# Fuel!



## andycktm (11 Dec 2007)

Is anybody going to fill their fuel tank before Saturday,(not including the 10mpg brigade) ready for the protests?  
Not me 8) ..................errr where's the car key's :lol: :lol:


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## speed (11 Dec 2007)

eyup what protests? i'll be in the red by end o tmos so will be fillin up ne way, its 107p for derv hear


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## MrJay (11 Dec 2007)

Them protests. Not using any petrol myself, I can't say I'm boverd.

a) who are the 10mpg brigade?
b) why won't they need petrol?


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## andycktm (11 Dec 2007)

High fuel costs effects everyone,higher transport costs which the supermarkets pass on e.t.c.
The 10 mpg brigade will proberbly have to fill up before Sat anyway :wink:


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## speed (11 Dec 2007)

im glad im in the 50+ mpg brigade whoo

i better fill up in the morning then as im taking my advanced drivng test on firday and its my 21st birthday on sunday so the miles will rack up


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## White House Workshop (12 Dec 2007)

Fuel is too cheap and we're burning it up too fast as a consequence. The sooner it gets to its proper price the sooner alternatives will become economically viable. Stuff the 10mpg brigade, I'm blasting through on my m/bike.


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## Bodrighy (12 Dec 2007)

White House Workshop":39k2mpk5 said:


> The sooner it gets to its proper price the sooner alternatives will become economically viable.



What are the alternatives?

I live four miles from the nearest bus stop, 8 miles from the nearest town of any size and 20 miles from my place of work. I need a car with a reasonable bit of power as I live in an area that regularly gets cut off in winter by snow if you have a small car. Not all of us have the luxury of choice

Pete


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## Travis Byrne (12 Dec 2007)

> Fuel is too cheap



May the fleas of a thousand camels have a field day in your armpits :twisted:


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## Mike.C (12 Dec 2007)

> WHW,
> 
> Fuel is too cheap and we're burning it up too fast as a consequence. The sooner it gets to its proper price the sooner alternatives will become economically viable



There is an silly person in the real White House who thinks like that :lol: 

Cheers

Mike


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## Anonymous (12 Dec 2007)

First I've heard of protests - I'd be surprisd if they had any effect....


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## MrJay (12 Dec 2007)

Bodrighy":2jzt16il said:


> White House Workshop":2jzt16il said:
> 
> 
> > The sooner it gets to its proper price the sooner alternatives will become economically viable.
> ...



Electric.

It must be tough not being able to make choices.


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## Mike.C (12 Dec 2007)

Mr Jay wrote


> Bodrighy wrote:
> White House Workshop wrote:
> The sooner it gets to its proper price the sooner alternatives will become economically viable.
> 
> ...



I would buy a converted Ariel Atom (or the Wrightspeed X1) as they call it) if they were on the market but sadly it is a concept car and will never be put into production.

Cheers

Mike


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## Steve Maskery (12 Dec 2007)

Electric cars are not clean. They use electricity which is created by burning fossil fuels in large power stations. OK there is some nuclear and some green, but essentially electricity is a carbon-refined fuel, it's just that the emissions have already been made before the fuel is used.

I'm waiting for fuel-cell technology, powered by Green sources.

I know, dream on, Steve. :? 

S


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## Mike.C (12 Dec 2007)

Steve wrote


> Electric cars are not clean. They use electricity which is created by burning fossil fuels in large power stations. OK there is some nuclear and some green, but essentially electricity is a carbon-refined fuel, it's just that the emissions have already been made before the fuel is used.



Very cleaver Steve, I would never have thought of that one, and of course you are right. :lol:

Cheers

Mike


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## MrJay (12 Dec 2007)

There are production electric vehicles and no doubt will improve and become more available in the coming years.

