Esso Synergy - progress strikes ?

It most probably makes it quicker to re-roll tankers from regular to supreme etc. Some fuels cannot be transported in a tanker that has had ethanol fuel in it unless it has been cleaned, I would imagine regular and supreme are compatible and no cleaning is needed between loads. 

I noticed this on the Shell pumps as well the other day e5 stickers

Oh dear, that is not good. The reason for renaming Esso Synergy Supreme unleaded to Supreme + unleaded; is + ethanol, making out it is of benefit?

Those stickers appeared on the pumps at my local station weeks ago. I emailed Esso about them and they replied that they have no intention to put Ethanol in their Synergy Supreme in the areas where it was already ethanol free. Which is a relief. 

Ian

I noticed my local Jet stations had new labels with E5 on all petrols including Superunleaded - I have emailed Jet petrol asking about Ethanol addition to their Superunleaded but have yet to receive a reply

Thank you Eddie for the clear explanation.  I have to take issue with you regarding "no laybys in the Sky".   This infers that we have safe laybys on our roads.  Not so.  The switching to "smart " motorways is a dangerous move , Surely we should now demand fuel as "safe" as Aviation fuel if we are to be denied safe areas to break down??.

Thanks Eddie for the clear and concise explanation of fuel containing ethanol, excellent.

Colin

Looking at the photo of the fuel pump that Peter McDermott posted it is hard to understand why the price of gasoline is so high in Great Britan....

If I have done my sums correctly the price shown as GBP1.45/liter (assuming in round numbers that there are 4 liters in one gallon) equates to GBP5.80 per gallon which further equates to US$7.42/gallon.

Certainly there are not of oil wells in Great Britain and most if not all of the oil has to be imported but,  this price seems way out of reason to me. Further, the cost of refining the oil into gasoline cannot be much more expensive than it is here in the U.S.  Are the middle eastern exporting countries just gouging the UK?  Or are they just getting back at the UK for all the exploiting that was done in the early 1900s?  

Where is all that extra money going?  Into the pockets of the Sultans that are running the various countries? More roads and thruways being built??  Is it just going into the general fund that is being used to run the country?  Or is just going into the pockets of the politicians?

   I am surprised that the motoring public has not made the UK politicians answer to this........

Mike

   We are being taxed to death, to allow the government to spend fortunes on aid and infrastructure, Its about time we had a revolution, which just may happen if Corbin and his Marxist cronies get in. Then we can have party member only shops for the necessities of life. Public services will collapse when the Unions run riot , The dead will not be buried and rubbish will not be collected (it happened with Labour before!) The currency will be devalued by 50% but that will be ok as the unions will get double wages for their members ,those non union folk ,pensioners etc can go without. Whats left of our industry will up sticks and go somewhere else. They will have to re- build  Hadrians wall to  stem the flow of population fleeing the communist state of England.  Lets hope its all a bad dream!!.  Oh No ,I read this morning that big utilities are relocating to Switzerland. Dammit,everything I say always comes true,should have kept quiet!.

Robert, this isn't the place for your worthless and ill thought out political comments.

Try imagining the senseless brawl if we all have our say.?

Just funning,   But I can fully understand it if your sense of humour has suffered over the past few years.

Until North Sea oil was available, the UK imported all its oil but had huge coal reserves. And WW1 bankrupted the nation. So oil was heavily taxed because it was all imported  and coal was not. Until the 1950s and ever 60s, many pump fuels contained benzoyl...obtained from coal at gasworks. It is the reason why UK bikes and cars have such small engines compared with USA.

So where would all this ethanol come from that would need to be added to fuel? It does not make sense to import it to add to fuel just to comply with EU legislation, which the last time I checked was 'can contain upto'

Remind me - just when did they become linked?

Good one Ian.

It is the same here in the USA!

It seems that a politician's prime motivation is to get re-elected. All other questions are secondary.

Mike

The environmental movement has given governments carte blanche to tax and hound the population 'for our own good'...If they want more money then they just have to think up a 'Green' name for the tax or regulation and suddenly it's O.K.

We're not the first generation to think it, but it must now be so that the Golden Age of motorycling truly lies behind us.

Check out the Esso website, it is still ethanol free in large parts of the country. 

Potholes were highlighted again in the Press, Gov't replied "We are putting £5bn into maintaining road infrastructure over the course of this parliament". So £1bn p/a.

