provide the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder with greater flexibility in using the revenue from water trades for purposes other than water buy backs.
Then there are $60 million in additional funding for the Mobile Black Spot Program, which previously was funded with $100 million to improve mobile coverage across regional and remote communities.
Additional infrastructure projects were recently announced as part of the White Paper on Developing Northern Australia: the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, the $100 million Northern Australia Beef Roads Fund, and a $600 million initiative targeting key roads in northern Australia.
The vast majority of Australian farm businesses are smaller enterprises, with 97% having a turnover of less than 2 million. Often family run, these businesses will be heartened by the support they receive in the White Paper, which lists improving the business environment for family farm businesses as one of the government's five key priorities.
Of the $4 billion committed to initiatives, $3 billion are tied to a drought relief package providing farmers with $250 million a year in drought concessional loans for 11 years. Other drought related initiatives include $86 million for a scheme that allows businesses an immediate tax deduction of new water facilities and depreciation of capital expenditure. A further $29.9 million over four years will be provided for farm insurance advice and risk management.
There is also financial help directed at supporting the operations of farms, including $56 million for a more simplified accelerated depreciation regime for fencing.
And specifically targeting smaller enterprises, a two-year pilot program will facilitate modern business skills, including how to engage through the supply chain and attract investment.
Changes to the operating environment are to ease the strain posed by the volatile conditions in which food is produced in Australia. Especially smaller enterprises will benefit from the doubling of the Farm Management Deposits (FMDs) from $400,000 to $800,000, and that these can now be used as a loan offset.
The government is yet to respond to the Competition Policy Review report, and is expected to then also deal with issues such as the misuse of market powers by larger players in the food supply chain. Meanwhile, some help will come from a new commissioner for the ACCC who will be appointed to deal with arising diputes.
But while numerous initiatives target the main stated objective of the White Paper, that is to strengthen the overall competitiveness and resilience of our agricultural businesses, there is barely a mention of climate change, widely seen as a main threat to farming viability. [In fact, it is first mentioned on page 78 as an afterthought to the challenges associated with climate variability, and then receives attention on page 109 under 'Adaptation to climate change'. By contrast, the removal of the 'carbon tax' made it onto page 1].
Foreign investment has also remained a controversial issue, despite the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing that 99% of agricultural businesses in Australia are fully Australian owned. The government says it has a generally positive attitude towards foreign investment but is committed to greater transparency, such as through the announced new register for foreign ownership of agricultural land and by reducing the screeing threshold from $252 million to $15 million.
18 June 2015 - In June last year, the Australian Government's Green Paper on Developing Northern Australia laid out a case to renew the effort towards developing northern Australia (covered in our previous story Northern Dreaming). The release of the White Paper, which has the aspiring title Our North, Our Future, is the next step towards making good on a core election promise.
The diverse package of initiatives outlined in the policy paper are to trigger the accelerated economic expansion of a region that spans three million square kilometres north of the Tropic of Capricorn across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.
Click image to enlarge
The north is not an economically undeveloped region by any means. At present its accounts for around of 12% of Australia's gross domestic product (GDP). Over half of our sea exports exit from its ports, and over the past decade the volume of goods shipped from Darwin Port grew thirteen fold. Indeed, the region generates much of the nation's income from minerals and energy, and there are still major ongoing investments including one of the world's largest natural gas projects, the $54 billion Gorgon Project in northern Western Australia.
In addition to minerals and energy, there is also substantial agricultural activity. Notably the cattle industry contributes around $3 billion to Australia's GDP, and a major initiative detailed in the White Paper will build on this strength: through the $100 million beef roads initiative, which will be supported by CSIRO's TRAnsport Network Strategic Investment Tool, the government aims to reduce the substantial costs associated with transporting cattle across the vast distances in the north.
The region also produces substantial amounts of sugar cane and bananas, together worth around $1 billion each year.
Nevertheless, diversifying industrial activity in the north and increasing the population outside its capital centres has remained to be a major challenge.
Areas of economic opportunity identified in the White Paper include:
Food and Agriculture - beef, aquaculture, as well as irrigated cropping such as premium horticultural and niche crop production and broadacre farming of crops such as sugar, coybeans and cotton
Resources and Energy - (energy) natural gas, uranium, coal and next generation biofuels, (minerals) gold, iron ore, base metals and rare earth metals, (fertilisers) phosphate based fertilisers, nitrogen based fertilisers, (port activities) export of mining and resources products from Darwin, and expanded domestic supply of gas through energy networks connecting the north's production to east coast markets
Tourism and hospitality
International Education - through the development of centres of excellence in disciplines including tropical health, tropical aquaculture, tropical environmental sciences, and sustainable planning and design for tropical cities
Healthcare, Medical Research and Aged Care - development of a hub for tropical medicine
The strategy presented in the White Paper, which has a 20 year outlook, aims to lay the foundation for rapid population growth to between four and five million people by 2060. The economic case for this builds on the Asia's economic expansion: two thirds of the global middle class could live in Asia by 2030, with opportunities for Australia that already enthused the former Australian Government in its Australia in the Asian Century White Paper.
Major initiatives in brief:
In addition to $5 billion allocated to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, there are $1.2 billion worth of initiatives, which are to:
create infrastructure, including through a new $600 million roads package and a $100 million beef roads fund.
deliver simpler land arrangements including by
- improving the work of native title bodies ($20.4 million);
- securing property rights for cadastral surveys, area mapping and township leases ($17 million);
and
- pilot land tenure reforms ($10.6 million).
The Government also aims to reduce native title costs and delays and for Indigenous Australians to be able to borrow against or lease out exclusive native title land;
develop the north s water resources through the establishment of a $200 million Water Infrastructure Development Fund;
grow the north as a business, trade and investment gateway through initiatives such as:
- a new $75 million Cooperative Research Centre on Developing Northern Australia;
- $15.3 million to position the north as a global leader in tropical health;
- $12.4 million for Indigenous Ranger groups to expand biosecurity surveillance;
- facilitating better access to the Entrepreneurs Infrastructure Programme and the Industry Skills Fund; and
- a major northern investment forum in Darwin in late 2015;
reduce employment barriers through streamlined recognition of occupational licenses across jurisdictions, less red tape and expanded job opportunities;
improve governance through a permanent biannual Northern Australia Strategic Partnership event and continuing the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia, and shifting the Office of Northern Australia to the north.
The north's proximity and climatic similarity to many growth areas in Asia has obvious advantages but at the same time being part of the tropics, where at present around 40% of the world's population lives, harbours major challenges - notably extremely variable rainfalls across wet and dry seasons, and high evaporation rates.
The availability of water will be a defining issue for the government's expansion plans to succeed. And while climate change does not feature much at all in the White Paper, the available evidence suggests that it will raise the hurdles even higher. During the 20th century Australia's north warmed between 0.7 and 0.8 degrees celsius and this trend is set to continue. According to CSIRO research, the number of days above 35 degrees celsius is projected to increase, as is the frequency of intense cyclones and coastal inundation events due to sea level rises and storm surges (see also our story It's the climate, stupid".
.
Australia's north accounts for more than 60% of Australia's total rain falls, but it is largely concentrated along the far northern coastal areas.
The average annual rainfall ranges from 300 mm to over 1,000 mm across the region, with around 60% of the rain coming down in the lower reaches of the river basins, close to the sea, where it is hard to capture.
Less than 3% of northern Australia's rain falls inland, according to the CSIRO. Compounding these challenges are the very high evaporation rates across the region, which over large parts of the year can exceed rainfall rates.
In its Green Paper, the government still pondered on the idea of special tax arrangements to attract businesses to the north, but this option is now soundly off the table. Instead, reducing regulatory burdens, including changes to native title arrangements, and improving the region's infrastructure are now the main tools to provide the necessary incentives.
The White Paper details initiatives worth in total $6.2 billion. This includes the new $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) already announced in the 2015-2016 budget. This facility will provide concessional loans for the construction of major projects such as ports, roads, pipelines, and electricity and water supply.
Of the remaining $1.2 billion set aside for new initiatives, $600 million will support the building of priority road projects.
The north's water infrastructure is the next biggest focus, targeted through a $200 million Water Infrastructure Development Fund. This new scheme, complements the ongoing Great Artesian Basin Sustainability Initiative, will co-contribute to projects of national significance and interest and thus rely on additional state/territory or private investments.
Major planned water infrastructure projects; click image to enlarge
The government sees building new dams as key to overcoming the challenge of rainfall variability, also as this infrastructure is far less developed in the north than in the south. High priority projects to be examined for economic feasibility include the Nullinga Dam near Cairns and the Ord Stage 3 in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The fund will also support projects investigating surface and groundwater resources, and in some areas, aquifer recharge may be found more cost-effective than water storage options.
While these major infrastructure investments target broader enablers for business development in the north, there are a series of less costly initiatives, including a major northern investment forum the government plans to hold late in 2015.
A new $75 million Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Developing Northern Australia will drive commercially focussed R&D projects, initially in the areas agriculture, food and tropical medicine. Tropical medicine will also be the target of a $15.3 million Tropical Health Strategy, as are $2 million towards strengthening the links between institutions researching tropical health.
Other initiatives reflect the government's vision of removing barriers to investment and business by reducing regulatory obstacles, limiting government involvement and overall improving governance, including by moving the Office of Northern Australia, which at present has its central office in Canberra, to northern Australia.
Consistent with its pursuit of one-stop shops for environmental approval processes, there will be a 'single point on entry' for investors in major projects to get help through all regulatory hurdles. Also discussed are possible changes to Indigenous native title and landright arrangements and the government will provide around $110 million a year over the next four years to finalise all existing native title claims within a decade.