With Gas, unlike coal and oil, the CO2 can be captured at source (it's pumped back into the bedrock to flush out more oil) and when burned at the power station, right now, using existing technology - the proviso is space, CO2 is about 3 times the volume of carbon and needs to be temporarily stored before being pumped back into some suitable bedrock. Given a suitably equipped power station Gas, despite being a fossil fuel, can be a very clean fuel.

There is no major technical hurdle to a new generation of relatively abundant, cheap and clean electric power.


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## Travis Byrne (12 Dec 2007)

I have been thinking about upgrading my vehicle, but it runs sooo quiet  
















What do you think?


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## Steve Maskery (12 Dec 2007)

Brilliant! Is that for real or a Photoshop job? Where was it taken?
S


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## PowerTool (12 Dec 2007)

Is it good or bad on methane emissions ? :wink: 

Andrew


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## Waka (12 Dec 2007)

Don't like to rain on anybody's parade, but with beer being at, or in excess of £2.50 a pt, I think for the distance you travel on a litre of fuel has got to be better value.

OK I'll get me coat


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## mailee (12 Dec 2007)

Oh I don't know Waka, you haven't seen me when I drink beer I must do hundreds of miles to the WC and back. Or is it my age? :?


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## Bodrighy (13 Dec 2007)

MrJay":1iit6ngq said:


> Bodrighy":1iit6ngq said:
> 
> 
> > White House Workshop":1iit6ngq said:
> ...



I also live in an area wwhere I can't get broadband so can't access Youtube. I work at a college that hads banned it's use so I am stumped there as well. Oh the joys of rural life  

Mind you I wouldn't consider moving into a town where I had to lock my cara, take the key out of my door and have to be careful of neighbours either so I'm not really grumbling. 

Could get a pony and trap but then I'd probably get done for littering if it crapped in town :lol: 

Pete


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## andrewm (13 Dec 2007)

Steve Maskery":2qgy5sz7 said:


> Electric cars are not clean. They use electricity which is created by burning fossil fuels in large power stations. OK there is some nuclear and some green, but essentially electricity is a carbon-refined fuel, it's just that the emissions have already been made before the fuel is used.
> 
> I'm waiting for fuel-cell technology, powered by Green sources.
> 
> ...



Are you talking about fuel cells powered by ethanol derived from biofuels or from Hydrogen? If hydrogen, as I suspect, then it is produced by electrolysis which involves electricity. That electricity will be as green or non-green as the electricity used in electric cars. The hydrogen is just an alternative (and lighter) storage medium to batteries. 

Andrew


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## andrewm (13 Dec 2007)

What exactly is it that these protesters are protesting about? I know it is the price of petrol but are they unhappy about the price of crude or the tax on it?

If its the price of crude oil, and it has doubled in the past couple of years, then they really ought to be protesting somewhere like Riyadh because it is OPEC who are the price setters in this instance. If they increased production then the price would fall.

If they are complaining about the tax on petrol then what would they (a) tax instead in order to keep the income to the exchequer the same or (b) what services would they cut to account for the lower income to the exchequer. Improving Civil Service efficiency is not a valid answer because you could do that anyway and the question would merely become what other taxes would you not reduce or what services would you not add/improve in order to reduce tax on petrol.

Andrew


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## Steve Maskery (13 Dec 2007)

andrewm":2caxc36e said:


> then it is produced by electrolysis which involves electricity. That electricity will be as green or non-green as the electricity used in electric cars.



Absolutely, which is why I said "powered by Green sources"


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## andrewm (13 Dec 2007)

Steve Maskery":g8i15k8s said:


> Absolutely, which is why I said "powered by Green sources"



What I was taking exception to was that you first said ...


> Electric cars are not clean.


 ... then went on to imply that fuel cells were. I was trying to point out that electric cars are as green / not green as fuel cells. It is all dependent on the original source of the required electricity.

Andrew


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## Steve Maskery (13 Dec 2007)

andrewm":18iu4a41 said:


> I was trying to point out that electric cars are as green / not green as fuel cells. It is all dependent on the original source of the required electricity.



