Category: 3. Business

One of Australia’s largest renewable energy transmission projects has expanded zones for solar, battery and wind developments with the cost of connection to almost double.

The latest version of Victoria’s 2025 Transmission Plan, released by state government agency VicGrid on Sunday, revealed a 200,000-hectare increase in the area available to developers.

The plan outlines the parts of the state designated as renewable energy zones and the new transmission infrastructure needed in the next 15 years to connect them to the grid.

The latest version increases areas of land designated as hubs for wind, solar and battery farms from 1.66m hectares proposed in May to 1.88m hectares across six proposed renewable energy zones.

The amendment increases the footprint of these areas to 7.9% of the state, up from 7.0% in the original draft proposal, after industry feedback said larger areas were needed to make projects technically and commercially viable.

The number of distinct zones has been increased to nine from seven, also in response to feedback.

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The greatest change will be in the state’s west with an expansion to the Wimmera-southern Mallee zone, while a new area around Coleraine has been added to the south west zone.

The state energy minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, said more than 42% of Victoria’s electricity was produced by renewables in the past financial year, with the state reaching record levels of renewable energy generation.

“Our record investment in renewable energy is paying off,” she said in a statement on Sunday.

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“Victoria consistently has the lowest wholesale power prices in the country, helping to slash energy bills for families and businesses.”

Victorians paid an average wholesale price of $107 per megawatt hour, compared with $151 in NSW, $138 in South Australia, $127 in Queensland and $115 in Tasmania, according to government data.

But the latest modelling predicts the cost of connecting Victoria’s renewable energy zones could almost double.

The government initially estimated a $4.3bn cost, but VicGrid puts the latest price tag closer to $7.9bn, taking into account new Australian Energy Market Operator costings for the transmission lines.

The costs are expected to be mostly recouped through higher consumer bills, although the government argues Victorians will overall be better off with wholesale energy costs lowered by the delivery of more renewable energy into the grid.

The federal government has a target of 82% renewable energy in the national grid by 2030, up from 43% this year.

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Where humans lead, their dogs tend to follow – now it seems that might even apply to weight-loss wonder drugs.

Medications such as Wegovy have become ubiquitous among people hoping to shed pounds quickly. But businesses keen to cash in on the science behind the weight-loss jabs are now investigating other applications for the drugs, and our four-legged friends could be the next in line for a slimming solution.

The active ingredients in the drugs mimic a hormone called GLP-1, which makes people want to eat less. One biotech firm has just announced trials for an implant that reproduces the effect in dogs, with the aim of bringing it to the market as soon as 2028.

The hope is that the same science can be used to quell the voracious appetite of some dog breeds that can lead to them piling on the pounds.

While experts say such medications could be beneficial for some overweight animals, their use outside of humans is not without complication or the potential for controversy.

What is not contentious is that pet weight is a real issue for many owners.

Neutering, age, a lack of activity and overfeeding are among the factors that can contribute to the problem. According to a 2024 report by the trade body UK Pet Food, 50% of dogs and 43% of cats are overweight.

Excess weight can shorten the lifespan of pets and reduce their quality of life; tubby cats, for instance, face a greater risk of problems including diabetes, urinary tract issues and cancer, while overweight canines are more likely to have to contend with conditions such as arthritis, heart disease, breathing problems and cancer.

Commonly recommended solutions are increased exercise and strict prescription diets that are high in fibre and protein but low in calories.

Dr Eleanor Raffan, a veterinary surgeon and expert in canine genetics and obesity at the University of Cambridge, said some good old-fashioned discipline should be the first option.

“I would [advise] owners, both for the benefit of their pockets, and possibly for the benefit of their pets, to try modifying their dog’s diet and exercise regime first, because I think we know that that can be safe and effective if done well,” she said.

“But if that fails, or if there’s an urgent need to get weight loss, then I see no reason why using [GLP-1 mimic] drugs shouldn’t be a reasonable option, so long as they are tested in proper, prospective, well-designed, randomised clinical trials before being widely offered in practice.”

