Twenty years on from resigning from the ALP over its logging policy, and former Senator Shayne Murphy is about to embark on an $8 million fund-raising round for the environment-focused wood pellets company he founded at Bell Bay just prior to the pandemic.
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Mr Murphy wants EcoPellets, a company that takes wood waste from the timber mills and transforms it into pellets for use in wood stoves, to be an alternative to the gas used by many of Tasmania's big manufacturers.
"We supply fuel for roughly 3,000 to 4,000 people in this state. It gives them energy for heating, and energy that is cheaper than grid energy and cheaper than gas, and cheaper than firewood," he said.
He said he wants to raise the $8 million to expand production from 5,000 tonnes of pellets a year up to 20,000 tonnes, and to begin producing wood briquettes suitable for burning in regular wood fires used by thousands of Tasmanians.
Mr Murphy believes it is not just a chance to spin a profit, but to cut down on air pollution.
"We see a big opportunity in briquets as firewood replacement, because we can make them cheaper than firewood and they will burn cleaner, so your air pollution will come down," he said.
"I mean in Launceston now of a calm morning, you can see all the smoke haze everywhere."
Ecopellets has done a deal to sell its pellets, as well as its other main product - wood-based cat litter - via IGA stores.
But the company is also looking for business from bigger industrial clients, and Mr Murphy said he was talking to companies ranging from Liberty Alliance - formerly TEMCO -, the JBS meatworks at Longford and Cement Australia at Bell Bay, about replacing their gas boilers with ones run on pellets instead.
"At the meat works ... we can achieve what you want to achieve right now by incorporating pellets. It can replace all their gas," he said.
Mr Murphy, whose resignation from the ALP in 2001 was in protest of the party's logging policy, started the company because of his dissatisfaction at the amount of wood waste not being utilised.
Tasmania produces around 6 million tonnes of wood fibre per year, but thousands of so-called "residue" accumulates at mills around the state, Mr Murphy said.
Some companies like Ecopellets buy this up cheaply to make into fuel, but other recent proposals - such as Abel Energy's plan to produce methanol using hydrogen and wood waste, might give him more competition.
Mr Murphy isn't worried - there is plenty of the waste to go around, he said.
"They are transporting it to Launceston to be buried in landfills there. I have Timberlink of the phone every week asking how much can I take," he said.
He admitted that, for some industrial customers, gas may be the cheaper option for now. But that may not be the case if the price of gas keeps rising, he said.
"Based on the current prices, [the difference between gas and wood pellets] is probably not huge, but as gas gets more expensive, it potentially will be the cheaper option in the long term."
He said this would certainly be the case if he expands production, lowering his own unit costs.
"If we start making 20,000 tonnes of pellets per year, the cost of production comes down, so our product will get cheaper whereas gas is getting more expensive."
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