OK, I see. Yep, no argument there.


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## Matt_S (13 Dec 2007)

The Tesla roadster in America....an amazing Lotus based sports car is electric with good performance and range figures. Apparently you can buy it with a solar panel kit making it near if not completely emmision free (in the use stage).

I heard George Monbiot suggest an infrastructure where stations are simply battery swapping points making electric cars more viable.


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## MrJay (13 Dec 2007)

andrewm":3rln5aqx said:


> What exactly is it that these protesters are protesting about? I know it is the price of petrol but are they unhappy about the price of crude or the tax on it?
> 
> If its the price of crude oil, and it has doubled in the past couple of years, then they really ought to be protesting somewhere like Riyadh because it is OPEC who are the price setters in this instance. If they increased production then the price would fall.
> 
> ...



Indeed, it's rather disingenuous to suggest that they're sticking up for poor beleaguered motorists everywhere when the hauliers gripe is the disparity between fuel duty here and on the continent putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Most of us aren't competing with motorists in Holland or wherever it is that Petrol is so cheap and will see no benefit at all from a reduced petrol duty.

Personally I'd rather see containers come over sans lorry and get loaded straight onto a train at the port; from whence it can wind it's way to vaguely close to it's destination before being picked up by lorry for the last leg of the journey. The idea of shipping each container over with it's own lorry attached when we have a mass transit system requires a special sort of madness.


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## cambournepete (13 Dec 2007)

MrJay":2z4tj1p3 said:


> With Gas, unlike coal and oil, the CO2 can be captured at source


And with coal and oil it's easier to collect the exhaust gases at source (power station) rather than on each individual car.


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## White House Workshop (13 Dec 2007)

Alternatives...

Fuel cells are one - there's a Honda available already that runs on hydrogen, but it's too dangerous to handle safely yet. The problem is we've all got used to the convenience of petrol - drive up, fill up, pay, drive away. You can't do that with hydrogen. Would you trust Essex Trev in his CorsaSDXL-GT-4V-4X4 and bar (with fluffy dice) to do it safely?

As for the electricity to produce the hydrogen in the first place why not use photovoltaics? The problem with them is the price - hence if petrol gets expensive then more cells will be produced which will bring down the price and make them more viable.

You can also use hydrogen to run ships, trains, planes, etc. The i.c.e. isn't dead by a long way, nor do I believe it will die but it'll change.

That's just one. There are other technology solutions; they're just too expensive compared to petrol - yet.

PS - petrol here went down 3p a litre the other day......


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## andrewm (13 Dec 2007)

MrJay":3uihihcx said:


> ... the hauliers gripe is the disparity between fuel duty here and on the continent putting them at a competitive disadvantage.



I've never quite understood this argument. If they are competing on international routes then they can fill up over there (and continental hauliers have to fill up over here when in the UK). If they are comparing purely national deliveries then continental hauliers are not competition. I would understand more if they were complaining about difference in vehicle excise.



MrJay":3uihihcx said:


> Personally I'd rather see containers come over sans lorry and get loaded straight onto a train at the port; from whence it can wind it's way to vaguely close to it's destination before being picked up by lorry for the last leg of the journey. The idea of shipping each container over with it's own lorry attached when we have a mass transit system requires a special sort of madness.



Compared to the UK much of the American rail system is pretty primative (apologies to our US members but you know it's true  ). However the one thing that I was constantly impressed by when I lived over there was how much freight gets moved by rail. It was quite common to see trains with four engines and 100 plus wagons. Bit of a pipper though when you get stuck at a level crossing while one goes through.

Andrew


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## MrJay (13 Dec 2007)

cambournepete":2xpzls4l said:


> MrJay":2xpzls4l said:
> 
> 
> > With Gas, unlike coal and oil, the CO2 can be captured at source
> ...



