An aspiring vanadium miner and battery maker says the heavy gas focus of $1.5 billion of federal funding for a sustainable development precinct near Darwin risks thwarting the clean energy transition and the development of critical minerals processors to help reduce Western dependence on China.

Grant Wilson, executive chairman of Tivan, an ASX company which lays claim to the world’s largest hard rock vanadium resource, wants to process the mineral and manufacture vanadium redox flow batteries in the Northern Territory government’s Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct across Darwin Harbour from the CBD.