NEWS

Outback Magazine Feature, May '08

Excert of story by Ian Glover

The manufacture of biofuels – fuels made from plant material – is probably the world’s most rapidlygrowing industry. It’s touted as a way to extend dwindling fossil-fuel reserves and asameans of reducing greenhouse gases because plants absorb carbon dioxide and so are carbon neutral. Most of the fuel sources (called ‘biomass’) are pretty conventional, such as wheat, canola and corn, and require reasonable soil quality. However, a great deal of experimentation is going on with alternatives that could be grown on the flat, scrubby plains of western New South Wales and Queensland, potentially earning landholders more than they can make grazing sheep and cattle, which need multiple hectares to thehead. While in Europe biofuels have been accepted and manufactured for many years, in Australia biofuels were generally regarded as the province of scientific fringe-dwellers: hopeless romantics whose alternative dreams would never be realised. Now that’s all changing, scarcely a day goes by without a new development that brings those dreams closer to reality. It’s not all smooth sailing for biofuels, however; there are some very contentious issues to be resolved. Some argue that biofuels cause more damage to the environment because they require fertiliser and irrigation; others argue that the wrong material is being used. And the controversy can only get hotter.

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