Turning wine into fuel could bolster local supplies
As the oil crisis continues, Australia’s peak grape production hopes to turn wine into fuel.
The country’s $51 billion wine industry is on the brink as it faces a significant oversupply of the product, with more than 350 million bottles of wine currently in warehouses.
Australian Grape and Wine CEO Lee McLean said with much of this wine quickly becoming unsellable, distillation options were being explored to help shore up fuel stocks.
“I don’t think this will be a magic solution to fuel security problems in this country, but it can contribute,” he told the Rural Press Club on Tuesday.
Mr McLean acknowledged there were questions to be addressed about the process of distilling wine, how it should be stored and how the product would be taxed, but believed the situation could present a rare opportunity.
Biochemical fuels can be derived from alcohols and have previously been floated as a way to produce more sustainable jet fuel.
King Charles III also ran his Aston Martin with a fuel blend of 85 percent bioethanol and 15 percent unleaded gasoline, with “excess English white wine and whey from the cheese process.”
But Queensland Agriculture and Food Innovation Alliance associate professor Karine Chenu believes there are better ways to produce biofuels.
“Wine is already used for consumption and there are other products that are waste products that can be used much more efficiently,” Dr Chenu told AAP.
Australia grows a number of crops, such as sorghum or sugar cane, that produce unused biomass such as leaves and stems that can be used as biofuel instead.
The domestic industry has faced a severe oversupply since China imposed tariffs of up to 218 per cent on Australian wines.
Even though these taxes have been eliminated, consumers are drinking less.
Mr McLean said some wine companies were trying to appeal to changing consumer tastes by producing zero-alcohol wines, but few were able to eliminate alcohol without also impairing the taste.
The industry has now called on the federal government to help it transition to a smaller industry by offering loans and helping offload excess wine.
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