Are people happy to pay more for renewable fuels?

steddyeddy

Ireland, like other EU countries has aimed to derive 10% of all transport fuels from renewable sources. Biofuels make up a large component of this commitment on the first of next year the percentage of biofuels in petrol will increase to 8%. This will result in an increase in fuel costs.

I work in a national American lab researching biofuels and I don't think this is the way to go. When they say biofuel, they usually mean ethanol and that usually comes from plants. There are far more exciting biofuels being developed and increasing biofuel % in fuels, without ironing out all the bugs in biofuel production, seem like a token gesture. Are most people happy to pay more to play their part?

snubbleste

No.

machiavellianme

No.

For Forks Sake

snubbleste wrote: »

No.

machiavellianme wrote: »

No.

Yes....


I mean No.

steddyeddy

Ask a stupid question, get an obvious answer :O

Fr_Dougal

No.

A large part of the cost of fuel is tax/duty. I would expect renewable/biofuels to cost less tbh.

The Backwards Man

The day I pay for a load of old wind is the day they prise the sod of turf from my cold dead hand

steddyeddy

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

No.

A large part of the cost of fuel is tax/duty. I would expect renewable/biofuels to cost less tbh.

Well they haven't perfected biofuel production. There's a lot of waste amongst othr things and the cost gets passed down to the consumer. When perfected or imptoved they will cost a hell of a lot less than fossil fuels. I don't think they should commit to putting them in fuels until they cracked it.

wakka12

Very soon it wont be a choice

Water John

Steady, you put out the teaser that your working in the alt fuel area. That looks like the route to go and not biofuels.
Biofuels largely pretend to be ecofriendly but require a lot of inputs.

Without giving away 'state' secrets perhaps you could elaborate on your field.

If you ask people to pay less for some thing, the majority will always agree without analysing the full implications. Just the converse of your opener.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

No. Why are taxes added to biofuels in the first place? What about the land used to provide biofuels that no longer grows food?

Eco-friendly my eye.

Grayson

Only people with more money are happy to pay extra for something. And then only if it's prestigious or better quality.

steddyeddy

Water John wrote: »

Steady, you put out the teaser that your working in the alt fuel area. That looks like the route to go and not biofuels.
Biofuels largely pretend to be ecofriendly but require a lot of inputs.

Without giving away 'state' secrets perhaps you could elaborate on your field.

If you ask people to pay less for some thing, the majority will always agree without analysing the full implications. Just the converse of your opener.

As you say biofuels require a lot of inputs. 1st generation biofuels used food crops to produce biofuels while 2nd gen uses non food crops. In both cases the plant biomass is usually chemically pretreated the seperate the cellulose from lignin. Then enzymes called cellulases break down the cellulose into simple sugars which can be metabollically broken down into ethanol by bacterial glycolysis.

This works and the process is just about streamlined, but there are problems with cost and the waste involved. Liginin, a woody hetergeneous polymer is resistant to degradation and hard to make anything useful with. Secondly, ethanol isn't the best sort of fuel to produce.

What our team are working on is a series of enzymes, found in various bacteria which can A: convert lignin, the 2nd most abundant biological material on earth to alkanes and convert long chain fatty acids to alkanes.

Alkanes are long carbon chain molecules such as petrol. In other words if we crack this we can produce something very similar to petrol from any sort of fatty acid. We can even engineer bacteria to produce fatty acids and then convert it to something like petrol which will be secreted

Long story short, some teams are keen on making ethanol from certain plants while others are working on using bacteria to make something closer to petrol from any sort of plant, wood or biomass. The latter would be far cheaper and more effective.

It's not a state secret unless I name the enzymes involved apparantly.

steddyeddy

Riya Loose Forearm wrote: »

No. Why are taxes added to biofuels in the first place? What about the land used to provide biofuels that no longer grows food?

Eco-friendly my eye.

That's one type of biofuel. Taxes are added to pay for biofuel research and its production. Biofuels have the potential to be a lot cheaper and the government would be making more of an impact by investing heavily in it.

steddyeddy

Grayson wrote: »

Only people with more money are happy to pay extra for something. And then only if it's prestigious or better quality.

