Stirling MLA Terry Redman said today it was disappointing that biofuels were currently the subject of negative publicity, when they had increasing potential to be a significant boon to regional enterprise and to the environment.
“We are currently seeing a considerable amount of doom and gloom and misinformation surrounding biofuels, mostly centred on the notion that they pose an inflationary threat to food prices and compete with food production,” Mr Redman said.
Mr Redman said that while biofuels development may be largely reliant on grain and oilseed crops in the short term, the industry’s longer term future would be sustained by ‘second generation’ technology using non-food biomass from woody plants, many of which were ideally suited to Western Australia’s marginal and arid areas.
“If we accept that biofuels will be a part of the fuel mix in regional Western Australia in the future, and I do, then we need to ensure that Government sends the right signals to help establish the industry, and start replacing our vehicle fleet with biofuels compliant vehicles,” he said.
“By mandating a small amount of biofuel in our fuel mix in WA, we ensure fuel companies get a clear message that this is the way forward, our car yards will start selling biofuel compliant vehicles and biofuels research and development companies will see their way clear to a commercial outcome.
“The major oil companies do not welcome expansion of an alternative fuel industry for obvious reasons, and so it is up to Government to actively stimulate biofuels innovation and growth.
“For the past two years I have been calling on the Premier to commit to a State mandate for biofuels and I welcome recent calls by Agriculture Minister Kim Chance for Cabinet to endorse a five per cent biofuels quota in Western Australia by 2011.”
Mr Redman said he was particularly interested in a trial by the CSIRO and Monash University which had successfully used waste products such as crop and garden waste and paper and wood trimmings to create a stable ‘bio-crude’.
“If this process can be made commercially viable, it has enormous potential in terms of reducing waste to landfill and in the capacity for the bio-crude to be produced in local areas before being transported for conversion into petrol substitute,” Mr Redman said.
“Western Australia should be a leader in biofuel technology and it is crucial that the Premier now puts his support into delivering a home grown alternative fuel industry with all its benefits, to this State.”