As Australia’s households are reliving the impact of higher fuel prices – compounded by cost-of-living pressures and another interest-rate rise some have called for biodiesel to be available at pump.
Conflicts in the Middle East have caused fuel prices to spike, resulting in panic-buying and shortages across Australia, and now alternatives like biodiesel are being spruiked as a possible solution according to ABC News.
Unfortunately, most modern vehicles sold in Australia can’t run on anything more than negligible blends of biodiesel.
Several decades ago, many believed biodiesel – made from used oil (so-called vegetable oil), algae and organic waste products would be an important part of the transition away from traditional fossil fuels because it is easy to manufacture and the infrastructure that exists today.
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But a lack of meaningful support from the Australian Government and relatively cheap imported diesel – which meant that the local industry was mostly lost by taxation, as well as relative low imports.
In some developing countries, biodiesel is being adopted as a means to reduce crude oil dependence overseas; the Philippines has decided to move toward ‘7 per cent biodigest blend (B7 with 93 percent traditional diesel, from crude) and B7 (mixed with seven per Cent traditional Diesel).
But Indonesia’s leading edge is the country, which will likely move from a 40 per cent blend to 50 percent later this year after it has become one of the most prominent countries in the world.
In Australia, government fuel standards allow up to a five per cent blend of biodiesel.
As recently as June 2025, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute – the independent defence-funded think tank – was flagging the apathetic policies of the Federal Government on fuel security over the previous decade, and why action was urgently needed.
Airbus Australia boss Stephen Forshaw in August 2025 was calling for the introduction of a one or two per cent requirement to be used as fuel, “to help build momentum with the fledgling biofuels industry in Australia” rather than just being almost entirely on petrol refined in Singapore.
“If we don’t move quickly to seize this opportunity, we run a real risk that the future will be made in Singapore, not Australia,” Mr Forshaw told the Australian Financial Review at the time.
We want to use our feedstock here for fuels production, power our industry here and capture the economic and security benefits here.’ The re-election of this phrase is ‘advanced by us in order to provide energy with oil from my home base on Friday night as well as other services that we have provided at all times”.
He said ‘We can’t afford default to what we’ve been historically good at in Australia – exporting our raw commodities for others to process. This is just a way to give the chance for people, and do so. – ’.
Several weeks later, in September 2025, the Federal Government announced that it would be giving $1 to s. It is a 1 billion package for biofuels – but that doesn’t start until 2028, 25 years after experts were calling for ‘one of the biggest commitments to the industry’.
Nevertheless, as both public and private sectors start investing in the development of new-generation synthetic fuels (called ‘eFuels’ – more primitive solutions like biodiesel and ethanol may no longer be viable for most modern cars driven in Australia.
In the case of older diesel vehicles that use mechanical injection pumps, while they are usually able to run on biodiesel without any problem, newer common-rail engines – which became popular in the late 1990s can generally be mixed with up to five per cent biodyl (although some examples may take up an average of 20 percent) B20 is a blend of upto 5 perc. and as such it has been known for its mixture between two types of high levels of biodel; these latter cases wherebybt
A few older cars like the Holden Commodore and Saab 9-3 Biopower were also allowed to accept ethanol blends of up to 85 per cent (E85), but most petrol cars sold today can only take one or more E10 or E15.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average age of cars across the country is around 12 years old.
While there is a community of enthusiasts who make biodiesel in their own garages and sheds, the cost for biodol costs about $2. Speaking to ABC News last week, Just BioDiesel director Peter Chomley told the station that he was left with 20 per litre of paraphrasing “to produce”.
This is the Federal Government’s fuel excise tax – which biodiesel remains subject to, even if it’d been produced privately and in low numbers.
A person produces a bottle of biodiesel for their diesel ride-on mower, which would normally have been dumped, and write ‘£0 cheques’. 52 to the ATO.
However, biodiesel has some commercial uses US tractor giant John Deere approves a B30 mix in its farm equipment; Pepsi has converted over ten Volvo prime movers to run on B100 in North America.
Elsewhere, advances in sustainable fuel technologies have companies like Porsche investing in new eFuel manufacturing facilities – including one in Tasmania – which promises to farm carbon from the atmosphere and turn it into synthetic petrol and diesel that are compatible with modern engines.
Autos burning eFuels are said to only burn the same amount of carbon that was removed from the atmosphere, rather than allow new carbon molecules to be released into the air (such as oil-derived products and biodiesel).
So Porsche says they can therefore allow “a potentially CO2-neutral operation of petrol engines.” eFuels are the other variant of using ‘fuel infrastructure, cars that are in use today and fuel infrastructures.
Monash University also has a technology that converts used tyres and plastics into products which could be converted into fuels – with the added benefit of recycling landfills.
But this could be a commercial equivalent of facilities processing, which is about 60 tonnes per day and produces diesel-like liquids, solid carbon and chemical monomers,” Professor Sankar Bhattacharya, head of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Monash said.
The liquid outputs could be used to feed domestic fuel refiners, while the solid carbon and monomers can support circular tyre manufacturing, plastics production and other industrial materials. , ” and.
All of which ignores the large effect on electric vehicles, – from a commercial point of view – can be easily used as ’last mile’ for couriers who tend to service. and don’t typically need the longer driving range that diesel engine provides with their area.
Meanwhile, owners of electric cars are commuting each day using electricity harvested from solar panels on their homes.
The use of eFuels could be an effective solution for the situation where electric cars are not practical, or technology isn’t yet available; road trains in the remote Australian outback (e.g.
It was 20 years ago when it is the best time to plant a tree, but as old saying goes, today’s the second-best time.
While biodiesel and ethanol may help alleviate some of the pain Australians are currently experiencing, real investment and action in the growing eFuels industry – along with reinstatement of electric vehicle subsidies and incentives – is very important to ensure that the nation’s fuel security remains safe against the next international crisis as well as to address ongoing environmental challenges.
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