According to The Australian Financial Review, the Morrison government’s epiphany on electric vehicles has come full circle, with another $178 million to be spent on measures to encourage the shift away from petrol and diesel-powered cars and have 30 per cent of all new cars sold by 2030 either electric or hybrid.
The strategy, now worth a total of $250 million, aims to attract another $500 million in public and private investment and will focus on four key areas that include the provision of ample charging facilities and working with the states to ensure the energy grid can cope.
The policy aims to install charging facilities in more than 400 businesses, 50,000 households and 1000 public charging stations.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/morrison-turnaround-flags-cheaper-power-to-charge-evs-20211108-p596v6

According to The Australian Financial Review, new home sales climbed 11 per cent in October, as demand strengthened despite the end of the HomeBuilder grant, data from Housing Industry Association shows.
A total of 5590 new homes were sold, up from 5030 in September amid signs sales were stabilising following a volatile year, said HIA economist Angela Lillicrap.
Victoria led the charge with a 29.1 per cent monthly rise to 2093 sales, followed by Queensland with 11.1 per cent to 873.
In NSW, new home sales rose by 3.9 per cent to 1211, but they fell by 4 per cent in SA and by 2.8 per cent in WA.

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/new-home-sales-climb-11pc-amid-strong-demand-20211109-p597ay

 

According to The Asahi Shimbun, general contractor Taisei Corp. said it has developed a technology that can create “cleaner” sewage disposal plants by converting methane extracted from the waste into electricity and thermal energy.
The technology can help the facilities reduce greenhouse gas emissions and power consumption during the sewage disposal process, Taisei said.
Sewage disposal produces massive amounts of sludge at treatment plants in Japan. When the sludge is incinerated for disposal as industrial waste, it emits a large amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and requires a substantial amount of power.
Sewage sludge is also used for biomass power generation, but only 4.5 percent of sewage treatment plants have adopted the method because it is not efficient enough.
The new technology uses a special film and minerals to efficiently extract methane from sewage.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14478075

 

According to The Asahi Shimbun, a new vaccine technology that eliminated the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in test monkeys has raised hopes for an end to the AIDS pandemic, a research team said.
Yasuhiro Yasutomi, director of the Tsukuba Primate Research Center under the National Institutes of Biomedical Innovation, Health and Nutrition, said the team’s goal is to begin clinical testing on humans within five years.
The research team focused on a bacterium that secretes a substance that strengthens an immune response. A vaccine was created by mixing genes of the bacterium with those of a weakened AIDS-causing virus.
When the vaccine was administered on crab-eating macaques, the animals became infected with HIV, but further tests could not detect the virus, the team said.
The vaccinated macaques were then given a stronger virus that always kills the victim. But the virus disappeared in six of the seven subjects.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14478106

 

According to The Australian Financial Review, Macquarie Group, Snowy Hydro and Chinese-controlled pipeline owner Jemena are all involved in a group that will examine a potential green hydrogen hub in Newcastle that could have a capacity of 1 gigawatt by 2030.
A $3 million feasibility study into the hub, led by Port of Newcastle and Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG), will be half-funded by a grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
The hub would initially use a 40 megawatt renewables-powered electrolyser to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, with the hydrogen to be used initially in the Hunter region, in agriculture, transport and energy generation. It could later lead to hydrogen exports from Newcastle, the world’s largest thermal coal terminal.

https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/newcastle-port-eyes-green-hydrogen-future-20211108-p596zy

According to The Nikkei Asia, Japanese cellphone carrier SoftBank Corp. will soon test technology that will charges earbuds, smartwatches and other wearable devices by simply walking near a mobile base station, Nikkei has learned.
The wireless power transmission devices will be installed in 5G base stations being rolled out by SoftBank. The government will soon ease restrictions on wireless technology to allow for the trials
SoftBank is replacing its 200,000 4G base stations across Japan with 5G versions. The wireless charging service will be jointly developed by Kyoto University, the Kanazawa Institute of Technology and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.
An electrical charge will be sent in the 28 gigahertz high frequency band used in 5G communication. Users can automatically charge compatible wearables just by approaching a base station.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/SoftBank2/SoftBank-plans-wireless-power-grid-to-charge-smartwatches-earbuds

 

According to The Australian Financial Review, new home listings soared by 41 per cent in Sydney and 82 per cent in Melbourne last month as vendors rushed back into the market after lockdowns ended and before the higher mortgage buffer came into effect, the latest SQM Research data shows.
Total listings jumped by 25.5 per cent in Sydney during October to 29,183 – the largest monthly percentage increase on record, while lifting by 25.1 per cent to 41,265 in Melbourne.

https://www.afr.com/property/residential/new-listings-soar-by-41pc-in-sydney-as-vendors-rush-to-sell-20211101-p5952p

According to The Asahi Shimbun, Yanmar Holdings Co. completed a hydrogen fuel cell system to enable boats to travel a far longer distance than previously allowed using such technology.
Companies that build ship engines are plowing full steam ahead toward a future where vessels set sail on power sources that emit no carbon dioxide (CO2).
A boat outfitted with the system that utilizes the same technology as Toyota Motor Corp.’s Mirai fuel cell vehicle cut across Osaka Bay during a demonstration the company held the day before.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14463119

 

According to The Asahi Shimbun, cars already know how to park themselves, warn drowsy drivers, steer back into the right lanes and propose map routes to destinations. The cars Mazda has in the works for next year in Japan know when drivers have a stroke or heart attack.
By 2025, the cars will even know when drivers are about to have a sudden health problem and warn them, according to the Japanese automaker.
What’s involved are data from cameras inside the car, without resorting to laser sensors or other more obtrusive technology. And it’s going to be offered in affordable models, not just luxury vehicles. The technology holds promise for one of the most advanced aging societies in the world.
Mazda told reporters recently it has been working with medical experts, including Tsukuba University Hospital, researching the collected image data to figure out what a healthy driver looks like, as opposed to an incapacitated driver, suddenly slumped forward over the steering wheel.
Once recognizing a problem, Co-Pilot Concept, which has yet to have an official name, will bring that car to a stop in a safe spot, such as the curb of the road, as quickly as possible.

https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14474885

 

According to the announcement, ENEOS Corporation, Chiyoda Corporation, and Queensland University of Technology announced that they had succeeded in expanding the scale of their technological verifications of CO2-free hydrogen to a practical level for the first time in the world. ENEOS commenced technical verifications of the production, transportation, and dehydrogenation of CO2-free hydrogen in 2018.
In March 2019, ENEOS, Chiyoda and QUT succeeded in directly producing MCH from water and toluene derived from Australian renewable energy, transporting this MCH to Japan, and extracting hydrogen from it. This was the first successful verification of such a technology in the world, but produced only a lab[1]sized amount of MCH containing 0.2 kilograms of hydrogen. We have expanded the scale of MCH produced to a practical level so that it contains approximately 6 kilograms of hydrogen; they have also extracted hydrogen from this MCH in Japan, and actually used the hydrogen to fill and drive a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV).

https://www.eneos.co.jp/english/newsrelease/2021/pdf/20211102_01.pdf