THE FRUGL REVOLUTION
nuclear battle
Historic Debate Powers Up
BOWEN UPSIDE
BHP Mines Attract
Whitehaven
+ A Resident lizard ponders cancel culture...
SEP 23 2023 ISSUE 21
FROM THE editor
As we move towards a more sustainable future, it’s important to note the growing support for ideas to help us achieve our goal of reducing emissions. One such idea gaining traction is Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal for small modular nuclear reactors. While the Australian Government has expressed concerns about unproven and expensive technology, it is essential to consider all possible avenues that could lead us towards a greener future. Wind and solar energy are cheaper but must be more reliable to supply baseload power for heavy industries.
However, seeing companies exploring modern technologies could help make solar and wind power aspirations more realistic. For instance, a Perth-based company is developing salt solid-state batteries, which have the potential to revolutionise the way we store and use energy. As we search for the best options, we must keep an open mind and consider all possibilities. By doing so, we can act now to reduce emissions and positively impact the environment.
Sustainability is a top priority for many individuals and organisations worldwide. While there may be differing opinions on how best to achieve our goals, we can all agree that acting now is crucial. Let us continue to explore new ideas and technologies and work together towards a brighter, cleaner future.
Rueben Hale
In all this bickering about nuclear, let’s turn to the other players in this fight, the innocent coal operators who have been keeping us running on cheap, dirty electricity all this time, and the Greens, who would apparently rather just go dark on full renewables.
A part of me admires sticking by your guns like that and much like Russell Brand, I like to take my dim-witted political opinions from across all walks of life. Allegations of sexual impropriety against Brand were as about as surprising as a Fortescue executive resigning. You might as well try and cancel the Marquis de Sade while you’re at it, but maybe I’m just annoyed because I hated him before it was cool.
I’ve always found metal detectors to be profoundly uncool, but a Norwegian with one apparently discovered about 100 grams of gold alongside the usual bottle caps, giving fuel to the hopes of those weirdos at the beach that they’re one sweep away from pirate treasure, something I’ve admittedly thought about burying myself at Scarborough Beach for a high-effort chuckle. But we all need our hobbies, and I guess a stroll along the beach is a better use of the hours than drinking it away, an expensive habit these days. You can blame it on the two Japanese-owned big brewers if you want, but I’ve yet to see any of the small guys manage to sell a four-pack of overly fruity suds for cheaper than 25 bucks themselves. Winos just stay winning, I guess. But it was a loss for Victorian Airbnb owners who will be copping a 7.5 per cent levy, though it’s hard to feel empathy for them if you’ve ever copped a cleaning charge for a few toaster crumbs, and it’s become much more appealing to just grab a hotel. I like my fluffy robe and to not be surrounded by pictures of other people’s families, personally.
It has stayed in the family for the Murdochs, with Lachlan now taking over after Rupert gave his farewell as News Corp and Fox News leader, penning his note on how media is in cahoots with political elites these days. A bit weird coming from him, but maybe the prospect of having to cover another Trump presidency was just too much to bear.
THE FRUGL REVOLUTION
Frugl is a platform allowing consumers to compare grocery prices and save money. However, the data acquisition technology has collected significant localised and highly detailed information on shopper behaviour over the nearly three years since its launch. By integrating artificial intelligence with unbiased data analytics, Frugl can offer consumers even deeper insights based on this data.
Frugl, according to MD Kenny Woo, is a constantly evolving concept that seeks to advance its technology and expand its services
By Rueben Hale
to provide greater value to its customers.
“As a market leader, we hold three core beliefs,” he begins. “First, we believe that AI is the future of retail analytics, and we have invested in this technology. Second, our vast database gives us an edge in developing precise and intelligent AI models. Finally, we have years of experience in this field and have amassed a wealth of data to feed into our models, which is something new players in this space lack.”
The potential of AI to analyse Frugl’s extensive consumer search data and pricing trends is
Frugl’s Managing Director, Kenny Wooawe-inspiring. According to Woo, incorporating AI into the company’s proprietary learning model allows for the inclusion of various data variables, making it highly intelligent. He emphasises that it is essential to understand that AI relies heavily on data, which is why the size of the data set and learning model is crucial in determining the significance of its opinions and the intelligence of its responses.
