More biodiesel tax

That all is true Geoff. But it's our government's first job to do what's best for the long term good of Australia, not the bottom line of massive international oil companies.

How good would it be for us if in 50 years we were completely self sufficient and didn't have to import any fuel? Who's stopping BP from producing biofuels now? When crude becomes unviable all of the infrastructure will be theirs and they will be well ahead of their competition. Surely they see that.

In 50 years biofuels will be big, as they already are in Europe and South America. We need foresight so we don't get left behind, not increasing current tax rates to appease oil executives.

Hi Barnesy,
I do so much agree with your sentiment on this. The theoretical first job of our government is to do what's best for Australia, unfortunately they very often fall short in the area of turning theory into practice.

I'll digress a tad and then come back. I work for a Japanese company. Short term planning to them is 10 years. Long term is measured in generations.

To an Australian company and the referee for Australian companies our government, long term is the next election. Short term is waking up and not finding a pimple on the end of their collective noses.

What is needed is what I believe you are alluding too, a total change in the way our politicians think.

Isn't that an Oxymoron, the use of politician and think in the one sentence?

BioDiesel and alternative fuels in general are moving in this country and they are gaining momentum. There are some good things on the horizon in this field.

Geoff.

I think Felix(?) Wankel invented the rotary engine, and Ralph Sarich the Orbital. Must have been a decent bit of kit for BP to buy it out.....

John,
I stand corrected, you are 100% correct on Sarich and the Orbital Engine.

Geoff.

It was BHP not BP who bought Sarich out.
Better fire your researcher Geoff!!

Hate to throw water on the fire but at the time BHP was barely playing with energy developments, so would hardly be a contender for a conspiracy theory on the subject
See below

Ralph Sarich of Perth first won fame when he was named Inventor of the Year on ABC TV's “The Inventors” program in 1972. His invention was an orbital engine that used only one triangular shaped piston to create five combustion chambers as it orbited inside a single cylinder.

Huge support from the media, and investments by the public, governments and BHP enabled Sarich to take the engine further. In 1983 it was as good as it was going to get, but still not good enough to replace normal car engines.

Hi Barnsey,

As mentioned above, the major initial invesment in Orbital came from BHP.
The Orbital engine development ceased in the very early 80s, not due any conspiracy or buy out, simply because it was not a manufacturable in terms of tolerances, etc for the concept to work. A lot of effort went into development of a two-stroke auto engine (for Ford). Whilst this was successfully developed, it missed major product release milestone and never made it to production. The fuel injection technology developed in parallel has been progressed and is now in production on many two-stroke engine applications globally (outboards, PWCs, motorcycles and soon rickshaws) and development programs for a range of four-stroke opportunities.

There are lots of urban myths about buy outs, US ownership, etc. The fact is that Orbital is a publicly listed company on the ASX, with the usual spread of small and institutional investors. It remains Australian based (in Perth), with 50% ownership (& 50% Siemens VDO) of a JV company (Synerject) in the US which manufactures the fuel injection system and looks after system integration. Over the past four years, the Perth activity has evolved into a global powertrain Engineering Services business rather than just focused on Orbital technology, though royalty/licence income and system sales (from Synerject) remain the other income streams.

Sorry for the sideline from biodiesel but I thought it might be interesting to know what happened. For the record, I've been with Orbital since '92 and am currently an engineering manager (projects and R&D). Refer website if interested Orbital Website"

Regards,
Hugh

Sorry Geoff, The post above should have been addressed to you.
Hugh

Hi Hugh,
Thanks for the update, goes to show that people who are usually right on the money can often make mistakes.
I got my information from the ubiquitous mate, normally Rob is absolutely spot on when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Thank's for correcting my spurious information.
To all other readers, please disregard my contributions to this post regards the Orbital Engine Comapny.

Geoff.

Yeh Footloose, just saw on the news that Johnnies tax office is taxing asbestos compensation payouts from James Hardie.

Isn't a $10 billion budget surplus enough? They keep telling everyone they're good at managing the economy, ripping off these poor people is not managing money, it's stealing.

I agree about voting with our feet but who do you intend replacing the curent govt with ???

Yep, we've got two restaurants, they both serve a damn fine chit sandwich!

