Cars
Air Con or No
At first glance, it would seem that opening the windows of your car would definitely save more fuel than using the air conditioning.
Nic does his bit
Sorry to disappoint, EarthMums, but I'm not talking about our Nic. Hahaha. I'm talking about French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who announced yesterday that his government will mobilise 400 million euros of public money exclusively for research and development on non-carbon vehicles.
United Selling Ethanol - cheaper, better, cleaner
IN a sharing mood... I stopped at the United petrol station in Patterson Lakes (of all places! Kath and Kim is filmed in its gauche suburban streets) and I find a bowser with 10% ethanol, at a higher octane level and, this is the kicker, 4 cents cheaper than the other stuff!
Finally oil is becoming more expensive than alternatives. It's a small step, but it felt good.
Evangelising Bio-fuels
Someone recently forwarded me one of your campaign emails, encouraging people to contact Safeway and have them switch to biodiesel. I know this sounds like a great idea, but I wanted to make sure earthmums has considered all the downsides of biofuels before encouraging its members to adopt and evangalise biodiesel.
This is the short version, courtesy of wikipedia:
The locations where oil-producing plants are grown is of increasing concern to environmentalists, one of the prime worries being that countries will clear cut large areas of tropical forest in order to grow such lucrative crops, in particular, oil palm. This has already occurred in the Philippines and Indonesia; both countries plan to increase their biodiesel production levels significantly, which will lead to the deforestation of tens of millions of acres if these plans materialize.
Loss of habitat on such a scale could endanger numerous species of plants and animals. A particular concern which has received considerable attention is the threat to the already-shrinking populations of orangutans
on the Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra, which face possible extinction.[26]
If you're interested in reading more, and addressing the complex issue of sourcing sustainable biofuels, there's more here: Biofuelwatch.org.uk
BP and their not-so-clean clean diesel
I picked this brochure up in my local BP the other day titled "Our diesel will soon be 80% cleaner".
Terrific! I thought. If this stuff is any good, I'll trade in the Holden for a diesel.
A quick read of the pamphlet revealed a great disappointment. BP have reduced their sulphur content by 80%.
environment friendly family car
First I'd like to congradulate you on your idea and for completing this website, excellent concept, fantastic idea. Best of luck with it all coming together.
I have lots of ideas which I look forward to passing on to you... however I got a very broken 5 - 6 hour sleep last night though as I have a 5 week old so my brain doesn't seem to be functioning too well this morning!
Anyway enough of my rabitting on...
We have just had our 3rd child (all boys!) and have outgrown our current car. So we're in the market for a large family car ie Ford/Commodore. We'd like to buy a car that uses alternative fuel but I'm finding it to hard to get info that compares LPG & the new eco deisel fuel. Do you know of any sites where I can get some unbiased detailed info?
Thank you
Nina
