Filling up at short notice

August 31, 2008 By 2 Comments

Today I had an appointment about 100km today, and it was only last night that I realised that I didn’t have enough bio-ethanol in the tank for the return journey.

For the first time, I had to make a detour to fill up with bio-ethanol, meaning that I had to leave earlier to allow enough time to drive to Bad Homburg before I hit the motorway.

Of course, I could have driving down the road to the nearest petrol station and filled up with normal 95-octane fuel, but with that sort of fuel costing around 50% more than bio-ethanol, I felt it was worth making the detour.

But the whole situation did make me conscious of the restrictions of the bio-ethanol fuel.  After all, I don’t get as many kilometres out of a tank as I used to with normal petrol.  I quick check of the list of petrol stations that stock E85 also showed me that there was nothing suitable in the area that I was travelling to.  Well, at least not without going out of my way and looking for it.

So in the end I took the quickest option and visited my usual petrol station, and wished it hadn’t been necessary.  Will the main petrol stations, especially those on motorway service stations, ever start stocking bio-ethanol?

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Donating cars to Charity

July 19, 2008 By 1 Comment

So you’ve bought a new eco-friendly bio-ethanol car, what do you do with the old one?

Normally you might sell it to your dealer in part-exchange for the new one, or you might try to sell it yourself through local advertisements – something that costs time and money, not to mention the added cost of insuring two cars at once.

But have you ever considered car donations? ie. donating your used car to charity? Not only do you have less hassle getting rid of the car itself, but you could receive a nice tax receipt into the bargain.

A website for car-owners in the United States called Donate Car can help you do just that.

The idea is quite simple: you fill out a form on their homepage with your personal details and details of the car that is to be donated. If the car is no longer in a fit state to be driven, then they will arrange for it to be towed away. You can even specify a charity that you would like a portion of the proceeds to be given to. If you don’t then the site has a long list of charities that they support, so you can be sure that the money will be going to a good cause.

They also support projects such as “Donkey Ollie” – a series of animated films aimed a young children and available on DVD about a Donkey that lived in biblical times. The films use modern animation and songs to put across a Christian message. Thanks to the car donations the DVDs can be distributed free of charge.

Other projects include the anti-drug documentaries “Dope The Movie” and rehabilitation homes for teenagers.

So if you live in the U.S., consider helping the environment and people in need at the same time by switching to bio-ethanol and donating your old car?

Oh, and the scheme doesn’t just take cars – you can donate a house or property as well!

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Diesel prices and the Green Party

June 22, 2008 By 1 Comment

Back in the 1990s I remember the Green Party in Germany promising to raise the price of petrol to 5DM per Litre (around 2,50EUR). This may have just been campaigning to make their point against fossil fuels, particularly at a time when they had not been confronted with the problem of actually running the Government.

I remember a comedian on the German version of “Have I Got News For You?” even accused them once of not keeping their campaign promises – because the price of petrol still hadn’t reached that point yet.

Ten years later and that promise may be about to come true. A petrol station in Devon recently charged almost 2GBP (about 2,44EUR) per litre for diesel! Even in Germany the price of diesel has now caught up with that of the normal 95-octane fuel.

Most petrol stations here are displaying only two prices: one price for 98-octane fuel, and one for everything else! It has now become much more expensive to drive anywhere on normal petrol or diesel than ever before. And yet I still don’t see many petrol stations here offering alternatives. I still don’t see better public transport, except for special events.

I’ve read recently about new high-speed train lines being considered in the UK, about new driver-less underground trains in Nuremberg and about towns in Germany introducing mandatory solar panels on building.

Is my part of Germany starting to fall behind?

Filed Under: Bio-Ethanol Tagged With: ,

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