Fine Gael's Green energy plan

Akrasia

Some good ideas in there, could go farther than 500 million, no mention of the giving individuals access to the ESB grid or any promotion of personal wind or solar generators.

here are the main points.

· Removal of all excise duty on bio fuels produced from renewable energy crops,

· Targeted grants of between €500 and €3,500 to encourage householders to convert to renewable energy for home heating,

· Reforming the VRT system through the establishment of energy efficient labelling for motor vehicles with lower and higher rates of VRT for fuel efficient and inefficient vehicles respectively.


· Provide seed capital for bio-fuel producer groups who would be chosen, through public competition, to operate a selected number of bio fuel processing plants.

· Create a market for bio fuels by legislating that all motor fuels must include a blend of fuel from renewable sources. All petrol sold will include a 5% bio ethanol mix and all diesels would contain a 2% bio diesel mix.

· Require all public transport vehicles and public service vehicles to convert, where practical and feasible, to forms of bio fuel.

· Establish a Centre of Excellence for Alternative Energy charged with ensuring Ireland develops a world class alternative energy sector

· Amend the National Spatial Strategy to include major renewable energy infrastructure projects

· Provide for a “community dividend” to act as “compensation” for those living close to important infrastructure that aids the entire country reach its Alternative Energy commitments

SeanW

Sounds like a good bit of electioneering but I'm willing to give it some slack.

They can't be any worse than the current lot. It's known that some of the CIE companies are interested in biofuels, such as Dublin Bus, but their approach - to mix Pure Plant Oil into Petrodiesel to an amount of 5% is fundamentally flawed.

Firstly, 5% isn't a whole lot, but secondly, PPO doesn't work in diesel engines without major modifications and even adding 5% to the mix could cause trouble especially in winter weather. They should be looking at BioDiesel, which is PPO but with the glycerin and other impurities taken out to make a substance similar chemically to petro-diesel but without all the cr*p that's in petrodiesel.

josephd

Caveat Lector
Take this or leave it, but a local mechanic claims that vegetable oil will work just fine in a conventional diesel engine?
He is not a chemist but no ordinary mechanic either.

Anyway, he went on to comment that there may be problems with starting such an engine, in winter time. And that one should mix anything up to 8% of petrol through the vegetable oil.

That aside, one guy is currently "burning" 100% vegetable oil in his '06 landcruiser and another in his '98 vauxhall/opel or whatever it is.
They don't report any problems yet and the "vauxhall" has gone through the last winter without any other additives.
We'll see, but yes, the government vehicles should lead an example by using bio fuels (like some police in England. Is it Avon?) and excise should be dropped immediately.
Will it be dropped? It may not be in their short term interests, as they may see it.

Solar cells there is a bit on it there, but it would seem that there is a profound difference between solar panel types, as there is a profound difference in the type of light energy which might meet them.

Is there a specification with the recently alotted grants, does anyone know?

ednwireland

i think deisels need a pump and jet change cos the oil is thicker than deisel a mate got a military kit from vw in germany for an old lt van (cheaper than buying locally) it'll now run on veg oil - he's done it

AdrianR

Diesel engine can run fine on vedgetable oil, however the vedgetable oil has to be heated to lower the viscosity to make it behave more like diesel, heat from the engine can be used to heat the vedgetable oil. To use vedgetable oil like this you will still need to start the engine on diesel and once the veg oil is vscus enough you can switch over to veg oil, so you need two fuel tanks, you will also need to switch back to diesel before switch off to flush out the veg oil as it will cause problems starting the next time. Kits can be bought on the web to convert a car and any diesel car can be run on veg oil in this way.

From what I understand, To run on 100% veg oil i.e. ability to start on veg oil even on cold weather requires a much more complicated and expensive conversion, which is what ednwireland is referring to above.