But it may be access to a skilled workforce that could be the most significant challenge to the plan of expanding the northern economy. This is also because of the environmental contraints imposed by the wet-dry season cycles.
Labour market reform is difficult beast to tame, while the government argues for a more flexible labour market system in the north to fit the special needs of businesses. It has asked the Productivity Commission to look into this issue and it plans to make access to skills from outside of Australia easier, including through changes in the Designated Area Migration Agreements (DAMAs), which allow businesses to address a shortage of skills by sponsoring skilled and semi-skilled overseas workers.
Northern dreaming
The Australian Government's Green Paper On Developing Northern Australia, released in June, envisions significant opportunities for an economically already thriving region of Australia, with the resources industry at the core of its economic expansion.
The Green Paper is part of a process towards a broader policy framework for the region's ongoing economic development, which the Government plans to detail in a White Paper within the next 12 months. To this end, it has also formed a National Strategic Partnership with the governments of Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory...read full story
12 August - Two years ago the Australian Government's Oceans Policy Science Advisory Group led by Professor John Gunn published a position paper Marine Nation 2025: Marine Science to Support Australia's Blue Economy (
Its major recommendation was to develop a ten year plan for improving our marine science capabilities and to develop the 'blue economy' potential of our marine estate.
A National Marine Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Professor Gunn, was formed and with input from 500 scientists and stakeholders the group of experts developed the now released marine science strategy for the period 2015-2025.
Blue economy: In the marine context the concept describes a framework of sustainable development based on a balanced management of ocean assets for economic, environmental, social and cultural benefits.
According to a United Nations
concept paper, it breaks with the mould of the 'business as usual' brown development model of free resource extraction and waste dumping, through which costs are externalised from economic calculations.
A call for increased investments in national research infrastructure and currently under-resourced high-priority science programs underpin the plan.
But the report also highlights the need for more collaboration between scientists, industry , government and the public, which entails an effort to better communicate the importance of marine science to the broader community.
With 13.6 million square kilometres spanning across three oceans we do have the third largest marine estate in the world, but while this brings great opportunities, the sector is also facing major challenges.
The plan's vision is for Australia's marine science to drive the development of new technologies and product innovations, while also providing the evidence base necessary to:
maintain marine sovereignty and security;
achieve energy security;
ensure food security;
conserve our biodiversity and ecosystem health;
create sustainable urban coastal development;
understand and adapt to climate variability and change; and
develop equitable and balanced resource allocation.
Reaping the economic benefits from our marine assets while addressing these seven core challenges will be a balancing act, exemplified by the proposed development of Australia's tropical north: here the exploit of major resource potential needs to be weighed against the protection of major existing cultural and environmental assets.
To achieve this, the committee put forward the concept of a 'blue economy'. However, the concept is complex (see insert) and its development will require that we narrow the still large existing knowledge gaps, with more than 75% of our marine estate yet to be explored.
Marine science for a blue economy; click image to enlarge
Similar difficulties arise in defining what constitutes our 'marine industry' and, consequently, in measuring its worth.
For example, around the world multinationals are lining up to exploit the rich genetic resource they contain (see also our 2011 dossier 'Ocean Views'). Internationally, such bio-prospecting of marine species is a major area of growth, but it is just one of a number of emerging industries, which also include seabed mining and the harvesting of wave and tidal power (for example the Perth Wave Energy Project, the first Australian project feeding power into the grid).
The 2014 AIMS Index of Marine Industry estimates that the industry's contribution to the economy was around $47 billion in 2011-12. But given the above mentioned limitations, the report makes the point that this estimate may be significantly below the industry's true value, especially as it largely ignores the value of ecosystems services, which the Centre for Policy Development has estimated to be worth in the order of around $25 billion per year.
Australia's marine estate; click image to enlarge
That aside, the 2013 OPSAG report projected further strong growth of Australia's marine economy - possibly three times faster than Australia's gross domestic product over the next decade - and that its value will more than double to around $100 billion per year by 2025
The strategy paper's list of identified growth areas includes:
the expansion of ocean renewable energy resources (wind, wave, tide);
growth in the field of marine biotechnology including for the biofuels, bioremediation and bioproducts;
the discovery and development of new offshore geological basins for oil and gas, and for CO2 storage;
increases in the market value of fisheries through sustainable harvesting practices;
a doubling of aquaculture with the development of new sectors;
the sustainable development of northern Australia; and
a sustainable growth of the marine tourism industry.
The experts argue that to this end investments in marine science need to significantly increase from the current $450 million per year, which represents less than 1% of the industry's current estimated value.
However, these increased investments in marine R&D need to come from a broad base of sources, including government, industry and the community, and should support priority initiatives including:
a National Blue Economy Innovation Fund;
national marine research infrastructure;
a National Integrated Marine Experimental Facility;
a National Ocean Modelling Program; and
a Marine Science Capability Development Fund.
The committee calls for an explicit shift in focus away from 'business as usual' marine science towards a system supporting a 'blue economy' development (see insert listing the eight recommendations).
They also propose the establishment of a National Marine Baselines and Long-term Monitoring Program, which is to develop a comprehensive assessment of Australia's marine estate.
Further recommended is a dedicated and coordinated marine science program and the expansion of the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS), which is supporting critical climate change and coastal systems research.
Finally, the experts want the government to fund the full use of the national research vessel RV Investigator for 300 days a year instead of just 180 days at present.
Australia's national research vessel, RV Investigator.
The committee's eight recommendations include:
Create an explicit focus on a
sustainable blue economy throughout
the marine science system.
Establish and support a National
Marine Baselines and Long-term
Monitoring Program to develop
a comprehensive assessment of
our estate, and to help manage
Commonwealth and State
Marine Reserve networks.
Facilitate coordinated national
studies on marine ecosystem
processes and resilience to enable
understanding of the impacts of
development (urban, industrial
and agricultural) and climate
change on our marine estate.
Create a National Oceanographic
Modelling System to supply defence,
industry and government with
accurate, detailed knowledge and
predictions of ocean state.
Develop a dedicated and
coordinated science program
to support decision-making by
policymakers and marine industry.
Sustain and expand the Integrated
Marine Observing System to
support critical climate change and
coastal systems research, including
coverage of key estuarine systems.
Develop marine science research
training that is more quantitative,
cross-disciplinary and congruent with
industry and government needs.
Fund national research
vessels for full use.
More information: http://minister.industry.gov.au; a PDF of the strategy can be obtained here
August 2015 - The internet is thought to be a new frontier for innovation and business growth. Commercial activities via the net are on the rise and having a web presence is seen as one of the relevant indicators that businesses are taking up the opportunities the web can provide.
For example, a 2011 report from the McKinsey Global Institute found that those businesses that did present themselves on the web grew and exported twice as much as those that had minimal or no presence, and this was found across sectors.
But while in some developed markets about two-thirds of all businesses have a web presence of some kind, the Australian business sector is lagging this trend (see also our previous story 'Heads firmly in the cloud'.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has recently (16 July) released data from a survey of businesses that show that only about half of all businesses in Australia are presented on the web, and this share even dropped slightly between 2012-13 and 2013-14 - from 47.2% down to 47.1%.
Notably, of those that did not have a website, around 58.2% believed they had no need for it, and this may reflect Australia's large share of very small businesses (micro-businesses with 0-5 employees). Still, for around 40% of businesses this was not the reason why they had not developed a homepage or a website.
Instead, a lack of technical expertise (20.1%), too high set up (16.2%) and too high ongoing costs (11.4%) were indicated by businesses with no web presence as major barriers.
However, the data highlight another emerging trend: between 2011-12 and 2013-14, the percentage of businesses having a presence in social media rose by more than 70%, from 18.1% to 30.8%, and they used it mainly to advertise themselves or their products (78.6%) or to communicate with customers (69.0%).
So, do businesses that find it difficult to develop an own web presence take up social media as an alternative route to communicate with customers?
Two years ago, the Forbes website reported on US research which found that especially smaller businesses often understand the importance of having a website but opt for social media as this is deemed easier and cheaper.
ABS figure on business web presence; Click image to enlarge
However, a figure published by the ABS suggests otherwise for the Australian situation. It shows that the vast majority of businesses engaging in social media also have a web presence, and therefore their social media activities appear to be part of a broader online strategy.
This could mean that many, especially smaller businesses abstain from building a web identity altogether, despite having an understanding that they could benefit from it.
Clouded perspectives
The trend of greater digitalisation of the business world includes the emergence of cloud based internet solutions.
According to the ABS survey, one in five (19%) Australian businesses with access to the internet used a paid cloud computing service during 2013-14, most commonly for cloud-based software (indicated by 87% of businesses) and using cloud-based storage capacity. Asked about the benefits they received from these services, the simplicity of deployment of cloud based solutions and an increased productivity were most commonly mentioned by businesses that had used the cloud (47.2% and 46.3%, respectively).
While a reduction of costs played a lesser role (34%) across all business sizes, this was more important for larger businesses with 200 and more employees (50%).
Given the significant benefits it raises the question what prevents the remainder of around 80% to access these new services. The ABS found that around 41% of these businesses encountered some form of barrier, and across all sizes of businesses, around 20-25% did indicate insufficient knowledge of these services as a major limitation.
However, the relative importance of many other barriers was found to be associated with the size of the business. Especially larger business are still cautious in engaging with the cloud, and cloud service providers may still have some way to go in convincing businesses that their products are safe to use.
Thus, for 30.4% of large businesses a risk of a security breach limited the use of the cloud, whereas this mattered only to 14% of micro-businesses (0-5 employees).
Similarly, issues such as the uncertainty about the location of data, as well as legal, jurisdictional or dispute resolution mechanisms concerned, in percentage terms, large business twice as often than micro and small businesses (0-19 employees).
