BLOODY HELL !!! VEG OIL DEARER THAN DEISEL

Yeah, I've got a similar spreadsheet, but after the recent oil fillup I got, I've not checked the levels and updated the sheet. I'll do it once I'm back from this weekend's hols and see if I've been diddled!

Might have to look at using the immersion heater instead, or even moving to a gas system, no piped gas out here but the previous owners had a large gas tank buried in the garden, that was removed when a developer bought the house and sandwiched another house into the garden, as they do.

Mind you, on the other hand, it does mean I have large amounts of what could be used as road fuel at a much cheaper price, I might be tempted to do so if I knew what effect kerosene had on a 1.9Tdi Audi engine, or if I had to commute rather than make the occasional journey. I don't spend much on fuel due to low mileage so it's not worth me doing all these dodges yet.

Might even look into CHP systems, basically a small engine that drives an electric generator and uses the exhaust to heat the water for the house. The electric that isn't used by the house gets sold to the grid. Basically I'm chewing through close to 100 quid of electric a month at the moment..

I wondered about them too. Great in Winter, but how efficient would it be at this time of year, when you can't use the heat ?

Steve

It's close(*) depends what your unit price is unless you have E7, in which case the immersion will be considerably cheaper than oil in the cheap rate period.

Kero is marked yellow and has hidden markers as well, just like red diesel. I'm not sure how a car engine would react to kero but HMR&C wouldn't like it one little bit...

With your lecky demand it might be worth it but what do you with the heat in the summer?

(*) I have a very nasty feeling even normal rate (8 or 9p/unit) is going to be cheaper than oil rather sooner than we expected not that long ago.

On or around Thu, 22 May 2008 22:04:28 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

There is VAT on it though.

True but I'd rather HMG spent the fuel VAT windfall on energy conservation measures rather than reducing road fuel duty or even building a few nuke power plants.

On or around Fri, 23 May 2008 08:33:07 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:

yeah, well, they could do that, they could even (shock, horror) spend some of the money they garner from motorists on credible plans to improve public transport... ho ho.

There should have been a plan in place 10 years ago to rebuild a half-decent rail network. But of course, the government don't do that sort of thing any more, it's all privatised, along with the buses and so on.

Of course it's not a windfall unless someone other than the government benefits! Then they're fair game to be ripped off.

Yep, I'd go for that as well. The county council have just stopped the subsidy on any buses that go outside the county. The county council thinks that people only need to get to their nearest local center, within the county. The fact that Hexham, Penrith or Carlisle are all more or less equidistant (in fact Hexham might be a tad closer than Penrith) doesn't come into it.

I appreciate that running a bus with only a couple of people on it does not make sense but the alternative they point to is "Rural Wheels". How ever you have to apply for and have a "smartcard" before you can use it. It costs 30p/mile (might be 40), only runs 9-5 M-F and you have to book it by phone at least two working days in advance during working hours. And I'm not sure that'll run outside the county either.

I think Network Rail gets the vast majority of its money from HMG, it may be a private company but it's still publically funded. Not that that makes a great deal of difference no government for a very long time has considered rail to be an important means of transport. The road transport lobby has been much stronger...

On or around Fri, 23 May 2008 14:33:50 +0100, Dougal enlightened us thusly:

yeah, they're already making noises about windfall taxes on shell et al. To be sure, they did postpone a 2p+vat hike in duty. But then, that's less than they've already got in additional vat on the increase since about last November.

I've seen it suggested that there's insane amounts of money floating around in the futures markets, looking for "safe" investments. It used to be in real estate and US Treasury bonds. There's certainly been some funny stuff happening on the Chicago exchanges; normally the value of a futures contract, as the due date gets closer, reflects the difference between the nominal price and the spot market. Things haven't worked out, and the physical markets, which use futures to hedge against price variations, have been seeing more than the usual amount of money vanishing when the futures are settled.

This isn't Adam Smith's world any more.

Except ultimately it always is. The "value" created in the sub-prime market and manipulations of the financial instruments around it created "nothing"

Steve

ISTR that the CHP systems also have a conventional engine radiator positioned outside, so when the house doesn't need the heat, they vent it outside. That's from memory though so don't quote me on that!