On behalf of the Australian Government, The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced yesterday a grant of $32.1 million for Rio Tinto and Sumitomo Corporation to trial hydrogen calcination technology at the Yarwun Alumina Refinery in Gladstone, Queensland.Australia is the world’s largest exporter of alumina, the mineral feedstock for aluminium production, with the industry contributing $7.5 billion to the nation’s GDP. The project is intended to reduce emissions in alumina refining, which currently contributes roughly three per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. If successful, the project will demonstrate the viability of hydrogen calcination and pave the way for adoption at scale across other alumina refineries. The $111.1 million ‘Rio Tinto and Sumitomo Corporation Yarwun Hydrogen Calcination Pilot Demonstration Program’ will be the first-of-its-kind deployment of hydrogen calcination in the world. Rio Tinto will conduct a series of tests of the hydrogen calciner under differing operating conditions to validate suitability and performance. The demonstration follows a successful feasibility study conducted by Rio Tinto, which ARENA supported with a $580,000 grant in 2021.The project will consist of a 2.5 MW on site electrolyser to supply hydrogen and a retrofit of one of the refinery’s calciners to operate with a hydrogen burner.Sumitomo Corporation will own and operate the electrolyser at Rio Tinto’s Yarwun site and supply the hydrogen to Rio Tinto directly. The electrolyser will have a production capacity of more than 250 tonnes of hydrogen annually. Calciners, which use high temperatures to extract chemically bound water from alumina crystals, traditionally use fossil fuels for process heat and contribute roughly 30% of emissions from alumina refining.Hydrogen calcination also produces high purity steam, which, unlike contaminated steam from fossil fuel calcination, can be recycled for use in other stages of the refining process. ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the project is an important step in the development for hydrogen calcination and the decarbonisation of the alumina production process. “This world-first pilot looks to prove a promising technology for decarbonising one of our most emissions intensive industries,” Mr Miller said.“Having already backed an encouraging feasibility study, we’re excited to be working with Rio Tinto and Sumitomo Corporation to build on that success and trial hydrogen calcination in the field.“If this pilot project is successful, it could be a game changer for Australian alumina production, paving the way for deployment across the industry and underscoring the importance of low-cost green hydrogen to decarbonise our largest industrial emitters. ARENA will continue to support projects at this scale as we develop other larger programs, such as Hydrogen Headstart.”ARENA’s Alumina Decarbonisation Roadmap (the Alumina Roadmap), published in 2022, identified hydrogen calcination as one of four technologies that could reduce emissions from Australia’s alumina refineries by up to 98%.ARENA has been investing in projects to reduce emissions from the aluminium value chain since 2021. This includes providing funding to Alcoa to investigate electric calcination and trial mechanical vapour recompression, two further technologies identified in the Alumina Roadmap.

Carolyn Lee of ‘The Energy Experts’, Kiama’s local solar, storage and EV charging experts is passionate about electric vehicles. Why wouldn’t she be? Like me, she’s got the ‘trifecta’ going on at home: solar panels, battery wall and an electric car! By doing this, homeowners can save an enormous amount by getting free power from the sun to fuel their cars. Not only that, EV’s are amazingly quick and great to drive, so it’s always a pleasure to get behind the wheel. "Who’d go back to an internal combustion engine vehicle after driving an EV?” Carolyn says.Now you have an opportunity to check out a broad range of electric vehicles and talk to the owners. On Saturday 9 September 2023, from 1pm-4pm, at The Pavilion Kiama you can satisfy all your questions and get some first-hand information from experienced EV owners. This low-key event is being organised by a local volunteer who’s passionate about inspiring others to join the EV revolution. Put this date in your diary!The plan is to have up to 15 EVs on display at the event. If you have an EV and you’re happy to share your experience with other locals by showcasing your car as part of the event on September 9, please contact Carolyn from The Energy Experts on 1300 516 474. booking linkUp to 80 people can also attend a dedicated 45-minute EV charging Info Session in The Pavilion, 2pm-2:45pm. There is limited seating, so bookings are essential. If you are interested in electric vehicles, you can satisfy your curiosity and learn:What they look likeTheir range when driven in a region like KiamaThe different types of chargersWhere to charge them locallyHow much EVs cost to purchaseHow much electricity is needed to charge them and how you