Australian biofuels company to leave Australia; will focus on US, Europe; CEO sees lack of “support”
Australian biofuels developer Agri Energy will abandon Australia and make the US the base for its projects going forward. “The decision to put on hold any further development in the Australian biofuels industry is a result of current global biofuels market outlook, reflecting ongoing high feedstock prices and continued uncertainty from the investment community, government and community support for alternative transport fuels in Australia,” said chairman and CEO Peter Anderton. The company acquired the Beatrice Biodiesel project in Kansas last year and has focused its efforts on plant completion.
Last month, a researcher called on the Australian and South Australian governments to get behind biofuels research and development. The researcher noted that Australia’s goal of 1% conversion to biofuels lags far behind the EU’s 5.75 percent mandate by 2010. Meat and Livestock Australia has put $1 million into research for converting tallow into biodiesel and the South Australian government has $5 million to support a national research facility for algae biodiesel production.
At that time, the South Australian premier Mike Rann said that the Australian federal government had missed the opportunity to make Australia a leader in global renewable energy development. The premier was commenting on the national Clean Energy Target, under which low-emission sources would account for 30,000 gigawatt hours per year by 2020 - about 15 per cent of Australia’s energy consumption. “Instead of a new plan to tackle climate change, the commonwealth has given us a substantially weakened re-packaging of state schemes and tried to sell it in the name of streamlining,” Mr Rann said.
