That's a wrap for the NSW Bioeconomy Summit!

What a testament to the collective determination to accelerate the Bioeconomy in New South Wales and beyond! 

Thanks to the many members and associated groups that made the NSW Bioeconomy Summit a resounding success; presenting research, perspectives, insightful opinions and solutions, or soaking it all up, pen and paper in hand.

What is abundantly clear from this event is that belief and ambition within our burgeoning sector grows at pace; and it grows despite enabling policy, not because of it.

And while Australia lags behind the rest of the developed world on the development and deployment of biofuels _ or as Terri Butler puts it, in her best Queensland dialect, we are “playing catch-up footy” _ we have the ingenuity, ideas, and innovation to develop a viable and sustainable domestic renewable fuels sector.

It is there for the taking.

The abiding message from the Summit is one of readiness. An enormous amount of work has gone into mapping out the journey, identifying risks and opportunities, highlighting policy and bureaucratic hurdles, and exploring and investing within what are narrow parameters, relative to our global competitors.

Together, we are ready to go to the next level.

Australian businesses simply want to get on and deliver the task of achieving Net Zero, unencumbered by policy obstacles, and fully empowered to orchestrate change.

The Summit kicked off with key speakers highlighting the enormous opportunity for NSW to become a global leader in Sustainable Aviation Fuel.

Given its vast agricultural means, Queensland has clearly taken the early lead in the State of Origin pursuit of feedstock growth and capture, and repurposed refining.

But as Sarah Chambers from the NSW Department of Regional Economic Development showed, the prospects are immense south of the border where the department estimates the biogenetic SAF feedstock market value as $4.8 billion.

That presents a significant commercial opportunity for project developers and investors. We want to support project developers in capitalising on that investment opportunity and capturing those opportunities for regional development in terms of employment, and more than just jobs – its high-value jobs and lifting people up in terms of highly skilled workforce in NSW, particularly regional NSW,’’ Ms Chambers said.

The second session spoke of the urgent need for renewable diesel, where once again due to policy inaction, Australia was being left in the dust of Europe’s march.

Among many, there were two revelations that stood stark.

Firstly, research from the Trucking Industry Council which highlighted the extreme difficulty of achieving emissions reduction in the sector due to slow uptake of electric trucks, inflexible policy and incompatibility.

Without Renewable Diesel, there remains little hope of matching Europe’s target of a 12 per cent reduction in emissions in the heavy transport sector.

If you account for all the truck sales between now and then, that means that about 20,000 zero emission trucks on our roads, that just represents two per cent of our fleet by 2030. That means that by 2030, 98 percent of trucks in Australia are still going to require diesel,’’ TIC Chief Technical Officer Mark Hammond said.

And secondly, the comparison between Lend Lease’s UK operations, where 100 per cent of construction machinery use renewable diesel, and local operations where there is little penetration.

The third session, focused on the goal of Delivering 40PJ of Biomethane for NSW by 2030, saw representative biomethane producers, government bodies, and researchers outline the opportunities that are being missed in Australia.

Brent Davis from Jemena outlined the Malabar Biomethane Injection Project – Australia’s first biomethane to be injected into the gas network, and the justification that led to the project.

A common theme throughout presentations was the need to maximise the available feedstock and make biomethane an available, sustainable and cost-effective option for consumers.

Despite potential, Australia lags behind international counterparts, although we had over 240 operating biogas facilities in Australia there were no grid injection projects and no certification for renewable gas (till the commissioning of the Malabar Biomethane Project).

Gas was being was being flared, energy wasted that could otherwise be delivered to customers through the network to help decarbonise their gas usage.

The curtain came down on the Summit following a resoundingly popular Great Feedstock Debate, Gas v Fuel, answering the question of whether Australia’s biomass resources should be reserved for liquid fuel instead of being used to decarbonise the gas network.

It was certainly pitchforks at 10 paces, but an enthralling way to end an incredible summit.

The debate concluded with a practical reality of Australia’s 371PJ of available feedstock being capable of supporting both, summarised by Jarrod Irving from AGIG.

"We need to look at how we broaden our horizons in this opportunity. We don’t want to box ourselves into an either/or parody. Technological advancements pave the way for an integrated future. Through investments in biorefineries we can envisage opportunity for both biomethane and renewable fuels.

"We as an industry though need to seize the moment. There is a shift to capitalise, collaborate, innovate in the decarbonisation of our fuel industries. We need to pioneer a path that is sustainable and inclusive to provide a thriving Australia as we decarbonise to net zero," Mr Irving said.

The Summit received excellent media coverage, with 23 news items across the country, with a total reach in excess of 26 million. Significantly, an article featuring our collective pursuit of SAF and biomethane was syndicated across News Corp tabloids publications and www.news.com.au, read it here.

Further media coverage is anticipated in the coming days, including a piece on achieveing net zero in the trucking industry.