can ‘drive on sunshine’I joined the EV revolution almost two years ago, when I bought a Tesla Model 3 and haven’t looked back. At that time to incentivise people to buy EVs the government was offering a cashback of up to $5500 (which included exemption from stamp duty). These grants are still available.Donna and her Tesla Model 3It’s funny how many people stop me in the street, or when I’m charging and ask me all about my car. As a highly satisfied and experienced EV owner I brim with enthusiasm whilst describing the technology assists and the comfort of the ride. I could never go back now. I’m a convert for life. Perhaps it’s the economist at my core, but it’s also the environmentalist.The Australian government recently released its long-awaited “Future Fuels Strategy & Vehicles Strategy” in a bid to tackle emissions targets by increasing funding for the uptake of new energy vehicles. The plan aims to make electric vehicles more viable and estimates that there will be 1.7 million electric vehicles on Australian roads by 2030.  Personally, I hope that they get a move on with the charging network infrastructure, which has lagged behind demand.  The Australian Government has announced its National Electric Vehicle (EV) Strategy. The strategy paves the way for greater EV affordability, access to charging stations, and a massive reduction in emissions. Initiatives also focus on expanded EV availability and options for buyers.The strategy was informed by public consultation, with more than 1,500 individuals and over 200 organisations provided feedback. Next steps: The state and territory governments have agreed to 6 key areas of collaboration with the Australian Government to enable the transition to EVs:National standardsData sharingEV affordabilityRemote and regional EV charging infrastructureFleet procurementEducation and awareness.The NSW Government has said “NSW will be the easiest place to buy and use an electric vehicle (EV) in Australia, with a $149 million investment to develop a world-class fast charging network. Under the NSW Electric Vehicle Strategy, this investment will expand existing public fast charging across the State.”  From personal experience, I think that we need to get a move on with growing the charging infrastructure, as it does take some planning when you take a long trip to ensure you’ve got sufficient charge to get where you’re going. “The only way is up” so they say, so I am looking forward to the planned future improvements.Woolworths have confirmed that there will be four EV chargers included in the new development in Kiama, which will be great for the community and for visitors to Kiama.

A bold plan to grow seedlings on the Moon by 2026 has been funded by the Australian Government, in what could reveal a greater understanding of horticulture in extreme environments. The Australian Lunar Experiment Promoting Horticulture (ALEPH) project led by local start-up Lunaria One – with RMIT, QUT and ANU as the major Australian university partners along with industry bodies – has just received $3.6 million as part of the Australian Space Agency’s Moon to Mars Initiative.  Investigating whether seedlings can grow on the lunar surface is of fundamental biological interest and important to know for possible future space exploration, but it could also teach us more about growing plants in a changing climate here on Earth. Lunaria One co-founder and engineering lead for the project, RMIT’s Dr Graham Dorrington, said the seeds and plants will be transported in a specially designed and hermetically sealed chamber – equipped with sensors, water and a camera – aboard a lunar lander scheduled for a mission in 2026. “Our major challenge is designing the chamber to maintain suitable conditions to permit germination on the lunar surface, where the external surface temperature fluctuates from highs of 80°C to lows of –180 °C,” said Dorrington, from RMIT’s School of Engineering. The chamber also needs to be lightweight – no more than 1.5 kg – and able to operate on minimal power while transmitting data via the lander back to Earth, using data rates of less than 40 kb/s. The Aleph Capsule“These are considerable challenges, but we have the necessary staff and facilities here at RMIT to succeed," he said. RMIT will also contribute expertise in plant biology from the School of Science, led by Associate Professor Tien Huynh. “We know some plants grow differently in altered gravity conditions, but don’t yet fully understand how and why,” she said.  “In addition, the harsh lunar environment has a thin atmosphere, rapidly changing temperatures, and relatively poor soil properties, meaning that whatever we grow on the surface will need to be hardy.” One of the plants being considered for the mission is Rapeseed (Brassica napus), a yellow-flowered plant grown for a range of food production and industrial uses. “Preliminary results suggest this could be a good candidate as far as extreme temperature tolerance and germination speed for surviving a mission to the Moon or Mars,” Huynh said. After landing on the lunar surface, the plants' growth and general health will be monitored and data and images will be beamed back to Earth. RMIT will also be contributing computer science expertise for data compression to enable this part of the operation. RMIT Deputy Vice-Chancellor STEM College and Vice-President, Professor Ian Burnett, said the cross disciplinary research could provide valuable insights into how to support horticulture in extreme climates on Earth. "We view the development of this lunar payload as an excellent opportunity to tackle extreme engineering and biological challenges that will likely lead to terrestrial benefits as well as answers for space exploration," he said. Citizen scientists and school children from around the world will be invited to use this data to conduct their own experiments into which plant varieties have the best chance of growing on the Moon. Lunaria One Director, Lauren Fell, said the central value guiding this project was that space exploration is for everyone. “We don’t want a future where only autonomous and remote-controlled machines inhabit realms beyond earth, but where humans can live and thrive,” she said. “The key to this is to get humans involved and to give them a say in how we get there. The ALEPH project aims to open up the science and engineering behind growing life on the Moon so that anyone can be involved.”  The collaboration with Lunaria One will bolster RMIT’s growing space industry eco-system, united under the university’s Space Industry Hub.  In all, a dozen RMIT engineers, scientists, educators and industrial design students are contributing to the project. Ben Gurion University in Israel will contribute their expert knowledge to the plant biology team, coordinating the inputs of international experts. ANU will organise supporting workshops.  More information about the Australian Lunar Experiment Promoting Horticulture (ALEPH project) can be found at the Lunaria One website. 

On 8 June 2023, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared that an expected El Niño event was underway. An El Niño event occurs when the sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific are significantly warmer than average.This warming means these areas are more likely to experience cloud development and rainfall, resulting in a shift in rainfall away from the western Pacific and eastern Australia. An El Niño event therefore typically brings drier conditions to eastern Australia, along with higher temperatures.The key oceanic indicator for El Niño is the sea surface temperature across the central equatorial Pacific known as Niño 3.4. Based on this indicator alone, we are already experiencing El Niño conditions. A long-range sea surface temperature forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) indicates the temperature in this region is continuing to climb, potentially beyond anything observed in the past. This week, BoM will release its next climate update. As we await declaration of an official El Niño event for Australia - an event that scientists are tipping could be ‘the strongest El Niño ever measured, by far’ – a group of scientists from the Climate Council describe what the pending super El Niño might look like for Australia.Dr Simon Bradshaw, Director of Research at the Climate Council, says that climate news is “confronting”, and that we need to combat what is to come. He mentions driving down emissions to reach net zero as soon as possible and being prepared for the inevitable impact of climate change, for example learning from the past, supporting community resilience, and moving people to safer places.There has been an unprecedented rise in sea surface temperatures since 1880. In fact, two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975. In 2023, we have already witnessed extraordinary changes in our ocean, an alarming loss of sea ice and a slowdown in ocean circulation. Understanding these striking trends is crucial to understanding climate change and what lies ahead.There is likely prospect of a powerful El Niño effect forming this year. An El Niño typically brings warmer and drier conditions to eastern Australia. When a positive Indian Ocean Dipole and El Niño occur together, this drying influence is typically stronger and more widespread across Australia. This ‘drying effect’ will mean drought for Australia.So what about the projected fire seasons in 2023 and 2024? Greg Mullins is an internationally recognised expert in responding to major bushfires and natural disasters, with more than 50 years’ experience as a firefighter and is the former Commissioner of Fire & Rescue NSW. He is also the founder of the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action group. Mr Mullins informs “On the back of three El Niña rain events (in a row) the many fuel layers regrowing”, i.e. grasses. “Areas previously unaffected by fires could be vulnerable due to the soil and vegetation drying out and becoming fuel for fires. Fires used to occur from October, but they are happening already. There are simultaneous fires seasons now, and more days of serious fire weather ahead.”Are authorities prepared for future disasters? Mullins says “There have been big investments in response and recovery, but it still may not be possible to prepare adequately. We have to get ahead of warming or we are dooming future generations and the effects may be unrecoverable”.  