Australia company unveils all new electric vehicle for mining industry

The makers of an electric vehicle designed specifically for the mining industry will launch the new product this month at Queensland’s Department of Main Roads Mt Cotton Training Centre.

It's electric and designed for the mining industry.

The heavy-duty Bortana EV, which has been developed by Australian mining safety product company Safescape, in collaboration with NSW-based 3ME Technology and the METS Ignited Project, will be unveiled in Brisbane on May 24, following the 2019 Austmine Conference.

A comparatively “light” vehicle (compared to the heavy loaders and massive trucks typical of Australia’s mining industry), the Bortana is considered a game-changing electric vehicle (EV) for the industry.

It will have a 150km range, with a 50kWh battery, 135kW output motor and 320Nm torque, and has the potential to significantly reduce the industry’s energy usage and vehicle emissions.

Read the story from The Driven by Bridie Schmidt - “Australia company unveils all new electric vehicle for mining industry.”

The Green New Deal doesn’t need to choose between planes or trains. Here’s why

The launch of the Green New Deal resolution sparked significant criticism for supposedly proposing that high-speed trains could be used to replace air travel and its carbon pollution.

ARTIST'S CONCEPT OF NASA'S X-57 MAXWELL AIRCRAFT
 SHOWS THE PLANE'S SPECIALLY DESIGNED WING AND
 14 ELECTRIC MOTORS.

House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) claimed the Green New Deal — a plan to rapidly decarbonize the entire economy — would “outlaw plane travel.”

But while the resolution, introduced this month by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), makes no such claim, it does fail to consider a game-changing technology for cutting the carbon pollution caused by air travel while still traveling by air: electric planes.

As one of its major goals, the resolution proposes “overhauling transportation systems… to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in” zero-emission vehicles, mass transit, and “high-speed rail.”

Read the ThinkProgress story by Joe Romm - “The Green New Deal doesn’t need to choose between planes or trains. Here’s why.”

Climate-constrained healthcare

On 22 June last year, a rare display of tripartisan support for action on climate change was on display in Parliament House in Canberra. Indigenous health minister Ken Wyatt joined shadow health minister Catherine King and Greens leader Richard Di Natale for the launch of a road map for tackling climate change as an urgent health concern.

Its own footprint: hospitals are a major contributor
 to healthcare’s significant carbon emissions.

Representatives from across the health sector attended the event, where speakers described the wide-ranging health benefits of actions to reduce emissions. The launch was followed by a roundtable discussion hosted by the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association, where discussions were also marked by a sense of collaboration and goodwill.

All three politicians stressed the importance of the report, Framework for a National Strategy on Climate, Health and Well-being, which made recommendations across portfolios, including energy, environment, transport and infrastructure, as well as health. Tellingly, the framework — and the extensive consultation it was based on — was not the work of governments but of a small organisation, the Climate and Health Alliance, or CAHA, and of volunteers rather than health departments or agencies.

Read the story from Inside Story by Melissa Sweet - “Climate-constrained healthcare.”

Victorian coal to keep lights on in Japan, says Turnbull

On one of Victoria’s hottest mid-April days on record, Australian and Japanese leaders gathered at the base of Loy Yang, the state’s biggest power plant, to launch a project to secure the long-term future of its vast brown coal reserves.

Malcolm Turnbull says brown coal might
one day keep the lights on in Japan.

If this $496 million pilot project to convert the Latrobe Valley’s brown coal into liquid hydrogen pays off, there is hope that a new export industry will be created that will fuel the valley’s coal-dependent economy for many decades to come.

Speaking at the launch of the project between Australia and Japan in the Latrobe Valley, Prime Minister Turnbull highlighted the government's agnostic position on energy, one of the main tenets of the National Energy Guarantee, which has been used to increase the role of coal in Australia's energy mix.

Read the story from The Age by Adam Carey and Cole Latimer - “Victorian coal to keep lights on in Japan, says Turnbull.”

This environmental group is launching its own satellite to learn more about greenhouse gas leaks

When the Environmental Defense Fund told commercial space guru Tom Ingersoll that it wanted to launch a satellite to measure methane from oil and gas operations, he says his reaction was “Whoa! You guys want to do what?”

A rendering by the Environmental Defense
Fund of a methane-detecting satellite. 

Yet that’s what the EDF is doing. It is well on its way toward raising about $40 million. It has tapped into the work of Harvard University researchers to fine tune sensors. And it has reached out to Ingersoll and others in the commercial space business to create a device that will be able to measure methane emissions on a 125-mile wide swath with pixel resolution of less than  five-eighths of a mile.

EDF will also get support from TED Talks, which hopes to spur fundraising for a variety of causes through its “Audacious Project.”

Read Steven Mufson’s story from The Washington Post - “This environmental group is launching its own satellite to learn more about greenhouse gas leaks.”

Jaguar gears for electric sports car with big spend on city chargers

Jaguar plans to invest millions of dollars in electric vehicle charging stations ahead of the launch of its electric vehicle range in Australia.

Jaguar's first electric vehicle, the I-PACE will hit Australian shores later this year.

The vehicle manufacturer is planning to launch its fully electric sports car, the I-Pace, and two hybrid land rovers in September and October, and will invest between $3 million and $4 million building electric vehicle charging stations for the new vehicles ahead of their release.

Jaguar Land Rover Australia managing director Matthew Wiesner said it would begin building the infrastructure to support the electric vehicles in the coming weeks.

“This is a real first for us,” Mr Wiesner told Fairfax Media.

Read Cole Latimer’s story in The Age - “Jaguar gears for electric sports car with big spend on city chargers.”