“Even if a new startup creates a faultless algorithm and exceptional AI model, without adequate data, it may not be able to generate intelligent responses,” he adds.
A NEW PATH FOR WOO
Kenny Woo is a recent addition to Frugl. He previously worked in the banking sector but transitioned into the plastics and disposable food-packaging industry as an entrepreneur. However, he grew worried about the environmental consequences of this industry. Eventually, it declined and was even banned in
some countries. In 2018, he sold his stake in a plastics business and sought smaller ventures prioritising fairness and sustainability.
“Plastic waste is an important issue that needs to be addressed,” Woo says. “The Frugl app helps consumers save money and reduce their carbon footprint by finding the cheapest and closest ways to shop – necessary for everyone to improve the world in their way.”
HISTORY OF INNOVATION
Since the app’s release, Frugl has continually innovated with exciting new features and considerably faster app performance.
Frugl Grocery’s latest platform update (version 3) offers new features such as pre-populated shopping lists, cost-comparisons, allergens and customer reviews. Users can now sign in using social media and add unlimited retailers. Collaborative list-options and wellness tools have been improved, meeting the platform’s commercialisation and growth strategy goals.
Nuclear battle at historic turning point?
By Tom DugganWith vast uranium deposits, a stable political and tectonic landscape, and ample room for waste storage, Australia looks on paper to be an ideal adopter of nuclear power. But the nation’s route on the yellowcake road has become an increasingly divisive issue between the major parties.
A back-and-forth between the Labor and Liberal parties has turned feistier. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has long advocated for an increased proportion of national energy to be nuclear and claimed Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen had become “unhinged” after the former treasurer released figures suggesting a shift from coal-fired power to nuclear would cost the nation A$387 billion.
While nuclear power has traditionally been objected to by the far left and environmentalists concerned about radioactivity and safety, Australian Labor Party member Mr Bowen has put his objections down to economics.
“Peter Dutton and the Opposition need to explain why Australians will be slugged with a $387 billion cost burden for a nuclear energy plan that flies in the face of economics and reason,” the nation’s Energy Minister said.
“After nine years of energy policy chaos, rather than finally embracing a clean, cheap, safe and secure renewable future, all the Coalition can promise is a multi-billion-dollar nuclearflavoured energy policy.”
The Opposition has made no formal indications of what proportion of the nation’s coal-fired sources would be replaced by nuclear, and Mr Bowen has said that Mr Dutton needs to put up the Liberal-National Coalition’s own figures or shut up.
“I can’t think of a worse fit, a worse fit for Australia’s energy needs than nuclear power. It’s slow to build, it’s not flexible, generates a lot of nuclear waste,” he said.
Australia’s abundant coal reserves, a far cheaper but carbon-intensive form of power, has long stood in place of nuclear, but with emissions targets at a fore of global policymaking, it is an energy source already on the way out.
But the development of renewable sources has lagged the closure of coal plants, with major supply shortage risks for the nation’s main electricity grid tipped to escalate, in predictions found in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Electricity Statement of Opportunities report.
The Australian Greens oppose both nuclear and gas with full sight on renewables, but the technology needed to complete a full transition remains out of reach.
Energy Minister Chris BowenMr Bowen has placed an onus on gas to support a renewable transition, but major projects including private energy company Snowy Hydro’s 660-megawatt Kurri Kurri gas plant in the New South Wales Hunter Valley and Beach Energy’s (ASX: BPT) Waitsia gas plant in offshore Western Australia have hit significant delays. Though nuclear is hardly a short-term option and, without an established industry, Australia would be unlikely to bring nuclear power online within a decade.
But other nations have already gotten started. France plans up to 14 new reactors by 2050 while the UK has a target of a quarter of energy provided by nuclear power by 2050. In the US both sides of the aisle have supported nuclear to assist in reaching climate targets, while China has laid out plans to increase its capacity to 70 gigawatts by 2025.
The United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance has stated the UN has never seen a credible transition strategy without nuclear, something backed up by US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and former Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry who has said that there is no chance of getting to net-zero by 2050 without nuclear in the mix. There has not always been such a large divide from the major parties.
