JONATHAN DOW Napier, with its supply of tallow from meat works, is being considered as the site for a major bio-diesel plant. Scottish company Argent Energy has completed a study on the viability of a bio-diesel plant in New Zealand but is waiting for the government to set targets for thesale of bio-fuels before building a plant. Legislation that required oil companies to sell bio-fuels would create the market, Argent's New Zealand director Gary Monk said. The government is looking at making it mandatory for oil companies to sell at least some bio-fuel by 2008. The New Zealand plant would be no smaller than Argent's plant in Scotland and could produce up to 75 million litres of bio-diesel a year, Mr Monk said. The plant in Scotland is the largest of its kind in the world and produces 50 million litres a year and employs 16. Mr Monk said both Napier and Timaru had a good supply of tallow and had ports that the Silver Fern line shipped processed fuel to from the Marsden Point refinery at Whangarei. "Either you take the raw material to the factory or you take the product to the market." Building the plant at Napier, where there are the raw materials, would mean the biodiesel would have to be transported to the market in the larger cities. Mt Maunganui, Whangarei and Auckland were also being considered as sites for the plant. It would be up to the oil companies how much they charged for the bio-diesel and motorists would not notice any difference - it will power a diesel engine without any modifications. Elizabeth Yeaman, senior adviser on renewable energy at the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, said research had found people were unlikely to be willing to pay more for bio-diesel. The voluntary targets introduced in New Zealand in 2001 has not led to any commercial production of biofuels.
