| Australia’s CSIRO reveals biodiesel’s potential to reduce emissions
Australians were found in a worldwide study by Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) to be the world’s worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much carbon from generating power as China.
As for the CSIRO study, “the results show that biodiesel has the potential to reduce emissions from the transport industry, which is the third-largest producer of greenhouse gases in Australia, behind stationary energy generation and agriculture,” Dr Tom Beer, the report’s author, said. “The greenhouse-gas savings do however depend on the feedstock used to produce the biodiesel.”
The highest savings would be obtained by replacing standard diesel with biodiesel from used cooking oil, resulting in an 87% emission reduction, according to the CSIRO report, "The greenhouse and air quality emissions of biodiesel blends in Australia”. Palm oil can produce up to an 80% saving in emissions provided it is sourced from pre-1990 plantations, the organisation said. The source of palm oil is critical as product from plantations established on recently dried peat swamps or cleared tropical forest will have higher greenhouse-gas emissions than regular diesel due to factors such as land clearing, according to Beer.
While the results are encouraging, further research is required to establish the viability of the biofuels industry in Australia and address some of the associated issues such as sustainability, technological improvements and economic feasibility, the science agency said.
Australia’s greenhouse-gas emissions in 2005 were 559 million tonnes, or about 1.5% of the global total. The country’s emissions were 102% above 1990 levels in 2005, compared with a Kyoto target of 108%, which will become legally binding once the country completes ratification of the protocol.
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