Katter reveals plan to slash fuel prices
MULGRAVE Mill could be powering 30,000 homes through cogeneration biofuel technology if Bob Katter gets his way.
The Kennedy MP has elevated green energy upgrades as a key election priority, framing it as a means of protecting Australia’s sovereignty during a period of global unrest.
He said moving on biofuels would allow the Far North to safeguard its agriculture industry, create new jobs and defend its electricity grid from collapse in one fell swoop.
Mr Katter is banking on holding the balance of power in the next parliament, in which case he has vowed to get a Sovereign Fuel Security Bill passed.
“This would mean a nearly 20 per cent benefit from normal petrol prices to sugarcane farmers, and it would reduce the price of petrol as ethanol fuel would cost $1.05 to $1.10 a litre to produce,” he said. The proposal involves ramping up the cogeneration electricity and steam in the region’s mill, as well as developing plants dedicated to the production of ethanol fuel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
Mr Katter said that he believed the facilities could provide year-round base load power – as long as a steady supply of council waste and other agricultural material could be ensured during the sugarcane off-season. “China has control of 40 per cent of the electricity industry,” Mr Katter said.
“If electricity is cut off, then you have no water supply and no sewerage, as they are powered by electric pumps,” he said.
Katter’s Australian Party candidate for Leichhardt Rod Jensen said the country was falling well behind in the cogeneration race.
“We are very aware that in European countries at the moment, 5 per cent are ethanol-based,” he said.
“Cogeneration allows a mill the size of where we are right now the ability to power 30,000 homes.
“That also brings with it a labour force. At the moment the mill is sustaining about 80 jobs – we could add 150 to that with that cogeneration.
“The idea of that is a free on-flow of financial effect to the community itself. The community here is going to actually be sustained by the mill.”