200,000 commuters in Melbourne's eastern and south-eastern suburbs are travelling on a new environmentally friendly fuel source today, with the launch of Ventura Bus Lines ethanol powered bus service at Blackburn Station by Dr Sharman Stone, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. By using ethanol in the place of petrol or diesel we can decrease these emissions by half.
Ethanol is produced from Australian sugarcane waste and is a fully renewable fuel source.
The introduction of the new Scania buses is likely to have a positive effect on rural sugar-belt communities that produce 110 million litres of ethanol annually. With the average bus consuming 60,000 litres of fuel a year, these new services are going a long way toward reducing pollution and greenhouse emissions in the city and giving Australian farmers a boost as well.