Holden hopes to have a car fuelled by household waste within a couple of years.
Australia’s most popular car could soon be running on dirty nappies and food scraps.
Holden has formed a consortium with Caltex, the Victorian Government and three other technology companies to explore the viability of an ethanol plant in Victoria that would convert household rubbish into fuel.
And the car maker has committed to launching a Commodore that is capable of running on 85 per cent ethanol by the end of the year.
Caltex will support the introduction of the new E85 Commodore by installing E85 pumps in 30 metropolitan and regional service stations later this year and increasing that figure to 100 within 12 months. The E85 Commodores will also be able to run on regular unleaded or E10 petrol.
The ethanol plant would take two years to build and would be capable of producing 200 million litres of ethanol a year from a variety of waste, including building materials, paper, cardboard and household food scraps. It would cost roughly $300 to $400 million to build.
The technology to convert the waste into fuel has been developed by US firm, Coskata. The process uses bacteria that feed off carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen and excrete ethanol. Local waste management company Veolia will be responsible for providing the household waste to the plant.
Holden’s energy and environment director, Richard Marshall, said the technology would provide environmental benefits as well as reducing Australia’s dependence on foreign oil.
“Our vision is that this technology will, in time, cut Australia’s dependence on petrol by up to 30 per cent and make a contribution to sustainable motoring and greenhouse gas reduction,” Mr Marshall said.
Marshall said using household waste rather than food sources meant ethanol production could be significantly increased without raising any “food for fuel” issues.
“This process can use anything from dirty nappies to food scraps,” he said.
Australian ethanol is currently developed from waste by-products of sugar cane and wheat, but to increase production substantially, the current suppliers would need to convert food-producing agricultural land to ethanol crops, which would attract criticism.
“What we’re trying to do here is to move [ethanol] from a boutique fuel into the mainstream,” he said.
To move the fuel into the mainstream, however, the consortium will need to overcome the fact that E85-capable cars use substantially more fuel than petrol cars.
To attract buyers, petrol stations will have to heavily discount E85, but Marshall believes the price will be “very competitive” with petrol, especially in the longer term as petrol prices rise.
“We know that if petrol is about $1.50 a litre we need to be selling E85 for about $1.20 a litre.
“We’re expecting over the next year or so that the price of petrol is steadily going to go up. Even if ethanol right now at the bowser mightn’t be cheap enough to make it financially neutral we expect that over the next few months or year that will certainly change,” he said.
He said that converting waste to ethanol was a cost effective solution, because people would actually pay to supply the plant with its raw materials.
“You’ve actually got people paying you to take it away,” he said.
The plant would also help the environment by converting waste into fuel rather than landfill, which produces methane.
General Motors has a big commitment to ethanol fuels in the United States, with more than 3.5 million E85-capable cars on the road. It has committed to making more than half its vehicles E85 compatible by 2012.
Caltex Australia’s general manager, marketing, Andy Walz, said the company was committed to expanding beyond its traditional fuel mix.
“Caltex already has about 400 service stations that sell E10 and a growing biodiesel market. We believe the biofuels industry has a vital role in a sustainable transport fuels future and that biofuels are a good business opportunity for Caltex,” he said.
Marshall said ethanol would form part of a multi-pronged “sustainable motoring” strategy for Holden.
“We’re not saying this is the only solution. We’ve always said there are multiple solutions. There’s no silver bullet. I think people are now starting to talk about silver buckshot. Ethanol is very much an important piece of that buckshot, LPG is another and then electricity is part of it as well and conventional petrol will be important,” he said.
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