Take home message

• There is worldwide demand for biofuels to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation, shipping and long-distance road freight
• There is an opportunity for Australia to produce its own biofuels from various waste streams and agricultural biofuel crops
• Biofuel crops provide an opportunity for farmers to diversify their farm income and contribute to the production of Low Carbon Liquid Fuels
• The agricultural sector needs to be involved in the development of biofuel regulations relevant to Australian farming systems
• The alternative is to have regulations that were developed overseas in high-input and irrigated agriculture imposed on the farming systems on the world's driest continent.

Introduction

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs predicts that the world’s population is expected to continue growing for another 50 or 60 years, reaching a peak of around 10.3 billion people in the mid-2080s, up from 8.2 billion in 2024 (United Nations 2024). Combined with increased affluence, per capita food consumption and dietary trends, this growth will require a 70–100% increase in global crop production (van Wart et al., 2013) and 50% reduction of global per capita food waste at the retail, consumer, production and supply chain levels by 2030 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 2019).

Parallel to this challenge, governments and industries are looking to find ways to supply sufficient volumes of sustainably sourced feedstock to produce biofuels. There are various feedstock sources such as agricultural and municipal wastes, used cooking oil, forestry waste, tallow, etc. in limited use or under research and development. With current and expected growth in demand for biofuel feedstocks, it is unlikely that there will be significant competition between feedstocks to meet the demand for biofuel production. Australian companies such as Qantas Airways and Virgin Australia are investing the development of biofuels and associated supply chains for aircraft and ground vehicles.

Current globally accepted regulations around Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) play an important role in ensuring that biofuel crops are produced sustainably and do not compete for arable land with crops grown for food. Under these regulations, biofuel produced from oilseed crops grown in place of pasture, or as an intermediate crop (aka cover crop), or from a waste stream complies with ILUC regulation. Biofuel produced in this way attracts more carbon credits making it more economically viable and attractive to companies wanting to deliver on their sustainability targets. Under globally accepted ILUC, broadacre biofuel production from Australia’s rainfed agricultural system is therefore disadvantaged, because cover crops are not typically grown. A  challenge for establishment of biofuel crops in Australia is the lack of enabling policy and legislation establishing carbon credits or mandates. This creates specific challenges for those considering investment in infrastructure projects, such as an advanced bio-refinery.

This paper discusses the options available for development of biofuels from multi-purpose oilseed crops that maximise domestic and international carbon credits, are compatible with Australian farming systems, and are consistent with international ILUC principles.

Results and discussion

In biophysical terms oilseed crops such as carinata (Seepaul et al., 2016; van Herwaarden et al., 2022) and canola (Kirkegaard et al., 2021) are well adapted to Australian agro-ecological zones. Crops like safflower (Jochinke et al., 2008) and camelina (Weiss et al., 2024), while showing potential in some regions, will require further breeding to make them more broadly adapted across Australia’s diverse cropping regions. Productive biofuel oilseed crops would provide benefits to Australian farming systems through bio-fumigation (Kirkegaard et al., 2021), biological drilling (Jochinke et al., 2008) and rotational use of pesticides and herbicides to improve whole-farm productivity and reduce economic risk by diversifying the farm income stream.

van Herwaarden et al., (2022) demonstrated that carinata genotypes selected on the basis of height (<170 cm), maturity (duration similar to Australian canola) and high seed oil concentration produced seed yields similar to Australian bred canola varieties. Over 17 sites across Australia, all seven of the hybrid carinata lines and one hybrid canola line were in the top 10 highest yielding genotypes. This was despite the hybrid carinata lines flowering 7–12 days later and being 7–16 cm taller than the hybrid canola. In a scientific and breeding context, this was quite a remarkable result since canola has been bred in the Australian environment for the past 50 years, whereas carinata has only recently been fully domesticated and initially bred for North American conditions. The performance of carinata indicates that further improvements in yield and quality under Australian conditions should be possible with future breeding efforts.

After oil extraction with solvents, the seed meal is heat treated to capture the remaining solvent and drive off volatile glucosinolates. The resulting carinata seed meal has lower fibre content and hence improved digestibility compared to canola seed meal. With growing worldwide demand for plant-based sources of protein for animal rations and human consumption, this is a co-product that often has a value that rivals that of the oil. The challenge is to identify places in the cropping sequence where Australia could make the case internationally that the multiple benefits of these ‘food and fuel’ crops makes them ILUC compliant under Australian conditions and should entitle them to maximum carbon credits. It is possible that Australia could negotiate for multi-purpose oilseed crops such as carinata to be approved for international ILUC accreditation. Situations where this could apply are when carinata is used: in rotation for example with sugarcane and soybean; in rotation with cotton; on underutilised land in cropping zones; as a biofumigant in rotation with horticultural crops; and as first crop out of pasture in mixed farming situations.

