Primary industry: Aussie biofuels given boost

Green fuel. Photo / Getty

While the biofuel industry in New Zealand is in limbo over the government's silence on whether current support schemes will continue after their June expiry date, the industry across the ditch has been given a shot in the arm with the announcement of a $15m commitment to the new Advanced Biofuels Investment Readiness Programme.

The money is part of the Aussie government's $20m Australian Biofuels Research Institute which gives grants to projects showing potential for commercial biofuel production and application.

Meanwhile biofuel sales here are on the decline, says Bioenergy Association of
New Zealand (BANZ) executive officer Brian Cox.

The association is urging the Government to renew its pledge to biofuels as providing alternative energy supplies to the country's transport fleet.

"Because of this ongoing uncertainty, sales of biofuels are already beginning to slip. BANZ is aware of a number of fleet owners across the board who are keen to make a commitment to liquid biofuels but are unable to because of the uncertainty surrounding the future of the industry in New Zealand," says Cox.

"New Zealand now has the basis of a biofuels industry producing supplies from by-products of the dairy industry (whey to ethanol) as well as used cooking oil and New Zealand grown canola. Biofuel is a very viable, low cost and carbon neutral alternative that reduces New Zealand's dependence on imported fuel stocks so the Government should be doing everything it can to support the industry's development."

An international biofuels conference is being held in Rotorua in September.

Speakers include Dr Gunter Festel of Festel Capital (Switzerland), and Michael Christiansen, CEO of Novozymes inChina, which makes bio solutions, including enzymes suitable for biofuel production.

The use of wood to generate biofuels is also one of the subjects under scrutiny at the Forestwood 2012 conference, held this Wednesday in Wellington.