Biofuels are good for the economy, the environment and the people!

Assistance needed

• Need to legislate fuel standards to include renewable biofuels such as biodiesel and ethanol-blended petrol.
• Address the escalating costs of growing canola crops because of enormous amounts of inputs, disease levels and diminished yields giving unprofitable returns.
• There is an urgent need to increase farmer confidence for canola and sugar cane.
• Long-term excise relief (or domestic producers credit) is required to engender confidence that lenders will have debts/loans re-paid.
• Capital subsidy be provided for enhanced ethanol production to attract investment capital from prospective owners. In the USA, farmer-owned ethanol plants account for 40 per cent of total industry capacity.
• The reduction in greenhouse gas by ethanol-blended petrol overseas is due, in part, to the ”carbon cycle” whereby much of the carbon dioxide released when ethanol-blended fuels are used is reabsorbed by the biomass plants like sugar, wheat, corn during growth. These biomass plants provide the feed stocks for ethanol production.

To date, the federal government seems to have acted indecisively, being caught out badly dickering with the issue of alternative fuels. Ethanol provision, coupled with other biofuels, will do more to bring new life to rural Australia than anything passed through Parliament. Continued indifference by the federal government may indeed cost the re-election of the federal Coalition, even though the Opposition, to date, has been equally detached by putting personal and political advancement above Australia's national interests.

In the USA, Canada and Brazil as well as in other overseas countries, the oil refining industry and the ethanol industry are working as allies, rather than adversaries. In Australia, the same parent oil companies, it seems, through insidious propaganda and intense lobbying activities, appear to have left their fingerprints on sabotaging the political and educational policies needed to adopt cleaner renewable biofuels.

With record-breaking production of ethanol (91 per cent increase in 2003 over 1999 production) in the USA, president George W. Bush knows full well that his commitment to biofuels such as ethanol is a way to enhance the national security of USA to boost the economy as well as to protect the environment. The use of biofuels reduces dependence on oil imported from nations that are hostile. The Australian government, it seems, is placing confidence in its immense Timor Gap oil reserves and in doing so is stifling the present opportunity and need to move into alternative, cleaner biofuels.

Recent tests conducted for the California Air Resources Board indicate ethanol blends help reduce pollution by older vehicles or cars with malfunctioning pollution control systems. Ethanol blends reduce carbon monoxide and toxic cancer-causing hydrocarbons by 20 per cent and fine particulate matter by 40 per cent from gross polluters under prescribed conditions.

Ethanol has a large and growing positive energy balance. It yields 134 per cent of the energy used to grow and harvest the biomass e.g., corn and process it into ethanol. By comparison, petrol yields only 80 per cent of the energy used to produce it. Motor car manufacturers, here and overseas, approve the use of 10 per cent ethanol in reformulated fuel. Indeed, Ford, Chrysler and Mazda are manufacturing overseas cars that will automatically compute to up to 85 per cent ethanol in blended petrol.

The federal government's inaction at the moment will ultimately make Australia dependent in the future on imported energy supplies. The present policy will continue to bankrupt the existing ethanol and biofuel producers as well as rural Australia.

The following are recommendations for immediate action by the federal government to avert a crisis.

• In support of the federal Coalition 2001 election commitment, expand the market for domestically-produced renewable biofuels to reduce Australia’s dependence on imported petroleum, spur rural economic development creating new jobs and tax revenue, and improve environmental quality by reducing emissions of harmful pollutants and greenhouse gases.
• enact a more aggressive Renewable Fuels Standard than is currently in the legislation, noting biofuels offer an immediate alternative to imported fossil fuels. They are completely compatible with current transportation infrastructure as petroleum blending components of stand-alone fuels and in the longer term, are an ideal hydrogen source for fuel cells.
• Enact legislation to use ethanol as an oxygenate in petrol and to reduce levels of carcinogenic benzene.
• Enact legislation that allows durable excise rebates for the greenhouse credits, urban quality and health gains from ethanol and biodiesel in proportion to their proven environmental and health benefits.

To date, in Australia, ethanol seems recklessly political. But in rural towns of USA, Brazil and Canada ethanol is about revitalizing rural economies, ethanol is also about providing a cleaner, more secure future, ethanol is about the people.