30 June 2015 - The application of electronic health technology in tele-medicine is gaining pace in Australia.
In a latest example, the CSIRO reports on clinical trials in which satellite broadband and CSIRO's Remote-I platform were used to screen the eyes of 100 patients from the Torres Strait Islands and southern Western Australia while they stayed at their local community centres.
The Remote-I platform captures high-resolution images of a patient's retina
images: CSIRO
The program identified 68 patients at serious risk of going blind, including through macula edema, the most common cause of diabetic retinopathy.
The condition affects the Indigenous population at nearly four times the rate of the non-Indigenous population and often leads to irreversible blindness, although this can be prevented when diagnosed early.
The problem is that remote communities often lack access to essential services such as regular eye checks.
CSIRO hopes that this disadvantage can be overcome with the Remote-I platform system, which works by capturing high-resolution images of a patient's retina with a low-cost retinal camera.
After the images are uploaded over satellite broadband by a local health worker they can be examined by a metropolitan-based specialist.
Having successfully trialled the technology in Western Australia and Queensland, the CSIRO researchers now aim to roll-out the technology across other states and territories.
And Remote-I has also been licensed to a Silicon Valley spin-off TeleMedC, which plans to take the technology to the US and world markets as part of its 'EyeScan' diagnostic solution.
The internet is rapidly changing business models within the Information Media and Telecommunications (IMT) industry as traditional media platforms, such as non-internet based publishing and broadcasting, struggle to keep their income base.
Sales and service income from internet services in 2013-14; click image to enlarge
Data released by the ABS in June show that in 2013-14, sales and service income generated through traditional publishing fell by 7.3% to $9.7 billion and remained flat for the broadcasting sector at $9.7 billion.
By contrast, internet service providers, web search portals and data processing services experienced strong growth, with combined income increasing by 17.4% to $5 billion.
The combined earnings from all internet related activities was $19.7 billion, more than a quarter (27%) of the IMT industry's total of $72.8 billion.
The ABS report also notes the growing importance of cloud computing, which comprises application hosting, and data and information storage services. Together, these services generated over $5 billion in income in 2013-14.
The willingness and capacity of businesses to spend resources on R&D will be a major test for the Australian Government's ambition to boost industry innovation and competitiveness.
Prior to the global financial crisis (GFC), the rise in Australia's business expenditure on R&D (BERD) enabled Australia to almost catch up with the average level of R&D intensity* across OECD countries (*measured as a nation's gross spending on R&D relative to its GDP).
But in 2008-09 the ratio of BERD to GDP began again to decline and, as recent data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show, the negative trend continued in 2013-14.
Despite expenditure on R&D by Australian businesses rising by around 3% to $18.85 billion in the two years to June 2014, BERD as a percentage of GDP fell - from 1.23% in 2011-12 to 1.19% in 2013-14.
And this weak performance has become a drag on Australia's overall spending on R&D by businesses, government, private non-profit and higher eductation sectors. Thus Australia's R&D intensity, measured as gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) as a proportion of GDP, also fell slightly - from 2.13% in 2011-12 to 2.12% in 2013-14.
There are some interesting positives in the business landscape, though. While overall growth in spending on R&D has not recovered to pre-GFC levels, businesses are ramping up the amount of human resources they devote in this area. In 2013-14, businesses had almost 79 thousand person years of effort (PYE) devoted to R&D, an increase of 21% from 2011-12
Importantly, there was a 23% increase in the PYE by researchers, suggesting that businesses are investing more in this, by OECD standards, notoriously underrepresented species of workers in Australia's private sector.
Australia's BERD and GERD compared to other countries in the OECD.
Click image to enlarge.
The new data reflect the current structural shift in Australia's economy, which until quite recently was heavily dominated by its resources sector.
With the end of the mining boom, the mining sector is spending less on R&D (down 31% in 2013-14), while the traditionally R&D strong sectors, Manufacturing (up 8%) and Professional, scientific and technical services (up 32%) are ramping up their effort.
As a result, Manufacturing has shaken off the challenge Mining posed just two years ago when it closed in for the spot as Australia's top spending sector on R&D. Instead, Manufacturing is now followed by the professional, scientific and technical services sector, while Mining fell to third place in the ranking.
By far the largest relative increase in BERD occurred in activities categorised as pure basic research (up 43%), although these still make up less than 1% of total BERD. Businesses also spent more on strategic basic research (up 4.6%) and applied research (5.3%), which now together account for 38% of total BERD.
By contrast, BERD targeting experimental development, which is typical for Mining, rose by only 1% over the two years, although it still makes up around 60% of total BERD.
The weak growth in R&D expenditure also underscores that much of Australia's decade long catch-up with innovation leaders in the OECD was on the back of a very volatile sector that now comes off the boil.
The fact that our R&D intensity only reduced slightly can be attributed to the higher education sector. Here spending on R&D rose by $1 billion to $9.9 billion in 2013-14, which is 11% more than in 2011-12. It is foreseeable that with the public purse tightening increases of this kind are unlikely to be sustained, which leaves the question who is going to fill the gap left by tottering miners.
Our interactive infographic summarising the latest (2015) update of the OECD's Main Science and Technology Indicators shows that Australia is losing ground against competitor nations. Across OECD countries the trend in R&D intensity is again turning into positive terrain as many innovation leaders, such as Germany, Sweden and Korea, have strongly increased their investments in R&D over recent years.
R&D spending across the OECD rose in 2013 by 2.7% in real terms, with growth driven by strong increases in BERD (up 3.5%). As a percentage of GDP, average GERD remained at 2.4%, which now compares to Australia's 2.1%.
24 August 2015 - NBN Co has released its 2016 Corporate Plan, according to which all Australian homes and businesses will have access to high-speed broadband by 2020, in line with previous projections.
In each of the next three years the project could double the number of connected premises, with 9.1 million serviced homes and business generating $1.7 billion in annual revenue projected for the financial year 2018, broadly in line with previous projections (see insert).
But the rollout will come at a significantly higher cost than previously thought, as the peak funding requirement is now estimated at between $46 billion and $56 billion.
The National Broadband Network (NBN) project has undegone major revisions since the rollout commenced in 2011, notably in the overall strategy and its cost.
Prior to the 2013 federal election, 93% of Australian premises were to be provided with fibre-to-the-premise broadband (FTTP), with download speeds of up to 100 mega bit per second (Mbps), with peak funding estimated at $44.1 billion.
In December 2013, after the election and a change in NBN Co's leadership, a Strategic Review of NBN Co found that a continued pursuit of the original plan would have a peak funding requirement of $72 billion, and that the project's completion would be delayed until 2024.
The strategy changed its FTTP focus now implementing a multi-technology mix also including fibre-to-the-node (FTTN), fibre-to-the-basement and upgraded hybrid-fibre-coaxial (HFC) technology. This was to be substantially cheaper faster, with a peak funding requirement estimated at $41 billion and 90% of premises having access to download speeds of at least 50 mega bit per second (Mbps) by 2019.
In December 2013, NBN proposed a new multi-technology mix strategy for which it projected a peak funding requirement of $41 billion. The company now says that the apparent cost blowout merely reflects greater accuracy in determining the construction costs. It also notes that servicing around 200,000 premises in rural and regional Australia turned out to need much higher investments than previously thought.
The government's recent announcement that it would accelerate the project through the recruitment and training of around 4,500 workers, effectively doubling the construction workforce, also highlighted skill shortages that could derail the NBN's completion target.
NBN Co's corporate plan confirms that its projections are still riddled with vagouries. The government's take is that the project is simply so complex that the 'risk profile' of the project remains significant.
The plan itself lists a range of possible scenarios that could add $1 billion to its overall peak funding requirement. These include:
Failing to meet the company's take-up target in the fixed line footprint by around 5 per cent.
A seven month delay in either its fibre to the node (FTTN) or hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) product launch.
A failure to meet its target increase in the average revenue per user by $3.
Despite the risks and increased costs, the government remains adamant that its equity contribution will remain $29.5 billion. And it also defends the new strategy of now pursuing a multi-technology mix strategy, which many commentators have critisised as significantly less future proof than the previous approach of delivering mainly fibre-to-the-premise connections.
Sticking with the old plan would have required peak funding of between $74 and $84 billion and the project would not have finished before 2028, according to new estimates included in 2016 NBN Co's Corporate plan.
But was it worth the change?
The NBN project has from the start been a highly political undertaking, and this is reflected in many of the commentaries to the new corporate plan.
One of the fiercest critics of the current NBN strategy is Professor Rod Tucker, Laureate Emeritus Professor from the University of Melbourne.
This is not all too surprising as Professor Tucker was a member of the Panel of Experts that advised the previous Labor Government on the establishment of the NBN.
However, in a recent article in The Conversation Professor Tucker laid out in detail why he believes the current broadband network rollout will "not provide adequate bandwidth, will be no more affordable than Labor's FTTP network and will take almost as long to roll out.
"The Coalition sold the Australian public a product that was supposed to be fast, one-third the cost and arrive sooner than what Labor was offering us. Instead the Coalition's NBN will be so slow that it is obsolete by the time it's in place, it will cost about the same as Labor's fibre-to-the-premises NBN, and it won't arrive on our doorsteps much sooner.
But in an interview with the Australian Financial Review, NBN Co's new chief executive Bill Morrow described the situation the company is operating in as difficult, while also presenting a major opportunity. He said that Australia has probably one of the most distant falling behind infrastructure set-ups for broadband networks.
"You don't have adequate competition. You don't have reasonable prices. You don't have enough demand that exists across the country to drive the entrepreneurialism, the innovation to be able to have this cyclical thing start to kick in."
In July, prior to the release of NBN Co's 2016 Corporate Plan and also published in the Australian Financial Review, David Havyatt wrote that the "mess" of the NBN project "is a direct result of policy shift by the Coalition government."
