Is New Zealand’s New Government Killing Biofuels?
by Joelle Brink (Biofuels Digest Asia) Months are passing but New Zealand ’s new government still won’t say whether or not it will incentivise biofuels production and new plant construction. Latest in this shoot-your-own-economy-in-the foot saga is Ecodiesel’s multi-million dollar plant to turn waste tallow into biodiesel–now on hold while investors wait to see whether the government will continue its currently inactive biofuel subsidy.
Under the former Labor Party administration, New Zealand had a conventional biofuels mandate under which producers prospered and production costs fell. But with the advent of the left/green leaning New Government, the mandate was canceled and replaced by an on-again, off-again subsidy program under the management of a reportedly unresponsive administration that so far has spent only $700,000 of its $36 million subsidy budget, claiming lack of consumer interest. Meanwhile, one producer alone– Biodiesel New Zealand–reports selling millions of litres of its BioGold recycled cooking oil biodiesel in the first three months of 2011. READ MORE and MORE (Scoop Politics)
