Ethanol - evil stuff

One of the ways of making motor vehicles 'greener' is, apparently, to dilute the petrol they use with ethanol. Ethanol can be created from maize or sugar cane, and is supposedly carbon-neutral, so it doesn't contribute to that nasty Global Warming Climate Change Disruption we are seeing so much of these days. In the US, many petrol companies are selling E10 fuel (10% ethanol) and the UK is currently moving towards E5 (5%). The ultimate is said to be E85, where only 15% of the fuel you put in your tank is actually dino juice. And they are doing it by stealth. Ethanol content up to 10% does not have to be labelled as such in the UK, and in fact I get the feeiling that petrol companies are encouraged not to label it at all. Heaven forfend that we knew what we were buying and were able to make an informed choice! And how unlike the food labelling regulations, where the makers are forced to list every last ingredient for 'consumer education'.

The Government and the green lobby insist that ethanol in fuel is harmless, and that it causes no problems with modern vehicles. The evidence is that this is far from the truth. I have done quite a lot of reading around this recently, and there are a number of issues which come up time and time again:

• Ethanol dissolves the resin binders in fibreglass over time. Motorcycles with fibreglass tanks start running badly and eventually stop. Quantities of sludge are found in the fuel system, which appears to be the inside of the petrol tank making a break for freedom.
• Ethanol can distort plastic fuel tanks. There are a number of owners on the Triumph forum that I read who have taken off the fuel tank only to find that they cannot get it back on because it is longer than the fixings on the bike. Effectively, the ethanol has made the tank change shape. This is a worry to me, as my Sprint has a plastic tank, and I do all my own servicing, so taking the tank off will be a regular occurrence.
• Ethanol absorbs water. If parts of the fuel system are steel, this can start to rust from the inside. In severe cases (say where a bike is left for several months with the same fuel in the tank), the ethanol absorbs enough water for phase separation to take place, and the bottom of the tank is pure water. The bike will not run on water.

And, of course, ethanol contains less energy than petrol, so your car or bike will not run as well, and will use more fuel in doing so ... hang on, that's not the idea, is it?

The situation in the US is more severe than in the UK, as the quantity of ethanol is greater in most fuel supplied. In fact, it has reached the stage of consumers taking out a class action suit, reported here.

The lawsuit claims the tank material is incompatible with the fuel and distorts over a period of time, usually several months, during which time the tank can come loose on its mountings, swell enough to interfere with the steering on full lock and leak through the fuel pump mounting.

The second and potentially far more damaging claim in the suit is that Ducati should reasonably have known about the problem but nevertheless continued to sell motorcycles with allegedly unsafe fuel tanks. It states that this amounts to unfair, unlawful and fraudulent business practice which has led to injury and financial loss.

Personally, I would rather avoid such problems by buying only fuel which is ethanol-free. This is possible in the States, thanks to websites such as pure-gas.org and buyrealgas.com which maintain databases of fuel stations that guarantee ethanol-free fuel. But over here there is no such organisation. We Brits will shrug and say "well, that's the way it is, innit?" and carry on as before. There is no anger - or even awareness of the problem. (In case you think it is just confined to bikes, there is also huge anxiety amongst owners of older cars, and also boats. If a distorted motorcycle tank is a problem, imagine how concerned you would be if the fuel tank of your boat was made of fibreglass - and was not a separate component but was moulded as part of the hull. How do you fix that?)

There are other, ethical, objections to ethanol. One study suggests that producing a gallon of ethanol takes six times the fossil energy contained in the final product. Another says that, using irrigated corn, it takes 1200 gallons of water to produce just one gallon of ethanol. Not surprisingly, the Greens are split over whether running vehicles on ethanol is even a good idea. And that's before you consider the ethics of using a food crop to produce fuel for vehicles when there are people dying of starvation elsewhere in the world, just so that SUV drivers can feel good about filling up when they drive the school run.

A trawl of the fuel companies' websites gives very little hard information. Most just say, if they mention ethanol at all, that they are complying with the Government's plan to move everyone to E5 or E10 by 2011 or 2012. But I heard a rumour that Murco were dragging their feet a little, and supplying ethanol-free petrol on most of their forecourts. So I wrote to them, and here is their reply:

Richard,

I can confirm that Murco does not provide petrol which includes Ethanol at this moment in time, however you can expect the industry as a whole to be E5 (5% Ethanol) by 2013-2014 which the government has requested.

Any Murco garage in the south west / east of England and Wales will be Ethanol free but we do supply the majority of our garages in the Midlands and North West from a non-Murco terminals so I would expect these garages to have Ethanol in the petrol but please double check with the site before fuelling your car/motorcycle.

