True or false. Transylvania is a historical region located in central Romania?

By PHILIP HOPKINS

HUGE interest in new non-energy products based on brown coal shows the big economic opportunity for Central Gippsland as the region transitions away from the power industry, says an industry leader. The chief executive of Australian Carbon Innovation, Brian Davey, said ACI recently went to the market with expressions of interest, looking for projects in the carbon area using the Latrobe Valley’s brown coal. “We gave them parameters we wanted to look at. We expected about 10 proposals; we would have liked about 15,” he told The Latrobe Valley Express. “We ended up with 52. It’s a pretty good indication of the pent-up demand in that area. That will be one of the arguments we will be putting to the state government. Here is the obvious opportunity relating to brown coal and other carbon products and that a number of these have real prospects to be commercial. “But getting from the lab scale to the next level is often beyond them. That’s where governments have traditionally stepped in and acted.” ACI, based at Federation University, was set up by the state government in 2009 to back research into new products from the Valley’s massive brown coal resource. It is now putting together a proposal for funding that will be submitted after the November state election. Mr Davey described ACI’s current budget as “an ever decreasing one”. Since 2009, ACI had received a bit more more than $20 million in research funds from the state and federal governments, with two-thirds from the state. This had converted to research-and-development outcomes exceeding $60 million in value within 60 individual projects. “Not a huge amount of money is involved. In the scheme of things, compared to a new train line, for example, it’s ‘çhicken feed’ - stuff you would find down the back of a couch. And it maintains the capability in Victoria,” he said. The Commonwealth had given money in the past, but unless Victoria “stumps up the money”, they would not give any more funds. “Why should they? It’s hard to argue.” Mr Davey said the potential economic benefits could be undermined by a steady decline in local expertise. “The current cohort of good researchers are 60-plus in age. Here at Fed, a great coal chemist will retire this year and they have no one else. That is a huge hole in the capability of FU - the service the uni can provide the region,” he said. Brown coal, a resource with a life of more than 500 years, contributed more than 20 per cent of gross regional product and a long-term economic value estimated at trillions of dollars. “It risks becoming a stranded asset,” he said. Mr Davey emphasised that brown coal only produced carbon dioxide emissions when it was burned. “Our work is focussed on the use of the resource for its mineral value, not for use as a fuel,” he said. “Lignite (brown coal) is essentially a mixture of carbon, organic compounds and water and by itself is not a greenhouse gas.” To ignore Victoria’s largest and most valuable resource on ideological grounds risked the future prosperity of the region and the state, he said. “The steps taken to date to assist in the transition are supported but we believe are being limited by the blinkered view of the role that lignite can play in a prosperous future,” he said. Mr Davey said the Commonwealth was not funding brown coal but had given $35 million to the black coal industry. “We are appalled at that. You can do much more with brown coal because it is chemically more complex than black coal. Black coal is limited to CO2 capture and storage.” Products from black coal are very limited, whereas products from brown coal are huge,” he said. Mr Davey said the term “decarbonise the economy” was wrong. “It fails to understand a fundamental fact that life on our planet is carbon-based and carbon itself is not the problem. All industry, including renewable energy, uses carbon in a variety of ways. The use of carbon is fundamental to agriculture, pharmaceuticals, construction (production of steel and cement) and transport. Carbon fibre is used to build planes, trams, trains and cars,” he said. “Renewable energy technologies - solar, wind and batteries - have an essential carbon component.”

Backing healthcare system

THE state government is backing Victoria’s healthcare system, with free university and specialist training for thousands of nurses and midwives. In a $270 million boost to the health system, more than 17,000 nurses and midwives will be recruited and trained as part of a massive hiring and upskilling initiative - building an army of home-grown health workers to care for Victorians. More than 10,000 students will have the cost of their nursing or midwifery undergraduate studies paid for, while scholarships will be available for thousands more who complete postgraduate studies in areas of need including intensive care, cancer care, paediatrics and nurse practitioner specialities. All new domestic students enrolling in a professional-entry nursing or midwifery course in 2023 and 2024 will receive a scholarship of up to $16,500 to cover course costs. Students will receive $9000 while they study and the remaining $7500 if they work in Victorian public health services for two years. More midwives will join the workforce through an expanded postgraduate midwifery incentive program, which will provide scholarships to cover course costs and salary support for 150 existing nurses to continue working while they complete their specialist studies in midwifery. The initiative, together with the $12 billion Pandemic Repair Plan brings the number of nurses and midwives being supported to more than 20,000, including funding 13,000 nursing and midwifery positions and scholarships, and funding the upskilling of 8,500 nurses. The package also includes more than $20 million to provide more support to the growing numbers of graduates and postgraduates as they transition to working in hospitals.

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