Fuel your car from garbage

Well in future your backyard household waste could be the key to fueling the family sedan.  The Victorian Government and a consortium of companies is assessing the viability of a ground-breaking green fuel plant for the state that uses garbage.

If successful the $400 million plant could produce more than 200 million litres of ethanol a year from regular household and building waste.  GM-Holden, which will introduce an ethanol-fueled Commodore V6 later this year, is one of the lead companies in the consortium.

Coskata believes it can produce ethanol for less than 35 centres a litre, more than offsetting is higher fuel use when compared to petrol.  The company's chief marketing officer Wes Bolsen, said the proposal would not just benefit Victoria.

"It's about what can be done in Queensland or NSW," he says.  "It's the tip of the iceberg for Australia to be less dependent on oil."

Bolsen believes that Australia's surplus agriculture waste could make it a net exporter of material for ethanol plants in other parts of the world.  "There is a chance Australia could take the lead with this technology," he says.

GM-Holden's energy and environment director Richard Marshall says ethanol could reduce our dependence on petrol by up to 30 per cent.  Marshall believes for alternative fuels to go mainstream petrol will have to hit a trigger point of $2 a litre.

Caltex is rolling out more ethanol pumps in 30 metropolitan and regional service stations later this year, increasing to 100 within 12 months.  It already has about 400 service stations nationally selling E10.

Bolsen said Coskata did not make fuel from food crops.  "We use sources like municipal waste that have reached the end of their lifecycle," he said.