So how we can make communities more resilient to climate change? And what sort of things should governments, communities or private sector, be looking at doing? Mullins suggested taking the recommendations of the many studies undertaken. “For example, we need resilient power supplies for communities, perhaps solar micro grids. People need to be relocated off the flood plains. Shelters need to be cyclone rated, and flood and fire rated so that people can be safe when evacuated. Rural communities need empowering, for example farmers can help themselves with tank and pump units to assist firefighting.” There are many recommendations.“We also need to share the knowledge we have gained from the past and educate and warn people about what’s coming.” Mullins’ says that “Victims of climate change need to prepare, and institutional support needs to change” and “we cannot continue to rely on the Australian Defence Force to prop up emergency services!”The authorities have been unable to cope with the enormity of re-housing those affected by disasters. More effort is needed, and more money needs to be spent to strengthen communities. Mullins suggests “The government need to stop approving mines and switch the focus to protecting the community.”  The National Emergency Management Agency held a summit in 2022 to create the Second National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction, involving all parts of the community and government to create a plan of actions needed to strengthen Australia against future disasters. It’s quite clear that we need resources to fund the solutions. Could this come from a levy on the fossil fuel industry?Rising ocean temperaturesTHE FACTS: The ocean covers 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface and is continually exchanging heat, moisture and carbon with the atmosphere, creating our weather patterns. Research reveals that around 93 per cent of the excess heat in our climate system from greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the ocean. The rate of ocean warming has increased dramatically in recent decades (Cheng et al. 2023). Today, the upper 2000 metres of the ocean are absorbing over 10 zeta joules (that is, 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules) of energy every year - equivalent to 150 million Hiroshima bomb explosions. Rising greenhouse gases and escalating climate change are also changing the ocean’s chemistry, making it more acidic and less oxygen-rich. These ocean changes affect our weather and climate. For example, a warmer ocean surface means more energy for powerful storms. Naturally occurring climate drivers including the El Niño and La Niña events may also become stronger, amplifying drought and flood cycles. Change in ocean circulation will alter temperatures and rainfall around the world.Unfortunately, the ocean’s immense ability to absorb and hold heat may have lulled us into a false sense of security, masking the true scale of changes in our climate system. Essentially, the ocean has been storing a problem that is now coming back to bite us.Dr Joëlle Gergis is a Climate Council expert, author and award-winning climate scientist with the Australian National University. Dr Gergis is an internationally recognised expert in Australian and Southern Hemisphere climate variability and change. She informs that since 1980 the planet has warmed by 1.2 degrees. On the conditions and climate drivers behind a pending ‘super El Niño’, Dr Gergis says that “Australia is considered a hotspot!” She also cites the 2015/16 major impact of a strong El Nino on coral reefs worldwide where 75 per cent of the coral reefs were bleached and died off. “Australia – Great Barrier Reef – was on the front line.” “The warming of the Indian Ocean conducive to drying Australia and the changes in wind patterns, known as a positive dipole event and an El Niño, you get ‘a double-whammy’ of hot and dry conditions. It will have major impacts in our region.”“We face a dramatic season ahead. No one is sure what effects will occur - but there is likely to be substantial impact.” Extreme ocean temperature anomalies THE FACTS: Climate change is impacting ocean circulation and ocean currents, with potentially dramatic consequences. Recent observations show that circulation in the deep waters around Antarctica has slowed by around 30 per cent since the 1990s. Circulation is slowing and since currents regulate the distribution of heat, carbon, oxygen and nutrients around the globe, this influences climate, sea levels, and the health of marine ecosystems. The slowdown in this circulation could accelerate ice loss and sea-level rise, reduce the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon (leaving more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere), shift tropical