I wasn't suggesting using gas (the gassy stuff rather than the oily stuff if you're in the Colonies) as a fuel for cars; capturing CO2 from vehicle exhaust is plain silly - you'd need a CO2 tank three times the size of your petrol tank for starters. The CO2 from Gas however is capturable at source (the process of getting fossil fuels out the ground releases large amounts of CO2) and at power stations using existing technology today. There is no existing technology to do similar for Coal or Oil.


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## Taffy Turner (13 Dec 2007)

MrJay":33bdyme9 said:


> There is no existing technology to do similar for Coal or Oil.



I'm sorry - I don't follow you. Surely CO2  is the same no matter what source it came from. I don't understand why that produced by burning gas is any different to that produced by burning oil or coal, unless it is to do with particulates, but surely these could be filtered out?

Gary


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## Steve Maskery (13 Dec 2007)

Gary
The point is that if it is captured and stored it does not into the atmosphere, 

Of course, being capturable is not the same thing as actually being captured.

And not not all CO2 is the same. Well it is chemically, of course, but, for example, CO2 which comes from the biodegradation of foliage which grew last season is part of the normal, current carbon cycle, whereas the stuff thats doing the damage is being dumped into a very small time window, when it is really part of a much longer-ago carbon cycle.

S


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## MrJay (13 Dec 2007)

Taffy Turner":378ngfv6 said:


> MrJay":378ngfv6 said:
> 
> 
> > There is no existing technology to do similar for Coal or Oil.
> ...



You'll be needing to ask someone with some actual technical knowledge. Getting the stuff out the ground is obviously significantly different - what the differences are between capturing CO2 from a gas fired and coal fired power stations I don't know - but the technology happens to be developed and practicable right now for Gas, but not for coal and oil.


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## Taffy Turner (14 Dec 2007)

I understand the difference in extracting gas, coal and oil, and I understand the distinction between short term carbon cycling and long term carbon release, but I have not come across anything to do with capturing CO2 from combustion - can anyone point me in the direction of some more information, as it is a subject of professional interest to me.

The point I was trying to make was that all forms of combustion release CO2, I just was curious why that produced by burning gas could be captured, whereas that produced by burning other forms of fossil fuel cannot.

As regards zero emission motor vehicles, most so called zero emission vehicles are nothing of the sort as they rely on electricity to charge their batteries, most of which is generated by burning fossil fuels. They only start to become viable if we can sort out a source of clean electricity - for example hydrogen fusion, solar, tidal etc.

Of course, the other factor to take into account is that of the embodied energy. This means that if something takes more energy to make than it will save during it's lifetime, then it is actually less environmentally friendly than doing nothing. I read an interesting report the other day, that calculated the embodied energy of a Toyota Prius, and when the energy consumed in building and disposing of the thing was taken into into account, they are actually less environmentally sound than most 4x4s when the entire life cycle is taken into consideration, rather than just the running cost in energy terms. Similarly another study by the BRE has found that these poxy little windmills sold by B+Q actually use more energy in their manufacture, distribution, fitting and disposal than 90% of them will generate during their lifetime. They are only worth fitting if you live in an exposed area - fitting one in an urban environment actually does more harm to the environment than doing nothing.

Sorry to get into rant mode, but this is a bit of a hobby horse of mine - politicians poking their noses into scientific areas without being in full possession of the facts, and thus promulgating misinformation. :evil: :evil: :evil: 

Regards

Gary


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## andycktm (14 Dec 2007)

CO2 aside :roll: , i just hope they have got a reasonable clout behind them to get things moving 
It just get's me angry when they (gov. and petrol companys) take the micky :evil:


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## RogerS (14 Dec 2007)

White House Workshop":drnd5rue said:


> ...... Would you trust Essex Trev in his CorsaSDXL-GT-4V-4X4 and bar (with fluffy dice) to do it safely?
> .



