According to The Australian Financial Review, South Korea's Hana Financial Investment has acquired a 162-megawatt solar farm to be built in the booming solar power state of Queensland and which is underpinned by a huge power sales contract with state-owned CS Energy.
Queensland energy minister Anthony Lynham said the project, which would create 400 jobs, took the number of committed or operational large-scale renewable energy projects in the state to 41 since 2015. He said the solar farm would help drive Queensland towards its target of 50 per cent renewable energy use by 2030.
CS Energy will buy all of the output and sell it on to large commercial customers including Griffith University, Central Queensland University and Queensland University of Technology.
The solar farm will use special panels that absorb light from the front and the back, and a tracker system that allows them to follow the sun across the sky.
Luminous, for whom the project is its largest worldwide and its first in Australia, said the technologies could significantly increase energy generation compared with traditional designs.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/major-solar-deal-to-create-400-qld-jobs-20200828-p55q4x

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/6620238.html 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Australian scientists, many of them PhD students, have created a blood test that delivers positive COVID-19 results in 20 minutes.
They used existing technology to create the test, which they expect will cost less than one dollar.
The test is run on diagnostic machines that are routinely used to determine blood type. These machines are available around the world and, they say, the high-end versions can assess 700 samples an hour.

https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/health-and-wellness/australians-develop-a-20-minute-test-for-covid-19-20200717-p55d3k

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/covid-1920.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, as Australian infection rates of COVID-19 plummet and business pushes for a return to normal, a Perth-based business created to try to save jobs may enable people to get back to work more quickly and safely.
GERMii was created in February, when founder Shan Patterson realised he needed to reinvent his data and computer disposal business if he wanted to keep staff in work during the pandemic.
He quickly set to work creating a product that could help his corporate clients sterilise their workplaces by using concentrated UV-C light to kill COVID-19 pathogens.
One of his business partners said, “I have an idea based on my experience using UV-C germicidal irradiation technology to sterilise water in villages in PNG", and they adapted that technology to work on hard surfaces rather than water.
The technology is already utilised in hospitals abroad and has proven to be more effective and faster than chemical products in killing the COVID-19 virus, as it kills the entire pathogen immediately.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/australian-made-uv-light-devices-could-help-businesses-reopen-faster-20200426-p54na0

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/uv-c.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, an emerging group of deep tech start-ups are pivoting their technologies and redeploying their staff to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, as the sector begins to treat the outbreak with a wartime mentality.
Entrepreneurs previously tackling problems as varied as occupant sensing, renewable energy and sexually transmitted infection detection have all adapted their businesses over the past few weeks to refocus their efforts on helping solve major problems in containing the coronavirus spread.
Because of the virus, it paused that rollout and the company has thrown its efforts into creating a small artificial intelligence-equipped, shoebox-sized device that sits on a tripod and measures a person's temperature in less than a second. The possibilities for screening the public for virus symptoms were obvious.
The company has already scored a contract with a major south-east Asian government's national border force and a large international airport outside of Asia, and its first Rapid Thermal Pre-Screeners are being shipped.
"The systems in airports require huge camera set-ups and cost around $15,000. Ours is far less expensive, more accurate and can be deployed quicker," Calumino co-founder Marek Steffanson said.
"As well as at airports, they can be used at hotel check-ins, offices, or in aged care centres. A person just looks at the screen and within one second it displays a green or red screen for if their temperature is above or below 37.5 degrees.
"We hope that in April we'll be able to deploy between 20 and 50 units – 50 being the best case if there's no more supply chain disruptions."
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https://www.afr.com/technology/start-ups-pivot-to-save-the-world-by-tackling-covid-19-20200327-p54egu

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/covid-19.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Australian researchers, who became the fastest vaccine developers in the world in 2009 by putting the first swine flu vaccine into humans in three months, are now working on one for COVID-19.
They have animal trials under way and expect the results in July. If successful, they will begin testing their candidate vaccine in humans.
If it proves safe and generates the right type of immune response, they say many people, particularly frontline medical staff, could conceivably be given the vaccine under trial conditions.
The team believes it has an advantage because it has an established platform that has proved safe and effective with other vaccines it has produced for outbreaks such as H5 and H7 bird flu.
“We started working on this pandemic platform in 2002," says Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, who has been researching vaccines for 20 years and leads the COVID-19 team from the Flinders University precinct.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/australian-team-s-advantage-in-the-covid-19-vaccine-race-20200403-p54gv2