Mr Havyatt is executive director of DigEcon Research but he is also a former policy adviser to federal Labor as well as an active member of the ALP.
In his article, he makes the point that many of the risks now associated with the project are a direct result of the change of direction NBN Co by introducing the 'multi-technology mix' approach, which added fibre-to-the-node, fibre-to-the-basement and two hybrid-fibre coaxial networks to the rollout.
"Management of these networks includes the ability to provision services, but it also includes the requirement to have a record of the assets and manage maintenance of those assets."
One of the more balanced, yet still quite critical assessments is by Richard Chirgwin, who published in the UK technology website The Register a point-by-point review of NBN Co's progress against promises made before the 2013 election.
He found the NBN reporting mechanisms greatly improved, but that nevertheless many of the promises were not kept. Especially the change to fibre-to-the-node would have to be regarded as the greatest disappointment, as the government failed to deliver either the rapid rollout or the amount of savings promised in the policy.
In regard of the projected costs the current government has not performed better than its predecessor:
"The pre-election assertion that the FTTP network would cost $90 billion was quickly revised down to $73 billion, which is still a lot of money, but at the same time, Turnbull's statements about the cost of the multi-technology model have repeatedly been revised upwards."
7 August 2015 - Alzheimers' Australia has won the contract to establish and run a $50 million NHMRC National Institute for Dementia Research (NNIDR).
The new institute is to boost Australia's capacity in dementia research while ensuring that it is well integrated with international developments.
To this end, the institute is expected to align Australia's dementia research effort with the work of the World Dementia Council, which was founded at the G8 dementia summit in December 2013 with the stated ambition to identify a cure, or a disease-modifying therapy, for dementia by 2025.
The NNIDR will also promote a rapid translation of research outcomes into practice.
Dementia priority areas; click to enlarge
As part of its $200 million commitment to dementia research, the Australian Government has also announced $35.6 million for six Dementia Research Team Grants.
The selected projects include a to date largest dementia clinical trial with people aged 55 to 75 to test an online tool designed to reduce the risk of dementia.
Other funded project aim to uncover early warning signs of Alzheimers' and non-Alzheimers' disease related dementia.
The grants address five key research priority areas that were highlighted in a new NHMRC National Dementia Research & Translation Priority Framework. It was created to inform the process of coordinating dementia research through the NNIDR towards positive outcomes in the following key domains:
Living with dementia - supports the dignity, independence and self-determination of people with dementia;
Prevention - aims for effective interventions to reduce the risk and lower the incidence of dementia by age;
Assessment/Diagnosis - optimises the timely, accurate and supported diagnoses;
Intervention/Treatment - develops new treatment interventions to delay the onset of dementia; and
Care - establishes expected levels of high quality care and quality of life.
21 September 2015 - In the wake of increasing global temperatures it is expected that rising sea levels will increase coastal erosion.
But coastal communities in the Pacific region are independently threatened by another consequence of climate change, according to new research published in Nature Geoscience.
Severe bluff erosion, along the southern end of Ocean Beach, San Francisco. Image: U.S. Geological Survey
Severe El Niño and La Niña events are predicted to become more frequent as global temperatures increase (see also 'It's the climate, stupid'. But as these events fuel severe storms, they will also result in coastal flooding and erosion across the Pacific region, irrespective of rising sea levels.
The data underpinning this conclusion were obtained by researchers from 13 institutions, including the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales. Through the analysis of coastal data from across the Pacific Ocean basin from 1979 to 2012, the researchers were able to determine how patterns in coastal change are connected to major climate cycles.
It is not the first study that analysed these coastal impacts, but for the first time data were pulled together from across the Pacific to determine basin-wide patterns.
14 September - The development of the Murray Darling Basin Plan has been a controversial trade off between environmental concerns and the interests of irrigators, and this is not going to change as its implementation is taking form.
In September, the Water Amendment Bill 2015 passed the Senate, delivering on a promise the Coalition made before the election that it would implement a 1500 gigalitre (GL) cap on environmental water purchases.
Just thinking...
In a government statement, Environment Minister Greg Huntemphasised that the cap was a ceiling and not a target.
The Basin Plan sets a target of 2,750 GL of environmental water to be returned to the basin each year, coming into effect by 2019. It means that the average sustainable diversion limits (SDLs), that is the water that can be taken out of the system for consumption each year, would reduce from 13,623 GL per year - the baseline diversion level set in 2009 - to 10,873 GL per year.
There are basically two mechanisms in place to achieve this, one being a buyback of water and the other being through investments in water-saving infrastructure.
While the cap addresses the concerns of irrigators worried about the amount of water they would have to surrender to meet the 2750 GL/year target, environmental groups remain opposed to its implementation.
According to the Australian Conservation Foundation the cap means 1,700 billion litres of environmental water required under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan would have to be recovered through slow and expensive industry subsidies or offset with unproven environmentally equivalent projects. Alarmingly, neither side of politics has the evidence to prove this can achieved.
The Basin Plan includes a provision for an SDL adjustment mechanism. This would allow for SDLs to increase or decrease as a result of initiatives that either improve environmental outcomes, or improve social and economic outcomes. For example, if rivers can be run more efficiently, the water available for consumption could increase while the desired environmental outcomes would still be met.
In August, an independent stocktake of the effectivenes of currently considered or proposed initiatives found that these could potentially supply around 500 GL, although this outcome will be heavily dependend on the delivery of a number of complex projects.
"There is moderate to high confidence that the efficiency measures program can deliver the
Commonwealth s program objective of 106 GL by mid-2019. However, there is a considerable
risk that the program aim of 450 GL by 2023/24 will not be met.
Nevertheless, according to Minister Hunt the report "gave all parties confidence that Basin projects are on track and will deliver for communities and the environment".
29 September 2015 - Australia's first commercial diesel displacement solar plant has started generating electricity.
Under a long-term power purchase arrangement, the generated power will support Rio Tinto's Weipa bauxite mine, processing facilities and township on the Western Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia.
Weipa Solar Plant; image ARENA
The project, now in its first phase, uses 18000 First Solar's FuelSmart™ modules that produce electricity from photovoltaic (PV) solar power in combination with a fossil fuel engine generator.
The plant has a peak output of 1.7 megawatt (MW) electricity, which is estimated to produce on average 2800 megawatt hours per year and to deliver up to 20% of the township's daytime electricity demand .
Up to 600,000 litres of diesel will be saved each year that would otherwise be required to fuel Rio Tinto's 26MW power station.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) contributed $3.5 million to the project's first phase, which is to demonstrate that PV-diesel hybrid projects can be as reliable as stand-alone diesel-powered generation. If successful, the agency will further invest up to $7.8 million in a second phase, in which the system's capacity will be increased to 6.7MW and a battery storage system added.
At first glance, Australia's innovation system is improving:
While the Global Innovation Index 2015, released in September, ranked Australia's overall 17th against 141 analysed nations, the same as in 2014, there was a significant jump in the ranking of its innovation system efficiency, from 81st place in 2014 to 72nd place in 2015.
The problem is, though, that such direct comparisons of innovative capacity make only sense when the economic context is similar.
And when this is considered the gloss loses some of its shine rather quickly.
Consistent with other similar assessments such as the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index, the GII discerns so-called innovation input factors, which enable innovation, and output factors, which are the results from input investments. The ratio between them indicates the efficiency of an innovation system.
Consequently, a poor country with low innovative capacity can still have a great innovation system efficiency. For example, the GII 2015 ranks Angola as the country with the highest innovation efficiency, which reflects that while this country makes low investments relative to rich nations, it gets a pretty good return for it.
Since 2013, Australia's efficiency ratio determined by the GII has actually not changed (0.7). And as we show in our accompanying infographic, within the group of the top 20 most innovative countries - all high-income economies - Australia's innovation efficiency even fell from 16th to 17th position.
The infographic also reveals that Australia lags behind other countries in this group in the generation of knowledge and technology; these variables are traditionally associated with successful innovation.
Oh, so creative
The upside is that Australia is doing markedly better in so called 'creative outputs'. However, their role for innovation is, as acknowledged in the GII report, "still largely underappreciated in innovation measurement and policy debates."
Global Innovation Index 2015: Australia's performance; click image to explore interactive infographic
Creative outputs include intangible assets, such as domestic trademark applications and the use of ICT in business or organisational models. Creative goods and services, and general online creativity, including Wikipedia edits by residents and YouTube uploads, are also considered creative outputs.
In the focussed summary on Australia, the GII report notes that the country is in the top ten in three input factors, which are human capital and research, its infrastructure and its market sophistication. Minor positive shifts in its ranking were found in comparisons of ICT infrastructure, ecological sustainability of its economy and its business sophistication. However, is has lost ground in its human capital and research capacity and in the outputs of knowledge and technology.
The question is, of course, how significant is all this?
As part of our recent 'Reinventing a nation' dossier, we examined how Australia's innovation system is standing up internationally using a range of Australian and international reports.
We found that among the many reasons that underlie Australia's apparent weakness in translating generated knowledge into tangible outcomes the most notable were associated with the leadership and the organisational culture in Australian businesses.
However, we also pointed out that broad assessments of the innovation capacity and competitiveness of countries are based on the selective and weighted use of performance indicators, and that even for countries at similar stage of economic development assessments comparisons based on benchmark performances are difficult as every country has unique broader economic settings.
Australia is a case-in-point. We still generate most of our export income from commodities yet nevertheless belong to a select group of highly-developed and innovation-driven economies. Obviously, the innovation system of such an economy operates differently to an economy that generates export income mainly from high-tech goods or services.
