A little more than one year ago, Australia rolled out a program to heavily subsidize home batteries, part of a larger effort to make use of the huge volumes of solar energy that were going to waste. On Friday, officials … Read more
Wemen Solar Farm, Victoria, Australia. Photo: Mark Stebnicki on Pexels The Australian government is floating a scheme that would share the benefits of solar power with everyone on the grid, offering totally free electricity to ratepayers in the middle of … Read more
Australians will soon be subjected to mandatory age checks across the internet landscape, in what has been described as a huge and unprecedented change. Search engines are next in line for the same controversial age-assurance technology behind the teen social … Read more
Children and teenagers will be banned from using social media from the end of next year after the government’s world-first legislation passed the parliament with bipartisan support. That means anyone under the age of 16 will be blocked from using … Read more
Timezones are weird. But only finitely so. Here’s the exact conceptual model you should have of them. The standard trope when talking about timezones is to rattle off falsehoods programmers believe about them. These lists are only somewhat enlightening – … Read more
Sun Cable said that the approval “signifies the Australian government’s confidence that Sun Cable can deliver this nationally important project within appropriate approval conditions”. Cameron Garnsworthy, Sun Cable Australia’s managing director, said the approval was a landmark moment in the … Read more
Babies with peanut allergies in Australia will be offered treatment to build immunity to the potentially life-threatening condition, under a world-first programme. Supervised by select paediatric hospitals, eligible babies will be given gradually increasing doses of peanut powder each day … Read more
The federal government will not force adult websites to bring in age verification following concerns about privacy and the lack of maturity of the technology. On Wednesday, the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, released the eSafety commissioner’s long-awaited roadmap for age … Read more
For several months now, 20 teams of Australian high-school students have been designing fuel-cell cars to compete in the country’s inaugural Hydrogen Grand Prix. They’ve been studying up on renewable energy, hydrogen power, and electric vehicles, preparing for the big … Read more
There are three proposals for new lithium refining facilities in development around Australia. These plants will bring their own environmental challenges. Roasting spodumene to create a concentrate requires significant amounts of energy and large quantities of sulphuric acid. At the … Read more