Victorian Regional and Rural Development Minister Jacinta Allan announced a $2 million grant for a new Melbourne-based biodiesel blending and
Victorian Regional and Rural Development Minister Jacinta Allan announced a $2 million grant for a new Melbourne-based biodiesel blending and storage facility to assist in improving access to biodiesel.
The plant is expected to produce 24 jobs and an annual expenditure of $45 million to the Victorian economy.
The grant is part of the Victorian Government’s Biofuels Infrastructure Grant Program, and its ongoing Biofuels Industry Action Plan.
This support now has Victoria as the state that produces the most biodiesel in Australia – nearly two thirds of total Australian production.
This is good news for the biodiesel industry in Victoria says Biofuels Association of Australia (BAA) CEO Bruce Harrison but he also says that we need the excise grant program from the Federal Government to continue past its mid-July 2011 end date, if the industry is to continue.
“The industry needs infrastructure support and the right policy settings from Canberra,” he says.
“The BAA believes that the continuation of the excise grants for biodiesel and ethanol is even more important given the Federal Government announcement to delay the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) for transport fuels from its start date of 2010.
“This will mean that biofuels will be taxed from mid-July 2011 and yet biofuels will not be receiving at that time the true benefit of its lower carbon emissions from the CPRS.
“This means that consumers will have fewer chances of lowering the carbon emission from their vehicles than if transport fuels had been fully in the CPRS from 2010 or the excise grants continue past 2011,” Harrison says.
In fact the BAA estimates that if Australia were to have E10 (10 percent ethanol) and B20 (20 percent biodiesel) blends we would be saving 7.1 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year.