Our Achievements
2007 Premier's Award for Excellence in Public Sector Management: Jobs and Economic Development category.
The 2006 Inventor of the Year Award program won the 2007 Premier's Award for Excellence in Public Sector Management in the Jobs and Economic Development category. The Department of Industry and Resources' Director General, Dr Jim Limerick, accepted the award from the Premier Alan Carpenter.
"The WA Inventor of the Year Award program is positioning WA as a source of world-class innovation and has produced an economic benefit that is contributing to the development of greater economic wealth," Mr Limerick noted.
The program is designed to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across the State's public, private and education sectors. It features a business competition for industry, research organisations and government, and a separate schools competition encouraging students from Kindergarten to Year 12 to design a new product or service and document the business processes involved.
The inaugural award proved to be very effective, attracting 157 entries in the business competition and 145 entries in the schools competition. Of the eight prize winners in the business group, three have developed their products to the investment ready stage and four are in the process of commercialising their ideas..
A new addition to the 2008 Schools Competition is the Remote Schools Category, open to schools classified as remote by the Department of Education and Training. These schools generally have a majority Aboriginal attendance. The competition focuses on whole classes rather than individual students. The main objective is to consider an issue within the community and come up with a strategy to address the issue. Examples of possible issues include water wastage or energy conservation.
2007 Inventor of the Year Award Success Story: Cool Energy Ltd for CryoCell Technology.
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(CyroCell Technology Plant: photo courtesy of the Cool Energy website) |
Cool Energy Ltd 's CryoCell Technology won the 2007 runner up prize in the Ready for Market Category. This new cryogenic carbon dioxide removal technology extracts CO2 from natural gas in a liquid form, suitable for geosequestation (underground carbon storage) at much lower cost than competing technologies and with zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Managing Director Jessie Inman said that 2007 had been a milestone year for Cool Energy since completing an extensive program of field trials at ARC Energy's Xyris Gas Field in the Perth Basin near Dongara, which effectively paved the way for CryoCell to be commercialised.
"We're now completing a feasibility study to construct a CryoCell gas processing plant in South Australia's Cooper Basin Gas Fields, in partnership with Great Artesian Oil and Gas Limited and Beach Petroleum Limited ...The project's objective is to deliver gas by pipelines to Adelaide and Sydney while geosequestering the CO2 removed in the Cooper Basin." Ms Inman said.
Since participating in the 2007 WA Inventor of the Year Award, Cool Energy has also showcased its CryoCell Technology on the world stage at the G'Day USA Innovation Shoot Out in New York on 23 January 2008. Presenters were judged on their innovative technology and potential for success in the US market place. Participation in the G'Day USA event gave Cool Energy significant international business exposure - a useful precursor for possible entry into the US and global markets.
"The opportunity for us to reach the world market through The G'Day USA events is incredibly exciting and will go a long way to help us penetrate international markets and potentially change the future of gas processing," Ms Inman said.
