Ethanol case studies

BP Australia

Recently BP Australia celebrated a milestone with over 100 million litres of the new BP Unleaded with renewable ethanol being sold to Queensland motorists. New BP Unleaded, also known as E10, is a specially formulated 91 octane unleaded petrol with up to 10 per cent ethanol.

BP is committed to the development of Biofuels in Australia, for more information on New Unleaded visit BP Australia or contact the BP customer service centre on 1300 1300 27.

Canegrowers

In partnership with the Queensland Government, the Canegrowers organisation launched a regional billboard campaign to promote the renewable fuels industry.  Billboards promoting ethanol blended fuels were erected on 1 March 2007 in five locations around Queensland. The billboards were located at:

• Cairns South
• Ingham South
• Townsville South, Giru
• Mackay North
• Maryborough South, South Tiaro 

The billboards were in place for 12 months and were located close to areas with service stations selling ethanol blended fuel.  The Queensland Government was proud to support Canegrowers' billboard campaign, which helped promote ethanol as a clean, safe fuel to motorists, communities in cane growing areas and to visitors to the beautiful parts of Queensland in which cane is grown.

Suncorp embraces ethanol blended fuels

As one of Queensland's first top 25 companies to launch an ethanol policy requiring its company-owned fleet cars to use E10 fuel, where possible, Suncorp says staff uptake has been positive according to Rod Davies.

Mr Davies, Suncorp General Manager Agribusiness said the group's E10 policy had achieved promising results since its launch 12 months ago.

Mr Davies said while the initial motivation behind the policy was to support Australia's primary producers and contribute to a cleaner environment, the program had also delivered tangible benefits to the company's bottom line.

"An analysis of staff usage of E10 over the first nine months of the program showed that the ethanol blended fuel was, on average, 4.28c per litre cheaper than the unleaded petrol purchased by our staff," he said.

"In the month of September, for example, the E10 fuel purchased by Suncorp staff was up to 8.6c per litre cheaper than the unleaded."

With Suncorp's fleet contracted to purchase fuel from only BP and Caltex, Mr Davies said the recent commitment from both companies to increase the availability of E10 Unleaded sites, particularly in the Brisbane area, would contribute to greater usage by metropolitan-based staff.

He said while staff uptake in the metropolitan areas had been hampered by availability, analysis of staff usage in Queensland's regional and rural areas was encouraging.

"For example, in the Toowoomba region more than half of the Suncorp fuel transactions in the first nine months of the program were E10," Mr Davies said.

"As more BP and Caltex service stations offer the fuel we expect this figure to climb."

Following the ethanol policy's introduction to approximately 600 company-owned fleet cars, Mr Davies said Suncorp had also rolled out an ethanol education campaign to ensure all staff are aware of the benefits of using the renewable fuel. Suncorp has more than 8,500 staff nationally.

"We provide our staff with updated information on the latest petrol stations in their area where ethanol blended fuel is available as well as updated information from car manufacturers on the use of ethanol blended fuels." he said.

"Experts have dispelled the myths surrounding the use of ethanol and I believe our ethanol policy and staff education campaign will help to further dispel those myths."

Suncorp is an active partner in the ethanol industry and also a supportive member of organisations such as The Clean Air Alliance.

Previously published in State Development Magazine Summer 06/07 edition.

Saab Australia - Biopower E85 vehicle

Saab Australia chose the Holden Performance Driving Centre on the Gold Coast for the launch of its BioPower car in February 2007.

The Saab BioPower car is the first ethanol production car in Australia that runs on 85% ethanol using its flex-fuel capability, giving motorists the ability to swap between normal unleaded petrol, E10 (10% ethanol and 90% petrol blend) and E85 (85% ethanol 15% petrol blend) when it becomes available, all from the one fuel tank.

The Director of Saab Australia, Mr Parveen Batish, said Saab was committed to bringing BioPower to the market locally as soon as possible.

"With Saab BioPower we hope we can play a role in stimulating demand for renewable fuels, such as E85. This would be an important step towards breaking the current 'chicken and egg' situation we face as a community in relation to introducing alternative fuels," Mr Batish said.

By running on E85, Saab estimates that drivers can reduce their fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions by up to 80 per cent.  The best selling environmentally friendly car in Sweden, Biopower has also been launched across Europe, including the UK, Ireland, Germany, France and Norway.

For more information visit the Saab web site.