If costs keep rising, flying domestically or internationally may become more expensive, and some routes may be dropped entirely.<\/p>\n
Parts of the economy may shut down; at least 10 per cent of the economy relies on workers commuting by air to remote mine sites and gas rigs.<\/p>\n
One alternative source of jet fuel proposed by government and industry is “sustainable aviation fuel” (SAF), a type of biofuel that can be made from oilseeds such as canola, as well as sugar cane, agricultural and forestry “residues” such as corn husks and barley stalks, and even the kind of municipal organic waste that commonly ends up in landfill.<\/p>\n
SAF is currently used in low levels by airlines as part of their fuel mix, but it is not made in Australia.<\/p>\n
“The technology is there, but it’s super expensive,” Stephen Forshaw, who represents Airbus in Australia, said.<\/p>\n
“We have the ability to do this.”<\/p>\n
So, how much homegrown jet fuel could Australia actually produce, what would it cost, and how long would it take to produce it at a scale that would be viable?<\/p>\n
A billions-of-litres thirst for jet fuel<\/p>\n
Australia uses about 10 billion litres of jet fuel per year, and that figure is expected to increase by 75 per cent from 2023 to 2050.<\/p>\n
SAF use in aviation has been creeping up in recent decades as airlines looking to decarbonise air travel cautiously blend more SAF with conventional jet fuel. Whether or not SAF is actually a low-emission fuel is contested (more on this below).<\/p>\n
About 0.2 per cent of Qantas’s fuel use is SAF and \u2014 even before the current war in the Middle East \u2014 the company had committed to using 10 per cent SAF in its fuel mix by 2030. Other global airlines have similar commitments.<\/p>\n
So, where will all this SAF come from?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Australia exports huge volumes of tallow and agricultural feedstocks such as canola to refineries overseas, and then imports the refined SAF.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While six refineries make biodiesel and ethanol, none are dedicated to SAF.<\/p>\n
“The fact that we basically grow canola here, then we ship it overseas, turn it into sustainable aviation fuel and then buy it back, is nuts,” Infrastructure Minister Catherine King recently told David Speers on Insiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n “In our view, we should actually be having that low-carbon liquid \u2026 we should be able to generate that here.”<\/p>\n Australia exports up to 90 per cent of its canola for biofuel production in Europe.\u00a0 (Flickr: Canola field near Gundagai<\/a>, robdownunder<\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n There are moves to support production in Australia.<\/p>\n Last year, the federal government launched a $1.1 billion Cleaner Fuels Program to incentivise private investment for biofuel facilities in Australia, and has invested in at least three SAF facilities through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). \u00a0<\/p>\n Earlier this month, it announced a fast-track approvals process for electric truck and biofuels projects, including two SAF facilities.<\/p>\n But producing SAF is more complicated than just growing canola, according to Max Temminghoff, who leads the team behind the CSIRO’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel Roadmap in 2023 report.\u00a0<\/p>\n “One of the biggest challenges is just the sheer number of choices, both from a feedstock point of view and a technology point of view,” he said.<\/p>\n “Picking the right combination has proven difficult. That’s some of the reason why we’re lagging others in the world.”<\/p>\n How much feedstock is required?<\/p>\n According to Mr Temminghoff, Australia has enough feedstock for approximately 60 per cent of Australia’s aviation fuel demand.<\/p>\n That works out to about 5 billion litres per year.<\/p>\n “By 2050, the demand [for aviation fuel] will be around 14 billion litres … our supply could potentially be 90 per cent of that,” he said.<\/p>\n This figure assumes technologies being tested now will become commercially viable, opening up opportunities to use municipal and forestry waste.\u00a0<\/p>\n Queensland produces a high volume of feedstocks, including sugar cane and corn husks. Western Australia grows canola. Regional Victoria has available plantation forestry “residues”.<\/p>\n How are SAF biofuels made?<\/p>\n The challenge is that different types of feedstocks use different types of technologies to produce SAF.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two of the main ones are:<\/p>\n HEFA (hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids), which is used for canola or used cooking oilAlcohol-to-jet (ATJ), which uses sorghum, sugar cane, and agricultural residues like corn husks.<\/p>\n Each process requires a different kind of refinery, ideally built in an area with lots of its compatible feedstocks.<\/p>\n Refineries would ideally be able to run on different feedstocks on any given day to work at full capacity year-round, Mr Temminghoff said.<\/p>\n “You might have 20 per cent of your feedstock is tallow, 30 per cent is used cooking oil, 50 per cent canola,” he said.<\/p>\n “At the end of the day, these plants cost over a billion dollars.<\/p>\n “[If] you’re asking a billion dollars off someone, they want pretty good reasons as to how you’re going to keep that operational for the next 30 to 50 years.”<\/p>\n The fibrous waste from sugarcane \u2014 bagasse \u2014 can be used to make sustainable aviation fuel.\u00a0 (ABC Landline: Cameron Lang)<\/p>\n Several planned refineries dedicated to SAF production are in various stages of planning and approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n The most advanced projects include:<\/p>\n Refinery locationExpected capacity (ML)SAF production methodJet Zero, Townsville100ATJ (agricultural residues)HAMR, Mount Gambier140ATJ (forestry residues)Ampol, Brisbane750HEFA (canola and other oilseeds)Jet Zero, Gladstone402HEFA (canola and other oilseeds)<\/p>\n Jet Zero’s Townsville refinery is planned to be operational by late 2027, and Ampol’s Brisbane refinery in 2029.<\/p>\n Airbus’s Stephen Forshaw said mothballed refineries, like Kwinana in WA, could be retrofitted to produce SAF.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Fuels produced with HEFA … are not dissimilar to refining crude oil,” he said.<\/p>\n How many refineries are needed?<\/p>\n Mr Forshaw estimated Australia would need 60 Jet Zero-sized refineries to satisfy projected SAF demand to 2030.<\/p>\n “This is a business that will require decades of investment to make that transition.”<\/p>\n “Nothing in the fuel business is ever cheap, other than the final product.”<\/p>\n The expected capacity of the four most advanced refinery projects is 1.4 billion litres.<\/p>\n Australia needs about three times as much refining capacity (about 5 billion litres) to convert its existing estimated supply of feedstocks to SAF.<\/p>\n And if the supply of feedstocks increases in line with CSIRO projections, by 2050, it will need nine times more (12.6 billion litres).<\/p>\n These additional refineries would take at least five to 10 years to build.<\/p>\n This means it would take many years for an investment in SAF to ease fuel shortages, or protect against future price shocks.<\/p>\n And there’s a risk that, in the meantime, other ways of powering long-haul passenger flights, such as green hydrogen, will become commercially viable.\u00a0<\/p>\n What would it cost to be viable?<\/p>\n Both the Jet Zero project in Queensland and the HAMR project in South Australia, with similar expected capacities, are estimated to cost at least $800 million.<\/p>\n If we use this figure as a rough guide, we can estimate that building enough refineries to handle Australia’s 2050 projected feedstocks supply would cost about $90 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n By comparison, that’s about double the estimated cost of the National Broadband Network.<\/p>\n The estimated cost to build enough refineries for our supply is more than the NBN. (Supplied: Neste)<\/p>\n There is also the ongoing cost of producing SAF itself.<\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges to SAF production is the “green premium”, where SAF costs more than conventional jet fuel refined from crude oil.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/aa8f30d8c681091e1737507b39c52b95.jpeg\")
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