Mean Green

In January it seems there are two things on almost everybody’s minds: New Year’s resolutions and shopping. These may seem hard to reconcile, but with the growing market of ‘green’ and ethical consumer products, it may actually be possible to combine the two and put your money where your mouth is in terms of those good intentions. Some of the most exciting developments for environmentally aware consumers in 2008 will surely come from a surprising source: motoring and car companies.

If you’re tiring of your current car – but you’re not ready to go totally green and trade it in for walking, then public transport or a bike (cycling, incidentally, is a great way to shift some of the ‘festive plumpness’ that’s often another top January concern) – it’s worth looking into the environmental impacts of various vehicles’ production and manufacture. Find out about the fuel economy and emissions levels of cars before you buy, and you could be doing a big favour to the planet, human health and your bank balance too: obviously, smaller engines with greater efficiency mean you’ll spend less on fuel while producing less harmful CO2.

Climate change has been the hot topic of the year, from dinner tables to boardrooms and from muddy campsites to Westminster and Washington. Even California’s Governor, one Arnold Schwarzenegger, previously seen saving the world from killer robots and Harrier-surfing terrorists, has added his distinctive voice to the lobby for cleaner, greener transport by setting ground-breaking goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the state. He plans to increase the number of hydrogen fuelling stations in California (currently 25) to 200 and create a ‘hydrogen highway’ there by 2010, making it a Mecca for owners of carbon-neutral vehicles like his very own, wildly inefficient and expensive but still hydrogen-powered, ‘green Hummer’.

Good news for green consumerism, then, which is big news on this side of the pond too – several hybrid and electric cars are already available here and there’s a fast-growing network of ‘biodiesel’ fuelling stations across the UK, with a mix of 5% biofuel to regular diesel already common thanks to the RTFO plan. The ‘half-way house’ in the shorter term is represented by small, efficient vehicles like the new diesel Mini and the funky Smart range from Mercedes-Benz, which both also happen to be pretty fantastic in terms of looks.

Another thing to bear in mind whether you’re looking for a new vehicle or just to cut the costs of your driving is car insurance – it’s vital to ensure this is up to date each year, as the law is quite clear that you can’t drive without it. The car you choose will affect your premium, as will many other factors like your driving history, whether the car is kept in a garage, and even having a tracking device installed (often included with satellite navigation systems) can mean a big saving. You can also often save by taking out car and home insurance from the same provider, or simply through a loyalty discount once you’ve found the company that’s right for you.

When one discusses biofuels, one is usually talking about biodiesel. Biodiesel is an amazing breakthrough in fuel technology that can save a person an amazing amount of money in transportation costs. With the current state of the economy motivating people to reduce costs and with the growing awareness and support of environmental responsibility, many people have turned to biodiesel as a way to not only save money, but to do their part to help the environment as well.

Biodiesel is a hybrid of standard diesel and vegetable oil mixed together at certain proportions that is capable of running a standard diesel engine. The fact that biodiesel is made largely of vegetable oil makes this fuel cost significantly less than regular diesel. Furthermore, many have found that the vegetable oil that they mix with the regular diesel does not have to be fresh oil, but can be used oil that fast food restaurants would otherwise have thrown away. People are usually able to obtain this used oil for free, which makes biodiesel even cheaper.

Once a person has the ingredients, it is possible to mix and refine them into biodiesel with their own homemade refinery. This is not a dangerous proposition, as long as the liquids are well contained, and is fairly easy to accomplish. There are an abundance of resources in print and online that will show one how to build an affordable biodiesel refinery that is safe to have in a garage, shed or on a porch.

In the early stages, critics of biodiesel complained that the chemical makeup of the biofuel was such that it would tend to clog fuel injectors and would cause fuel pumps to burn out. While this may have been the case early on, today’s methods of mixing biodiesel have evolved to avoid these problems and do not pose a threat to ones vehicle. The engine power and torque one can get from biodiesel is almost identical to regular diesel.

The emissions from biodiesel still contain a certain amount of hydro carbons and pollutants, but at levels dramatically lower than regular diesel, since the vegetable oil by products burn so cleanly. By running a vehicle on biodiesel, one can save a dramatic amount of money, many times over half of what they were paying to run the vehicle on standard diesel.

Loss of forests contributes as much as 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions each rivaling emissions from the global transportation sector. The Kyoto Protocol’s offset mechanisms allow credits to be given for replanting trees or establishing new forests, which capture carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. But the current policy regimen does nothing to prevent existing forests from being cut down in the first place.

With Kyoto set to expire in 2012, a new round of talks is under way to develop the next framework for climate change. Experts believe a policy to avoid further deforestation will be a major topic at the conference. But some environmentalists remain wary of forestry climate policy, fearing it will draw attention away from the need to reduce emissions caused by fossil fuels.

The world currently has about ten billion acres of forest. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) 2007 report on the world’s forests, the world lost about 3 percent of forest area between 1990 and 2005, and the net rate of loss has declined since 2000 (the world loses on average 32 million acres per year). Growth in northern hemisphere forest has helped offset tropical deforestation. There is disagreement, however, on the extent to which increases in temperate-zone forests offset the loss of carbon sinking in tropical zones.