A strong selling point of the medication is that it helps pet owners navigate one of the biggest obstacles to pet weight loss: what many vets describe as “pester power”, or, to put it another way, humans’ inability to say no to their loyal companions.

“What our research shows in our group … is that that if you have a very foodie dog, you have to work much harder,” she said. “You have to really resist the big brown eye treatment and that can be really hard in our busy lives today.”

Appetite suppressants may help stop the kind of begging that most pet owners are familiar with, but they come with one major drawback: that a pet’s appetite is often an important marker of their health. Some experts worry that if humans are unable to tell if their animal has stopped eating because they are unwell or because the weight loss drugs are doing their job, it could prove dangerous.

“If cats stop eating for a few days, they can develop a condition called hepatic lipidosis and other problems, which can be life threatening,” said Raffan.

Michael Klotsman is the chief executive of Okava, one of the companies developing a long-acting implant called OKV-119 that contains a GLP-1 mimic called exenatide.

He said behavioural changes from OKV-119 were quite different from illness-related appetite loss.

“What owners should expect to see is their pet eating appropriate portions without the previous food obsession – they’ll still eat regularly and show interest in meals, just without the excessive begging, scavenging or gulping behaviour,” he said.

The company is planning trials in dogs, and hopes to launch its implant commercially in 2028 or 2029.

Klotsman said: “OKV-119 represents an additional tool for veterinarians treating pets where conventional approaches have been insufficient, similar to how GLP-1 therapies have provided new hope for human patients struggling with obesity despite their best efforts with diet and exercise.”

Prof Peter Sandøe, of the University of Copenhagen and the director of the Danish Centre for the Study of Companion Animal Welfare, said such drugs could potentially help some pets, such as food-obsessed dogs.

However, he added, if owners were concerned enough about their pet’s weight to consider such medications, then there were many other – probably cheaper – options they could try, from activity feeders to extra walks, microchip-controlled feeders, and switching out treats for fun and games.

“Why take the medical solution if there’s some other solutions that actually might be better for both human and animal welfare?” he said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook visited the White House bearing an unusual gift. “This box was made in California,” Cook reassured his audience in the Oval Office this month, as he took off the lid.

Inside was a glass plaque, engraved for its recipient, and a slab for the plaque to sit on. “The base was made in Utah, and is 24-karat gold,” said Cook.

Donald Trump appeared genuinely touched by the gift.

But the plaque wasn’t Cook’s only offering: Apple announced that day it would invest another $100bn in US manufacturing.

The timing appeared to work well for Apple. That day, Trump said Apple would be among the companies that would be exempt from a new US tariff on imported computer chips.

The Art of the Deal looms large in the White House, where Trump is brokering agreements with powerful tech companies – in the midst of his trade war – that are reminiscent of the real estate transactions that launched him into fame.

But in recent days, this dealmaking has entered uncharted waters.

Two days after Cook and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had a closed-door meeting with Trump at the White House. The president later announced Nvidia, along with its rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), will be allowed to sell certain artificial intelligence chips to Chinese companies – so long as they share 15% of their revenue with the US government.

It was a dramatic about-face from Trump, who initially blocked the chips’ exports in April. And it swiftly prompted suggestions that Nvidia was buying its way out of simmering tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Trade experts say such a deal, where a company essentially pays the US government to export a good, could destabilize trading relations. Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that it creates “the perception that export controls are up for sale”.

“If you create the perception that licenses, which are supposed to be determined on pure national security grounds, are up for sale, you potentially open up room for there to be this wave of lobbying for all sorts of really, dangerous, sensitive technologies,” Chorzempa said. “I think that’s a very dangerous precedent to set.”

Though the White House announced the deal, it technically hasn’t been rolled out yet, likely because of legal complications. The White House is calling the deal a “revenue-sharing” agreement, but critics point out that it could also be considered a tax on exports, which may not be legal under US laws or the constitution.

The “legality” of the deal was “still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce”, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters this week.

Nvidia and AMD’s AI chips are at the heart of the technological arms race between the US and China. Nvidia, which became the first publicly traded company to reach a $4tn valuation last month, creates the essential processing chips that are used to run and develop AI.

