Petrol Prices :angst:

[Fraz]

Bear in mind that bio-fuels are perhaps the dumbest things ever...

why?

Sooooo many reasons:

1). As it was, the human race couldn't satisfactorily feed the populace of the planet. This is just making things worse.

2). Currently, the ratio of oil calories used in producing food calories is worse than 1:1. I.e. we no longer rely solely on the energy of the sun to produce our crops these days. We are using more than 1 calorie of oil to produce 1 calorie of food crop. Which makes using biofuel rather pointless, no?

3). Cutting down new sections of rain forest to plant biofuel crops... yeah, like that's a good idea.

4) It's an extremely inefficient process to produce bioethanol from crops. I.e. many many potential food calories are thrown away in making only a few fuel calories.

I could go on. I'm no expert by a long shot, but there is all kinds of reasons why biofuels are truly not the answer.

They could potentially be PART of the answer - as someone said, if we just used the waste from food crops and converted that into fuel, that would be very sensible. However, at the moment there are all kinds of profoundly stupid things going on in the name of biofuel, most of which is causing way more harm than if we just didn't bother with them at all.

[kopite]

Im looking at it from a purely selfish pov.

Its getting too expensive to fill up the car with standard disel so the saving of 20p a litre is pretty substantial.

Public transport is not an option for me as I live in a small village and for me to get to work each day would take 2-3 hours each way. Moving closer to work isnt an option as to get a mortgage is nigh on impossible

[Fraz]

I walk to work at the moment

Yes, biofuels aren't dumb financially. Just dumb in other ways.

Anyone know which is cheaper to run on out of LPG or biodiesel?

[Sinizter]

why?

Because most of them will end up costing the same, if not more, in carbon dioxide as any fossil fuel you use.

Just ego-massages and reduces your guilt trip over using your car or whatever. No real advantage.

[kalniel]

Anyone know which is cheaper to run on out of LPG or biodiesel?

I would have thought LPG.

Algae and waste biofuel is coming along nicely and should be tenable at some point in the future. As far as electricity generation is concerned there are also some very interesting biomass projects that could be useful without any impact on existing crop growth. (Yes, everyone should cut down on their meat consumption so that we can feed more people )

[99Flake]

Because most of them will end up costing the same, if not more, in carbon dioxide as any fossil fuel you use.

Just ego-massages and reduces your guilt trip over using your car or whatever. No real advantage.

To be fair though the reason for them existing is not to lower CO2 emissions but to give a sustainable fuel and to stop the need for fossil fuels being dug out of the ground.

Emissions from cars are such are small problem when it comes to global warming (if you believe it exists) that it is other areas that need to be looked at first i.e industry, China and the USA.

[Sinizter]

To be fair though the reason for them existing is not to lower CO2 emissions but to give a sustainable fuel and to stop the need for fossil fuels being dug out of the ground.

Emissions from cars are such are small problem when it comes to global warming (if you believe it exists) that it is other areas that need to be looked at first i.e industry, China and the USA.

Give fuel to developed at the cost of food in developing countries. Perfect solution. The main marketing is not aimed at replacement of fossil fuels - all marketing is aimed at environmental causes such as reducing emissions. Why is that then ?

And I couldnt give a crap about carbon ****prints either. Don't believe in flipping my life around when people who study it dont even have a consensus on something as basic as whether there is warming or cooling.

[kalniel]

To be fair though the reason for them existing is not to lower CO2 emissions but to give a sustainable fuel and to stop the need for fossil fuels being dug out of the ground.

Ideally, yes. But at the moment the machinery involved in producing and transporting some forms of biofuel involves such an amount of fossil fuel that it's not terribly close to those ideals.

Emissions from cars are such are small problem when it comes to global warming (if you believe it exists) that it is other areas that need to be looked at first i.e industry, China and the USA.

Yes and no - transport as a whole, in term of haulage etc. does contribute a fair amount afaik, but regardless of the absolute proportion it's always worth doing what you can, setting and example and developing the technology. India and China will not listen if you say 'well we can carry on reaping the economic benefits of polluting etc. because we're smaller than you, but you have to stop'.

If haulage costs do go up significantly then maybe it'll become more econimcally viable to start producing more things locally rather than buying at the cheapest place world-wide and shipping it over.

[99Flake]

I don't think that I put that over as I meant.

As a country we need to set an example if we want places like China to tow the line, the thing is we set that example years ago, the stuff that China is pumping out at the moment as it enters its version of the industrial revolution is revolting and in this day and age there is no need for that. They have the money and the power to build alternatives, the problem is that it does not fit in with the rate of growth that the country wants.

I must say now that I am not by any means or standards a 'green' person, I don't hold much cop with global warming and I believe that whatever we do to this planet it will recover and be around long after the human race is extinct.

However right now what is needed is another source of fuel like bio-fuels so that we slow the use of natural reserves and have something else to turn to.

A tax cut on petrol would also be rather nice as well but with Brown in charge that is never going to happen, soon he will be charging a Model-T Ford £300 a year to drive on the road no doubt.

[TheBloodyNine]

Global warming is far from certain, we dont have the information to produce an acurate statistical model.

I think hydrogen fuel cells are the way of the future, mainly because they are almost complete.

The other reason to stop burning fossil fuels is that it will reduce our ability to produce advanced materials and platics.

[schmunk]

Petrol's about 70p/litre here...

I had a look at a garage as we drove past today. Diesel is 50p/litre!

[kopite]

I hate you schmunk
costing 1.22 a litre for me atm for diesel

NExt fill up though will be less than a quid a litre biodiesel ftw.

[mooreslaw]

Has anyone seen the truck barricades going on around the country?

Pretty shocking really that the only way to be heard is to cause havoc like this...we do live in a democracy after all.

Pay attention Brown!

[Sinizter]

Pay attention Brown!

Him and his cronies seem to be living on some other planet.

[schmunk]

I hate you schmunk
costing 1.22 a litre for me atm for diesel

Ah, but don't hate me for that. Hate me for the fact I'm not paying anything for it, or for the company-provided car and driver I have at my disposal...

[kalniel]

They're listening to me damnit!

And all the people who said they need to be greener!