"Taxes on motoring raise around £40 billion a year for the exchequer (around 5% of government revenue), equivalent to about £750 per adult in the UK. Most of this comes from fuel duties, which in 2019–20 are expected to raise £28 billion in their own right plus an additional £5.7 billion from the VAT payable on the duties. Another £6.5 billion comes from vehicle excise duty (VED) and £0.2 billion from the London congestion charge".

Institute of Fiscal Studies https://ifs.org.uk/publications/14407

So yes we as motorists are getting a poor deal.Those of you with long enough memories will remember that what is now called VED was once known as the Road Fund Licence.

" A vehicle tax was first introduced in Britain in 1888. In 1920, an excise duty was introduced that was specifically applied to motor vehicles; initially it was hypothecated (ring-fenced or earmarked) for road construction and paid directly into a special Road Fund. After 1937, this reservation of vehicle revenue for roads was ended, and instead the revenue was paid into the Consolidated Fund – the general pot of money held by government. Since then, maintenance of the UK road network has been funded out of general taxation, of which VED is a part.[4] "

Wikipedia.

Stan, how long do you think this good deal will last for? Not only do EV's pay no tax, they are also subsidised by the tax payer. I use the Green term 'sustainable' in order to say this can't go on and any number of things can happen between now and 2026, when the current International economic model comes to an end, so make the most of it.

The introduction of E10 I'm sure is a part of the plan to encourage greater EV use, though where the electricity is coming from on a still clear night I dare not ask. (Diesel generators in Glasgow recently) Even the establishment cult owned press are running articles on poor E10 economy and even engine issues.

You could say NO to E10, just as you can say NO to the pcr and the whole house of cards collapses. As they say in Yorkshire...There's nowt so daft as folk....(Not you Stan) 

Just as an aside, regarding cross-country fuel delivery; I live in Southampton, just within sight of the Fawley refinery.  Many years ago in my career as a freelance civil engineer, I was involved in a few construction projects in and around the "Oil Farm" in Hamble Lane.  It is a collection of fuel storage tanks from which road tankers are filled and it is across Southampton Water from Fawley refinery.

Working on the site meant a strictly spark-free policy so there was No Smoking and no naked flames - for obvious reasons.  Petrol pipelines crossed under Southampton Water to the depot and the ground around the electrical pump house near the shore absolutely reeked of petrol!  

Other pipelines from Fawley carry aviation fuel direct to Gatwick and Heathrow airports, so work anywhere near their routes is closely monitored by helicopters flying the routes daily and calling in on any work they see. The pipelines I saw were only about 8" in diameter and were carrying the fuel around 100 miles, so are at very high pressure - a bit like the inter-city gas mains that I have also encountered.  Work on the M27 Motorway, where the fuel pipes cross, was strictly controlled.  They are usually marked by reflective "tophat" V-shaped caps.

I wouldn't draw people's attention to such things.

Moto GP are moving to use fully synthetic fuels with no fossil addition by 2027 so we had best use our injunity to work out how to keep our old conkers running on that stuff. To me it sounds a better life line than batteries or hydrogen.

Peter, I believe what were humans will become by majority, synthetic around two years before such fuels come into play. Bill Gates (The Gates of Hell) is already investing in synthetic meat.

I mentioned taking CO2 out of the atmosphere above. Same man.........

Did you know that the second most abundant liquid on Earth is oil. Plenty to go round as mineral.

There are at least 3 inland oil producing sites in the south of England. One each in Dorset (Wych Farm), Hampshire (Horndean) and Sussex (Weald). I don't believe that the last one is active yet.  The Isle of Wight has a significant oil field beneath it but the Council won't allow this to be mined.

The link-up, in the early 70s, of the north and south ends of the North Sea Gas pipe was in a field just outside of Andover.

Due to the need for special Ethanol free tankers, Esso sometimes use a third party to deliver the Supreme version to petrol stations and .......not only just to Esso branded pumps.

Apparently there are still a number of active coal mines in the UK.  Possibly up to 4.

Thanks for this, Phil.

It would appear that some 'normal' economic activity is going on, on the quiet.

The ending (For now) of fracking and the cancellation of a new mine in Cumbria to produce coking coal to make steel, without importing this coke on the other hand are well known to keep the Green and build back better element quiet.

But I'm encouraged to know that other fuel might also be E0.  I think of BP Ultimate  that was, but for a long time will not admit to E0. They just say it's an evolving situation.

I think another alleged panic might help to get rid of huge stocks of E10 that is not so popular?       I wonder why?