True. Unfortunately biofuel addition to fuel is cumpulsory.

allthedoyles

Our carbon footprint has to be reduced by hook or by crook

Donal55

allthedoyles wrote: »

Our carbon footprint has to be reduced by hook or by crook

Tell that to the US or China.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

steddyeddy wrote: »

That's one type of biofuel. Taxes are added to pay for biofuel research and its production. Biofuels have the potential to be a lot cheaper and the government would be making more of an impact by investing heavily in it.

Just like the levies on wind power was to facilitate R&D. Many years on and they still can't make the operation self financing; and we still pay the levies.
Also, I have seen no Dept. Of Finance statement that the proportion of excise duty on fuel equal to the biofuel content was being redirected towards biofuel R&D.

steddyeddy

Riya Loose Forearm wrote: »

Just like the levies on wind power was to facilitate R&D. Many years on and they still can't make the operation self financing; and we still pay the levies.
Also, I have seen no Dept. Of Finance statement that the proportion of excise duty on fuel equal to the biofuel content was being redirected towards biofuel R&D.

Firstly the first statement is like saying why haven't they cured certain diseases many years on. The amount of money dedicated to a lot of diseases is many orders of magnitude greater than biofuel research, and biofuel production is extremely complex. Every step ranging from production of fuel to extraction is complicated. The process is there it just needs to be more cost effective.

And you'd have to ask the dept of finance about the taxes in Ireland. I suspect it's to do with the import of biofuels. It would make sense to produce them in Ireland.

Donal55

steddyeddy wrote: »

Firstly the first statement is like saying why haven't they cured certain diseases many years on. The amount of money dedicated to a lot of diseases is many orders of magnitude greater than biofuel research, and biofuel production is extremely complex. Every step ranging from production of fuel to extraction is complicated. The process is there it just needs to be more cost effective.

And you'd have to ask the dept of finance about the taxes in Ireland. I suspect it's to do with the import of biofuels. It would make sense to produce them in Ireland.

It could make sense to go nuclear but this country doesn't do sense. Just look at Regina and the interconnector farce.
Renewable levies are just additional taxes as far as I'm concerned.

steddyeddy

Donal55 wrote: »

It could make sense to go nuclear but this country doesn't do sense. Just look at Regina and the interconnector farce.
Renewable levies are just additional taxes as far as I'm concerned.

Well nuclear power wouldn't provide transport fuel. Unless you're running a Delorean

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

steddyeddy wrote: »

Firstly the first statement is like saying why haven't they cured certain diseases many years on. The amount of money dedicated to a lot of diseases is many orders of magnitude greater than biofuel research, and biofuel production is extremely complex. Every step ranging from production of fuel to extraction is complicated. The process is there it just needs to be more cost effective.

And you'd have to ask the dept of finance about the taxes in Ireland. I suspect it's to do with the import of biofuels. It would make sense to produce them in Ireland.

What???

It has no comparison with curing disease whatsoever.

You stated clearly that the tax on the biofuel element went to R&D on biofuels. Now you know nothing about it. Excellent. You couldn't make this stuff up. Oh wait... you just did.

steddyeddy

Riya Loose Forearm wrote: »

What???

It has no comparison with curing disease whatsoever.

You stated clearly that the tax on the biofuel element went to R&D on biofuels. Now you know nothing about it. Excellent. You couldn't make this stuff up. Oh wait... you just did.

Are you joking? Biochemical research is the keystone to both.

Yes I work for an American government state dept. Tax on biofuels in the states goes partly on R and D. I am genuinely clueless as to the Irish government's justification to tax. No need to get so angry about it.

allthedoyles

allthedoyles wrote: »

Our carbon footprint has to be reduced by hook or by crook

Population reduction is the only realistic way if you want to do it by hook or by crook!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

steddyeddy wrote: »

Are you joking? Biochemical research is the keystone to both.

Yes I work for an American government state dept. Tax on biofuels in the states goes partly on R and D. I am genuinely clueless as to the Irish government's justification to tax. No need to get so angry about it.

I'm far from angry but just flabbergasted when you said our excise duty went towards biofuel research when, as someone involved in the environmental field, I knew that to be patently false.

Why say something you know nothing about. We are in Ireland, on an Irish site and the taxes referred to were clearly in Ireland. There is no need to mislead people on the issue.


I'm out.

