Russell Reeves

Dr Reeves obtained his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Newcastle. Since 1980 he has completed numerous R&D projects for the Australian Government, foreign governments and industry, relating to the production and use of a wide range of alternative fuels.
Dr Reeves is a founding member, Managing Director and Chief Chemist of Apace Research Limited (Apace), a not-for-profit company that was incorporated in New South Wales in 1979 to research and develop renewable energy technologies. Apace is also an Approved Research Institute.
Dr Reeves is also Managing Director and Chief Scientist of Ethanol Technologies Limited (Ethtec), an Australian unlisted public company that was incorporated in Queensland in 2004.  Dr. Reeves is the inventor of the several technologies relating to the production of sugars and ethanol from lignocellulosic materials. He is also the inventor of Diesohol Technology, which enables the preparation of hydrated ethanol-diesel fuel blends and their use in diesel engines.

Russell will be discussing the Hunter Pilot Biorefinery (HPB)  which will be an open-access pilot-scale research, development and education facility located at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. Construction of the HPB is funded in part by a $4.6M grant from the NSW Government through the Growing Local Economies fund. The HPB will host the Ethtec Cellulosic Ethanol Pilot Plant Project, currently Australia’s most ambitious biofuels project, which recently received an $11.9M investment from ARENA. Equipment in the HPB will be made available for use by industry, universities and governments to reduce the cost of pilot-scale research essential for transitioning new biomass-based processing technologies from benchtop to commercial deployment. The HPB will thus assist promising technologies avoid perishing in the “valley of death”.