Mercedes to Ditch Petrol? Discuss

I admit my ambiguous title. I was trying to quote the story without elaborating to draw people in.

I think the point is that the Ethanol is produced from, more or less, Sugar. I'm not sure if they meant an Ethanol mix or 100% Ethanol as a fuel, though.
 
It kind of makes sense. The amount of petrol cars they sell at the moment has probably stopped so dramatically, that this is an obvious outcome.

Wonder if the other german marques will follow.

Wonder when we'll see the first diesel M series.
 
Yes use Bio fuel.

Remove the Rain forrests from around Asia Destroying CO2 sucking plants and trees and removing animal habitats turning them into a place to grow whats needed to create bio fuel.

Great idea :rolleyes:
 
Zip said:
Yes use Bio fuel.

Remove the Rain forrests from around Asia Destroying CO2 sucking plants and trees
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Sugar cane (AFAIK the best way to make ethanol) won't grow in sandy rainforest soil.

Plus, it is a plant... as it grows it's photosynthesizing...

Look at ethanol fuel in brazil..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_brazil

Ethanol can be produced in Brazil for $0.83/gallon, which isn't too shabby.
 
daz said:
Sugar cane (AFAIK the best way to make ethanol) won't grow in sandy rainforest soil.

Plus, it is a plant... as it grows it's photosynthesizing...

Look at ethanol fuel in brazil..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_brazil

Ethanol can be produced in Brazil for $0.83/gallon, which isn't too shabby.
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Still removes habbitat.

A quick way for soem countrys to make some money. Remove the habbitat and grow soem sugar cane
 
Zip said:
Yes use Bio fuel.

Remove the Rain forrests from around Asia Destroying CO2 sucking plants and trees and removing animal habitats turning them into a place to grow whats needed to create bio fuel.

Great idea :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That needn't be the way it happens. We have enough waste that can be recycled as it stands (cooking oils and the like).

In any case, selling Wheat to a Petroleum company is only going to offer larger business incentives for the existing farmers. We already have thousands upon thousands of acres of farmland (we = Earth) growing Wheat. It's currently sold to who.. cereal companies? and manufacturers of few other products that contain it. It's just opening the market to a product that already exists, not rerolling the earth from scratch.
 
..and pushing food prices to oblivion in the process, rather than using the hugely abundant natural resource of oil :/
 
Zip said:
Still removes habbitat.

A quick way for soem countrys to make some money. Remove the habbitat and grow soem sugar cane
Click to expand...

Sugar has always been a cash crop - if land isn't already dedicated to growing sugar cane then it's probably not suited to producing it.
 
DampCat said:
Food prices are going to be pushed to oblivion anyway, so you may aswell accept that little chestnut now.
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Try pay for it when you have food companys having to fight off the oil companys for the sugercane.


Ethanol is a crap idea and will cause more problems then it solves(like it will solve anything anyway)
 
Zip said:
Try pay for it when you have food companys having to fight off the oil companys for the sugercane.
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Sugarcane isn't even a staple food. People aren't going to go hungry because sugar goes up in price.
 
I hardly think we're accelerating it by using existing crops. I'd happily give up weetabix for cheaper fuel.

In any case, any mandatory change is going to be met with open arms by multinational companies willing to exploit people for huge sums of money. You could change fuels from Petrol to Ice (obviously not true, it's an example) and they'd claim a rise in the cost of water meaning the have to mark up products.

There are many benefits to using a renewable crop as a fuel source. The least of my worries is the price of food, which would rise anyway as petroleum sources "depleted", oil companies started exploited prices, and supermarkets have to charge more to compensate for their profits falling from 50000% to just 45000% after shipping from manufacturers to their shelves.
 
daz said:
Sugarcane isn't even a staple food. People aren't going to go hungry because sugar goes up in price.
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Sugarcane isnt but suger is almost in EVERYTHING these days.

People in some places have removed food crops and replaced them for sugar cane aswell. which lowers the ammount of food production.
 
Zip said:
Sugarcane isnt but suger is almost in EVERYTHING these days.

People in some places have removed food crops and replaced them for sugar cane aswell. which lowers the ammount of food production.
Click to expand...

That's their perogative as an income. It's not the car manufacturers fault for changing fuels. They dont HAVE to grow Sugarcane, they choose to, because it makes them the most money.
 
If brazil can produce a gallon of ethanol for $0.83, that converts to the equivalent of a barrel of oil (approximately 160 litres) to $35 a barrel. Ethanol doesn't produce as much energy as petroleum, I believe it's something like 50% less per litre. So using those numbers, you're looking at $70 for 2 barrels of ethanol... obviously a barrel of crude oil can't be entirely turned into petroleum either... at current prices, it makes sense to use fuel from renewable sources as much as we can.

The government is bringing in E5 soon i believe, so 5% of your "petrol" you're pumping will contain ethanol from such sources.
 
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