For example, by contrast to most innovation leaders, Australia's mining sector accounts for a large share of business R&D expenditure (BERD). Hence our economy's R&D intensity tends to follow the cyclic up- and down-turn typical for this sector - and at the moment the trend is downward (see our story 'Losing sight of average'). This is a very different context to that of the Swiss or Swedish economies, where the export of commodities play a minor role.
It is therefore not surprising that Australia's innovation performance is more closely aligned to that of other highly-developed yet still commodity based export nations, such as Canada (ranked 16) and Norway (ranked 18).
Prioritised failures?
Australia's economy is making the transition away from resource commodities towards knowledge-intensive industries.
The question is how government policy can best support this process.
And here the GII report contains a warning that, while primarily directed at emerging economies, may have validity for Australia.
The overall risks associated with policies aimed at fostering national champions or pockets of excellence are high, it says:
"The number of announced high-tech clusters that remain empty shell and of strategic 'national priority' sectors that never took off is a vivid reminder of such risks. Top-down approaches in designating clusters or picking champions and priority sectors might come at the expense of fostering true bottom-up entrepreneurship that thrives on the creation of an open and competitive level playing field that gives space to potential local innovation."
Some laggers are winners
However, innovation statistics may not necessarily be good predictors of economic success and a country's capacity for producing goods and services that are competitive on world markets.
To illustrate this: according to the GII 2015, the UK and the US are among the five most innovative countries, largely because of the quality and output of their world-class universities. Germany does not even make it into the top 10, yet it is Germany that is a world leader in exporting high-value goods.
The value of Germany's exports, which is predominately made up of high-tech manufactured products, was almost three times that of the UK in 2014.
While many reasons account for this discrepancy in assessed innovation capacity and an economy's success in world markets, there are striking differences in how both countries invest in innovation.
In contrast to the UK, much of Germany's research and development is performed within its business sector. In 2013, BERD as a percentage of GDP was 1.1% in the UK and 1.91% in Germany.
It suggests that compared to the UK, investments made in Germany are more closely aligned with competitive product developments, a potential lesson for Australia as it moves towards a knowledge-intensive economy.
November 2015 - The 2015 round of ARC major grants (for grants commencing in 2016) delivered $357 million for 899 research projects across four individual ARC grant schemes:
Discovery Projects - $244.9 million for 635 project;
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - $70.7 million for 200 projects;
Discovery Indigenous - $4.1 million for 10 projects; and
Linkage, Infrastructure, Equipment, and Facilities - $37.9 million for 54 projects.
The Discovery Projects grant scheme, which accounts for most of the annually available ARC major grant funding, received 3584 proposals, of which 635 projects were selected for funding. This equates to an overall success rate of 17.7% - slightly less than in the previous year when 18% of the proposals were successful. The provided total funding of $245 million also fell short of the $250 million awarded in the previous year.
2016 ARC Discovery Projects: the great funding divide; click infographic to explore
However, as shown in our infographic, a top tier of just six Australian universities accounted for around 65% of the available funding under the Discovery Projects scheme. This was as much a result of the number of applications submitted as also the superior efficiency of their application process. Thus, at the top end of the spectrum the Australian National University achieved a success rate of 25%, while universities such as the University of Wollongong or RMIT were much less efficient in their applications, achieving a success rate of only around 5-6%.
Four of the top six universities had success rates above 22%, while only two unversities outside this tier, the University of Adelaide and the University of Western Australia, demonstrated comparable efficiency with their applications.
Still a man's world?
While the success rates for chief
investigators (CIs) was similar for males (17.6%) and females (17.4%), a strong gender imbalance among the successful CIs remained, as only around 25% of all CI's listed on grant applications were female.
Successful female CIs were underrepresented across all levels of experience. In the earlier stages of career development (up to 20 years after they have finished a PhD) male CIs were twice as often part of a successful proposal than female CIs, while in the group of researchers with at least 25 years of post-PhD experience the male to female ratio was more than 5:1.
This persistent gender gap in research funding success is an ongoing concern, which the ARC seeks to address with its Gender Equality Action Plan 2015-16, released 16 November.
The plan includes a series of action items for 2015-16, which are:
monitoring and evaluating the impact of changes to the eligibility requirements under the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award scheme;
improving the gender balance of membership on ARC selection committees relative to the overall gender balance in particular research fields;
raising awareness of the option for recipients of fellowships and awards to utilise parental leave and part-time arrangements for caring responsibilities;
encouraging the development of a Centre-specific equity plan within the Funding Agreement for ARC Centres of Excellence commencing in 2017;
investigating options for unconscious bias training for ARC College of Experts and/or assessors; and
monitoring leave provisions under fellowships to ensure continued consistency.
November/December 2015 - While still heavily dominated by coal, Australia's power generation mix is rapidly changing, as shown by two recent reviews: the 2015 Electricity Generation Major Projects report released by the Australian chief economist, and the Australian Power Generation and Technology report released by the CO2CRC.
According to the chief economist's report, the share of coal in the fuel mix dropped to 61% in 2013-14, down from 79% a decade ago, with gas and renewables increasing their share to 22% and 15%, respectively.
Click image to explore
Australia's demand for electricity has declined since 2010-11, but the chief scientist's report notes that this trend is unlikely to continue as Queensland's power hungry LNG plants will drive up maximum demand at least in the short term.
However, an oversupplied electricity market has made it difficult for industry to make investment decisions on new fossil fuel plants, while renewable energy projects continue to benefit from government incentive schemes.
Consequently, renewables account for all of the estimated $5.5 billion the industry has now committed to invest in new projects. With a planned capacity of 3.7 gigawatts, these 18 projects could add around 6% to the existing installed capacity in Australia.
With a further 85 major projects at the feasibility stage, another $30 billion in estimated capital expenditure are in the investment pipeline.
Again, almost 90% ($26 billion) of this potential investment would stem from 74 renewable projects.
Adding to this are three renewable projects that were recently completed (since October 2014).
The stages of investment pipeline; image sourced from report
Taken together, there are 446 projects at feasibility to committed stage of development that could provide 24 gigawatts in additional power generation capacity. Of this, 84% would be from renewable projects.
The CO2CRC's Australian Power Generation and Technology Report forecasts that the effects of this learning-by-doing, which is reflected by developments around the world, will drive down the costs for renewables.
As a result, in Australia wind and solar could become cost competitive with fossil fuels by 2030.
Renewables vs. fossil fuels - the cost race is on
The CO2CRC report, which had input from more than 40 organisations, assessed the cost of a broad range of technologies over their life cycle, including coal, natural gas, solar, wind and nuclear.
It also determined the costs associated with supporting technologies, such as carbon capture and storage options that could either be retrofitted to existing power plants or be used as part of new projects.
Assessed were also emerging options of storing renewable power, including battery based systems, renewable energy converted into pumped hydro energy, and the thermal storage of solar energy.
To compare the cost of power generation technologies, the report determined their Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE), which takes into account current and projected capital costs, operation and maintenance costs, and detailed performance data.
LCOEs can be used to compare technologies with very different cost profiles, but it is worthwhile noting that the measure has limitations. Thus, it does not capture how these technologies contribute to the system, including their capacity to provide baseload power or their relative flexibility in response to changing power demands. LCOEs also may not adequately account for costs associated with integrating intermittent renewables into the electricty system, a focus of current research by the CSIRO.
According to the report, traditional baseload technologies provide at present the most cost-effective energy options, with new build natural gas combined cycle and supercritical pulverised coal plants producing the cheapest electricity - at a levelised cost of around $80 per megawatt hour.
Electricity technology comparisons; click image to enlarge
Wind power, the lowest cost renewable low-emissions technology, has LCOEs averaging around $100 per megawatt hour (MWh), and the report's analysis shows that for current wind technology to be cost-competitive with black supercritical coal it would require a carbon price environment of at least $30 per tonne of CO2-e.
However, forward looking to 2030, the LCOEs of all investigated power technologies are forecast to fall, but especially those of less mature technologies.
For example, the global wind industry is trending towards larger turbines with taller towers and larger blades, and this is expected to achieve greater economies of scale and better use of available wind resources.
For more mature technologies the scope of such improvements is limited, and the report forecasts that this will lead to a convergance in LCOEs across most technologies over time.
As a result, by 2030 wind and large-scale solar options will become cost-competitive with established fossil fuels based technologies, with LCOEs set to then range between $50 and $100 per MWh.
The report also assessed nuclear energy, the use of which remains a contentious issue in Australia.
While not a renewable energy, nuclear electricty generation is considered to be emissions free, although this ignores that extracting the resource is highly emissions intensive.
Wind turbine growth since the 1980s
However, it provides baseload power, a major advantage over conventional solar and wind options.
The report estimates the levelised cost of nuclear power generation at between $150 and $200 per MWh, which is comparable to the current LCOE of commercial solar technologies.
But this depends on Australia developing a mature nuclear industry, and even then the report forecasts that by 2030 the LCOEs of all assessed solar and wind technologies, including solar thermal energy combined with energy storage for on-demand electricity supply, will be significantly lower than is forecast for nuclear.
Another option for a low-emissions alternative to coal and gas is the capture and storage of carbon emitted from coal fired power plants.
The technology has been successfully demonstrated with the Callide Oxyfuel Project, to date Australia's largest low-emissions coal plant demonstration.
The project achieved almost complete capture of CO2, as well as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, trace metals and particulates. However, post-combustion carbon capture technology, which can be either retrofitted or used as part of new plants, will substantially increase the levelised costs of fossil fuels power generation, and by 2030 range between around $100 and $200 per MWh.
It will also require the establishment of transport and storage networks involving pipelines, booster pumps, wells, storage site facilities and storage site monitoring. The costs associated with transport would then vary substantially depending on factors such as the distance of a power plant from the storage site.
Other options may become commercially viable over time - or their potential for Australia has already been mostly realised.
