Safe Speed Forums

Found this in the news today...

Looks like we are lagging behind on the roll-out of bio fuel. In the USA there are already more than 250,000 cars that will run on bio-fuel (called E85 over there) most new Fords and GM cars will be duel fuel (bio or conventional petrol) capable.

I bet one of the reasons is the Government won't know how to tax it since it is as clean as LPG which currently carries substantialy less tax.

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Speed camera policy Kills

It is also very difficult to get hold of biodiesel!!

How can the government justify taxing it at all?

LPG not withstanding, the government won't do anything to make real green fuels like bio-diesel and bio-ethanol avliable because 1: they'll lose the tax and 2: they're in the pockets of the oil companies.

in effect, one could rightly argue the government is responcible for the destruction of the enviroment because it suits them financially in terms of stealth tax.

LPG is still a fossil fuel anyway and therefore not truely a green fuel, and besides it's a costly and cumbersome conversion wheras bio-D and bio-E are both back compatible with fossil fuels and therefore far more user-friendly. and aren't they now talking about increasing the tax on LPG? I was pondering buying a petrol van and going LPG but that scared me right off. Lose money changing vehicles, lose a couple of k on the conversion, then get shafted when they turn round and go "uh, actually it's not really that green after all so you'll have to pay just as much for it".

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

Well done to Saab. It's about time we unlocked ourselves from the strangulation of the large oil companies and the Government's willingness to tax it so heavily on "environmental" grounds.

What excuses will they use to tax a carbon neutral fuel that allows all us nasty people to enjoy the freedom and practicality of our cars without the guilt feeling we get imposed on us day in and out by the politico-media lapdogs?

They will still beat the pollution drum though-Won't somebody please think of the children! .........

Regards


Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

The Government position on bio-fuels is one of the main things that demonstrates that Fuel Duty is nothing to do with reducing CO2. HMG makes far to much money, and the parties get far to much in donations from the Oil companies to even seriously consider the idea. If they actually believed a word of the Kyoto bull that we keep having shoved in our faces, then it would already be widely available in the UK and the UK net CO2 emissions would already have been dramatically reduced.

It is true that bio-fuels cost more to produce than oil based fuels, but given the 300% duty and tax that we face, In the US when petrol was $1.34/US gal E-85 was $2.26, but unlike petrol it is not dependent on the price of oil... at that time it was a wholesale premium of 50c/US gal over petrol. With the UK £4+/gal most of which is duty, bio-fuels should be cheaper at the pumps than petrol.

Elsewhere in the world bio-fuels have been available for years, especially in countries with limited access to Oil - such as Brazil that has 3.6 Million bio-fuel vehicles on the road. http://www.whybiotech.com/index.asp?id=1645

This has come up before, but there's a huge Wikipedia article on alco-fuels here. Why we're not making similar efforts is a good question. The USA are trying it with corn sourced alcohol, although that seems to be less efficient than sugar. Okay, we apparently can't grow sugar cane here, but sugar beet ought to be possible from what I've read. So the question remains - why not us and when will it be an option at the pumps here?

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

But how much is the cost of bio-fuel down to it's scarecity? you can buy food grade veg oil £7 for 15 ltr (probably less in some cheapo supermarkets or wholesalers) and it isn't that much of a process to convert it to biodiesel, I'm sure if it were mass produced and distributed on a fuel-grade quality the price could be slashed.

plus the yanks have built single oil rigs for a cost of £10billion, surely seeding the desert with hardy crops to produce oil would be viable? I don't know about sugar beat but sunflower plants, rape seed etc can be used for biodiesel and they'll grow in our climate.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

You can buy 'ready to go' red diesel at £5.70p per 15 litre, so that gives you an idea of what fuel really costs before the government sticks their nose in.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Not much of a process? If you have the right engine (and plenty do) the "process" consists of pouring it into your fuel tank.

You can do it legally by registering and paying your duty but that makes it uneconomical to do so on a small scale.

Is it just me, or does something really not add up?

They tell us that burning fossil fuel is causing global warming and that we cannot continue burning them at the current rate otherwise the earth is going to go into meltdown.
Then, in the next breath, they tell us that fossil fuels are about to run out.



Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

some engines can, but vegoil has a lower viscosity than diesel so many engines benefit from being run on proper biodiesel or installing a preheater in the fuel line.

many people run a diesel/vegoil mix though, up to 80% vegoil is fine in summer but more diesel is advisable in cold weather cos of the viscosity issue.

there are many websites dedicated to the issue though... many claim vegoil to be beneficial to an engine as it has better lubricating qualitys.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

If it were to be mass produced the price would tumble. At present farmers are saying they can produce bio-diesel for 85P, I would reckon the economies of scale could bring that down to about 65-70P.