Water John

Population is not the problem. We'll peak at about 11bn. 30% of present day food production is not consumed.
We need to lower the impact of each individual on the environment. Actually as a pop gets wealthier it reduces the birthrate.

wildgreen

Expect the number of electric vehicles on the road will increase sharply over the next ten years. Environmental taxes figures are here: http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/eaet/environmenttaxes2015/ they are mainly energy taxes

Water John

Head of BMW predicts only about 20% EV in 20 years time.
I'd put him similar to the IBM guy who predicted that the world only needed 4 computers.

The main challenge is a fuel for the transport industry, lorries etc.

Fr_Dougal

Deleted User wrote: »

Population reduction is the only realistic way if you want to do it by hook or by crook!

That might be a solution...a final solution...

steddyeddy

Riya Loose Forearm wrote: »

I'm far from angry but just flabbergasted when you said our excise duty went towards biofuel research when, as someone involved in the environmental field, I knew that to be patently false.

Why say something you know nothing about. We are in Ireland, on an Irish site and the taxes referred to were clearly in Ireland. There is no need to mislead people on the issue.


I'm out.

Jesus bit of an over reaction. I stated you'd have to ask the Irish government about Irish taxes because I don't see the logic behind it.

_Kaiser_

From what I've read over on the Motors thread on this it'll cost more, give less mpg and increased servicing costs because of the effects the increased bio fuel could have on older cars

So no, not a fan

Fr_Dougal

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

That might be a solution...a final solution...

Yes it is the final solution, and some have tried it before, sometimes successfully eliminating entire populations. Then they replaced those people with themselves (their descendent in reality).

So for it to work, the population should not be allowed to "recover" afterwards.
I'm in a really bad mood tonight!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

steddyeddy wrote: »

Jesus bit of an over reaction. I stated you'd have to ask the Irish government about Irish taxes because I don't see the logic behind it.

Not until you were questioned on this statement when the question of it incurring full excise duty and taxes was raised.

Taxes are added to pay for biofuel research and its production.

.
Only on that being proven false did you stay to ask the Irish Government.

Don't twist it. We can all read.

So the question remains: why are we paying full IRISH excise duty on the biofuel portion of our petrol/diesel?

Capt'n Midnight

Donal55 wrote: »

It could make sense to go nuclear but this country doesn't do sense. Just look at Regina and the interconnector farce.

Nuclear, because massive cost overruns and construction delays means you have to spend bad money after good and at best you have all your eggs in one basket that can only provide base load power.

The fact of the matter is that you can't do nuclear properly on the cheap. And it's nowhere as reliable as it supporters would like you to believe. http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2016/12/29/10066294/the-french-nuclear-outages-of-2016-the-backstory/

Capt'n Midnight

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

That might be a solution...a final solution...

I have a modest proposal ...

Sam Kade

Deleted User wrote: »

Population reduction is the only realistic way if you want to do it by hook or by crook!

You first so, I'll stay around a little longer

Water John

Nuclear will be going with a different option to what produced all that Plutonium.

TimeToShine

Bio is a fraction of the renewables market. People aren't happy to pay more but the way the transmission and distribution system works in the ROI/UK/EU right now effectively doesn't give the customer a choice. EU sets directives, countries try and meet them, prices are reflected accordingly in bills.

TimeToShine

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nuclear, because massive cost overruns and construction delays means you have to spend bad money after good and at best you have all your eggs in one basket that can only provide base load power.

The fact of the matter is that you can't do nuclear properly on the cheap. And it's nowhere as reliable as it supporters would like you to believe. http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2016/12/29/10066294/the-french-nuclear-outages-of-2016-the-backstory/

Correct. Nuclear won't work here because a) it is way too large scale and b) it cannot be curtailed. There is simply no value in a nuclear power plant being built in Ireland.

Now when ISEM gets off the ground and we're connected to the EU market with their EUPHEMIA algorithm running things then maybe it might be in our best interest to invest in nuclear and just export the energy. Our first goal should be a 1GW interconnector between us and France/Luxembourg - Brexit means our only two possible export routes for energy are being routed through a country that wants nothing to do with the EU...pretty risky IMO.

Water John

Alt nuclear is much smaller and doesn't need the large shield build.

Capt'n Midnight

Water John wrote: »

Nuclear will be going with a different option to what produced all that Plutonium.