No...but he'd only mess it up the once and just think what the improvements to the gene pool would be :twisted:


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## RogerS (14 Dec 2007)

andrewm":2pgnrexn said:


> ....
> If they are complaining about the tax on petrol then what would they (a) tax instead in order to keep the income to the exchequer the same or (b) what services would they cut to account for the lower income to the exchequer. Improving Civil Service efficiency is not a valid answer because you could do that anyway and the question would merely become what other taxes would you not reduce or what services would you not add/improve in order to reduce tax on petrol.
> 
> Andrew



Ooooh..can't let than one go unchallenged. You're making the assumption that the income that the exchequer needs is spent effectively ....as in about what, a dozen?, NHS re-organisations before the dust has settled on the last one? A war in Iraq?


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## beech1948 (14 Dec 2007)

Repeat after me.

The Government is my enemy. 
The Government is my enemy.
The Government is my enemy.

I am overtaxed. I am fined for non compliance for every thing.
The Government wates money but has an insatiable appetite.
Gov'mt TAX is now at about 53% of UK GDP and that is a scandle.

Any taxation which includes direct and indirect taxes should not exceed 30% of GDP.

Yet we the people don't insist that Gov'mt reduce taxation. D'oh!


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## MrJay (18 Dec 2007)

Taffy Turner":1dury9j4 said:


> I understand the difference in extracting gas, coal and oil, and I understand the distinction between short term carbon cycling and long term carbon release, but I have not come across anything to do with capturing CO2 from combustion - can anyone point me in the direction of some more information, as it is a subject of professional interest to me.
> 
> The point I was trying to make was that all forms of combustion release CO2, I just was curious why that produced by burning gas could be captured, whereas that produced by burning other forms of fossil fuel cannot.
> 
> ...



Sorry for the slowness of response, it's been a busy week. Regarding Carbon Capture both Wikipedia and Google will provide a wealth of information. There may be significant technical differences I'm not aware of (excepting mining the stuff, where the differences are plain to see), but I suspect most of it boils down to the Gas industries getting their R+D act together in a timely fashion, while Coal and Oil have not.

You'll get no argument from me regarding windmills; they need careful placement, sticking one willy-nilly on your house is as likely to save you money as it is to improve your reception for Channel 5 - assuming the lateral forces don't rip your gable end off. Solar, however, can be surprisingly useful.

The Dust to Dust study on the Prius on the other hand is pure and utter toss and has been roundly pilloried from here to Hollywood and back again. I could (Google does it better) remark on the lack of peer review, the cherry picked (and frankly misleading) statistics, bizarre assumptions, undisclosed methodology and sources or the simple fact that energy cost and environmental damage are entirely different things rendering the entire report idiotic anyway etc etc etc etc etc etc, but instead I'll simply copy the official company logo of the organisation responsible for the report below; which ought to tell you everything you need to know about their serious scientific credentials...







...classy.

The thing is, while government is an easy and often deserving target - they do actually have staff and expert advisers when it comes to 'scientific areas' and alerting them to 'the full facts' - something you and I do not and there's hell of a difference between peer reviewed science and the twaddle that gets popularly presented as research to you and me by the media. Assuming that you are in a better position to be aware of 'the full facts' because there was this thing on the internet/Daily Mail you read is likely to trip you up. And quickly. Not that I am aware of any politicians poking their noses into B&Q windmills or the environmental impact of the Toyota Pious.

*On Electric Vehicles*
Arguing that electric vehicles aren't clean because their electric charge is likely to have originated from fossil fuels is simplistic to the extent of being misleading.

Currently about 25% of the national grid is sourced from Nuclear or Renewables - already we have a significant improvement on the internal combustion engine.

Electric Vehicle drive-trains tend to be in the region of 5 - 10 times more efficient than the internal combustion engine equivalent. With this in mind, even if the electricity was entirely provided by way of fossil fuels, electric vehicles are suddenly in a different league regarding emissions.

Electric vehicles have the potential to become ever cleaner throughout their lifespan as the supply of electricity shifts from dirty to clean sources - petrol engined cars will forever remain a 'dirty' technology for their lifespan.

