The results of five projects aimed at developing ways of producing “plentiful and affordable” biofuels in Australia have been announced:
- Curtin University of Technology, in partnership with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation, has developed a new technology that combines pyrolysis of mallee crops and refinery of the resulting bio-oil to sustainably produce advanced biofuels.
- The University of Melbourne, together with Bio Fuels Pty Ltd, has developed a new process to produce biodiesel and valuable by-products from algae grown in large-scale algal farms.
- Licella Pty Ltd, the University of Sydney and Ignite Energy Resources Ltd have demonstrated a scaled-up production plant that converts inedible plant material into bio-crude for blending with fossil crude oil.
- Microbiogen Pty Ltd has successfully bred specialised yeast which converts inedible plant material into three products: ethanol fuel, high-nutrition animal feed and an environmentally-friendly potential substitute for coal.
- BSES Limited and CSIRO Plant Industry have found that, although it is not economic to produce biofuels from sugarcane-based biomass using traditional fermentation technology; improvements in conversion technology and market forces are expected to make it viable in the short to medium term.
Thr projects received funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.