Not this BS again :rolleyes:

Thorium / U233 cycle was made public in 1946.
The Canadians were using Thorium in their Zeep reactor by 1947. 70 years a bridesmaid should give you a clue.

It's been used in full sized reactors since including THTR, Shipping Port and Fort Saint Vrain.

Despite the internet love-in thorium is not the fuel of the future. It's been around since the dawn of the nuclear age.




Reprocessing of nuclear fuel is bloody expensive. That's one of the reasons why there haven't been any real breeder reactors in commercial use.

The other is neutron economy. When a atom fissions you get 2.34 neutrons. For normal burner reactor you only need to harvest one and that's difficult enough or we'd all be doing it. For a true breeder you'd need to harvest two , one to make your fertile material fissile (eg: upgrading TH232 into U233) and a second to split that fissile atom. Way, way more difficult, like trying to double the fuel economy of an F1 car and still win races. To breed spare fuel to kick start a new reactor requires harvesting an even greater fraction of the neutrons, and that's a pre-requisite of rolling out multiple thorium reactors. And even if you could there's still the time it would take to do that. Years and years, and that's after the plants have been built, commissioned and debugged which for new nuclear technologies takes bleedin' ages.


They started building a new nuclear power plant in Finland in 2005.
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/14415-areva-s-foundry-suspected-of-forging-documents-covering-up-quality-issues.html

An international group of inspectors paid a visit to the foundry in Le Creusot, France, after local authorities had discovered that the foundry had supplied steel components that failed to satisfy quality standards due to a high concentration of carbon to several nuclear power plants in France, according to Helsingin Sanomat. The authorities also discovered documentation irregularities that raised suspicions that employees at the foundry had helped cover up the manufacturing and quality problems for decades.

Hundreds of possibly faulty components are consequently believed to have been supplied around the world.

Nuclear can't be done on the cheap.
Nuclear can't be done on the cheap.
Nuclear can't be done on the cheap.

Nuclear isn't quick , only the most optimistic would believe that the Finish plant will generate power reliably in late 2018, when many of the decision makers will be safely pensioned out.

Capt'n Midnight

Water John wrote: »

Alt nuclear is much smaller and doesn't need the large shield build.

More BS.

Hundreds of small nuclear reactors have been used safely by the US, French and UK navies since 1955 because they are willing to spend what it costs to do it properly.



They haven't been commercialised yet, because ...

You can't do nuclear on the cheap.

Too many people still have this in mind when nuclear power generation is discussed.

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Capt'n Midnight

TimeToShine wrote: »

Our first goal should be a 1GW interconnector between us and France/Luxembourg

If you'd looked at the link I provided you'd see that French nuclear isn't reliable.

Also how do we get an interconnector to Luxembourg ?


France is moving away from nuclear , the target is to drop it to 50%.
France has 25GW of hydro and also load balances with the neighbours and the UK.

During 2015's eclipse Germany lost 15GW of solar power and kept rolling.


There's a few countries like our neighbours who use nuclear as an excuse to burn coal instead of the more expensive natural gas. So you save on the fuel cost but still have the same CO2 emissions.

One quick way to move from fossil fuel would be to store surplus green electricity as hydrogen in the gas mains. Natural gas networks can accommodate a certain amount of Hydrogen without modification. The oxygen byproduct could be used at fossil fuel power stations to clean up emissions of nitrogen oxides or use lower quality fuel.

Water John

Well Electric Cars is a very old tech too. All things must be revisited with a fresh mind.

Considering where we live, on an island, we should really be looking at tidal lagoons for storing & generating energy.
Very simple tech that is very reliable as you can set your clock to when the tides come and go, only issue is that they have to cover a large area and are expensive.
On the plus side most of the initial infrastructure costs are a once off and zero pollution in operation.

Water John

We'll see how they do near Swansea on the tidal option.

Capt'n Midnight

Water John wrote: »

Well Electric Cars is a very old tech too. All things must be revisited with a fresh mind.

Very old, in 1898 the land speed record was held by an electric car.

The Hydrogen powered car with electric ignition dates from 1807.


The main advantage of a internal engine is that petrol or diesel is easier to store than hydrogen or electricity of the same energy content.

Steam engines used on land vehicles can't match internal combustion unless you are using at least double expansion so you need a bigger engine.