The transition period between diesel and bio-diesel would be a long one and we would really need to be sure that the farming community could produce enough bio to support the diesel consumer without compromising food production.


Regards


Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

I see nothing contradictory in those two statements, particularly if you interpret "run out" as being in practical terms rather than literal terms (i.e. when supply is no longer able to meet the relatively inelastic level of demand). But even so, if both statements were literally true, just because we might run out first doesn't invalidate the statement that if we continued burning them at the current rate it would cause other problems (though it would of course mean that no preventative measures are required, however this is not the same as the statement being untrue). I don't want to get into a discussion of whether either statement is actually true or not, just pointing out that they don't contradict each other.

Re tax on bio fuel, the problem the government has, in general, is that taxes that are used as a deterrent are not implemented in a revenue-neutral manner. So when they increase tax on fuel, cigarettes, beer etc because those things are bad for us, they should reduce tax elsewhere to keep overall revenue constant. If they did this, then when tax on fuel etc is reduced, people would perhaps be willing to tolerate the necessary tax increases elsewhere. But because the government instead uses tax on "bad" things to increase the overall level of tax revenue, people aren't going to be happy when the government starts increasing taxation elsewhere to compensate for the loss of revenue that they should never have been relying on in the first place.

It's interesting to note that all new road improvements must undergo a cost:benefit analysis. The costs must now include potential lost fuel duty revenue through reduced congestion.

This rediculous situation means that a cheap, simple scheme which would remove a regular 20 minute queue might actually fail a cost:benefit analysis and would therefore not be allowed to be built/implemented.

And to think that the government was meant to be reducing congestion and reducing fuel use

My point is, fossil fuels are going to - in practical terms or otherwise - run out someday. If we carry on at the current rate, that might be in two decades, maybe three (don't know, just guessing)
On the other hand, if we cut down on consumption (and possibly wreck the economy doing so) we could perhaps stretch that out to four or five decades. But, at the end of the day, either way, there'll be none left to burn (if only in practical terms) and, either way, there'll be just as much CO2 in the atmosphere.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Ah, but the rate at which CO2 is put into the atmosphere matters, as the atmospheric levels would be higher every year if we used it at a higher rate. Even without positive feedback, in the 2-3 decades scenario we would have to wait a couple of decades after running out for levels to fall down to where they'd be at the end of the 4-5 decades scenario. But with the positive feedback that such gases cause, the two scenarios would in fact continue to diverge, and a century later, you'd still be worse off if you burned through it all in 2-3 decades rather than 4-5.

Not really Steve. Even with our annual increases natural variability is still greater than anthopogenic sources of CO2. We could go back to the dark ages and emit nothing at all for a couple of decades, and it's a fairly safe bet that the CO2 concentrations would go up and down like a bride's nightie just as they've been doing since before our remote ancestors crawled up the beach for the first time.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

At last....progress


ToonTown2000 will probably be organising a protest to its construction already. Can't have cars being enviro-friendly, they would have nothing to complain about.

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Speed camera policy Kills

As I've said before, just because it's small by comparison doesn't mean it can't have a devastating effect. I'm not talking about chaos theory (as someone seemed to think last time I said this), I'm talking about disrupting a delicate balance, like adding 1g to one side of weighing scales that are in balance with 1kg on each side. The 1g is only small compared to the 1kg, but they're no longer in balance.

And even if the increase in atmospheric levels were primarily due to natural processes, that wouldn't stop it from causing us a problem. If reducing what we're putting into the atmosphere won't solve the problem, we'd better come up with a way of extracting it from the atmosphere.

Finally something is happening! A little more information at their website http://www.greenspiritfuels.com/bioethanol.htm, and the revelation that the primary reason why this hasn't happened before is because of government duty rates on bio fuels making it uneconomic. UK duty on bio-ethanol was reduced by 20ppl in Jan 2005 and this discount will last until 2008, and so it it worth doing the project. As usual the government only moved the little bit that it has because of EU targets that it will not meet.

As we are told that the extortionate duty rates on UK fuel is for "environmental reasons", there should be no duty at all on bioethanol/biodiesel to encourage its widespread use. The vast majority of vehicles are able to use a mix without any adjustment at all.

How come all the environmentalist, left wing types at the Labour conference are not giving their two faced lying corrupt leaders hell over the lack of progress on this?