Every four years we get to choose,

Geoff.

yeah if I could guarantee that one party was any better than the other then I would join, I'm a veteran & I refuse to even join the Veterans party, their ideas are to radical & would not be popular in general....
Untill such times as there is some decent alternative I'll stick to my "Peter Lalor" roll & just keep things boiling, I recon that though we Aussies are an apathetic lot it will get to the point where some politician will throw the last straw onto our collective backs & we will rise up as one, under the Southern Cross, to defend our hard fought for rights against corruption & collonial rule etc. etc.
You think I could maybe get a job writing rethoric for the Labour party???Perhaps we should bring back the "Fish & Chip shop" MP...

I say Fawlty,
The "Fish 'n' Chip" MP whether you liked her or not did one thing. She upset the status quo.
There's one thing the "Yes Minister" crowd can't handle it's unscheduled spontaneous behaviour.
Yep, even if you wave a carrot at a donkey long enough without feeding it, even it'll eventually tell you to belt your wagon up your arse. About time some politicians put the service back into public.

Fawlty, I don't think you'd ever be labour, Manuel maybe you never.

Geoff.

The fish and chip shop MP is where she belongs, making fish & chips. Maybe she could donate some of her shop's used vege oil to the biodiesel industry.

The fish and chip saga tapped into a lot of resentment within the community, but she had two main faults. She was naieve, and she wasn't a great judge of people (those advisors and senior members of that party), and simplistic, but she certainly had a big following in some places.
Two points.
She went down the slippery pole thanks to political interference. She was jailed for far less than what is seen in some political circles as being fair and honest ! The word went out to get here and by golly they did. (and thats a matter of public record..and a lesson for like minded people?)
Her racist views. Reported overseas, especially in the Asian press. But reading the articles on anything Australian by that press and see how racist THEY can be.
Despite my personal dislike of the personalities and philosophies involved, she almost upset the status quo. And there's got to be something good about that :))

Geoff, thats a great way of putting it ! Unfortunately I can't find another decent restaurant anywhere.

The thing with biofuels Rotord is that they will be a matter of necessity in the near future. We need to do everything we can to get them off the ground and get biofuels into servos. If that means tax breaks then so be it.

Tax breaks only annoy 1 group of people, massively wealthy, powerful, greedy multinational oil companies who don't want anybody taking over their stranglehold on the fuel market.

Thankfully getting biofuels off the ground won't involve anybody having to go to war and risking their life for the cause.

It kinda shows!!!!!

Rotord, The fact we can whinge about stupid decisions our government makes, openly protest on the streets without getting shot or tear-gassed is proof enough Australia is the best in the world.

Doesn't mean we should stop trying to make it better. Simply accepting everything the government does is the best without ever questioning it won't improve anything.

I don't know how anyone who was in Nam could possibly trust ANY Govt !

Footloose.... Join up we me & we will take the bastards on....Never have so many been fooled by so few for so long... We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them at the bowser....

Great idea Fawly, we'd win no worries. But err...when we get rid of em, what are we going to do about foreign relations ? I like my relationships to be a bit closer to home :) Which fighter jet, what about the greenies, how we gonna stay in power without big business ...there goes the super fund....and do you rekkon we could shift Canberra just a tad north ...like about the Gold Coast ? LOL

ROTORD

rotord,
first bit of sense really I have read here! Biofuels, great as a stop gap, are unlikely to EVER come anywhere near a replacement for mineral fuel. I have read that for Australia to grow enough oil crops to supply her needs would require nearly half of all the cropping land here. The future, like it or not is likely to be in hydrogen fuel cells.

Also, why not have a suggestion to replace the government before telling everyone how bleep it is.

Knockers abound, but even a remotely sensible alternative has not come to light on this thread yet!

Fuel Tax - Australia has the third lowest fuel excise in the western world. Check out the prices around the world for yourself.
And before quoting NZ's diesel price, factor in that you have to pay road tax on diesel and LPG/CNG there. Do the calcs and you will see they are no better off.

Here we go again.
AFAIK One large South American country is almost mineral fuel import free. They GROW their alt fuel. Why can't we ? Certainly we won't replace mineral fuels in the short term, but to dismiss out of hand the effects that such schemes would have on our import of oil smacks of either ignorance or vested interest.
"Also, why not have a suggestion to replace the government before telling everyone how bleep it is."

It's called democracy! And it thrives on criticism.

