Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

On a hectare of cane land each year about 150 tonnes of biomass are produced, most of which are from carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere. Every hectare takes out 73 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The bagasse can be burnt to produce energy and the sugar can be used to produce ethanol. Every hectare produces about 13 or 14 tonnes of sugar, each tonne of which will produce 600 litres of ethanol. Of our 400 million tonnes about 300 million tonnes come from power stations and about 75 million tonnes from transport. Simply switching our fuel stream over to a renewable fuel stream will effectively take away 74 million tonnes. I find it incredible that we should be talking about this when the answer is right there with ethanol. Of course, South America is already there, and the United States have declared unequivocally that that is where they are going.

I was the Minister for Mines and Energy in Queensland. I was surprised to find out that almost half of the electricity usage in a house comes from heating water. Throughout Australia we have a huge amount of sunshine to heat our water. So if we change as many of the hot water systems in our houses in Queensland and throughout Australia as we can to solar hot water systems then as much as 10 per cent, maybe even 15 per cent, of our requirements from our power stations will be removed. We need to look at solar hot water systems and moving to the ethanol alternative with our motor vehicles.

There are two other issues that need to be addressed. One is the planting of trees. Right across North Queensland there are almost no trees whatsoever except an introduced species, a weed tree. It does not grow very much, I can assure you, but it is enough to wreck our flora and fauna. An area of six million—arguably seven million—hectares of native flora and fauna has been destroyed by this particular tree. It does not take in much carbon dioxide. It does not grow much—just enough to wreck our native flora and fauna. If some of those areas are put under trees then you will have (a) your timber taking CO away, (b) your solar hot water taking CO away and (c) your transport sector being replaced with ethanol taking CO away.

We would be producing well below the amount of CO that was being produced before Europeans came to this country. It amazes me that people in this place are not aware of the ecological history of their own country. When Captain Cook came along the coastline, he said almost the whole coastline was on fire. When Logan Jack, the famous explorer, moved out from Cooktown, he counted 11 Aboriginal fires—they farmed with fire—before breakfast camp. So before about 10 o’clock in the morning he had already seen 11. In three weeks, moving into the interior of North Queensland, the only time he remarked about the Aboriginal fires was when he said they had gone a whole six hours, nearly half a day, without seeing an Aboriginal fire, indicating that there were no Aborigines living in that area. Our First Australians farmed with fire.

On a station property that I just bought in the Gulf Country, where they did not used to farm with fire, a natural fire started, went for 850 kilometres and took out every single tree. A massive amount of CO was being produced naturally every year in Australia through fires. Those fires do not occur now. In that area of 850 kilometres, in the last 30 years there have probably been 1,000 fire breaks. On our station alone there would have been four or five fire breaks that fire would have had to break through, and it simply would not have broken through. Also, the body of grass has been reduced because the watering points have enabled a massive increase in our kangaroo population and, to some degree, our cattle population. CO was being produced naturally in massive quantities long before Europeans arrived here. We might say we want to go back to the natural condition, but human beings, the First Australians, were producing massive amounts of CO through fires.

Let us turn to the answers, which I think any sensible person would look at. One is simply solar hot water systems. I think one house in five in Queensland was a housing commission or government house. The Queensland government could have moved with massive sales, which would have enabled our manufacturers of solar hot water systems to move on massive economies of scale, which would have meant very cheap hot water systems. Simply putting a very simple device on every government or housing commission home, or whatever they call them now, would have enabled us to cut out, I would estimate—and I have not done the figures in detail over recent years—possibly as much as 10 per cent, certainly around seven per cent, of our entire electricity requirements in Queensland, and I am sure that would also apply in the other states. If we planted a large amount of area under trees in Australia and we moved to the ethanol alternative then Australia would probably be producing less CO than it was producing before Europeans arrived and settled in this country.

I put those things before the House and reiterate that each year every hectare of land under cane—which produces, I think, half, maybe two-thirds, of Australia’s ethanol—produces 150 tonnes of biomass. So if there are a million hectares out there then you have 150 million tonnes of biomass that is being taken, and most of that biomass is created by taking CO out of the atmosphere. We move into highly technical areas with how much of that recycles and how much does not, but we absolutely know that, at 600 litres per tonne of sugar, from that we would produce about 13 tonnes of sugar. The House can work out for itself how much petrol equivalent is produced from a hectare of cane.

If you burn petrol, CO goes up in the atmosphere. If you burn ethanol, CO goes up in the atmosphere. But one hell of a difference is that with sugarcane it comes back down again. An officer did a very silly thing with CO, and I think he regrets what he did there. He did the figures for ethanol on the basis of grain and he did not do it on the basis of sugarcane. He said that we ploughed six times a year and cultivated—put the steel through the ground—six times a year. Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, you are well aware that now that we do not burn we only put the steel through the ground once every six years; not six times every year.

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