THE realities of future food production seem to have killed off the prospect of crop-based biofuels in Australia, but algae-based biofuel might be the key to powering transport outside urban areas.
That at least is how Mike Kelly, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence and Member for Eden-Monaro, thinks the future of transport energy might play out.
Mr Kelly and Defence Force officers, including Colonel Mark Harnwell of the Australian Defence Department's Joint Fuels and Lubricants Agency, visited Algae.Tec's trial plant at Manildra's ethanol facility in Nowra, NSW, earlier this month.
The technology, which draws carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes (including, potentially, coal-fired power generation) to supercharge algae growth for biodiesel production has big strategic implications, Mr Kelly thinks.
"Our country is going to be in serious situation in 15-20 years time. We're currently 80 per cent self-sufficient in oil, but in 15-20 years that will flip over so that we're 80 per cent dependent on overseas supplies," Mr Kelly said.
"And those supplies are contracting more and more into the Middle East."
Mr Kelly, whose last Army appointment was to the Army's Strategy Group, said that oil dependency would be disastrous in many ways: it would make Australia dependent on OPEC, add considerably to our balance of payments deficit, "and make us subject to future oil shocks as the stuff runs out".
"The Middle East knows how to use oil as a political weapon, and of course there are wealthy oil magnates who send money into our region to fund radical terrorist groups."
Mr Kelly said there are ambitions for the Defence Force to become an early adopter of the technology.
"The Pentagon is moving ahead very quickly in this space; the US Navy has plans to become the green navy in all the ports where they can get supported, so there are opportunities for us there."
Inherent in the technology is the possibility of setting up "distributed networks" of biodiesel production. If the Defence Force's bases can have their own fuel facilities, it makes for a more resilient network, cuts the vulnerability of transporting oil over sea lanes, and cuts the cost of long-haul fuel transport.
"That's the greater benefit to Australia," Mr Kelly said. "In the future we might see a mix of electric vehicles and biodiesel-based transport. We could have electric commuter vehicles in our urban areas, but that doesn't help us with our fishing fleets or our large industrial diesel plant, long-haul transport, farm plant and the like."
"So this is the sort of option we're going to need. We can have distributed networks adding jobs to rural and regional locations, and cutting down costs of distribution."
Algae.Tec's "photo reactor" technology grows algae in a highly controlled environment, supercharging the process with waste carbon dioxide to get algae growth rates 40 times the natural level of the species.
By producing algae, and then biodiesel, from waste streams of carbon dioxide, the system creates biofuels without competing with food production.
The biodiesel that results from the process is a "drop-in fuel", Mr Kelly notes: it can be used without engine modifications.
There are many variations on algae-to-biofuels around the world, "but this technology is the best variant I've seen," Mr Kelly said.
He has visited an Israeli pond system for growing algae. "To get the same sort of impact in abating emissions from a power station using the pond system you need about 10,000 ha, compared to the 260 ha you need with this system."
"Algae.Tec will be able to generate their own energy to make it a completely clean green process. It can also generate feedstock for livestock, and for human consumption."
Algae.Tec has signed an agreement with airline Lufthansa to produce biofuels and with Sri Lankan cement manufacturer Holcim Lanka.