rainbands, and deprive ecosystems near the surface of nutrients, damaging fisheries. In June 2023, polar scientists sounded the alarm on rapid changes in the Arctic and Antarctic (WMO 2023). Sea ice is in decline, which can disrupt ocean circulation, with serious implications not only for polar environments but for global climate and weather and affecting marine ecosystems. Over the last three months, sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic have been the warmest on record for this time of year - almost a full degree above the mean. This extreme anomaly is part of a spike in sea surface temperatures globally.Ocean scientists have long warned of declines in ocean circulation due to climate change, and even feared some features may collapse altogether in coming decades. While models had predicted a decline in circulation in the deep waters around Antarctica these recent observations show it is happening faster than projected.Associate Professor Jan Zika is a leading Oceans, Water and Changing Climate expert at the University of New South Wales. He leads a team of researchers who use ocean observations to demonstrate that as the climate warms, wet parts of the globe are getting wetter, and dry parts are getting dryer. A/Prof Zika was a co-author on a recent Nature Reviews paper into rapidly warming oceans worldwide. He says that the surface temperatures are driving the weather. “The temps are the warmest ever seen – it’s crazy: they are double previous extremes. Sea Ice around Antarctica have hit the lowest amount ever seen. Greenhouse gases are causing the rate of increase of ocean warming up and up, steeper and steeper!” In light of the research, he also echoes Dr Bradshaw in saying “The only way to fix the escalating rate of ocean warming is to reduce greenhouse emissions.”Dr Bradshaw says that “The 2020s decade is critical to limiting future harm and slowing the acceleration of global warming by reducing emissions to protect communities”. He suggests that Australian needs to lead change by moving from being a large fossil fuel producer and exporter to a clean energy producer and exporter and spend more on promoting clean energy than subsidising fossil fuels.Dr Bradshaw also suggests that we also need to be investing more into building resilience in communities and listening to recommendations from the multiple royal commissions, ie. boosting emergency response capability. “There is a lot to do to address the issues” he says.Useful links: https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/second-national-action-plan-for-disaster-risk-reduction/ https://nema.gov.au/stories/Getting-Australia-Ready 

According to new international research co-authored by UNSW Sydney, Australia's most liveable town – and the rest of the planet – could have ceased to exist after a close call in space.Stars tend to get violent when they’re about to die, like our Sun – in about 5 billion years, after running out of hydrogen, it will become unstable and begin to collapse from the inside out.It’ll then expand, swallowing up any planet that happens to be orbiting nearby – Mercury, Venus, and potentially even Earth – before retracting into a smaller, cooler, and continuously fading version of its old self, now alone in a planetary graveyard of its own making.No nearby planet can survive this process – or at least, so we thought.A new international study, published today in Nature, has confirmed the existence of a planet more than 500 light-years away that seems to have survived this deadly expansion, against all odds.This planet, 8 Ursae Minoris b – also known as 8 UMi b or ‘Halla’ – is orbiting close to its dying red giant star, well within the zone that would have been wiped clean during the star’s expansion phase.“This is a planet that shouldn't exist,” says Dr Ben Montet, Scientia Senior Lecturer in UNSW Science and co-author on the paper.“It should have been ingested by its star.”Astronomers have known about Halla since 2015, when a study using the radial velocity method – a technique that analyses the slight gravitational tug a planet can have on its host star – suggested a planet was orbiting a star called 8 Ursae Minoris (also known as 8 UMi or ‘Baekdu’).New research led by University of Hawai’i and co-authored by UNSW confirms this discovery, showing that Halla’s 93-day, nearly circular orbit has remained stable for over a decade.These findings were based on observations made from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory, two telescopes on Maunakea, an active volcano in Hawai’i, over 2021-2022.The team also used asteroseismology – that is, the study of a star’s oscillations to uncover its internal properties – to show that the star Baekdu is burning helium in its core: a phase that red giants reach only after they’ve swelled up and consumed nearby planets.This makes Halla the only planet we know of closely orbiting a star in this late stage of life.