And if you REALLY want some suggestions, lets have FREE voting instead of being compelled to vote. And lets have a system where coalition Govts are banned. How can anyone have a "mandate" with less than 50% of the vote ? Lets have a cap on backbenchers travel allowance, and make sure their electoral allowances are spent properly. Let's make sure that the House of Review, the Senate, is unable to be controlled by the ruling Govt. Lets review our system with a view to reducing the number of snouts in the trough. Lets review electoral boundary re drawing, and branch stacking. And lets have a PUBLIC and INDEPENDENT panel to set politicians pay rises. Lets legislate to have the same lobbying access to the Govts ear by all approved groups.
Now there's a start. Notice how I didn't say that you either agree or shut up ?
I could continue, but this is a 4wd forum and not a political one.

Ecellent points, Footie. And it certainly doesn't seem too democratic at the moment, it's almost a dictatorship with them having control of the senate.

"Here we go again.
AFAIK One large South American country is almost mineral fuel import free. They GROW their alt fuel."

Which one? so we can check it out and see how they do it?

Brazil. www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntn52539.htm
I posted about this recently, but can't remember the post number sorry.

That he does Michael,
My point was he invented the engine that was destined to change the world.
A large multi-national oil company bought the technology out and basically buried it!
Good luck to him, a very clever man.

Geoff.

Geoff!! I dont know for sure, but i think maybe they couldn't perfect that rotary engine, he did manage to get some 2 stroke engines into production cars but thats all i know. Maybe there was more money to be made or maybe easier money in what they are doing now. I must do a bit of search on the net, I agree, a clever man he is. Michael

Michael,
Yep I do believe you are on the right track, getting it into production I understand wasn't going to be cheap.
That's also my point, right now the return on investment for BP et all is greater refining hydro-carbons and charging whatever they can, rather than developing alternative technologies.
This is also where a government can show some leadership by creating an environment that encourages alternative thinking.
Whereas for the bio-diesel manufacturers they're looking for a good return on investment from an alternative that is also renewable.

Some transparency and honesty in the world of government and corporate sectors would be downright refreshing!

Geoff.

Back to bio-fuel:
Brazils cane sugar based ethanol policy worked because of a set of fairly unique circumstances. Distortion of the economics by selective taxation is just as likely to hurt primary producers by raising the price of grain. Cane sugar may not be the cheapest path to ethanol in Australia. Bio-oil production from sunflower, soy or rapeseed may also competitively impact in other ways.

With the current technology, there's not enough land and not enough water to grow enough bio-oil to meet anything other than a small fraction of our oil needs.

If oil supply has peaked (as some in the industry suggest) and if China and India continue to increase oil consumption as they are now, then oil price rises are inevitable. This will eventually make bio-fuel more competitive with fossil oil.

The innovators, early acquirers and pioneers who are gamely building the bio-oil industry right now have got history and economics on their side. I'd prefer to keep the tax and have it spent funding local research on microbiologically-sourced bio-oil production. At least that technology has a chance of replacing fossil oil.

Do you honestly believe Dexter that the proceeds on tax from biodiesel will go to fund scientific research? Or do you think it will fund the pay rise the pollies just got a couple of days ago?

Some are saying the removal of this excise will effectively kill the industry before really even gets giong. How much tax would there be after that?

The squeeky wheel gets the grease, and right now biodiesel needs grease in the form of govenment help.

No, this decision is another example of the Libs sucking up to big business, right or wrong, it doesn't go any deeper than that.

Hello Barnesy,
No - I don't believe that they'll do it. I don't trust the bustards any more than you. The removal of the excise holiday will certainly delay the development of the bio-fuel industry. But, it won't stop it. The ever rising fossil oil price will eventually bring it into play. However, I feel your pain over lost opportunities to fast-track something that will eventually be a normal part of our energy landscape.

I just hope that Westinghouse, GE, Hitachi and the rest of the nuclear manufacturers club don't make that dead-end technology part of our energy landscape as well.

you want to look a little closer on ARW ...

"ARW announced that the Company is unlikely to achieve its
forecast profit for the 2006 financial year. This is due to continual
delays in ramping production of ARW's Adelaide plant and the
commissioning of its Picton Plant. The problems with the Adelaide
plant are not due to the Energea process technology, but a
consequence of difficulties with materials handling and process
control software.

The primary driver of the profit downgrade for FY06 is that as a
result of the production delays ARW will not receive the second and
third payment under the $7.15M Bio-fuels Capital Infrastructure
Grant. The receipt of these funds is now expected in FY07. FY06
forecasts never factored in material bio-diesel sales for ARW."

The tax might have made an impact, but other things are making an impact too.

Ciao for now
Andrew.