QUT has welcomed Queensland Premier Anastacia Palaszczuk's commitment to the development of a biofuel industry.
Premier Palaszczuk has said the government and QUT will collaborate on the creation of a 10-year roadmap for the establishment of a Biofutures industry in Queensland. The announcement follows a recent Biofutures Cabinet Committee meeting and tour of QUT's Renewable Biocommodities Pilot Plant in Mackay.
Leading bio-industries researcher Associate Professor Ian O'Hara said Queensland had much to gain from the strategic development of biofuel and bioproducts industries that would be based primarily on creating valuable products from wastes.
He said development of a biofuels industry could help address some of the most pressing problems facing Australia as a nation.
"The long-term future of our fuel supply is not secure, use of fossil fuels is having a detrimental impact on our climate, and agricultural profitability and regional jobs are declining," he said.
"A biofuel industry is sustainable in the long term, it is a low-carbon industry offering second-stream incomes and therefore more profitable agriculture, economic diversity, job growth and opportunities to create the 'green' products consumers would prefer to use."
A principal research scientist at QUT's Centre for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities, Professor O'Hara said developments in new technologies both in biofuels and bioproducts were creating new industries around the world and by working together the Queensland Government, bio-scientists and the state's agriculturalists had the expertise to lead development of biofutures industries.
He said QUT had the established national and international research partnerships to lead bio-industry development, the most recent partnership being with Japanese beer maker Asahi Group Holdings.
"We are working with Asahi to test a new technology to produce greater volumes of both sugar and ethanol from sugarcane and this research should have widespread benefits across the sugar industry.
"To be a leader in an industry you can't just keep on top of change," he said. "You have to create change, you have to invent new ways of doing things, and that's what this roadmap will enable us to achieve in Queensland."
He said ethanol production was the building block for the development of a more comprehensive biomanufacturing industry involving plastics, packaging, advanced fuels and animal feeds and that a roadmap would help drive the investment, and research and development needed to ensure Queensland was a leader in this new industry.
Media contact: Rose Trapnell, QUT media team leader, 07 3138 2361 or 0407 585 901 rose.trapnell@qut.edu.au
