Nine News has learned Energy Minister Chris Bowen will tweak legislation to bring forward the deadline for phasing out high-sulphur fuels from 2027 to 2024.
Currently, the sulphur content in regular unleaded can be up to 150 parts per million, which is 15 times the global standard.
The change will limit the amount of sulphur in petrol to 10 parts per million.
Minister Bowen says the rules around fuel standards have been too lax, for too long.
“There’s no reason to wait. The technologies are there to do it. There’s no impediments holding us back, all it needed was a bit of political will,” he told 9News.
“What it’ll mean is less sulphur in the air and that means a better quality of air. It means clear skies and less impact on people who have… respiratory conditions.”
According to the car industry, it’ll also expand the choice of vehicles available in Australia, because our dirty petrol isn’t compatible with some engines.
Tony Weber from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries has welcomed the accelerated time frame for improving the standards.
“Australia is at the bottom of the barrel in terms of fuel quality,” told 9News.
“That limits the internal combustion engines that we can bring here. That means we can’t have the most fuel efficient engines and we also don’t have the cleanest fleet in terms of CO2.”
So does dirty equal cheap?
The government says cleaning up Australian fuel standards will see a slight increase in prices at the petrol pump, amounting to about $8 per household over three years.
The Energy Minister believes the public will be willing to cop the extra cost, because of the added benefits.
“I think Australians would be horrified to learn that our fuel standards are really at the level of an undeveloped economy.
People won’t even notice, the impact is so small over a long period of time and the health impacts and reduced costs massively outweigh any short term costs.”
التعليقات