There must be another solution to this. Perhaps we should look after our older relatives at home, within the extended family instead........
The 12 acre site is part of an old farm, done up by rich folks about 17 years ago. Its full of wildlife and trees and a large pond. Its all going to be destroyed for just some 200 rich old folks who can afford to live there among the manicured lawns and flower beds. The owners sold the 12 acre site for£12 million so have done very well out of it. Its wrong on many levels. The local area is short of affordable housing to buy or rent and local young people are pretty fed up with the situation. There is a lot of bad feeling around. The Police have suggested it should be gated to protect the elderly from the public and minimise crime.
So word on the street is some stations have labelled the pumps up E10 when they are not due E10 fuel while some time in September. Although i am now not as concerned about the hoses on the camper, i am concerned about the tank and carbs being affected due to the hydroscopic nature of ethanol. With super unleaded being 10-13p more a litre the cost of a fill up is going up big time. The alternative being the fuel additive works out even more expensive. Also when you take into account the increase in ethanol makes the fuel less efficient, that’s just another kick in the teeth.
Is it best to just get the expensive stuff if you aren't burning it much, from now on..to stop the sludge forming? I usually burn lpg and keep some backup petrol in the tank for now and again…gets a bit livelier on petrol for sure ..more energy density. What’s the reason for the change to E10? the EROEI on bioethanol is about 1:1.1 which is silly and always was. Thats 11 barrels returned for an investment of 10 barrels input. Not green and not sustainable (though they’ll sell it to us suckers as saving the planet or something ). Like tar sands and shale it makes no sense in energy terms unless its for a closed/war economy. Brent crude is about 10:1..Saudi used to be about 30+:1 Is it because theres not enough light crude getting into the refineries and they’re cutting it with whatever they’ve got?
Then there is a wood shortage not helped by the switch from coal to wood chip to fire our power stations, those wood chips are carbon of course and none of the CO2 emissions are captured, so is that progress and presumably it takes more wood than coal for the same heat output so they burn more of it. Although wood is a sustainable fuel, trees grow very slowly and couldn't keep up with the demand.
That Drax stuff is mad… when i get a train into Liverpool there’s always big long freight trains with Drax written on the side at Edghill (stationing yard on the fringe). They’re full of hardwood pellets from often virgin forests in the Appalachians… destined for the enormous Drax station, about 5GW which was converted from ‘dirty’ coal to ‘biomass’…not enough in the UK (but we got coal) and shipped across the high seas from the America’s using bunker fuel …makes no sense at all. Maybe it makes loads of sense and its me thats mad
I saw a tv program about the Drax power station, it was shocking and no attempt to capture the CO2 emissions. We are told to plant more trees but they are happy to cut millions of them down to burn just to generate electricity. Its all madness and short term thinking. With all our coal and gas resources, we may as well use it.
You can buy additives now to counter act the difference between E5 and E10 if your worried, Lucas and Millers are a couple I have seen. Personally i'm just putting the E10 in and if the s**t hits the fan further down the line I'll upgrade the engine (if I haven't done already) .
Cost per tank full of fuel it’s cheaper to fill with super unleaded than use the additive. However it’s worth having the additive for emergencies when you can only get E10. Also worth putting some in if you’re not using the van over winter. E10 won’t particularly cause any more wear on your engine, it’s just the fuel system that may suffer.
