Report
The almond industry is rapidly growing its output at a time where the Australian economy is becoming increasingly “carbon” constrained. This means that input prices related to energy and pumping costs are rising and consumer expectations about sustainability are changing. Agriculture is well placed though to take advantage of opportunities under the Clean Energy Future Plan in relation to renewable energy and possibly energy efficiency and carbon farming.
The objectives of this project were to:
• establish current energy demand and carbon footprint (from Scope 1 and 2 emissions)1 across almond industry producers, processors and packers;
• assess technological options for energy production; and
• conduct a preliminary economic analysis of the commercial viability of energy production.
These objectives were met through a combination of site visits to farms, hullers and shellers and processors from across the industry to enable energy mapping and improved understanding of general operations, energy demand and carbon footprint analysis, review of available energy production technologies suitable to a woody waste such as hull and shell, economic analysis, review of relevant energy and climate change policies and funding programs, and scoping of future directions.
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