Austpac gains NSW environment approval for steel-waste recycling plant
Macquarie Generation loses court bid to make CO2 challengers pay costs
Hot Rock Ltd granted Queensland exploration permit
Austpac gains NSW environment approval for steel-waste recycling plant
The NSW environment department has granted licence variation approval to Austpac Resources, paving the way for it to begin operating a plant later this year capable of reprocessing thousands of tonnes of steel industry waste.
The plant will be capable of handing up to 8,000 tonnes a year of spent pickle liquor (a waste generated when steel products are prepared for coating) as well as 25,000 tonnes a year of waste iron oxide, known as mill-scale.
The plant will convert the pickle liquor into hydrochloric acid and the mill-scale into iron for reuse in the steel industry.
The reprocessing process produces no solid or liquid wastes, Austpac said in an ASX statement.
Macquarie Generation loses court bid to make CO2 challengers pay costs
The NSW Land and Environment Court has rejected arguments by Macquarie Generation that two climate change activists should pay the company's legal costs in a court case over greenhouse gas emissions.
In March, the court summarily dismissed a claim by Peter Gray and a fellow activist that Macquarie's Bayswater power station was wilfully or negligently emitting CO2. But it allowed the two to continue with their claim that the coal-fired plant was emitting without reasonable regard for the environment (see related article).
Macquarie Generation, a state-owned corporation, argued its costs should be paid by the two activists because the matter could not be characterised as public interest litigation and the March ruling meant it had been largely successful in the dispute.
Gray and his fellow activist argued that each party should pay its own costs on the basis that the proceedings are in the public interest.
Justice Nicola Pain held that the litigation "should be characterised as public interest litigation" and that "a novel and potentially significant issue is raised" by that part of the case that is continuing.
She therefore ordered that each party pay its own costs.
Gray and Anor v Macquarie Generation (No 2) [2010] NSWLEC 82 (28 May 2010)
Hot Rock Ltd granted Queensland exploration permit
The Queensland Government has granted Hot Rock Ltd rights to explore for geothermal resources in an area about 115 kilometres west of Cairns covering about 657 square kilometres, the company announced today.
HRL considers the permit to be one of the "most prospective" offered by the Government in the relevant land release, it said in an ASX statement today.
"The permit is located within 75 kilometres of major transmission lines and electricity markets in north Queensland," it said.
