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Aussie gorse pest plant to fuel Chinese barbecues
John and Matt in front of a big gorse hedge …
Take a drive along the Midland Highway through Tasmania and you will see hillsides covered in thousands of gorse plants.
The spikey evergreen has become a major problem for farmers and the state’s environment since it was introduced with the arrival of Europeans.
“It tends to like the conditions down here,” John Boland from Gorse Power told Leon Compton on 936 ABC Hobart.
But Mr Boland and Matt Bennett believe they can turn this gorse problem into cash by harvesting it and selling it to China as a fuel.
“It’s basically going to be replacing coal as a major fuel source for the solid barbecue market,” Mr Bennett said.
“[Barbecue] is a very popular way of cooking in China, especially with the high-rise living [there].”
Mr Bennett and Mr Boland’s company Tasmanian Renewable Energy Enterprises is building a factory at Conara in the state’s north to turn gorse into compacted biomass fuel, which they are calling Gorse Power.
“Gorse has been prized as a fuel for centuries,” Mr Bennett said.
“It used to be a prized fuel for bakers and for potters to fire kilns because it burns extremely hot and it burns hot fast.
“It’s [also] almost smoke free when it burns.
“We’re reinventing a fuel that’s been prized for a long, long time.”
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