 | | The Politics Show, Sunday at 12 on BBC1 |
It’s the ultimate Green Challenge. Tony Blair wants to make the UK Government “carbon neutral”. David Cameron wants a windmill in his garden. But can we tackle our aging camper? It’s 25 years old, born before unleaded, it’s not green – it’s purple! You could say when I accepted a New Years’s Eve challenge to run the Politics Bus on “planet friendly fuel” I was a brave man. First, we parked the bus down at Bristol’s green heart: Wildwalk@Bristol. We invited all and sundry to come tell us how to “chill our wheels”. Alcohol, gas, wind and dung were among the suggestions. You name it, we met it. But after a while, a clear winner emerged: BioDiesel. Alcohol is great if you live in Brazil where plenty of cars use it. And a pilot running in Somerset is testing “bioethanol” from Wessex grain in adapted Ford Focus cars. But you can’t just adapt your engine – it’s a rebuild job. Electric could work but only if you live somewhere hot, where the batteries run long, and you don’t mind keeping local. The “GeeWhiz” had a maximum range of just 80 miles in the UK – or 40 in the winter. And of course, it’s only green if your power supply is from a windfarm.
 | | The bus's green conversion was in Bristol |
“BioDiesel” is the new big thing. You’ll see loud and proud on many council vans and government vehicles now. It’s claimed to be “carbon neutral”. Here’s how it works. Simply put, the problem with petrol or diesel is that you take carbon from deep in the ground, and pump it into the atmosphere. The resulting CO2 forms the famous Greenhouse Effect. But plants capture CO2 as they grow, so if you can make oil from plants, you are just pumping the gas round in a circle. Right, BioDiesel it is then. Snag 1: My van has a petrol engine. By all accounts, the West Country’s top VW wizard is Arthur, from Kingswood. And when I asked him to rip out our tired old engine and “just pop a diesel one in”, you should have seen his face! First he had to find an engine. Nothing new of course, oh no – reduce, re-use, you know. “In the end, we got this out of a roadsweeper”, he tells me. Good pedigree. Snag 2: A radiator. My old engine was “air-cooled” of course, so there’s no radiator. This took months to find, but I’ll spare you the tedious details! Eventually, a radiator is bolted in right underneath the floor of the van. “Don’t take any low rocks, Dave!” After five months, a great day arrives – we pass the MOT! And as I queue up in the Post Office, I’ve never been so happy to pay my tax! Now, we’re off to fill up on the magic BioFuel The BioDiesel Hunt If you’re looking for Biodiesel, find a chip shop. Chances are, they are selling their used chip fat to an entrepreneur who’s turning into fuel. A fairly simple process filters the oil, which then turns it from sludgy cooking oil into nice strong diesel. I am filling up the VW thanks to a nice man in Stroud. Well, where did you expect the green revolution to start? Andrew Thomas runs “GoodFuels”, a small co-op garage in the Cotswolds. He has a steady trade of regulars, all of whom run normal diesel cars on his Biodiesel. It costs them about 68p a litre – a clear saving of 30p on the normal stuff. You can see why they do it.
 | | The Bus has visited London ... |
But there’s only so much chip fat in the world. If we are going to get serious about BioDiesel, we need to grow our own. This is where Oil Seed Rape comes in. You know Rapeseed as that yellow dash across the landscape in early summer. It grows well in the West Country, and yields plenty of oil. And turning that into Biodiesel is a double win: as well as saving the planet, we might save Europe millions in set-aside subsidies for farmers. Hundreds of farmers are now growing rapeseed for oil, to be turned into diesel in small refineries. But have a look at the breakdown of a litre of diesel – and spot the politics. 1 Litre of Biodiesel: 68p
Farmer – 26p
Diesel Producer – 15p
Tax – 27p In Germany, there’s no tax, and BioDiesel production is so advanced they already buy rapeseed oil from British farmers. “If the government thinks it’s so good, why tax it?” says Michael Easley, a Bristol based businessman who is selling Biodiesel to hauliers. My BioDiesel journey has just begun, and I sense there’s a lot more politics where I’m going…. | 