I hope this is of some help.

Regards

Chris Blake

Commercial Marketing Manager
Murco Petroleum Ltd.
Westerleigh Terminal, Oakley Green, Westerleigh, Bristol. BS37 8QE

Fortunately I have a Murco garage only a couple of miles away from me, and it will be little inconvenience to fill up there as opposed to my usual place.

I like ethanol, don't get me wrong, but only if it comes in a bottle with something like 'Balvenie' or 'Aberlour' on the label. For the bike, it's Murco wherever possible from now on.

And if you see the legend 'E5' or 'E10' on the pump when you go to fill up, Just Say No, kids. Not that you are likely to see such a notice. The Government have decreed that they don't have to tell you.

Another Nail in the Global Warming Coffin

Via Cats, a link to this article:

Recent massive volcanoes have risen from the ocean floor deep under the Arctic ice cap, spewing plumes of fragmented magma into the sea, scientists who filmed the aftermath reported Wednesday.

The eruptions -- as big as the one that buried Pompei -- took place in 1999 along the Gakkel Ridge, an underwater mountain chain snaking 1,800 kilometres (1,100 miles) from the northern tip of Greenland to Siberia.

Scientists suspected even at the time that a simultaneous series of earthquakes were linked to these volcanic spasms.

But when a team led of scientists led by Robert Sohn of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts finally got a first-ever glimpse of the ocean floor 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) beneath the Arctic pack ice, they were astonished.

What they saw was unmistakable evidence of explosive eruptions rather than the gradual secretion of lava bubbling up from Earth's mantle onto the ocean floor.

A quick look at Google Earth reveals that the Arctic Ocean is in a basin, surrounded by land on all sides - Greenland, northern Canada, Siberia, northern Europe, and so on. So if volcanoes are erupting explosively in such a basin, and pumping out vast quantities of molten lava beneath the sea, and that sea is covered with an ice-cap, what do we think might happen to the ice-cap? I would imagine it would start to melt around the edges: which is precisely what is happening.

One of the 'unexplained' anomalies of the Warmist argument is that while the Arctic ice-cap is slowly melting, the Antarctic cap is actually growing (graphs and analysis here). This article provides a very credible explanation for the anomaly, and of course it is nothing to do with CO2, fossil fuels, the family dog, or any of the other guilt-inducing reasons they come up with for restricting our lives in the name of the planet.

So the polar bears can blame good old Gaia when they are plummeting through the sky and landing in our cities.

Any day now, I expect to see the Greenies organising risky but valiant expeditions beneath the polar ice to plug these evil volcanoes and save the planet.

Or, on past experience, demanding that you and I do it, while they watch and comment from the relative safety of the Rainbow Warrior. (And blow you to smithereens if you hesitate.)

The wheels are coming off the wagon.

What Will You Be Doing On 10/10?

10 October 2010, a 'Global Day Of Doing', according to 1010global.org.

Leaving aside the raunchier interpretations of that phrase (how do you make it last a day?), I wonder what we will all be doing tomorrow?

I have had two excellent bonfires of fallen leaves this week, during which I created enough smoke to fill the Millennium Dome twice over. But I doubt if I will have time to do that on Sunday. Here's my plan:

1. Monster breakfast at the café at Withybush Airfield, in the company of some fellow members of TOMCC. Black pudding, bacon, eggs, sausages, toast, coffee - how many sacred cows bite the dust in just one meal? And of course by eating there we are supporting the local flying club. Flying - the worst contributor to climate change, according to 10:10 director Franny Armstrong, although she is not averse to a lot of flying herself if she feels the need, of course. It's OK when they do it.

2. Ride-out to Tan-y-groes in Ceredigion. Only 30 or so miles, but I will be sure to wind it on big-style and create as many unburnt hydrocarbons in the atmosphere as is humanly possible.

3. Visit to the Internal Fire Museum of Power, for their End-of-Season Crankup, where we will enjoy a day of looking at various stationary engines going duff-duff-duff and generally creating noise and smoke. We had this visit planned long before 10:10 was announced, but it couldn't be more appropriate, really.

4. Swift ride home, killing a few foxes and badgers if they get in the way.

5. Massive bonfire if time allows.

I'm going to a harp concert (the plinky-plonky kind, not a harmonica recital) at the village church in the evening. It's not promising from an anti-environmental point of view, as I will only be sitting and listening, but I will try to think up some way to increase my carbon footprint while I am there. Perhaps I will set fire to some of the less-tasteful kneelers, or the vicar's cassock.

