According to The Australian Financial Review, Renewable energy reached a fresh record in its share of total electricity production in the week of 9th September, highlighting the progress still being made in Australia’s troubled energy transition but also exposing the challenges of eliminating carbon-polluting coal power.
The share of electricity generated by renewables reached an all-time high of 72.2 per cent in the half-hour leading up to midday on 9th September 2024, marginally bettering the previous high set in October last year.
But some experts warn it may struggle to rise much further over the next few years until more coal power stations close. That’s because the coal generators, whose supply is still vital to keep the lights on when solar and wind resources subside, have to maintain minimum levels of operation around the clock.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/renewables-record-tumbles-but-may-be-close-to-pause-20240911-p5k9ua
 

According to The Australian Financial Review, Labor’s hopes of building 1.2 million new homes in five years are fading, with the construction industry warning that the target put in place to address Australia’s chronic housing shortage has fallen further out of reach in the past six months.
Master Builders Australia has cut 53,000 homes from its pipeline forecast, warning long-standing problems such as slow planning and approval processes, rising materials costs and labour shortages have been exacerbated by persistently high interest rates that are stopping people from buying homes.
MBA now forecasts Australia will build 1,033,962 homes over the five years to 2029, down from the 1,087,325 total it predicted in April.
Amid this deteriorating outlook, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil will on Monday say the federal government will play a more active role to coordinate and invest in housing development, tackle the 90,000-worker shortage and boost productivity.

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/why-australia-s-home-building-outlook-just-got-worse-20240904-p5k7xt

According to The Asahi Shimbun, while young people from Japan are increasingly flocking to Australia on working holiday visas in pursuit of adventure, language skills and good wages, many face a harsh reality on arrival.
Some 200 people, many in their 20s and 30s, were waiting in a line for free food on a recent early afternoon at a park in Brisbane in eastern Australia.
Their voices filled the park with many languages other than English, including Spanish and Japanese.
On the table set up at the center of the park vegetables, fruit and bread were labeled with a sign saying “free food.”
The organizer of this event, Jimmy Fahham, 79, from the local charity Community Friends, said the group started this campaign 15 years ago primarily to distribute food to the homeless and people with disabilities.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15395932

According to The Jiji News, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said that it has developed a prototype for a system that shows words on a screen in multiple languages.
The Japanese company hopes that the system will be used on occasions such as morning assembly meetings at factories where information needs to be related accurately to a large number of workers, including non-Japanese ones.

https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/35406

According to The Australian Financial Review, an apparent gas strike by energy giant Shell deep underground in onshore Queensland has fuelled industry hopes of a potential major new source of energy that could ease the threat of shortages in the tight east coast market.
Flames from a well drilled by Shell in the Taroom Trough at the southern edge of the Bowen Basin have stoked speculation that the little-known region could emerge as a new supply source that lies much closer to pipeline infrastructure than the Northern Territory’s remote Beetaloo Basin.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/shell-well-flare-in-qld-fires-up-east-coast-gas-hopes-20240909-p5k8ys

According to The Asahi Shimbun, demand for units in new residential complexes in certain urban areas is so great that the server for a website handling requests for condominium showings crashed due to high traffic.
For another massive housing project, the reservation slots for tours were filled within minutes.
Driving demand are the growing number of consumers seeking valuable assets at relatively affordable rates, according to experts.
On Feb. 26, an email was sent to prospective buyers of homes in the Toyomi Tower Marine and Sky complex in Tokyo’s Chuo Ward.
The email expressed an “apology over our booking form server’s crash.”
The high-rise complex, with 2,046 condominiums, is being constructed under a redevelopment program by such entities as Mitsui Fudosan Residential Co.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15383430

According to The Australian Financial Review, unit owners nationwide are holding on to their property longer than average in response to weak capital gains and sharp increases in transaction costs, data from CoreLogic shows.
Those who bought apartments and units are now staying put for 8.6 years, which is six months longer since interest rates started rising two years ago and 12 months more than the 10-year average.
By comparison, the hold period for houses shrank by around three months to 9.1 years, as owners cashed in on the rapid price increases since the pandemic.
The shift towards longer hold period for units defies earlier trends when owners tended to resell them within a shorter period of time.
CoreLogic head of research Eliza Owen said units’ broader underperformance in recent years could be dissuading some owners from selling.

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/unit-owners-hold-tight-as-values-weaken-and-transaction-costs-rise-20240903-p5k7ed

According to The Jiji News, Tobu Railway Co. said that it will expand its payments and identity verification service utilizing biometric identification technology.
In cooperation with Hitachi Ltd., Tobu Railway aims to introduce the service at more than 100 outlets, such as supermarkets, consumer electronics stores, hotels and convenience stores, by the end of fiscal 2026, hoping to spread it in a wide range of industries.

https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/35275

According to The Jiji News, Japanese personal mobility vehicle maker Whill Inc. launched a four-wheeled sidewalk motor scooter for the elderly.
The Whill Model R scooter can make a pivot turn to help users move easily in a crowded or narrow place as its front wheels are able to turn approximately 90 degrees.

https://sp.m.jiji.com/english/show/35278#goog_rewarded

According to The Australian Financial Review, every Australian lithium mine is losing money at today’s prices except for Western Australia’s famously low-cost Greenbushes, which could withstand a deeper commodity price rout, according to broker Citi.
Greenbushes is a joint venture 49 per cent-owned by US-listed Albemarle, and 51 per cent by ASX-listed IGO and China’s Tianqi.
The world’s biggest hard rock lithium mine is the only one of Australia’s seven producing lithium projects to be profitable, the broker argued, based on its analysis of their running costs at spot prices.
UBS warns the lithium sector will face a wave of mine closures as prices for the battery material struggle despite some companies putting projects on ice to sit out the bear market.
Prices for the lithium ore typical of Australia have collapsed more than 23 per cent over the past 45 days, fetching $US720 a tonne ($1066) on September 2, according to S&P Global’s Platts. That ore, which is spodumene concentrate with 6 per cent lithium content, was fetching more than $US8000 a tonne in 2022.

https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/the-only-profitable-lithium-mine-in-australia-revealed-20240903-p5k7gh
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