Around 45% of Australia's renewable power is from hydro-energy resources with more than 100 hydroelectric power stations operating in Australia. The nation's economically feasible hydro energy resource has already been harnessed.
Therefore, the CO2CRC report considers it unlikely that new large-scale hydropower projects will be deployed in Australia. Indeed, while the chief economist's major projects report lists four Hydro projects at feasibility or committed stage, these together would have a capacity of only 407 megawatt.
Other energy options include the use of the oceans, with Carnegie's Perth Wave Energy Project the most prominent example in Australia. But for wave energy projects the transition from concept to commercialisation remains slow and expensive. Even less developed are tidal and ocean current technologies.
Australia's geothermal energy resource potential has been frequently pointed out, although it is largely limited to hot sedimentary aquifers and enhanced 'hot rocks' geothermal systems, which are still in the pre-commercial stage of development.
The report notes that assessing technological advances in this area is difficult because of the uniqueness of each geothermal resource's local geology.
To date, the only commercially operating power plant in Australia is at Birdsville in Queensland, which uses hot water from the town bore and has a electricity generation capacity of 80 kilowatt.
Still, what the report demonstrates is that Australia has a plethora of options to produce electricity, and it is likely to need it.
As the report also emphasises, no single technology will be able to meet the needs of an increasingly complex electricity grid. Instead in future it will require combinations of technologies that will allow to flexibly match electricity supply with electricity demand, while also meeting tighter sustainability criteria than was necessary in the past.
December 2015 - Australia is endowed with possibly the largest resource of 'blue carbon' in the world - its coastal wetlands alone were estimated to contain in the order of 2.5 billion tonnes of carbon - and this presents opportunities for reducing CO2 in the atmosphere (reviewed in our previous story 'Sinking feelings'.
However, it is still uncertain how blue carbon could be included in national green house gas inventories.
Kelp forest; image: NOAA
To change this, the National Environmental Science Programme (NESP) is funding a project that aims to determine how much carbon could be stored in coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrass beds and salt marshes.
November 2013 - Australian research highlights the ecological importance and potential financial value of coastal carbon sinks.
It is widely appreciated that ecosystems on land, notably forests, are important sinks for atmospheric carbon. According to estimates reported by the IPCC in 2007, deforestation and land-use change accounts for 8-20% of anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions.
However, much less recognised is the amount of organic carbon stored in our oceans. So called 'blue carbon' initiatives try to change this. It includes the Blue Carbon research initiative by the GRID-ARENDAL centre, which supports the United Nations Environment Programme (see also our 2011 dossier 'Ocean Views')...read full story
The project will be run by NESP's $23.9 million Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub, with the National Centre for Coasts and Climate at the University of Melbourne leading the research.
Internationally, the Blue Carbon Initiative has been working towards mitigating climate change through the restoration and sustainable use of coastal and marine ecosystems.
Its research has highlighted that despite the enormous benefits and services coastal blue carbon ecosystems provide, including their function in sequestering carbon, they are also among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth.
It is estimated that if current trends continue, 30-40% of tidal marshes and seagrasses, and nearly all unprotected mangroves could be lost over the next 100 years - and then become a significant source of atmospheric CO2.
Grid_Arendal's blue carbon counter shows the amount of carbon sequestered in coastal ecosystems since the start of COP21 (click figure to access the counter).
The importance of these ecosystems was also highlighted at the COP21 climate summit in Paris, including through a Blue Carbon Counter displayed by Grid-Arendal, a centre supporting the United Nations Environment Programme.
The Australian Government has clearly taking note of the blue carbon potential. Thus, at the COP21, it did co-organise a workshop discussing the issue, and Environment Minister Greg Hunt has called for a global blue carbon partnership. According to the minister, this partnership will establish a collaborative network of governments, non-profit organisations, intergovernmental agencies, and scientists.
Its role will be to "increase understanding of, and accelerate action on the important role of coastal blue carbon ecosystems in climate change action".
Specifically, the partnership will target:
the measurement of coastal blue carbon ecosystems and their capacity to absorb carbon emissions;
the development of innovative approaches to protect and enhance coastal blue carbon ecosystems;
science and research to support blue carbon measurement and management;
capacity building and knowledge transfer across countries; and
the mobilization of funding to support coastal blue carbon ecosystem management from the private sector and mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund.
Minister Hunt has also announced that the Government's Emissions Reduction Fund will be used to create incentives for blue carbon management.
December 2015 - With the release of the National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, the Australian Government accepts that our climate is already changing and will further change because of past emissions.
The average surface temperature in Australia has risen by 0.9 °C since 1910 amd global average sea levels increased by 0.19 metres between 1901 and 2010.
This makes it necessary not only to mitigate further warming trends but also to adapt to already locked in climate related changes, such as declining rainfalls in Australia's south.
Adaptation strategy
The strategy examines current adaptation and resilience initiatives across a range of sectors including:
coasts;
cities and built environment;
agriculture, forestry and fisheries;
water resources;
natural ecosystems;
health and wellbeing;
disaster and risk management; and
a resilient and secure region.
Among the key initiatives is the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, which the Australian Government continues to support with $9 million over three yeas from 2014-2017.
Established in 2008 with $47 million at Griffith University, the facility advises decision-makers how to prepare for the risks of climate change and sea-level rise.
Now in its second phase of funding, it will also develop and online tool to help local governments and other relevant organisations understand and deal with sea-level rise, storm surges and other coastal hazards.
On a regional scale, the Pacific-Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning (PACCSAP) program previously
promoted climate change adapation and resilience, involving 14 Pacific Island countries. The program involved the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, and ran between 2011 and 2015.
The writing of an NHMRC grant application is no small feat and the agency's assessment process is a major operation. However, in most instances this work is wasted, and this inefficiency in the system has become worse over recent years.
To demonstrate this: In its 2015 funding round, which includes a major announcement in early November, the agency funded only 516 of the 3758 applications received under its major funding scheme, the NHMRC Project Grants. The resulting success rate of 13.7% in essence means that 86.3% of grant applications, often involving weeks if not months of work, were a futile effort.
In 2010, the success rate for Project Grants was still 23.4%, even then presenting a very inefficient process. But over recent years the outlook for applicants has further deteriorated as the number of applications rose (3397 in 2010; 3758 in 2015) and less projects were chosen for funding (802 in 2010; 516 in 2015).
The chances for receiving NHMRC support are only slightly better for fellowships: In 2015, the main support schemes provided by the NHMRC - Career Development Fellowships, Early Career Fellowships, and Research Fellowships - had a combined success rate of just 18.5%.
This is not just a matter of inefficiency, there is also a massive social cost attached.
In a country that has a comparably small industry base, entire careers established over years will depend on continued funding success, as career breaks caused by missing out means less chance to publish, and this in turn means less chance of receiving a grant in future.
This is a situation made worse by the slow responsiveness of the system, with many months passing by before researchers even find out whether they are among the lucky few.
The question has to be asked if this is a desirable outcome for a nation that wants more young people to embrace a research career.
The difficulty of finding a more effective way of funding science is also subject to discussions overseas.
In 2012, the journal Nature published a series of comments on this, including from Paula Stephan, professor of economics at the US Georgia State University. In general terms, she says that science is full of perverse incentives that reduce efficiency and encourage bad financial choices, such as hiring too many temporary scientists employed through short-term grants.
Hers is a US centred perspective, but it could easily be applied to Australian conditions: if a postdoc doesn't get a research job, taxpayers do not get a return on their investment. While cheap and easily dispensible in the short term to fix tight budgets, "in reality, postdocs are not cheap: substantial resources - both their own and society's - have been invested in training them."
In Australia this may be especially a problem as it does not have a significant industry base capable of providing 'safe havens' for scientists who do not succeed in academia.
Answers don't come easy. But in many countries, including Australia, the ratios of staff scientists to temporary employed postdocs have continuously been falling in universities, and in Australia budding researchers face a double whammy of also having their chances diminished attracting a grant.
This should raise concern whether this is the best road to take in the long term.
Paula Stephans puts forward some potential solutions, such as better balancing the production of PhDs against the limited number of research jobs, and making graduate students and postdocs more costly to universities.
And another issue is worthwhile noting.
Victoria is the clear centre of Australian health & medical research: Relative to its population, the state attracted almost twice as much NHMRC funding as any other state (see below). But the NHMRC data suggest that more generally researchers are far more likely to be selected for NHMRC funding when they apply in the more densely populated states (Vic, Qld, NSW) than in less populated states (SA, WA, TAS).
Thus, researchers from Victoria, Queenland and New South Wales achieved success rates of between 16.4% and 18.4%, while only between 12.1% and 12.8% of applications from smaller states (SA, WA, TAS) were selected for funding.
Less funding means less chance to maintain research capacity, and this is likely to reinforce a trend of concentrating Australia's medical research in the major centres.
2015 NHMRC grants at a glance
As of 9 November 2015, the 2015 round of
NHMRC grants has resulted in a total of around $736 million for health & medical research projects across 22 separate NHMRC grant schemes.
It includes $25 million for a single grant awarded under the Targeted Call for Research into Preparing Australia for the Genomics Revolution in Health Care scheme to the Australian Genomics Health Alliance (AGHA).
This second largest grant ever delivered through the NHMRC is meant to set Australia up as a global leader in genomic medicine. The expectation is that as genomics becomes better integrated into our healthcare system it will for many diseases speed up the process of diagnosis, and lead to drug therapies that can be better tailored to the individual needs of patients.
There is also a potential that genomic medicine will result in significant savings across the spectrum of health care delivery.
The AGHA is a national network of 47 partner organisations. The consortium is led by Professors Kathryn North and Andrew Sinclair from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, and will pursue two flagship projects targeting rare diseases and cancer.
