The Australian Renewable Energy Agency or ARENA announced a $2.4 million in funding to give support to the development and construction of a biofuel and biocrude laboratory in Queensland. The $5.3 million renewable project is expected to be finished and be operational in the spring of 2019. It will be Australia’s first biorefinery that produces renewable diesel and jet fuel from plant material.
Many Australian companies have produced biofuel and biocrude in the past but at present, there’s no commercial-scale process to refine the biocrude into useable fuels. The project by Southern Oil Refining will help the Royal Australian Navy follow through an agreement in exploring and utilizing more renewable fuels. ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknect started the project.
He stated that SOR will do the testing and reporting to produce valuable knowledge, data and information for the country’s bioenergy industry. The new protocols for converting biocrude to drop-in fuels will also be built and established. The project will also set the future construction of a commercial-scale biorefinery.