World’s second-most powerful battery after Tesla mooted for Top End

The world's second-most powerful battery could be built in the Top End as part of a plan to produce more renewable energy for the Northern Territory.

Elon Musk.

Territory Generation, the NT Government-owned corporation that runs power plants in the jurisdiction, wants to build a large-scale renewable energy storage system for Darwin and Katherine.

It has released an expression of interest for a 25 to 45 megawatt battery.

By comparison, the new Tesla battery in South Australia — the world's largest — is 100 megawatts, said Dr Ariel Liebman, from Monash University's Energy Materials and Systems Institute.

Read the ABC News story - “World’s second-most powerful battery after Tesla mooted for Top End.”

Challenging weather conditions reduce Top End mango farmer's crop by 30 per cent.

A Top End mango farmer part-way through harvesting expects her crop will be down 30 per cent on what was originally forecast.

Tou Saramat Ruchkaew says her season
has been below average, despite a
good wet season.

Tou Saramat Ruchkaew started picking at her Acacia Hills farm, Tou's Garden, in August and is now about 65 percent of the way through.

Ms Ruchkaew said the weather had presented many challenges this season, which had impacted her harvest.

"We have had hot and cold, hot and cold [weather] about four times [which has caused] four flowering systems, so the picking has been very challenging," she said.

Read Lydia Burton’s ABC News story - “Challenging weather conditions reduce Top End mango farmer's crop by 30 per cent.”

Winter warmth is in the forecast (but don’t celebrate yet)

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued its seasonal forecast for the winter, and it should be a warm one throughout southern Australia and the very tips of the Top End.

After a warm autumn, particularly in the east, this winter is forecast to be warmer and drier than usual – especially over the southern half of the continent.

Not your everyday weather forecast

Seasonal forecasts are very different from your standard weather forecast for the day or week ahead.

Instead of giving exact temperatures or rainfall totals, the bureau provides probabilities of above or below average conditions. So if the bureau says there’s a 70% chance of above-average temperatures, that’s the same as saying there’s a 30% chance it will be below average.

These probabilities are estimated by looking at what’s going on in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as they strongly influence Australia’s weather, and by running a set, or “ensemble”, of forecasts through the bureau’s seasonal forecast model.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Climate Extremes Research Fellow at the, University of Melbourne,  Andrew King  -  “Winter warmth is in the forecast (but don’t celebrate yet).”

Project operator attempts to walk away from environmental offsets

The approval for the Inpex-operated Ichthys
 LNG project was given provided Inpex
undertook about $91m of
environmental projects to offset its impact.

An attempt by the operator of a $34bn gas project to walk away from environmental offset obligations because it claims its impact was not as big as expected is “radically premature”, a legal group has claimed.

The Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG project to extract gas from off the coast of Western Australia, pipe it to a processing plant near Darwin, and then export it – primarily to Japan – received environmental approval in 2011 from the federal Labor government.

The approval, granted until 2061, was given provided Inpex undertook about $91m of work to offset its impact on the Top End region.

However, ABC has reported Inpex sought to vary conditions of its environmental obligations under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and abandon $30m worth of offset projects.

Read The Guardian story - “Natural gas project operator attempts to walk away from environmental offsets.”