Hi Guys!
I'm doing a research project on Australian Bio Diesel Industry with 4 other fellow postgraduate students. From our basic research so far we found that there is very little previous research done in this area. Here are findings from our basic research:
Bio Diesel Production capability in Australia:
100M L/annum in 2006
800M L/annum in 2008
Cost Of Production:
75-80% of cost of production of petroleum diesel
Bio-diesel market in Australia can be divided into three tiers.
1. Large scale producers (Above 1M L per year): 10-15
2. Small scale producers(200-500L per month): about 50
3. Domestic producers(Less than 200L per month): 250-500
If the annual production in Australia is about 100M L, who are the buyers? It’s obvious that there are not many retail outlets. How many of this production export? Does this production go to big oil companies to mix with petroleum fuel?
Can you guys help us verify these figures? It'll be great if you can direct us towards other source of information.
Regards,
Dan

G Day Dan
Welcome to the forum.
Please check this thread out will give you some idea where the stuff goes
http://www.biofuelsforum.com/general...angements.html

Which Uni are you folks doing your PG on.Would be interesting to know how the different Uni's in Aus are involving themselves in the alternate fuel movement and the transition phase.I am out of touch with the Aus Uni's fore about 3 years now.But very keen to know whats happening and who is doing what. As this could help all of us in here and Australia in general.So please do keep us posted with reagrds to above.
We would be very interested to know also about the different development that are taking place in Bio Fuels research.

We can only do it together.

Cheers
Sauman

Hi Dan,

A great subject for study. This is something that I was trying to track down, but have not spent any serious time on it. I only get hearsay and rumour. However, the figures that you give do concur with what I've heard (though perhaps a little lower).
I did at some point makes some notes from a speech I heard on this subject and I published them here. I don't know how accurate the information I was given was, but it was the best I had.
Additionally, I attended an industry meeting in April this year and I heard "Current projects planned at the moment “in the room” added up to 750-800ML.". I created an industry section in this forum and posted notes from this meeting here. Sadly, seems that most of the industry is generally not too concerned with talking to the users, or being public about what they are doing (with a few exceptions).
At the most recent fuel tax bill, debated in the senate in June 2006, when the Biodiesel Industry got the carpet pulled from under them with some complete backflips on previous promises, I heard that the figure of 1 Billion litres by the end of 2008 was bandied about by some people representing the industry.

I would really like to know some real figures and see a real list of producers and their operating capacity (expected and present). Dan - I'd really appreciate it if you do have any info on this if you could please float it my way - I think this is something we'd all like to know.

Cheers,

__________________
Robert Fyvie
Site Admin
Sydney Biodiesel Users' Group and Australian Biofuel Users


......................................................
2007 Mazda 6 Diesel ..................................2000 Peugeot 306..........................2001 Landrover (retired)
2L Turbo charged (Common Rail) ...................XTdt 1.9L Turbo ............................Freelander TD4 (Common Rail)
on B100.................................................. ...on B100.......................................on B100

Hi Dan and Co. Please feel welcome at the next meet of the MBDC, S9. You may meet a large proportion of these 500 backyard producers >250litres per month.

Recent Reuters item

Sort perpetuates alot of the crystal ball gazing that is going on at the moment. Whether bio fuel production creates problems or is the end result of something else happening. If you guys want to see biodiesel in action then drive a diesel up highway 31 to just the otherside of Holbrook and fill with the yellow liquid at Volume Plus. (take spare fuel filters just in case as well.)

Dear Dan:

A table on the BAA Home site suggests that as of October 2006 annual CAPACITY in AU is 484 million litres. Click on "Biodiesel Production" on the left side of their home page and look at the listed table of producers plus the table, beneath of new producers. If there is a problem with these numbers I need to know it, myself, as we are about to go to press with a new paper on WTO regulation and biofuels and I am quoting those #s! If you need current information, I have plenty of it - but little on AU other than the material on the biodiesel site.

Cheers,

Petrus

Dear Dan & Other Members:

Does anyone have the 2005 figures for actual production of biodiesel in AU, at the commercial level? I am having trouble finding that number! If anyone can help I would be very grateful.

Best,

Petrus

email me at: pvanbork@outerline.com if you do have that information...

Hi Dan, Given that Aus production of B100 is 480million l/year & a liter of diesel gives off 2.75 kg of co2 when you burn it & B100 is co2 neutral.
I think I got this right.....It comes out to 1,320,000 Tons of co2 saved per year
So why is the current government removing incentives to make & use the stuff....by removing the fuel tax credit & grant scheme??? Can anyone explain this to me??? Has anyone done a study on the vacuum in politicians heads

A bit of a late reply on this one, but Petrus had some offline discussion with me a while ago and it never made it back into here (until now). He found an ANZ industry brief on Automotive Biofuels, which states the production of biodiesel in 2004-2005 was only 3.7ML! This seems to fly in the face of everything we know. I'm not sure how they arrived at that figure, but it is somewhat less than the capacity (about 130 times less).
It would be nice to get some real and definitive answers on this one.
I'll post up a spreadsheet showing Australian production capacity in another thread.

__________________
Robert Fyvie
Site Admin
Sydney Biodiesel Users' Group and Australian Biofuel Users


......................................................
2007 Mazda 6 Diesel ..................................2000 Peugeot 306..........................2001 Landrover (retired)
2L Turbo charged (Common Rail) ...................XTdt 1.9L Turbo ............................Freelander TD4 (Common Rail)
on B100.................................................. ...on B100.......................................on B100