While long-time Labor party leader, former prime minister Gough Whitlam quickly scrapped any ambitions Australia had for nuclear weapons, the late PM had won an election with plans for uranium enrichment and nuclear power. Meanwhile the party’s longest serving PM, the late Bob Hawke, once said nuclear energy would be “a win for the global environment and a win for Australia.”
And Australia almost had a nuclear power station at Jervis Bay in NSW, but the development was scrapped for economic reasons when Liberal prime minister Billy McMahon took over from his fellow party member ex-PM John Gorton in 1971. In fact, the nuclear divide has historically been drawn more on lines of gender rather than party loyalty, and surveys since the 1970s have repeatedly found a large spread between male and female approval levels.
Incidents at the nuclear power plants in Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three-Mile Island have all had a large effect on public opinion
surrounding nuclear, but continually evolving technology has made the nuclear option safer than ever before.
When measured in terms of deaths per electricity generated, nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest sources, with accidents and air pollution deaths associated with brown coal standing at 32.72 compared with 0.07 for nuclear.
The Fukushima power plant in Japan was built in 1969, scheduled for decommissioning in 1992, and failed in 2011 when a 15-metre tsunami caused by a major earthquake disabled its power supply.
But the Onagawa plant was closer to the epicentre of the earthquake, with its first reactor built just 11 years later in 1980, and it survived unscathed.
The first cobalt-focused drilling in more than four decades at Rimfire Pacific Mining’s (ASX: RIM) Bald Hill project in New South Wales has returned with thick stretches of high grades, quickly turning the project into a clear priority for the Victorian explorer.
Headline intercepts of 125 metres at 0.13% cobalt from 198m and 58m @ 0.13% Co from 62m were returned while copper potential was seen in a strike of 6m @ 0.51% Cu from 56m.
Cobalt Blue’s (ASX: COB) 118 million tonne, .0859% resource sits nearby, with Rimfire now plotting its next round of drilling as it hopes for a significantly large system at similar or higher grades to its peers.
A maiden hole in Stellar Resources’ (ASX: SRZ) silver, tin, zinc, lead, indium and gallium project North Scamander has returned a 32-metre multi-metal strike. The strike features 141 grams per tonne Ag, 0.34% Sn, 3.8% Zn, 2.0% Pb, 77 g/t In and 19 g/t Ga from 130.0m. Individual results from the hole were as high as 1,035 g/t Ag, 5.75% Sn, 27.6% Zn, 21.2% Pb, 1,070 g/t In and 37 g/t Ga.
The Victorian company confirmed its significant polymetallic discovery in northeast Tasmania, noting it bore similarities to world-class systems in the Bolivian Tin Belt and highlighting its indium grades compared favourably with established deposits.
Stellar already holds a large tin inventory at its flagship Heemskirk project in southwest Tassie. The company plans to drill its complementary discovery as soon as is practical.
Rimfire cracks cobalt in Bald quest Stellar discovers multi-metal maidenBalkan starts first Gorge
Western Australian lithium explorer Balkan Mining and Minerals (ASX: BMM) has begun its much anticipated maiden campaign at Gorge Lithium project in Canada, spinning up for 12 diamond holes over prospective pegmatite strikes at its Koshman and Nelson pegmatite showings.
Early sampling of high-grade lithium and anomalous lithium-cesium-tantalum results provided early excitement for the campaign. Meanwhile, mechanical stripping at Nelson uncovered two more unmapped pegmatite targets nearby, offering up a glimpse of rich endowment as the team identified further targets during its preparation work.
Balkan knows its pegmatite outcrops contain lithium, and the company is excited to learn more from its first proper look into the area’s rich Ontario territory.
Already holding an initial contingent resource of 365 billion standard cubic feet of gas at its Grandis Gas project in Queensland, Elixir Energy (ASX: EXR) has continued to pace towards drilling of its Daydream-2 well in the state’s Taroom Trough.
The dreamy gas project sits in an area established over decades as a highly productive oil and gas province. South Australian and Mongolian-based Elixir has flagged activities in the Taroom area have highlighted its great market location and very large known resources. The region is abuzz with new activity after lights were shined on the role gas can play in forming a bridge to transition communities from coal energy sources to renewables.
The Australian Government will pay 43.5 per cent of the explorer’s total Daydream-2 well costs.
