Why do they keep blaming drivers for environmental change?
Let’s keep our attention focussed on Brown and why he doesn’t remove fuel tax from biofuels. I’d buy a diesel car in a moment if I could use vegetable oil to run my car tax-free. And remember, there’s no net addition of carbon to the atmosphere by using plant oils.
But they won’t because BP, E$$o, $hell et al will threaten to withdraw oil while a change-over was made. It was done to smaller third-world countries and will be done to us.
A brave, socially conscious government would build up reserves of bio-oil before declaring to the oil companies that we were going to remove the tax. Shortly after that we could become oil-free and, shortly after that, we could start exporting vegetable oils to the likes of Mauritius and Trinidad so that they don’t have to rely, in the long-term, on foreign oil.
Gah!
April 14th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Is that not a little simplistic, I read on http://www.futurepundit.com/ and he says the entire USA would need to be planted over and still wouldn’t produce enough biofuels to replace oil.
Last night O’reilly claimed Brazil was an oil free zone and they have converted all the cars to run on ethnol from sugar, and since Brazil is the worlds biggest producer of sugar, they got plently of the stuff, but they have an advantage of being a huge country with a low population density, it would be hard for a country like Britain to do the same thing, no?
April 14th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
I don’t understand why everyone looks at plants that are also edible. Vast tanks, nay vats, of algae-like plant-material could be used…
April 15th, 2006 at 8:10 am
You can’t just put veggy oil in a diesel. After about 2 years, your fuel pump (among other things) would die. There are other biofuels that don’t cause problems, but these tend to be more expensive because they require more processing. Effectively, you need to modify your engine (which can be quite cheap to do, depending on your car). Not only that, but as soon as you put anything in your car that isn’t diesel, you can kiss goodbye to your warranty.
In short, not only do the government need to show the finger to the oil industry, but they also need to get the car manufacturers involved. What’s the betting Ford, GM/Vauxhall/Opel etc are also controlled by the oil industry?
April 15th, 2006 at 8:11 am
Oh - and one last thing. Even at today’s prices, biofuels cost at least twice as much to produce as petrol or diesel - it’s about 60p/l.
April 15th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
The problem is deeper… I have to admit, while I guessed companies would use undue influence on governments, it is early days in this realisation of actual proof/evidence and malicious concernlessness of larger companies towards their customers.
With that in mind, it hadn’t yet occurred to me that there was something to be gained by the car manufacturers…
April 15th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
they have been manufaturing cars that run on fuel made from corn for years. seems this would solve alot of issues, why isnt it?
April 15th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
sorry I wasnt paying attention to the comments before I added one.
Keep seeing a commercial for this….
http://www.edmunds.com/advice/specialreports/articles/103708/article.html
April 15th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Don’t apologise — I’m glad you’re still with us!
Looks like hybrids are the way of the short-term future… Though that doesn’t really help the likes of me… I refuse to buy a new car because they’re such poor value compared to a second-hand one.