¦AUSTRALIA
BUILDING OUT
BIOMASS in the Land Down Under Will Australia use bioenergy to its full potential, or primarily serve export markets? BY PATRICK C. MILLER
A
ustralia’s bioenergy sector is alive and brimming with ideas about how to keep pace with progress being made internationally. However, biofuels advocates believe the country lacks a clear strategy, as well as policies to harness the environmental benefits and economic potential that biomass energy offers. “In contrast to the U.S. and Brazil, where supportive policy environments have 14 BIOMASS BIOMASS MAGAZINE MAGAZINE ||MAY/JUNE 14 MAY/JUNE2018 2018
led to sustained growth in biofuels production and consumption over the past several decades, the biofuels industry in Australia has not developed to the same extent,” states a paper issued earlier this year by the Queensland University of Technology, titled “Biofuels to bioproducts: a growth industry for Australia.” Heather Bone, director of Bioenergy Australia, which represents the country’s bioenergy industry, recently told the Sydney
Morning Herald, "Biofuels have been the forgotten renewable, it has been the ignored cousin of solar and wind. The past 10 to 15 years, the industry in Australia has suffered from a lack of supportive policies or frameworks and risks emerged from policies that flip-flopped, and moving goalposts." One bioenergy project that has attracted support from the state government in Queensland and potential funding through the Australia Renewable Energy Agency