Eucalypts could be part of the greenhouse solution

Sydney Morning Herald
31 December 2010 Page: 5

PLANTING an area almost the size of Sydney with malice eucalypts grown specifically to fire electricity generators could provide up to one-tenth of the nation's energy needs within the next 16 years.

The trees, grown in rows as energy crops on farms, could attract enough revenue to pay for the cost of establishing them within five years and would generate a reliable supply of electricity like coal, but with fewer greenhouse emissions, researchers at the Future Farm Industries Co-operative Research Centre say.

In the first study of the feasibility of an energy tree-crop industry on a national scale, the Western Australian researchers found that if 245 million trees were planted over 163,200 hectares, they could be used to provide significant baseload power to regional areas in Western Australia, NSW and Victoria by 2026, the lead author, Amir Abadi, said.

While there would be a good financial return for farmers and investors when Australia establishes a carbon market, the plantings are potentially viable even without one, his paper, Energy Tree Crops, says. Over the past decade, between 11,000 and 13,000 hectares of trees have been planted in Western Australia specifically to be harvested and burnt for electricity generation, and NSW is just starting, with plantings in lesser numbers, Dr Abadi said.

However, Delta Energy is testing the planting of more than 200,000 trees in central NSW for use as fuel at Wallerawang Power Station, near Lithgow, and the first bioenergy users will probably be in this state because of its higher population and heavy reliance on coal for power.

Wind and solar power provide only intermittent sources of power, but trees and other biomass, such as grasses, can potentially be used like coal to generate a reliable electricity supply, without emitting the same amounts of greenhouse gases, he said.

Research has shown that tree belts create wildlife corridors, attracting animals, birds and insects. They also provide shelter for livestock, increasing the survival rate of lambs and shorn sheep in harsh weather, he said. Dr Abadi, a farming systems economist, has collaborated with John Bartle, a biologist who for 20 years has been seeking a native tree that could be domesticated and provide a crop.

A Forbes grain grower, Matthew Duff, whose 24,000 mallee trees planted as part of the Delta Energy trial are 40 centimetres high, said it was "a bit of a punt". "It hasn't cost us any money at all,.. There's a lot of trees there, but we're not sure if we can make money off them in future. It's just adding value to our property".