“The fact that Halla has managed to persist in the immediate vicinity of a giant star that would have otherwise engulfed it highlights the planet as an extraordinary survivor,” says lead author Dr Marc Hon, a NASA Hubble Fellow based at University of Hawai’i’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA). Dr Hon was previously based at UNSW, where he both completed his PhD and taught in the School of Physics.The findings led the team to ask more questions. Is the planet breaking everything we knew about stellar-planetary evolution?Or could there be another, equally bizarre, reason behind its survival?Investigating the impossibleWhen peculiar things happen in space, astronomers try to seek answers by following the trail of weirdness, says Dr Montet.It didn’t take them long to spot something strange.“One of the weird things about this star is that it has a lot of lithium in its atmosphere,” he says.“This is unusual as most stars don't have lithium – it burns too easily in stellar atmospheres. Lithium is often seen in young stars, but only about 1 per cent of older red giants.”One of the leading theories to explain why some older stars are mysteriously lithium-rich is that they gained their lithium later in life, via some kind of interaction with another star.Could this same interaction have also happened to Baekdu?Survival scenariosThe team have pieced together several scenarios of how Halla might have survived – and the leading theories start with Baekdu.“We believe Halla exists today because its host star Baekdu was previously two stars – a binary system – that merged into one,” says Dr Hon.“The merger could have happened from several to tens of million years ago.”In one survival scenario, a merger between these two stars could have restricted either one of the stars from expanding wide enough to engulf Halla, helping the planet narrowly escape.Another scenario is that Halla wasn’t in danger in the first place, simply because it didn’t exist before the star’s expansion phase. Instead, it might be a second-generation planet, born from the ingredient-rich gas cloud created from the two stars’ violent collision.The team also found evidence there might be a third actor at play. A long-term trend in the star’s radial velocity signal suggests there’s another nearby object that has a slight gravitational pull on Baekdu – but whether it’s a star or planet, and if it played a role in somehow influencing Halla’s current orbit, is still a mystery.The findings wouldn’t be possible without stellar observations from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), which helped the team use asteroseismology to ‘look inside’ the star, Baekdu, and confirm it was in the post-expansion phase of its life.“This astonishing result really hinges on the fact that we have been able to ‘see’ inside the star that it is now burning helium in its core,” says Professor Dennis Stello, co-author and previous PhD supervisor of lead author, Dr Hon.“The evidence for this is revealed through ringing sound waves inside the star that we have been able to measure and interpret using similar techniques as geoscientists use to learn about the Earth’s interior from studying earthquakes. However, we instead use star quakes.”What we know about HallaHalla is a Jupiter-like gas giant nestled in the Ursa Minor (or ‘Little Bear’) constellation, which is visible only from the Northern Hemisphere.If you caught a ride there on the Voyager 1, the fastest human-made object in the universe travelling at 61,500 kilometres per hour, it’d take about 9 million years to get there.Once you arrive, though, you’d probably want to stay on board. As Halla is made up of swirling gas, not only wouldn’t there be anywhere to land, but its surface temperature is also likely to reach about 1000 Kelvin, or 730 degrees Celsius – making it hotter than any planet in our Solar System.One of the reasons behind this heat is the planet’s closeness to its star, Baekdu. It orbits closely, at about half the distance between Earth and the Sun.“The star itself will be about 20 times the apparent size in the sky as our Sun,” says Dr Montet.“This is about the size of your fist held at arm’s length.”But if you visited the planet before the potential stellar merger, you would’ve had a much different sight: like Tatooine, the famous planet from Star Wars, there would have been two suns in the sky.Are there any other survivors out there?Halla is the first planet of its kind we know of to escape engulfment, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only one.This study suggests that more survivalist planets could be out there.“Planets are still surprising us with their apparent resilience by turning up in ‘forbidden’ systems,” says Dr Hon.“Our study shows that not all close planets are doomed at the hands of their host star when the star begins to grow old and swell.”Dr Montet says there are about 1000 other lithium-rich red giant stars out there that we know of – and an exciting opportunity now could be to search them for nearby planets.“There aren't that many of these stars that have been searched, simply because they shouldn't have planets,” says Dr Montet.“But we've been surprised before and we'll probably be surprised again.”