Wood waste from the Green Triangle is set to fuel passenger jets, with the Australian Government putting up to A$32 million behind HAMR Energy’s plan to turn plantation residues into sustainable aviation fuel across South Australia and Victoria. That is according to Infrastructure Minister Catherine King and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who announced the grant at Adelaide Airport on Wednesday as the first project backed by the Government’s $250 million Low Carbon Liquid Fuels priority.
The money comes in two parts: $12.5 million released now for early design work, and a further $19.5 million held back until the company lines up co-funding for the detailed engineering during a development phase priced at $92 million. Administering the package is the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), which will run the grant through the Future Made in Australia Innovation Fund, where the Commonwealth has set aside money to seed a homegrown industry making cleaner fuels for aviation and other sectors that cannot easily switch to electricity.
“Turn a hard-to-abate sector into a how-to-abate sector,” Bowen said, putting fuel security alongside lower emissions as the reason to back a local supply. Sawdust, bark, woodchips, and thinnings form the forest waste left after harvesting, and a new market for material that carries little value today would give plantation owners a second income beyond the structural timber that remains their main product.
Three linked projects make up the chain, led by what would be Australia’s first large-scale methanol-to-jet refinery, planned for the Port Adelaide area. A plant in Victoria would turn 600,000 tonnes of plantation residues a year into 300,000 tonnes of low-carbon methanol at the company’s Portland site, and the refinery would then make 140 million litres of jet fuel annually, plus renewable diesel.
“At the forefront of creating a new sovereign jet fuel industry for Australia,” South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said, with his government negotiating the refinery’s exact site and the build valued at between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, according to his numbers.
Once at full production, the fuel would replace 140 million litres of fossil jet fuel and cut 330,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, enough to cover 4.5 million economy trips between Adelaide and Melbourne. HAMR Energy estimates the fuel would run 85 per cent cleaner than fossil kerosene, among the best of any feedstock.
“We are proud to be investing in this project that turns waste into fuel,” King said, with OneFortyOne already signed up to send residues from its Green Triangle estate to the Portland methanol plant.
Hundreds of construction jobs would follow, the company claims, with more than 200 ongoing roles across forestry, renewable energy, engineering, manufacturing, and regional supply chains.
“We do the reverse here, where we build that up,” HAMR Energy co-founder David Stribley said of a process that breaks forestry waste down to the molecular level and rebuilds it as jet fuel, while conventional refining takes a big molecule and shrinks it.
It comes as Canberra follows the South Australian government, which confirmed its backing for the project in March, 18 days out from the state election. An earlier funding round brought Qantas and Airbus on board, and similar projects are advancing overseas, with Japanese refiners trialling wood-based jet fuel and a US developer planning a $5 billion plant in Minnesota.
“One of Australia’s most promising sustainable aviation fuel opportunities,” is how ARENA chief executive Darren Miller described the project, with feasibility work complete and the detailed phase next. Under HAMR Energy’s plan, 600,000 tonnes of forest residue a year would yield 140 million litres of jet fuel, and the first $12.5 million in federal funding is now paying for engineering to prove it.
