Western Australia could be witnessing the dawning of a bio fuel age, the beginning of the triumph of fuels wrought from the soil over hydrocarbon fossil fuels from deep underground.
Western Australia could be witnessing the dawning of a bio fuel age, the beginning of the triumph of fuels wrought from the soil over hydrocarbon fossil fuels from deep underground.
This new age, embraced by WA’s anti-uranium government, will be one of renewable energy from harvests of wheat, Indian and Ethiopian mustard seed and other vegetative and animal matter.
It marks an important step in the journey to peak oil in 2010, when the world finally begins consuming more petroleum-based products than it can produce.
In WA, it was triggered by BP Australia’s agreement to buy the entire output from a new $100 million ethanol (alcohol) plant to be built in Kwinana, just south of Perth.
The deal includes construction of Australia’s first wheat-fed ethanol plant. Expected to produce 80 million litres/year to be sold across Australia as BP’s e10 blended product from 2008, this will be just part of the over 200mL/year the company expects to be producing nationally by then.
Just a couple of days after the announcement, Perth-based independent fuel discounter Gull Petroleum announced its entry as the country’s first retailer to offer bio diesel to WA motorists from this week.
It also announced plans to build an $18 million bio diesel plant adjacent to its fuel import terminal at Kwinana, with production from early 2007.
This week, new Perth company Mission Biofuels Ltd announced a major float to build a $27.5 million bio diesel refinery in Malaysia that will produce 100,000 tonnes a year of palm oil, beginning late next year.
Big WA wheat mover CBH Group also jumped in with the establishment of a working group to investigate the future development and sustainability of a bio fuel industry in WA.
The announcement comes ahead of this week’s annual CBH annual meeting at which more details were expected.
WA’s Curtin University of Technology also revealed that its researchers were working on a project to produce bio diesel from Indian and Ethiopian mustards in the state’s wheatbelt.
Muresk associate professor, Lionel Martin, said recent research showed these crops are better and cheaper than canola, the only other relevant oilseed species grown in the wheatbelt.
BP’s deal with NSW company Primary Energy Pty Ltd is part of a three-pronged strategy in WA and Queensland to provide more than 200mL of bio fuels a year by 2008.
The e10 fuel blended in WA will use about 200,000 tonnes/year of wheat and deliver a similar engine performance to that of traditional petrol, but with lower emissions.
But ahead of that is Gull’s partnership in a producing bio diesel facility in Brisbane that will make its B20 blend available to an initial nine of its 80 sites in WA.
The facility will produce 38mL/year from vegetable oils and/or animal fats, that is expected to retail for around three cents a litre less than normal diesel.
Gull expects to begin site works at its Kwinana bio diesel site in May this year, with completion by November and production/sales in early 2007.
Perth-based publicly listed Australian Renewable Fuels Ltd (ARF) recently announced a $250 million distribution agreement with South Australian-based fuel distributor, Dermody Petroleum Ltd.
The company, a spin off from Perth-based US petroleum producer Amadeus Energy Ltd, recently opened Australia’s largest bio diesel plant at Largs Bay, South Australia, the first of five plants to be rolled out by ARF by 2007.
West Perth-headquartered Australian Ethanol Ltd recently raised almost $13 million to fund major bio diesel projects in Victoria and the US.
