This white paper examines the current challenges for clean energy infrastructure and identifies solutions that industrial clusters, transport and logistics industries, and the wider clean energy value chain can jointly explore in order to accelerate its deployment. Thirteen new industrial clusters from Australia, Brazil, Colombia, India, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, …
Portable power sawmills with small engines have been developed by an Australian company. The sawmill, weighing 325 kg, takes only five minutes to reset and can be dismantled into five pieces and carried in the rear of a small vehicle. Made of high tensile steel and galvanised components, the sawmill …
A NATIONAL network of environmental lawyers, which recently became operational in Australia, will help the ordinary Australian citizen in bringing his environmental complaints to the court where it matters. The national network of green lawyers will counsel people on urban planning and heritage protection and also represent the litigants in …
Australian researchers have devised a novel method to deal with caterpillars that create havoc in their cotton fields. They have developed a variety of cotton that kills the caterpillars (New Scientist, Vo1148, No 1998). Genetic engineers at the CSIRO, Australia's national research organisation, have introduced a gene for a natural …
EVEN the malevolent AIDS virus has its Achilles heel. Australian scientific circles are abuzz with the discovery of a rare strain of the virus among a small group of people in Australia who not developed the killer disease de. having carried the virus for around years. The finding represents a …
For the Broken Hill Pty Co Ltd (BLIP), the Australian mining giant, the coming year could entail many a court session as it faces trial in Victoria's Supreme Court for alleged environmental negligence related to the Ok Tedi copper-gold mine in Papua New Guinea. Landowners in Papua New Guinea seeking …
AUSTRALIA's premier grain growing areas have been invaded by an army of mice. According to Ken McElligot, lands minister of the grain-rich Queensland state, 400,000 tons of the cereal would be devoured by the marauding rats if immediate action is not taken to tackle them. This is nearly half the …
AUSTRALIA is planning to resurrect hemp or Cannabis sativa, the -crop which once grew aplenty in the continent but was later abandoned by most farmers. Its high tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content, which smokers reportedly find irresistible, led to widespread misuse of the crop. But its amazing potential - hemp is used …
NINTH-ISLAND rookery, the picturesque abode of 12,000 penguins in southern Australia may well turn out to be the oily grave of these precious birds. Over 500 tonnes (t) of fuel oil leaked into the seas near the rookery after a 37,500-t ore carrier, the Iron Baron, hit a reef near …
Scientists at the Australia-based Queensland Institute of Medical Research have given the green light to the establishment of "DNA Vaccines" as the obvious choice of the future (Biotechnology, Vol 3, No 5). While the 2 earlier developments in vaccination included, first, using attenuated or killed forms of organisms, and second, …
The Tasmanian government's grandiose plans to build a road right across the Tarkine -- Australia's largest remaining wilderness -- have run into rough weather. Situated in north-west Tasmania, the Tarkine is home to aboriginal sites, temperate rain forests, and a host of rare plants and animals. Environmentalists want to ensure …
THE expression sinall is beautiful has been proved true in the case of the internal combustion engine. Rick Mayne and his colleagues at Split-Cycle Technology in Arundel, Queensland, Australia, have substituted a few large pistons with scera small ones in a 2-stroke engine and claim that this would sharply reduce …
Millions of kangaroos in the outbacks of Australia could now hope to be saved from a possibly dark fate owing to blindness as scientists have isolated the virus responsible for it. The kangaroo population had been severely mauled by a mysterious affliction which resulted in blindness; blind kangaroos had been …
SCIENTISTS are scratching their heads to figure out an explanation for a mysterious fish plague which has led to the deaths of millions of pilchards along Australia's eastern coastline. Australia's pilchard fish industry earns the US $7.4 million annually; but the plague threatens to disrupt salmon and tuna exports (worth …
In Australia's Queensland state, school children are fighting to save the bilbies. The bilby, a marsupial that lives in the rivers, is threatened by continuing hunts and attacks by cattle. Now, the students of Cliffton Hill Primary School in the town of Davenport Down have begun a letters campaign, writing …
A mysterious epidemic triggered by a deadly virus has blinded thousands of kangaroos -- report Australian scientists -- leading many to death through starvation, blundering into traffic and drowning in rivers. To put the kangaroos out of their misery, some have been shot down. Reports of the deaths began appearing …
Good news for fat-conscious people. Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have developed a fast and inexpensive technology -- the supercritical fluid technology -- for removing the full cholesterol content from meat, milk, cream and possibly egg. "By putting carbon dioxide under pressure -- so that …
The rodent-like Gilbert Potoroo marsupial, a kangaroo species presumed extinct for more than a century, was rediscovered in south-western Australia by an Australian student who recently trapped a pair. "They are the most beautiful animals, with a long nose and incredibly soft fur, a little tail and long nails," says …
Aboriginal communities in Australia are elated over a new ruling by the Australian High Court: on March 16, the Court declared the federal government's Native Title Act, passed in late 1993, valid. It summarily tossed out a challenge to the Act by Western Australia's conservative government. The judgement has also …
The magnificent Great Barrier Reef in Australia has again been in news: it has been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self. A recent comparison of contemporary photographs with pictures taken in 1980 has laid bare this distressing fact to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. The …
Australia's burgeoning kangaroo population seems in for a hard time. Already unpopular with farmers (Down To Earth, September 15, 1995), the country's national symbol may end up soon as a major industry. With government support, kangaroo meat processors, tanners and leather goods manufacturers are applying the final touches to a …
