Dennis Voznesenski@Voz_Dennis
2 clear solutions to Australian fuel insecurity: Australian aviation and road-based transportation has a 95% reliance on imported fuel. In October it was reported that we have roughly a month worth of fuel reserves in Australia. The solutions to reduce fuel import risks are either to build larger fuel storage reserves locally or build a biofuel industry.
Biofuels are fuels made from crops and waste product that can be used in cars and planes. They are more costly than convention diesel and petrol, and that's why pure economics hasn't led to their wide adoption in Australia. Considering the ongoing geopolitical disruption to supply chains, the extra 'per unit' cost may be outweighed by the potential cost of not having any fuel one day.
Through the link at the bottom of this paragraph is a report on Aviation biofuel I wrote last year, it's the A-Z on creating a biofuel industry in Australia. Similar industry logic applies to road-based biofuels but they are cheaper to make than aviation fuel. The inputs for fuel creation can be canola oil (we need crush plants to crush more canola for a biofuel industry - at the moment we export canola seed uncrushed to Europe to use it as fuel and food), tallow (animal fat arising from processing), used cooking oil. You can also make fuel out of grains but then we enter the food versus fuel debate more heavily, while canola we already export to then be converted into fuel. (Report: commbankresearch.com.au/apex/researcha…)
The escalating offshore disruption we’ve seen in the Middle East may not lead to broader conflict, but even regional conflicts half a world away could cause severe economic implications for Australia. As an extreme example, in WWII, Australia started running out of fuel and the government began to develop a crop-based fuel industry called ‘power alcohol’. They tried to do it in WWI, but they didn’t have the materials required due the war. Australia is an ocean locked country, and our risks haven’t changed for 100 years. The solutions have already been attempted, there's only a handful of them. I write about it my book “War and Wheat: navigating markets during global conflict” (Amazon link: amazon.com.au/War-Wheat-Navi…)
If you have any questions please reach out.
#agchatoz #biofuel
