A government subsidy for ethanol production should help kick-start Australia’s biofuels industry. The country’s embattled sugar industry would be one of the main beneficiaries of ethanol industry development, with some 15 ethanol and 16 biodiesel plants or expansions currently proposed across Australia. The Australian government has announced to allocate AUD 37 million to fund capital subsidies for projects that provide new or expanded biofuels capacity. This would be in addition to the AUD 10 million short-term assistance package for ethanol announced earlier. The package will go some way towards kickstarting the biofuels industries in Australia, and in particular an ethanol industry. Ethanol, a clean fuel that can be distilled from crops such as sugarcane and grain, has been most strongly supported by Australia’s large-scale sugar industry, which in recent years has been thrown into loss by an international sugar market collapse.
