When a plantation forest is harvested, the branches, bark and offcuts the timber mill can’t use get left behind. HAMR Energy wants to turn that waste into jet fuel, and it just secured up to $32 million from ARENA to plan Australia’s first large scale methanol to jet refinery.
How it works
The supply chain has three parts:
- A biomass processing facility in Victoria taking about 600,000 tonnes of forestry residue a year
- The Portland Renewable Fuels project in Portland, Victoria, making about 300,000 tonnes of renewable methanol a year using renewable electricity and hydrogen
- A methanol to jet refinery at Gillman, in Adelaide’s north west, producing about 140 million litres of sustainable aviation fuel a year
HAMR estimates the fuel could cut emissions by about 85% compared with fossil jet fuel.
The money
The ARENA funding is staged. $12.5M comes first for early engineering and design, then a further $19.5M once HAMR lands co-funding for detailed design. The project is valued at $92M. It is the first investment under the government’s $250M low carbon liquid fuels allocation. Earlier this year HAMR raised $10M from Qantas and Airbus.
The founders
Engineers Alex Smith and David Stribley started HAMR in Melbourne in 2020. Stribley called the funding a significant milestone for building a domestic SAF industry.
My read
Aviation is one of the hardest things on earth to run without fossil fuel. Batteries are too heavy for long haul, so the answer has to be a liquid. Part of that answer might be the wood we’ve been leaving on the ground. The real test is the co-funding: the second tranche only lands if HAMR finds partners willing to put money in.