The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (AATSE) says it would like to see a biofuel industry developed in very sunny areas of Australia. The group's president Professor Robin Batterham of the AATSE says most biofuel research concentrates on producing fuel from food by-products.

But he says the lack of water and good agricultural land in Australia means it would be better suited to developing fuel from other sources such as woody plants and algae.

Professor Batterham says that could be done in sunny areas that do not have lots of good quality water. "You're looking at areas that have an awful lot of sunlight. And these are the sort of areas where, even with brackish water, cracking the code on using algae as the source for biofuels is the way that you would go," he said.

(ABC, 17/11/2008)