Elixir moves into Daydream mode
Picture it’s March 2018 and Australian producer
Whitehaven Coal (ASX: WHC) has just arrived in central Queensland through acquiring Rio Tinto’s (ASX: RIO) 75% interest in a greenfield project in the Bowen Basin. Fast forward and a lot has been done at the Winchester South project north-west of Emerald, although less is being said about the proposed new mine in Central Queensland these days.
Five years from Whitehaven’s Queensland snap-up, it’s late 2023 and the coal-rich state has provided another opportunity for Whitehaven to expand its footprint in the basin. The option? The potential US$3.5 billion buy-up of two operating coal mines owned by BHP Group (ASX: BHP) and Mitsubishi Corp (TYO: 8058) – the Daunia and Blackwater coal operations.
Why is BHP selling two operating coal mines?
The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s proposed divestment is part of big miner BHP’s ongoing strategy to simplify its coal portfolio. The producer wants to focus on tier 1 assets and reduce its capital allocation to mines where its return on capital is not comparable to the likes of iron ore or copper. The strategy is why BHP exited the large Cerrejon coal mine in Northern Colombia, sold its BHP Mitsui Coal assets to Stanmore Resources (ASX: SMR) and tried selling its New South Wales energy coal mine Mount Arthur Coal. Simply, coal assets don’t get the capital within BHP’s portfolio, and second-tier mines are the first on the miner’s divestment list.
Blackwater Mine summary
The alliances mine assets are Dunia, with its small operating mine life, and Blackwater, with its very long operating life-of-mine and medium volatile quality, are both on BHP’s divestment list. That’s where Whitehaven comes into the picture. Blackwater is one of the largest open-cut coal mines in Australia, with its mine reserves laying within 10 mining leases which cover about 21,000 hectares. Mining has occurred in 13 separate pits stretching
for 35 kilometres from north to south. The Central Queensland mine is south of Blackwater township and produces metallurgical and thermal coal for the nation’s export market.
There was a marginal rise in marketable output for Blackwater to about 12 million tonnes in 2022. Blackwater product is mainly mid-vol coking coal, although site operators also produce energy coal –either as a primary product or by-product – to utilise extra processing and logistics capacity. Energy coal is mainly high-ash and doesn’t receive the market price. Additionally, the Blackwater mine’s railway is narrow gauge-line, making the operation’s logistics cost higher when compared to other operations in the basin that run on the Goonyella railway system. The mine’s Gladstone port rate is high as well, comparing unfavourably to Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal which is also in Central Queensland. On a current production basis, marketable production can last the next 30 years.
Daunia Mine summary
Daunia is a Bowen Basin surface mine where miners produce semi-hard coking coal and pulverised coalinjection coal for export markets.
Daunia’s annual marketable output fell 0.9 Mt to 3.0 Mt in 2022. The mine’s production was impacted by wet weather in the final quarter of the year and its transition to using autonomous trucks. Market Open anticipates a gradual rebound in Daunia’s output to 5 Mt a year by 2025, remaining at this level until its marketable reserves are exhausted in 2036.
Daunia is BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s second coal mine to approve autonomous trucks. Daunia’s first autonomous trucks began operating in January 2021.
Whitehaven Coal upside
There are multiple areas where Whitehaven Coal can receive benefits from acquiring BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s Daunia and Blackwater mines.
During financial year 2023 Whitehaven Coal made A$66 million worth of acquisitions to support its existing mine plan. If the Australian coal producer acquires BMA’s Daunia and Blackwater assets for a ballpark US$3.5 billion, it would be one of the biggest transactions in Australia since 2017 when Yancoal Australia (ASX: YAL) grabbed Rio Tinto’s Coal & Allied Industries (ASX: CNA) assets in the NSW Hunter Valley for US$2.69 billion.
Analysts suggest Daunia and Blackwater will remain in Australian hands, with the federal and Queensland governments both supportive of local ownership.
BHP plans to exit its stakes in Dunia and Blackwater after taking an in-principle stand against the Queensland Government’s tripling of top-end coal royalties. The big miner has been vocal in highlighting Queensland is the highest coal-taxing regime in the world. Given the negative impact the state’s adjusted royalty rate of 7-40% of revenues has on investment economics and sovereign risk, BHP has no plans to invest in further growth in Queensland – although it does intend to optimise and sustain its existing operations.
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