Australian MP says biofuel key to national security

In Australia, KAP Federal Member for Kennedy, Hon Bob Katter MP says that when it comes to national security there is only one answer; Australia must produce its own fuel. Katter’s comments come in response to Parliament’s National Security Committee who last week said Australia’s low fuel supplies need to be bolstered within six months to protect national security.
Most of the Nation’s fuel is now imported after the closure of a number of Australia’s oil refineries – half of it coming from the South China Sea. The International Energy Agency claims if imports were blocked or withheld, Australia would run out of oil in just 49 days, rather than recommended 90 days – a terrifying thought in terms of national security.

Katter said that Australia is one of the only countries who have no indigenous supply of petrol and that every other country on earth has moved to ethanol.

“If you look at the map of the world, the percentage is Australia and the oil producing countries. The thing about Australia is that we can be self-sufficient tomorrow. We are a massive grain producer; the Americans get most of their ethanol from grain.

The Brazilians get most of their ethanol from sugar cane. We are one of the biggest sugar cane exporters in the world as well.
“Just three dams in North Queensland, and I jotted down the figures, would produce 17% of Australia’s entire fuel requirements. But the Federal Government has decided to send $25 billion a year to the Middle East to buy oil instead of sending it into regional Australia.
“Americans are now 42% self-sufficient, 11% ethanol, 22% shale oil, and this is about 30% indigenous. So they will move to protect themselves – every other country on earth has, and we haven’t. There could be a trade war or a genuine hot military conflict that doesn’t involve us; it could just deny us the supply that would end up coming here.
“How have we got to the stage where it is only effectively a couple of weeks supply, especially when supply would be needed to potentially literally fuel the military.

“How have we fallen to this stage? Not about production but national storage?
“Every time I have raised the issue, we get a lecture on free markets, and not telling people what to put in their petrol tanks. We already do, we took lead out of the petrol. Lead is less harmful than these fine particles. There are 13 carcinogens in petrol, so that is the fine particles that come out your exhaust fumes coated in carcinogens – This is not good. It is a serious health problem in Sydney and to a certain extent of Melbourne and Brisbane.

“The benefit to the grains industry is 60% increase in grains prices. On the sugar industry, 23% benefit. Both of those industries cannot compete against the Americans, the big boys of grain, and against the Brazilians, the big boys of sugar, but those industries are collapsing because we do not enjoy the subsidy that comes from ethanol – But it is not about that. It should be about fuel security for the protection of our nation,” Katter said.