The US government has played a role in this arms race over the last several years, setting regulations on what AI chips and manufacturing equipment can be sent to China. If China has less computing power, the country will be slower to develop AI, giving a clear advantage to the US.

But despite the restrictions, China has been catching up, raising questions on how US policy should move forward.

“They haven’t held them back as far as the advocates had hoped. The US has an enormous computing advantage over China, but their best models are only a few months behind our best models,” Chorzempa said. For US policymakers, “the question they’ve had to grapple with is: Where do you draw the line?”

The AI chips Nvidia and AMD can now sell to China aren’t considered high-end. While they can be used for inference on trained models, they aren’t powerful enough to train new AI models. When announcing the deal with Nvidia and AMD, Trump said the chip is “an old chip that China already possesses … under a different label”.

This is where a major debate on AI policy comes in. Those who take a hardline stance on the US’s relationship with China say that allowing Chinese companies to purchase even an “old chip” could still help the country get an advantage over the US. Others would say a restriction on such chips wouldn’t be meaningful, and could even be counterproductive.

To balance these two sides, the Trump administration is asking companies to pay up in order to export to China – a solution that people on both sides of the AI debate say is a precarious one.

“Export controls are a frontline defense in protecting our national security, and we should not set a precedent that incentivizes the government to grant licenses to sell China technology that will enhance AI capabilities,” said John Moolenaar, a Republican US representative from Michigan, in a statement.

But Trump’s gut-reaction to dealmaking seems focused on the wallet. On Wednesday, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent praised the arrangement and suggested it could be extended to other industries over time. “I think that right now this is unique, but now that we have the model and the beta test, why not expand it?” he told Bloomberg.

Julia Powles, executive director of the Institute for Technology, Law and Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the deal opens up questions of whether similar pressure can be applied to other tech companies.

“What other quid pro quo might be asked in the future? The quid pro quo that would be of great concern to the [tech] sector is anything that reduces their reputation for privacy and security,” Powles said. “That’s thinking of government like a transactional operator, not like an institution with rules about when, how and for what it can extract taxes, levies and subsidies.”

But that seems to be how the White House runs now. When explaining to the press how he made the deal, Trump said he told Huang: “I want 20% if I’m going to approve this for you”.

“For the country, for our country. I don’t want it myself,” the president added. “And he said, ‘Would you make it 15?’ So we negotiated a little deal.”

China is requiring its data centres to use more home-grown computing chips in a move that underscores Beijing’s accelerated efforts to cut reliance on foreign technology as the US tightens export controls.

Publicly owned computing hubs across the country have been asked to source more than 50 per cent of their chips from domestic producers to support the indigenous semiconductor sector, according to people familiar with the matter.

The mandate finds its origins in guidelines proposed in March last year by the Shanghai municipality, which was among the first in the country to stipulate that “adoption of domestic computing and storage chips at the city’s intelligent computing centres should be above 50 per cent by 2025”.

The guidelines were part of a policy to strengthen artificial intelligence computing resources in China’s financial hub. The plan was backed by government agencies including branches of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in the city and the Shanghai Communications Administration, an agency under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

One source, who works as an adviser in the data centre industry, said that earlier this year the Shanghai chip quotas for the city’s intelligent computing centres had become mandatory nationwide policy.

The MIIT and NDRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday outside business hours.

Plans for a solar farm that would have the capacity to power a quarter of the homes in Peterborough have been submitted.

FRV TH Powertek wants to install 100,000 solar panels across 80 hectares (about 200 acres) at Malice Farm, near Thorney, near Peterborough.

If approved, the solar farm would be in place for 40 years. Construction would take nearly a year.

The application lodged with Peterborough City Council states that the facility would power 22,550 homes.

A new bridge would be constructed across New South Eau Drain for construction access, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The plans also state that there would be more than 400 trees and shrubs planting around the site’s boundaries to screen views from residential properties.

In initial consultations, four residents raised objections, including over the loss of agricultural land.

FRV said it would address the points that had been raised.