Project grants accounted for 55% of total funding. In total, almost $420 million were awarded to 516 projects at a success rate of 13.7%.
Included in this year's round were also $82 million for grants targeting dementia research as part of the Australian Government's $200 million over five years Boosting Dementia Research Initiative. Almost half (46%) of the funding was awarded to researchers at The University of Melbourne ($16.3 million) and the University of Sydney ($21.3 million).
The 2015 NHMR round also included $36.8 million for 15 new NHMRC Centres of Research Excellence, with five each established in the area of Clinical, Health Services, and Population Health.
With competitive grants worth $295 million Victoria again trumped all other states, with New South Wales' researchers attracting just $208 million. The success of Victoria is becoming even more notable when compared relative to its population: per resident, the state attracted almost twice ($50.2) the funding than its northern rival ($27.6).
And there is also little change in the gender gap, with male researchers again attracting far more funding than female researchers ($436 million versus $284 million). By contrast to grants delivered by the ARC, which do not show a significant difference in the success rate between genders (see ours story 'Great funding divide', the gender gap with NHMRC grants is both a result of less females applying and their lower chance of being selected for funding (16% for females versus 17.3% for males).
March 2015 - Completing the 2015 round of NHMRC grants, the Australian Government announced $129.4 million in funding, including $108.7 million for 9 NHMRC Program Grants, the second largest NHMRC support scheme.
The analysis of the grants again confirms the concentration of Australia's medical research funding in Victoria.
As is shown in the infographic, Victoria outshines all other states and territories in terms of absolute funding and also relative to its population size.
At the other end of the spectrum, Western Australia and Tasmania received the least funding relative to the size of their population. To put this in perspective, per capita Victoria attracted twice as much NHMRC competitive grant funding as NSW and around four times as much as Western Australia or Tasmania.
The dominant position of Victoria becomes even clearer with non-competitive grants: per capita Victoria received almost four times as much funding ($4.3) as second-placed Queensland ($1.16).
As we have previously pointed out in our story NHMRC Hunger Games, there are several factors that determine the inequity in funding across states and territories, with the most important factor being success rate.
The states can be split into two tiers, with the top tier led by Victoria (19.6% success rate) followed by Queensland (18.2%) and New South Wales (17.2%).
The gap to the bottom tier is significant, which includes South Australia (13,3%), Tasmania (12.4%) and the least efficient state Western Australia (12.2%).
However, South Australia still manages to be competitive with Queensland and New South Wales on a funding per resident basis, which is explained by the much higher rate of applications coming from this state. This also contributes to Victoria's overall dominance: the state outclasses all other states in the number of applications lodged. It is testimony to the sheer size of its medical research capacity, which is also reflected in the large amount of non-competitive funding allocated to this state comprising mostly infrastructure support for independent medical research institutes.
(A previous ARDR article, NHMRC Hunger Games, has raised concern, though, about the overall low success rate of NHMRC grants and the potential social as well as overall economic cost of this lack of efficiency in the system, as well as the apparent strong regional concentration of health research funds in Australia).
Another issue of concern relates to gender, and not much has changed to previous outcome, which the ARDR has illustrated in a previous infographic on the 2014 funding round. In 2015, the success rate of male project leaders was again slightly higher than of females (18% versus 17%), but more importantly, as in previous years far less females than males are project leaders on an application and hence males control almost twice the funding compared to females ($550 million versus $298 million).
NHMRC 2015 grants in brief:
The NHMRC has awarded $848.8 million to 1028 competitive grants, at an an overall success rate of 17.9%,. Another $44 million were awarded to non-competitive grants such as Equipment Grants ($5.7 million) and infrastructure grants for independent medical research institutes ($30.5 million).
The total investment of $892.8 million compares to $780.6 million in 2014. This increase is due to funding for several targeted initiatives in the 2015 application round, including grants worth $81.9 million from the Boosting Dementia Research Initiative (fellowships, team projects and the National Institute for Dementia Research Institute), which also includes funding provided through the ARC.
Another significant targeted initiative which commenced in 2015 was the Preparing Australia for the genomic revolution initiative, which accounted for grants worth $25 million.
Notwithstanding these special funding allocations, the amounts provided across standard NHMRC grants schemes remained fairly steady, with the exception of Program Grants, which increased by more than 10 million, and the Centres of Research Excellence Scheme, which decreased by around $10 million.
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NASA
has currently more than a dozen Earth science spacecraft/instruments
in orbit studying all aspects of the Earth system (oceans, land,
atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere), with several more planned for
launch in the next few years. image: NASA
Great Australian Bight coastline and the Southern Surveyor image
courtesy CSIRO; the map right-top:
Wikipedia
Australia is one of 17 global biodiversity hotspots which include:
Australia, The Congo, Madagascar, South Africa, China, India,
Indonesia Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Brazil, Colombia,
Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, United States and Venezuela.
map: Australian Government Department of Environment; image: CSIRO,
Marie Davies
Labour productivity, capital productivity and
MFP growth in mining, Canada, the United States, and Australia,
average annual growth rates (%), 1989-1990 to 2006-07
graph: BREE report: Productivity in the Australian Mining Sector,
March 2013;
original source: Bradley, C. and Sharpe, A., 2009, A Detailed
Analysis of
the Productivity Performance of Mining in Canada, Centre for the
Study of Living Standards,
prepared for the Micro-Economic Policy Analysis Branch of Industry
Canada, September.
Shown are the geographic extent of the Great Artesian Basin and, in
the enlarged image of the basin, its ground surface topography with
areas of potential groundwater recharge. This image also shows the
four reporting regions of the Assessment. In the right image is
shown a three-dimensional illustration of vertical leakage of
groundwater via faults and polygonal faulting. Images: extracted
from the
report Water resource assessment for the Great Artesian Basin,
December 2012".
Newly synthesized flu viruses (blue) remain bound to the cell (red)
by one type of spike on its surface binding to sugar receptors
(green.)
The neuraminidase spike (NA) removes the receptors, allowing the
virus to spread to infect new cells.
The drugs (yellow) specifically match the shape of the neuraminidase
pocket to bind.
By binding in the neuraminidase this prevents it from removing the
receptors.
Inhibited virus remains bound to the cell as it can't remove the
sugars - all blocked by yellow drugs.
Cells of the immune system clear away trapped flu viruses.
Agricultural production and yields vary widely across Australia,
reflecting the different geographical and climatic conditions; map
sourced from Feeding the Future report, released by the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in December 2012.
CETO Power (top) and Freshwater (bottom) technology; CETO units are fully
submerged and permanently anchored to the sea floor meaning that there is no
visual impact as the units are out of sight. This also assists in making them
safe from the extreme forces that can be present during storms.
Australia's and China's share in global grains production and trade
Australian use of the Internet
Graphs: Elwinmedia based on data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
The state of resources and energy projects as of April 2013 and how
it may unfold over the next 5 years. Image based on data from the
BREE report April 2013 - Resources and energy major projects.
==>Publicly Announced Stage projects are either at a very early
stage of planning , have paused in progressing their feasibility studies
or have an unclear development path; Feasability Stage projects have
completed an initial feasibility study and the
results support further development; Commited Stage projects have
completed commercial, engineering and environmental studies, received
all required regulatory approvals and finalised the financing for the
project.
Real household price indices, OECD eonomies, 2012
graph: BREE Energy in Australia report 2013
The graphs show the trend estimate of the expenditure on petroleum
exploration in selected states and the Northern Territory based on
data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics published in June 2013.
graphs: Elwinmedia
Areas currently covered by Australia's petroleum exploration permits
image: modified from interactive maps provided by NEATS
According
to the figure by the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration
Association (APPEA), Australia's trade balance in petroleum products
is negative since 2003-04
On the left is shown the temperature profile of First Solar and
conventional silicon based modules as published in a paper in
Photovoltaics International. The right image depicts the CDE
technology, which combines waste cadmium (generated as a by-product
of zinc refining) with tellurium (a by-product of copper refining)
into cadmium telluride (CdTe), a highly stable compound. In module
manufacturing, an extremely thin layer of CdTe is deposited and
bonded to the surface of one sheet of glass and encapsulated by
another sheet of glass, creating the complete module which is sealed
with a laminate material.
The figure published in the journal Regenerative Medicine by US
researchers shows the proportion of industry and publicly funded
novel stem cell clinical trials worldwide since 1992.
According to Department of the Environment estimates (detailed in Australia’s Abatement Task and 2013 Emissions Projections, 2013), Australia faces a cumulative emissions reduction task of around 431 million tonnes CO2 equivalent (MtCO2-e) from 2014 to 2020, or 131 MtCO2-e in 2020 alone.
graph: Department of the Environment, Australia’s Abatement Task and 2013 Emissions Projections, 2013. Note: The Kyoto Protocol allows over-achievements in the first commitment
period be credited in the second commitment period as ‘carry over’ surplus Kyoto units.
In a warming climate, increased lower tropospheric mixing transports more moisture out of the boundary layer, which reduces lower-cloud cover
sketch modified and adapted from Spread in model climate sensitivity traced to atmospheric convective mixing by Steven C. Sherwood and coworkers (Nature 505, 37–42 (02 January 2014) doi:10.1038/nature12829
The image shows temperature measurements over the last century in relation to cycles of the Inter-decadal Pacific Oscillation cycles (IPO). Note that steep temperature increases were observed during negative IPO cycles, while temperatures tend to plateau in positive IPO cycles.
image: Professor Matthew England, sourced from a presentation at the Australian Science Media Centre
Trade winds trend
In a series of figures the strength and direction (arrows in above figure) of trade winds and their influence on sea surface temperature and surface air temperature across the Pacific region are shown
figures: Matthew England as published in Nature Climate Change. The images were sourced from a background briefing at the Australian Science Media Centre.
