Biofuels pioneers turning waste into energy
It's a sales pitch that should appeal to all farmers: give us your agricultural waste and we'll turn it into fuel and money.
Crop residues, animal waste, vegetable scraps... you name it, it can be fed into machines that convert it into bio-energy, but until now it's not been commercially viable.
But a number of private companies are working on this.
Euan Beaumont, a founder of Energy Farmers of Australia, is working with farmers in the Geraldton district of Western Australia to build reliable waste supply chains to produce energy using a range of technologies.
He hopes to harness a supply of both wet and dry waste streams, such as potato peelings, chicken litter, straw or woodchip.
Sami Aoude, a commercial director of Licella Pty Ltd, says his company has world-leading technology for turning waste into energy.
His company has built a prototype Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor at Somersby, near Gosford in New South Wales, and is now advancing to the commercial stage.
It removes oxygen from biomass such as forestry waste to leave hydrogen and carbon, mimicking what happens under ground in the fossil fuel process.
What comes out is a product called bio-crude which has a range of applications, from powering ships to making plastic containers.