Fuelture has spoken about Eco-fuel, eco-driving tips, so why should we not mention eco-car insurance. Treehugger has written a piece on Ecoinsurance, the first UK insurance company that offsets CO2 emissions for no extra cost. Ecoinsurance support reforestation projects (as does Fuelture), renewable energy sources and third world education schemes. Ecoinsurance also offers tax Band A drivers a further 10% off the insurance policy and repair vehicles using recycled materials.
The car world is definately becoming much more eco-aware, and eco-ventures such as ecoinsurance should be praised for their efforts!

On August 5th “Stuff.co.nz” reported that the Kiwi’s have launched a dual-fuel Holden Commodore in New Zealand. The LPG Holden has come from Australia, where LPG is very common and the market is well developed. New Zealander’s are being educated on LPG, highlighting the environmental benefits along with the financial upside of running your car on LPG. Stuff reported that:

“The system is so efficient it is able to mimic the engine’s petrol injection sequence, and that means power and torque figures when on LPG are close to those when on petrol - in other words, there is no performance loss.”

The dual-fuel Holden does cost NZ$7150 more than the petrol model which is around £2,300. However, LPG is less than half the cost of petrol in New Zealand as it is in the UK, Europe, Australia and the States, so the overall cost saving is still worth the extra initial cost, especially when you consider how beautiful the New Zealand landscape is… why would anyone damage this?

Wonderful advertising piece.

I noticed over the weekend that the cost of petrol is now 99.9p in some parts of the UK. How can anyone afford this?

The fuel duty on petrol was 47.1p last summer (published by the BBC), due to the devastating effects that Hurricane Katrina had on the US oil production. Today’s headlines told us that BP has been forced to close one of it’s largest oil fields due to a leak in a pipeline; what effect will this have on the cost of fuel? The closed oil field was responsible for 8% of US daily oil production, producing 400,000 barrels a day at $77.10 per barrel. Company Spokesman, Darren Beaudo stated:

“We don’t know how long the field will be down but we will not resume operation of the field until we and government regulators are satisfied that they can be operated safely and pose no threat to the environment.”

This US oil field closure could potentially affect the cost of our fuel. With LPG users having security over low fuel duty they are less at risk from external threats on the cost of Gas. Is it time for your car to have an LPG Conversion?

The BBC has reported who our biggest green house gas emitters are, and the US has taken top spot. In 2001, Presindent Bush stated that “the US would not ratify Kyoto because he thought it would damage the US economy and because it did not yet require developing countries to cut their emissions.” Bush believes that he backs energy efficiency, although only on a voluntary basis.

Europe ranked in at number two, however there is evidence that the EU is taking an active stand on combating climate change. For example, Euro-emission standards, congestion charging, eco-driving practices and smog restrictions.

Scientist, Professor Rees feels that we are not standing up to the challenges of global warming and are “neither sufficiently reducing carbon dioxide emissions, not investing enough in developing the technologies that would reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.”