Australian cane growers produce about 30 million tonnes of sugar cane every year and about 9 million tonnes of bagasse – the pulp that's left once the juice is extracted. While some bagasse is burnt to make electricity, research is being done to see if it could also be used to make a high-value, low-carbon, liquid fuel to be used in the aviation industry.
00:00Under blue skies and in mild temperatures, an ancient crop is being prepared for harvest.
00:11But it's an ambition to address a modern dilemma that could see it soon put to use.
00:22The rising cost of doing business has set the wider sugar industry on a quest to diversify.
00:28We have 22 factories across Queensland and northern New South Wales and we produce about 4 to 5 million tonnes of sugar, which is our primary product and most of that is exported overseas.
00:41As an industry we're probably worth around $4 to $5 billion and we support around 20,000 regional jobs.
00:47Ash Saladini leads Australian sugar manufacturers, representing the interests of the mill operators, and believes the sector can be more prosperous.
00:56He says there's a huge opportunity to use cane not only to produce sugar, but to also manufacture biofuels.
01:06Currently we crush cane and get cane juice, so currently we convert that to sugar, however we can actually go put it through a process where it makes bioethanol and then that bioethanol is refined to make jet fuel.
01:20The gas is the pulpy residue that's left over once sugar juice is extracted from cane.
01:24To find out how to turn the sugar cane residue into fuel, we need to head to an industrial estate on the central coast of New South Wales.
01:33This is the bagasse from the Isis sugar mill in Bundaberg.
01:40And it looks just like garden mulch.
01:42It is, just like garden mulch. It can be garden mulch in fact.
01:48Andrea Poulsen is from Lysella, the tech company behind plans to establish the bio-refinery.
01:54Our process is called hydrothermal liquefaction, which sounds like a mouthful, but it's actually a combination of very simple things, water, hydro and thermal heat.
02:04So that hot, compressed water changes, it transforms the feedstock from a solid into a liquid.
02:11It's striking when the end product emerges.
02:15From the bagasse going in to getting here to the fossil replacement oil is about a 20 minute.
02:21Oh, wow. And so just like that, with maybe a little bit more refining.
02:27So yes, a little bit more refining.
02:30This fossil replacement oil goes on to make renewable fuels.