Deforestation is caused by exploitation of natural resources, including expanding populations, logging, agriculture, biofuel production, and wildfires. Clearing forests for the production of biofuels is causing major concern, as experts contend that it has a significant negative impact on forests without doing much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The FAO report shows that the greatest overall loss is occurring in Africa, followed closely by Latin America and the Caribbean. Indonesia has the fastest deforestation rate of any single country in the world. When emissions from loss of forests are taken into account, Indonesia could be considered the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to a recent World Bank report. Indonesia recently has made a show of planting 80 million trees ahead of the Bali conference, but some question the country’s long-term commitment to slowing exploitation of its valuable resources, such as stemming illegal logging.

China’s rapid growth in the production of manufactured goods that need wood also poses challenges. The country’s consumption of forest products leads the world. According to Forest Trends, a nonprofit research group, China’s increasing demand has lead to unsustainable and sometimes illegal logging practices in many of the countries seeing significant deforesting activities, such as Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

China has a seemingly limitless appetite for cheap wood, says Don J. Melnick, a conservation biology professor at Columbia University. Products made from this timber often wind up in U.S. and European markets. Richard Z. Donovan, chief of forestry for the Rainforest Alliance, an advocacy group, says that right now China is not only adding to climate change by burning large amounts of fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gas but also by being a non-discriminating buyer of wood.

e to fully understand if there is a relationship between ethanol and biodiesel, it will probably be a good idea to learn about them individually, this will then help you get a proper understanding of these two biofuels. You will probably find that ethanol and biodiesel are quite similar in lots of ways, therefore, consideration should be given to both of them when thinking about alternatives to fossil fuel.

Ethanol information:

Ethanol is a mildly toxic,flammable and colorless mixture of chemicals with a very noticeable perfume like smell, it is also the same type of alcohol that you will find in your nice cool beer, however, it is simply referred to as alcohol.

Ethanol has been used by humans as far back as when the dinosaurs were on the planet, and even though it has been used for more negative reasons, such as explosives because of its volatile nature, it has also been though of as positive when made into alcohol drinks and other products. Ethanol has also been used as an essence to help illness for many thousands of years, and so this is also recognized as being a positive use.

Another point to consider is, ethanol is the fuel which is at present being considered to replace fossil fuels, this is a very important topic, particularly when we consider that we are in a crazy war with Iraq and this is a country where we get most of our fuel from.

So what is biodiesel?

Biodiesel is a fuel which is been considered as diesel replacement, it is a fuel that is manufactured from biological sources, such as corn, oilseed rape and sugar beet. Although both ethanol and biodiesel are normally mixed with gas and diesel, some of the newer vehicles designs can run on pure biofuel with only very simple modifications. Lack of consumer understanding of ethanol and biodiesel is a key reason for limited confidence in it, although this is starting to change world wide.

Ethanol and biodiesel relationship:

When thinking about the relationship between ethanol and biodiesel, probably the most important thing that should be taken into consideration is that these are the two main options that are being looked at with respect to which will be better for the environment overall. Ethanol, however is considered as being the better choice, and this is for several different reasons. It is also fair to say that biodiesel as many benefits as well.

On a positive note, production of alternative fuel in the US is putting hundreds of millions of dollars into the American farming community, so this must also be taken into consideration as well.

You would be forgiven if you thought that in these present times when world economies are slowing down due to a major banking crisis coupled with steeply rising energy and food prices that when a solution to a part of that problem is available the powers that be would support and promote it to ease the everyday burdens that now exist for us all.

For example there is a system which enables motorists to increase the fuel economy of their cars (or any vehicle) while literally steam cleaning the inside of their engines and hugely lowering carbon gas emissions to help save the environment and on top of all that leaves more of our hard earned cash where it belongs, in our pockets, thus easing the ever increasing higher daily costs of living; its called water to gas fuel conversion.

Instead of supporting the above system, governments including America and Brazil are pumping Billions into the production of ethanol,a so called wonder biofuel, (when Americans get it wrong they really do get it wrong.)

Consider this, even the President of the World Bank stated there could be a global disaster if the west continued to replace food crops with the crops for the creation of biofuels. He also stated that as a result of the doubling in the price of food over the last 3 years that this could result in 100 million people in the poor developing countries being pushed further into poverty.

How bad is the situation? The UK Guardian newspaper recently reported that in less than a year the price of wheat had risen 130%, soya by 87%, and rice by 74%, added to that is the U.N report that there are only 8-12 weeks of cereal stocks in the world, while supplies are at their lowest since the 1980 decade.

When you also take into consideration that a factory producing ethanol at the rate of 50 million gallons p.a. requires 500 gallons of water a minute, water that in some areas is a very precious commodity, you begin to realise what an all round disaster this production of biofuels from crops is.How much longer will they persist with this life threatening policy?

So why, why, why are governments not helping us utilize the water to fuel gas system for lowering fuel consumption, reducing carbon gas emissions to safeguard our environment and easing our financial burdens to make life that little bit easier?