Plan to turn trees to fuel

Weekly Times
Wednesday 4/6/2008 Page: 27

A LEADING academic has a grand plan to feed Australia's hunger for fuel, which could also revitalise regional areas. It involves planting 50 million hectares of private farmland to trees and shrubs by 2050, which would account for nearly 7 per cent of Australia's land mass. The biomass from the trees and shrubs would be used to produce carbon neutral biofuel, which could provide fuel security, reduce emissions and give rural communities a boost.

And the biomass could be processed locally, in regional community owned plants. The man with the idea is former CSIRO futures analyst, and now adjunct research fellow with Charles Sturt University, Barney Foran. He sees planting annual crops for biofuels as the wrong way to go, but said Australia needed to relook at how it used its land resources. Mr Foran said that to keep the Australian economy growing to 2050, the nation would need liquid fuels produced from wood biomass.

He said biofuels produced from wood had the advantage of being carbon neutral. Mr Foran said he was confident Australia could develop a system where farmers could grow the biomass, with regional plants all over Australia to produce the biofuel. The technology is there, it just needs further development," he said. "We've been submerged in petrol for so long it (new technology) hasn't had the chance." While Mr Forads idea is based on using existing farming land, he said he did not rule out using other areas, such as crown land.

"I'm not talking about old-growth forests or going into the middle of a national park, but there are large areas of state forests that could be considered - we need to look at all options if we are going to lower our greenhouse emissions." Mr Foran said revenue from potential carbon taxes on industry could be reinvested by government, to help farmers pay for the establishment costs of planting trees and shrubs.

'You could look at the managed investment schemes, which are rife all over the country, and those where farmers with plantations (leased) are paid annually," he said. "That is one way that farmers could get paid for planting the trees and have an annual income,'' he said.