Trend in sea surface height in the Pacific
Trend of surface air temperatures across the Pacific
Left: Thawing permafrost near Abisko in northern Sweden. Right: the new microbe with the proposed name Methanoflorens stordalenmirensis represents a new family within the order Methanocellales.
image: Wikipedia
Six areas made available by the QLD Government for petroleum and gas exploration through a non-cash competitive tender process.
Image and more information: QLD Department of Natural Resources and Mines
The Australian Government remains committed to an emission reduction of 5% below the levels of 2000 by 2020. In February 2014, the Climate Change Authority, which the Government now seeks to abolish, released a new assessment of the abatement task Australia needs to achieve in order to reach this goal (top panel).
It found that the required emissions reduction that Australia needs to achieve between 2013 and 2020 could be substantially less than previously assumed. The Australia's Emissions Projections 2012 document, which formed the basis of the previous Government's carbon price mechanism, projected a total of 755 million tonnes CO2 that would have to be abated over the period 2013-2020, with a further reduction of 155Mt CO2 then needed in the year 2020. According to the new CCA figures, the task will now only be a cumulative 593Mt kCO2 between 2013 and 2020, and a further 131Mt 2 in 2020.
While this assessment also forms the basis of the Government's Emissions Reduction Fund White Paper (bottom panel), the Government's projections used in the ERF White Paper include the impact of two years of carbon price and the Carbon Farming Initiative, as well as carryover surplus Kyoto Units. This reduces Australia's task to only 421Mt CO2 between 2013 and 2020.
Abengoa uses molten salt as heat transfer fluid to provide a thermal storage system for baseload electricity production. For nighttime operation, the thermal energy stored in the hot tank is used to generate steam as the energy demand requires, and the salt is subsequently stored in a cold tank, ready to start the cycle again in daytime operation.
Scheme: modified from a depiction by Abengoa Solar describing its baseload molten salt tower technology used in a 100 MWe demonstration plant in Spain.
The graphs explore how the awarded fellowships support medical research across states and territories, including on a per capita basis. Data source: Australian Research Council, Australian Bureau of Statistics
The figure shows the projected cost of electricity generation from a range of renewable and fossil energies for the year 2030. Shown are projected costs with (brown) or without (green) a price on carbon in place.
The term levelised cost is to be understood as the long-run marginal cost of electricity generation, thus representing the overall cost of producing an additional unit of electricity with a newly constructed generation plant.
Figure: (modified) from the International Geothermal Expert Group report and based on data from the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE)
The scheme from the Global Competitiveness Index report depcits how the impact of factors contributing to productivity depends on the stage of economic development
Scheme from the WEF 2014-15 Global Competitiveness report
The importance of the GCI subindices of competitiveness depends on the stage of economic development. Countries may do well in subindices important to their stage but lag in others. The figure compares Australia's performance against the top ten most competitive and innovation-driven economies. It reveals that Australia is doing well in drivers that determine basic functioning and efficiency of the economy, but it significantly lags the top tier in its business sophistication and innovation performance (average performances are indicated with dotted line).
ARDR analysis of data from the WEF 2014-15 Global Competitiveness report.
The image compares the top ten performing countries in the 2014 German Innovation Indicator, 2014-15 Global Competitiveness Index and the 2014 Global Innovation Index. Despite the difference in scope, emphasis and methodology, six countries were in the top ten of all three assessments (bold regular font). Indicated in italic black font were countries represented in two, while countries in grey italic were represented in only one of the assessments.
The review examined net cost-benefits of a high-speed broadband project for the Australian community. It investigated four scenarios that included the theoretical case of a stop to the current rollout with no further investments in high-speed brodband infrastructure. The review also considered an unsubsidised rollout of hybrid fibrecoaxial(HFC) and fibre to the node (FTTN) technologies by private operators, although this scenario would only provide high-speed broadband to around 93% of Australian premises.
By contrast, the rollout of high-speed broadband under the MTM scenario and the FTTP scenario would also reach higher-cost urban fringes and rural/remote areas, but only the FTTP option would provide access the highest speed option as a fibre-to-the-premise conncetion.
As shown in the figure, the review found that an unusbsidised scenario has the greatest benefits but is not the politically preferred option. However, to service the 7% of premises outside of the fixed line footprint through fixed wireless and satellite services comes at a net cost of $4.2 billion, while the benefits are just above 10% of that cost - a substantial net cost to the broader community.
Food and Agribusiness - the sector has around 182,000 actively trading businesses (June 2013), employing 527,000 persons, and generating $58.3 billion in output in 2013-14. Australia's food exports grew on average 6% between 2004 ($20 billion) and 20013 ($30 billion) with meat processing the largest subsector. However, while global demand for food products is expected to rise 35% by 2025 from 2007 levels, Australia is loosing market share in the most rapid growing Asian markets (China, India, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea).
Mining Equipment, Technology and Services - the very diverse sector has an estimated 104,000 mainly smaller firms, employing 386,000 persons, and generating an output of around $65.4 billion in 2012-13. Many of the firms have a global focus. Market opportunities lie in a greater focus on operations, lifting productivity and cost competitiveness of the domestic Mining sector, and in the energy supply sector (natural gas/LNG). Significant opportunities are also in the global market because of the unique set of skills and capabilities developed during the domestic Mining boom.
Oil, Gas and Energy Resources - with growing energy demand from Asia, Australia is well placed to benefit from its natural endowment with resources. Characterised by high capital intensity (32.9%), the sector employs around 128,000 and generated an output of $53.9 billion in 2013-14, and export revenue of $43.0 billion in 2012-13. Of the around 2000 trading firms, 75% are located in WA, QLD and NSW. In the longer term, strong export growth is expected from increased capacity and international demand, particularly for gas. LNG projects are expected to be major drivers of economic growth in the future.
Advanced Manufacturing - the sector includes a wide range of firms that manufacture high complexity, high specificity and high value goods, or add value to a product and hence often take part in global value and supply chains. Characterised by a high degree in R&D intensity and skilled staff the industry comprises Chemical Product Manufacturing, Transport Equipment Manufacturing and Machinery & Equipment Manufacturing. As of June 2013, around 19,000 trading businesses employed close to 250,000 persons. In 2013-14, they generated output of $30.6 billion, with export revenue of $11.2 billion estimated for 2012-13. An example for the sector are firms within the automotive industry that have specialised on the use of advanced aluminium alloys for the production of high value niche products for the transport industry. Australia's competitive advantage are likely to be in such niche areas that require unique technologies, skills and supply chains.
Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals - while Australia is a net importer of medical and pharmaceutical products (and the gap is widening), Australia has a competitive edge in this area because of its strong medical research base. As of June 2013, the sector had 7,000 businesses that employed around 71,000 persons and generated output of $9.3 billion in 2013-14, with export revenue totalling $4.4 billion in 2012-13. Asia has emerged as Australia's largest overseas market in recent years, with China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea now consuming almost half oft Australia's exports. The sector includes companies of high R&D intensity producing original and generic medicines, and characterised by high levels of innovation and skill. It is to become increasingly important for the Australian economy, particularly in the context of an ageing population. However, changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the expiration of patent protection for some blockbuster drugs and the penetration of generic brands could restrain industry growth in the future.
The left chart shows the shares of output of Services, Manufacturing and Agriculture between 1977 and 2012 (as a function of the steadily growing value of total output over time); the right chart depicts how the shares of output in Services and Manufacturing changed across OECD countries between 1990 and 2010.
The charts were modified from chart 2.2 and chart 2.3 in the Australian Industry Report 2014.
The farmers' share in the selling cost of produce has declined from 80-90% of price in 1900 to 10% or less today, as shown in a graph (fig 2) in the Agricultural Competitiveness Green Paper.
Australia's share in global food production is relatively small. Left: share of selected industries in global production. Right: global food production by countries (selected).
Figure modified from the Agricultural Competitiveness Green Paper.
This figure extracted from the Agricultural Competitiveness Green Paper lists the value of Australian farm production by type of produce in 2013-2014. The total worth of produce was $54 billion in that year.
The image published by the Bureau of Meteorology explains the three phases of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
In the neutral state (neither El Niño nor La Niña) trade winds blow east to west across the surface of the tropical Pacific Ocean, bringing warm moist air and warmer surface waters towards the western Pacific and keeping the central Pacific Ocean relatively cool.
During an El Niño event, trade winds weaken or may even reverse, allowing the area of warmer than normal water to move into the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
During a La Niña event, the Walker Circulation intensifies with greater convection over the western Pacific and stronger trade winds.
Australia's north: 3 million square kilometres with around 1.3 million residents. Cattle, natural resources and port activities are the backbone of the region's economy.
Figure published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing the percentage of Australian businesses indicating in a survey their web presence (homepage, website or similar) and use of social media.
The figure displayed in the Australian Power Generation Technology Report compares the various characteristics of power generation technologies based on 2015 data. For the integration of technologies in future power systems the different attributes of technologies will have to be taken into account.
Image: Australian Power Generation Technology Report; courtesy Dr Geoff Bonges
.jpg)
Professor Timothy Davis
Professor Ian Frazer
Professor Nalini Joshi
Professor Tanya Monro
Professor Brian Schmidt
Ken Boal
Dr Michael Chaney
Dr Jackie Fairley
David Knox
Catherine Livingstone
Agricultural production and yields vary widely across Australia,
reflecting the different geographical and climatic conditions; map
sourced from Feeding the Future report, released by the
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in December 2012.
The graphs show the trend estimate of the expenditure on petroleum
exploration in selected states and the Northern Territory based on
data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics published in June 2013.
According
to the figure by the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration
Association (APPEA), Australia's trade balance in petroleum products
is negative since 2003-04
ABARES framework of agricultural productivity determinants
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