Jay


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## Taffy Turner (19 Dec 2007)

MrJay":2gmh8txd said:


> The thing is, while government is an easy and often deserving target - they do actually have staff and expert advisers when it comes to 'scientific areas' and alerting them to 'the full facts'
> Jay



Jay, I'm not going to bother responding to your sermon, as frankly I can't be bothered, as to explain the flaws in your thinking would take too long.

However, as I chair a panel that does advise ministers on certain aspects of energy conservation (as it appertains to the window industry), and have first hand experience of dealing with politicians, I will merely observe that your innocence is touching. Politicians generally are ONLY concerned with keeping their jobs - i.e. not losing votes. Everything else is subservient to this aim - consequently they respond to pressure groups rather than expert advice.

Gary


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## andrewm (19 Dec 2007)

Roger Sinden":2sz6ffhk said:


> andrewm":2sz6ffhk said:
> 
> 
> > ....
> ...



I would be one of the last people who assumes that government income is spent effectively, and I indicated so in the paragraph that you quoted. But that doesn't detract from the point I was making. You could indeed cut fuel duty and reduce the civil service to compensate. But you could equally make the same cuts in the civil service (or NHS reorganizations or nurses pay or anything else you can think of) and keep fuel duty the same but cut some other tax instead. That is a separate issue. So my question remains what would they (a) tax instead in order to keep the income to the exchequer the same or (b) what services would they cut to account for the lower income to the exchequer?

Andrew


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## RogerS (19 Dec 2007)

andrewm":8e23wsfj said:


> Roger Sinden":8e23wsfj said:
> 
> 
> > andrewm":8e23wsfj said:
> ...



I don't follow your line of reasoning at all. Where is there a link between cutting fuel duty and reducing civil service posts? My point is that the Govt spends money. They raise taxes to cover that (ignoring PFI as that's bag of nails). Agreed - if the expenditure is kept the same and you lower taxes in one area then you have to raise them in another. But....if you reduce the expenditure - as in don't renew Trident, don't invade Iraq, don't keep re-organising the NHS then you could reduce fuel tax and you would not have to raise taxes elsewhere.


On a slight tangent - having seen the price of the latest central heating oil - I have a gut feeling that it is cheaper now to heat our house by electric.


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## andrewm (19 Dec 2007)

Roger Sinden":1gy823yu said:


> I don't follow your line of reasoning at all. Where is there a link between cutting fuel duty and reducing civil service posts? My point is that the Govt spends money. They raise taxes to cover that (ignoring PFI as that's bag of nails). Agreed - if the expenditure is kept the same and you lower taxes in one area then you have to raise them in another. But....if you reduce the expenditure - as in don't renew Trident, don't invade Iraq, don't keep re-organising the NHS then you could reduce fuel tax and you would not have to raise taxes elsewhere.



Because it is essentially the same thing. Even if they are cutting expenditure cutting fuel taxes will be an alternative to cutting some other taxes. The fundemental argument is the same whether they are cutting expenditure or not. 

Andrew


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## MrJay (19 Dec 2007)

Taffy Turner":25tatkpm said:


> MrJay":25tatkpm said:
> 
> 
> > The thing is, while government is an easy and often deserving target - they do actually have staff and expert advisers when it comes to 'scientific areas' and alerting them to 'the full facts'
> ...



Actually, I think it would be polite if you did.


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## Digit (20 Dec 2007)

Wind power generation is another example of brains being unnecessary to be a politician. Brown was stating last week that he was going to ring Britain with off shore wind mills to produce 33 Giga watts of power. Based on the Dutch experience that would cost about 50 BILLION pounds!
Even if it is done we could not use 33 Giga watts of wind generated power.
When the wind blows at the most efficient speed the Dutch have to export the vast majority, meantime keeping other generating stations on standby for when the wind drops.

Roy.


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