Testing the Feasibility of Biomass Based Transport Fuels and Electricity Generation in Australia

Abstract

Viewed in international terms, Australia is endowed with abundant energy resources and large land area. This relatively optimistic picture must be moderated by four factors: world greenhouse politics, future oil availability, widespread landscape problems in agricultural regions and declining economic fortunes of rural communities. The transition to an economy based mostly on biofuels offers one way to amalgamate these issues and develop a crosscutting set of solutions. The solutions tested in this study involve the progressive establishment of biomass plantations over the next 50 years that cover between 15 and 30 million hectares of Australia's croplands and high rainfall pasturelands. These biomass feedstocks could produce methanol and ethanol to progressively replace the declining stocks of domestic petroleum reserves. The deep rooted perennial production systems could help control hydrological problems currently responsible for dryland salinity. They could also help create employment in rural Australia, could replace future energy imports and help with trade issues such as international balance of payments. The parallel evolution of domestic transportation systems from internal combustion engines to methanol powered fuel cells could require less land area to underpin the biofuels transition. Alternatively, the same land stock could provide a surplus of bio-alcohol fuels for export to affluent consumer markets where carbon neutral transportation fuels could underpin part of national strategies to meet international greenhouse gas emission obligations.