Snapped Shot

The car - which is kept at Highgrove and clocks up just 300 miles a year - averages ten miles a gallon, the equivalent of 4.5 bottles of wine for every mile.

At £1.10 a litre, the bioethanol is only slightly cheaper than conventional petrol, but is estimated to produce 85 per cent less carbon dioxide.

So, it takes 4.5 bottles of wine to make enough ethanol to go one mile?!?!?!? If a bottle of wine is 750mL, then 4.5 bottles equals 3375mL, or 3.375 liters. That comes to $3.7125 pounds per mile. Or, since it now ONLY gets 10 miles per gallon, (4.55liters) then he is spending .... wait. something is screwy here.

Ok, let's go over this again:
(A) The car goes 10 miles for each gallon (or 4.55 liters and .455 liters per mile).
and...
(B) The car takes 3.375 liters to go one mile (recall 4.5 bottles of wine for each mile).

So, it burns 3.4 liters the first mile and then coasts on 1.15 liters for the remaining 9 miles?

Ok, wouldn't leaving the car as petrol allow it to get at least 20 miles per gallon? Ok, maybe the older car got worse gas mileage. According to this website, petrol is also $1.10 pounds per liter. And, how much does it cost to make ethanol out of wine and how long? I still do not see this as an economical alternative. Unless you are a Prince of a wealthy nation that is. Distilling is not cheap. Also, doesn't distilling and fermenting of the grapes into wine release tremendous amounts of CO2?

It would seem that according to UK's own research, ethanol production, transportation and combusion only produces 17grams MORE CO2 than gasoline. Their research also showed that ethanol production from corn also releases more Volatile Organic Compounds compared to petroleum production.

Some reports only show about a 20%-40% reduction of CO2 when burning ethanol compared to petroleum. But, according to UK, using sugar based products to produce ethanol, reductions can be reached up to 85% less CO2. But, how much more food are we going to take away from starving people to fuel arrogant and overly-cashed people's cars??

A study from Stanford last year:

...found that ethanol-burning cars could boost levels of toxic ozone gas in urban areas, but that Los Angeles residents would be by far the hardest hit because of the city's reliance on the automobile and environmental factors that tend to concentrate smog there.

His study showed that the city would experience a 9 percent increase in the rate of ozone-related respiratory deaths -- 120 more deaths per year -- compared with what would have been projected in 2020 assuming continued gasoline use.

Pollution from ethanol would be riskier than pollution from gasoline because when ethanol breaks down in the atmosphere, it generates considerably more ozone.

Also, there may be less CO2 released, but more carcinogens are released:

"The burning of ethanol releases large quantities of ozone, a serious air pollutant," he said. "In addition, the use of ethanol as a fuel releases formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, plus benzene and butadiene. All of these are carcinogens and are a threat to public health."

Now you ask, why are they wasting good English wine (cough) to just burn it up in a car that has no clue about how much it costs to operate?

Its owners bottle all they can, but cannot produce more than their EU quota. Rather than destroy the excess, the vineyard now sells it to the Gloucestershire biofuels supplier Green Fuels, where it is distilled.

Based on some fuzzy, fascist EU quota, companies are only allowed to make products within a quota?!? Please try and convince me that this is not a fascist state. Imagine trying to tell Microsoft or Coca-Cola that they can only produce their product under a quota. If customers want more, too bad. However, I LOVE the ingenuity of the vineyard to go around the quota and sell the wine anyway. Now that is capitalism at its best. you can bet though, that the EU will stop this practice real soon.