Europe’s 2009 Directive on the promotion of the use of renewable energy sources, Renewable Energy Directive RED I, set binding minimum national targets for all Member States with respect to the share of renewable energy in the EU. Under the terms of RED II, Australia currently exports canola to the EU for the production of low carbon biofuel that meets the mandated target of 50–65% greenhouse gas (GHG) savings when compared to fossil fuels (Sevenster 2023). The latest revision, RED III, is designed to reflect the more ambitious goals of the 2030 climate and energy frameworks and establish a common system to promote energy from renewable sources across different sectors (European Association for Storage of Energy 2024). Under the terms of RED III, crop based biofuels will be limited to 7% of biofuels supply (Transport & Environment 2024) which will likely put downward pressure on export of Australian canola to Europe for the production of Renewable Diesel (RD ) If canola was included as a high ILUC risk biofuel crop, it would mean that nearly 50%, or approximately 2 M tonnes, of Australia’s canola crop will not be able to be used as a biofuel feedstock in the EU market. This will require finding and negotiating new markets, farmers shifting to other alternative crops, or Australia using the resource itself to produce low carbon liquid fuels for domestic use. Recent announcements regarding plans to develop oilseed crush and biorefining capacity at Kwinana, WA and Brisbane, QLD would suggest that the latter is the most likely. With almost all of Australia’s fossil liquid fuels currently imported, the low carbon biofuels produced in this manner would have the added benefit of contributing to Australian fuel security.

Production of biofuels from currently available fats and oils has been predicted to plateau by around 2030. Development of new fuel technologies, such as renewable hydrogen and e-Fuels (aka power-to-liquid, PTL) based on combining renewable hydrogen with captured carbon have been heavily supported to meet the future growing demand for renewable fuels (CSIRO 2023). However, there is now increasing awareness about their energy inefficiency and questionable economic viability. It is likely that biofuels produced from fats and oils will continue to be an important source of renewable fuels into the foreseeable future, particularly in view of advanced oil feedstock technologies now being developed (Vanhercke et al., 2019).

The biofuels industry has often looked to marginal lands as the solution to produce bioenergy crops while minimizing diversion of cropland from food crop production (Khanna et al., 2021). Due to its reputation for drought and heat tolerance carinata is often used as an example of a biofuel crop that could conform with this ideal (Marillia et al., 2014). Most proponents of the biofuels industry appear to have ignored the fact that fixed costs (and hence carbon cost) of crop production don’t vary significantly between high and low yielding locations. Therefore, from a carbon intensity standpoint, it makes more sense to grow a biofuel crop in a high-yielding location so long as it complies with ILUC regulation.

Growth of aviation in freight and passenger journeys is predicted to double by 2040. In the face of a changing climate and our need to reduce carbon emissions, the social licence to operate of airlines is currently being addressed by voluntary carbon offsetting by travellers. Member airlines of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Air Transport Association (IATA) recognise that more will need to be done and have committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions from their operations by 2050.

The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is a unified carbon credit scheme proposed for the global aviation industry to allow credits for the use of biofuels to be centrally managed to overcome non-uniformity in carbon pricing across jurisdictions (ICAO 2019). If CORSIA is successfully implemented for global aviation then it could facilitate the crushing and refining of oilseed crops in Australia because there would in effect, be a global carbon pricing scheme for biofuels consumed by the aviation industry. As already mentioned, after 2030 if Australian canola was used to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) it could be used for domestic aviation but could not be uploaded onto international aircraft looking to conform with IATA and CORSIA ILUC regulations. There are provisions within the CORSIA framework to accept locally relevant modifications to sustainability criteria to facilitate local production of SAF for uploading to international flights, but such modification to CORSIA would need to be negotiated.

Even with existing infrastructure and markets, careful leadership and management are needed. The development of the Australian biofuels industry will require a strong collaboration and business partnership to be in place with sectors that do not have traditional operating relationships, such as agriculture, refiners, and airlines, as well as protein meal users such as the animal feed and food industries.

Conclusion

The high-erucic acid content of some oilseed crops such as carinata (Brassica carinata) makes them a sought-after feedstock for production of biofuels in hard to abate transport sectors such as aviation, shipping and long-range freight transport. The remaining high-protein seed meal co-product feeds into the growing worldwide demand for animal rations and human consumption. Synthetic soil fumigants are being phased out globally and the ability of some biofuel crops to bio-fumigate soil, reduce pathogens and boost yield of the subsequent crop, provides additional benefits to the farming system.

Current accepted regulation relating to ILUC was devised in the USA and the EU based on farming systems in those territories. Australia’s farming systems are very different and have evolved over 120 years in response to soils, climate and research and development (Fischer 2008). Australia is beginning to develop its own sustainability criteria for the production of renewable fuels. Given key differences between the USA and the EU it is important that the Australian Agricultural sector has some input into international regulations governing biofuels.

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Contact details

Dr Anthony van Herwaarden
CSIRO Agriculture and Food
Queensland Bioscience Precinct, 306 Carmody Road, St Lucia QLD 4072
Anthony.van.Herwaarden@csiro.au
+61 04 3898 3227

Date published
March 2025