Whatever you do, make it smelly and noisy. And whatever you are driving or riding - give it some. No pressure.

More Green Hypocrisy

Thanks to the excellent WattsUpWithThat, I found this interesting video clip:

Not just the stinking hypocrisy, but the method of dealing with dissenters straight from the BNP's manual.

More on those damn bulbs ...

Further to the Greenpeace item below, it seems that events have overtaken me while I was distracted with something else. The import and manufacture of incandescent lightbulbs is illegal from today. There's something very shady going on here, ho ho. Charlotte Gore has a good article on it here and, rather than rehash it, I commend it to you.

Something good from Greenpeace

I generally regard Greenpeace as a bunch of dangerous scaremogering lunatics with a proven record of falsifying the facts to get their message across (like here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and many more, some of which are summarised here). But this piece shows that at least they have a sense of humour - or the publicity company they hired did, at any rate. I particularly liked the bicycle idea.




(As an aside, the whole business of these low-energy bulbs makes me very annoyed. We keep getting free ones delivered, without asking, from various sources, and I am told that 'proper' lightbulbs will soon be phased out altogether. I don't like the low-energy bulbs: they give a very cold and greenish light, they take ages to warm up, and they are full of very nasty rare-earth chemicals that cause horrible pollution elsewhere on the planet. But hey, they are 'green', right, so stop complaining. It's a shame that they are seen as the solution to the problem, as the technology to produce them is dirty, and in any case they are now outdated. LEDs use far less energy, and produce better light more cleanly. I guess they will be sending us free LED bulbs and making us feel guilty again in about 2020.)

Beaver goes missing

I know I shouldn't, but this makes me laugh.

The project to reintroduce beavers to Scotland was in disarray today after it emerged that one of the animals had vanished, two had gone on the run and another had died. Police are investigating in the first case after wildlife agencies claimed the beaver might have been shot.

So let's have a look at the evidence for this, shall we? Bullets? Nope. A carcass full of shot? Nope. Man seen shooting at beaver (quiet at the back there)? Nope.

A Strathclyde Police spokeswoman said the force had been made aware of the allegations and was investigating. She added: "At this time there is no evidence of a beaver having been shot."

No evidence. So why the dramatic headline: "Police called in amid fears reintroduced beaver shot in Scotland"?

Whose fears? Back to the first quotation:

... wildlife agencies claimed the beaver might have been shot.

"Claimed."

"Might" have been shot.

Come on, guys, you can do better then this. The police have found no evidence, but a "wildlife agency" (names, please) "claim" something, and suddenly it's headline news. It's either the silly season, or someone on The Times has a thing about beavers. (Be quiet, Thompson.)

I don't wish any harm to the little furry toothy things, but I regard this experiment as one of the more risible eco-mental experiments of recent times. Beavers died out from the area 400 years ago. It is not respecting nature, or Gaia, or whatever, to replace them artificially. It's just silly.

What next, buffalo in the Yorkshire Dales? There were some there once, I'm sure.

Wind farms

I hate them. Really, really hate them. Many reasons:

• I love lonely and remote places. Wind turbines desecrate them.
• Their contribution to our energy demand is unreliable and, even on a windy day, trivial.
• They consume massive subsidies, money which could be better spent elsewhere.
• The industry is dominated by energy giants who, like 'barn-fresh eggs', portray themselves as small, cuddly and eco-friendly but are as grasping and morality-free as Big Pharma or the arms industry.
  
• They are the visible symbols of a religion, one I can't share, and religions give me the creeps.

Travelling through mid-Wales, on all roads you eventually round a corner or crest a hill, and there in front of you is a fabulous, bare and (until recently) unspoilt landscape, which fills the soul and refreshes the spirit. Except that some bastards have planted white wind turbines from horizon to horizon. It makes me want to weep.

Soon there won't be any remote places left.

Simon Jenkins puts it so well in this article. Who would have thought I would be linking to a Guardian writer in this blog? A brief taster:

The wind debate is no less dominated by a mix of politics and commerce. Turbine parks require excavating carbon sinks, concreting them and making and installing turbines and pylons, usually to distribute small, even trivial, amounts of intermittent electricity. Yet the argument is now symbolic.

Sacrificing the Lake District, the Golden Valley, the Scottish islands, even the Wiltshire vales is like Aztecs killing virgins, evidence of the machismo of power in a godly cause. This is enhanced by a rerun of town/country antagonism, with metropolitan journalists shouting nimby at their country cousins (there being no danger of a power station on Hyde Park or Clapham Common).

Good stuff. I may well return to this topic.