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/5548352.html
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Melbourne-based biotech company Firebrick Pharma has developed a "disinfectant for your nose" that could be capable of reducing the amount of detectable coronavirus by almost 100 per cent.
In a report seen by The Australian Financial Review, laboratory tests in a test tube showed its nasal spray, Nasodine, reduced the amount of detectable coronavirus by 99.97 per cent and eliminated the infectious properties of any remaining virus.
The company, founded in 2012 by Betadine throat gargle creator Dr Peter Molloy, tested its nasal spray on the coronavirus on the basis that it kills viruses indiscriminately, so logically could be effective on the coronavirus – as well as SARS, MERS or influenza.
The catch is that the patented nasal spray, developed to-date as a combative measure against the common cold, is in the final stages of its phase three clinical trial and yet to be approved for use by any global regulators.
Dr Molloy is hoping to receive permission from the health department and the Therapeutic Goods Administration to make the nasal spray available in special conditions to healthcare workers at risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/melbourne-company-creates-nasal-spray-for-coronavirus-20200220-p542ly

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3027511.html 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, shares in ASX minnow Micro-X Ltd surged 29 per cent after the Adelaide-based manufacturer said it secured two orders from south east Asian governments seeking to use its X-ray technology to help diagnose the coronavirus.
The company’s first product, the Carestream DRX Revolution Nano, is an ultra-lightweight digital medical X-ray system for the expanding mobile X-ray market in hospitals. Micro-X said production has moved to full capacity to fulfil all these orders within four weeks.
CEO Peter Rowland said chest X-rays are a key tool in monitoring the progression of the pneumonia-like symptoms of severe coronavirus infection.
While the normal early-stage diagnosis of coronavirus is by a blood test, like with pneumonia, a chest X-ray is used to detect fluid in the lungs, particularly with patients presenting with severe acute respiratory distress.

https://www.afr.com/companies/healthcare-and-fitness/micro-x-surges-on-coronavirus-contract-wins-20200213-p540ln

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/8231665.html 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, an electronic shelf label tells the customers not only the price but the provenance – where the lamb or beef came from, whether it's grass-fed or organic – when it was made and how many calories it contains.
If the meal kit is close to its use-by date, the price on the electronic ticket might be a few dollars lower than it was earlier in the week, having been automatically updated by store staff.
The woman drops the meal kit as she scrambles to scan it with her smart phone to skip the checkout queue, but within seconds a robot scoots over to clean up the mess.
It’s not a scene from The Jetsons; it’s coming to a supermarket near you, and probably sooner than you think.

https://www.afr.com/business/retail/fmcg/the-robots-coming-to-an-aisle-near-you-20190711-p5267l
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If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/9773361

According to The Australian Financial Review, packing costs at the centre are half the cost of store selection, and mistakes are rare – order accuracy is 98.8 per cent – almost eliminating the need for vans to deliver replacements.
When Ocado opened the Erith CFC last May, among the scores of guests checking out the facility was a team from Coles, led by Alister Jordan, chief executive of Coles Online and Coles Express.
Coles was on a two-year global mission to find the best way to make its fast-growing online grocery business profitable.
Coles' online sales grew 30 per cent last year and will crack the $1 billion mark this year, but the business is yet to break even.
After 18 months of negotiations, Coles signed a long-term deal with Ocado  this week to use its so-called "smart platform" technology, which gives the supermarket access to the bee-hive fulfilment technology, a new online grocery website and home-delivery solutions, including last-mile routing – getting goods to their final destination.
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https://www.afr.com/business/retail/the-robots-coming-to-choose-your-groceries-20190328-p518dk

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/3304542 
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According to The Australian Financial Review, Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group will consider diversifying into the autonomous transport sector and is eyeing a driverless future on public roads based on the miner's successes with the technology across its iron ore mining operations.
Fortescue said it was setting up an autonomous transport research and development centre in Karratha, in the resources-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia, aimed at accelerating the rollout of driverless vehicles in urban environments.
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https://www.afr.com/business/mining/fortescue-on-the-road-to-a-driverless-future-20190321-p51681

If you want to read this article in Japanese, please see the following link:
https://www.j-abc.com/jp-blog/1098904 
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