PLANK said:
robbobone, i think you have hilighted the stupid and random nature of the new tax system!
its fine if you have a car that fits the new brackes but not if you dont!
unfortunately the veg oil argument doesnt hold water as it is not and environmentaly sound alternative in many ways, and basicaly produces no less co2 than diesel, the rin forest is being cut down to produce palm oil for bio fuels, and the production of crops for bio fuels threatens to throw the economies of several third world countries into turm'oil' (pardon the pun) and leave millions in a starvation level of poverty!
the so called 'greeenies' also makes me sick, i have an aquaintance, who drives a little renault and looks down his nose at our cars quoting his green credentials and talks with pride of his tree hugging vegitarian family, so his car is less poluting than mine? maybe? but he does 3 times the miles.
he lives in a solid brick walled victorian 3 floor house with wooden single glazed windows and holidays via long haul fligts i new zeland.
experts recon one long haul flight crates as much. per capita, polution as runniing an a verage family car for 7 years.
its time we stopped picking on the easy targets and looked at the big picture!
Veggie oil is carbon neutral though ie the CO2 it produces when used as a fuel is the same as the CO2 it took in as a crop - so there is a benefit that it isn't removing fuel from beneath the earth and relaesing CO2 taken in millions of years ago. Palm oil as a fuel is a no goer - its a solid at even quite high temps ie room temp. Yes, there is an issue of misuse of crops & land to provide biofuels in developing countries, however the sources of rapeseed & sunflower oil are largely north america & europe, so are not likely to be influencing outcomes too greatly in the third world.
The govt wants to increase the use of biofuels, but is removing the tax releif in 2010 - so using biodiesel would cost the same as dinodiesel - perhaps the fact they want to increase biofuel ussage has got something to do with removing the tax "relief"???
