Slightly off topic – more environment and less car – but I have just read that my provider is promoting CO2-free websites.

To be precise, they have switched their server farm over to regenerative energy. The electricity that they use is being being powered by hydroelectric generators and should apparently save 15,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.

I’m sure that many readers will remember the days when petrol stations had attendants that put the petrol into the tank for you – before the days when “self service” became the modern way of filling up.

Well, perhaps we are going to return to that kind of service. I’ve been fascinated today by a video of a petrol station in the Netherlands, that uses a robot arm to fill up the cars.

The robot knows from the type of car how to open the petrol cap, and presumably whether or not to put diesel in. I wonder how it copes with bio-ethanol?

It looked rather slow at the moment, so I guess the queues at the petrol station near here would just get longer. I also didn’t see anywhere to pay for the petrol – does the robot arm swipe your credit card as well?

As fascinating as it is, I’m still not too sure what to make of it all. It may be nice not to have to get out of your car, but it doesn’t help the unemployment figures!

Tonight I read about London’s new “low emission” zone on the BBC News website.

Germany has been talking about such schemes for a while now, indeed they started issuing the discs last year and I have a green one in my bio-ethanol car. But until now it has been up to the individual towns and cities to decide to implement the scheme. At the start of this year, some of them did – causing discussion amongst the population of the affected cities.

I myself will be travelling to one of these soon (Cologne), so I shall see for myself it it has had an impact.

But back to London – the scheme seems to be more controlled than the German ones, but covers less vehicles.

For a start, cars are exempt to the London scheme – they are not in Germany. In fact, even foreign cars have to get their discs before entering the zones.

On the other hand, the London scheme is being policed by CCTV cameras – something that German cities do not have in such numbers, and even those that do have them cannot, as far as I know, use them to this particular cause.

Critics of the scheme will no doubt sight the cost of upgrading vehicles, something that has been discussed in Germany as well.  Whilst this is definitely a valid point, and Germany has made a number of exceptions for residents to avoid the issue, it’s got to be a good way to start reducing the emissions on our roads, hasn’t it?

Something interesting has happened at petrol stations in Germany in the last few weeks – the price of the “normal” (91 octane) petrol has been brought into line with “super” (95 octane) fuel.

Speculation followed in the German press, that the petrol stations wanted to phase out the lower grade fuel to make space for other products, and so had raised the price to persuade consumers to switch to the next alternative. Indeed, in a number of European countries 91 octane fuel is no longer available.

And whilst some cars being sold in Germany state in their manuals that they should be filling up with the “normal” petrol, others fill up with it just to save money.  But now some petrol stations have stopped selling it altogether.

Of course, it would be nice if they used this extra capacity to sell something new, such as bio-ethanol. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that they will just use it to sell more “super” or even 98/100 octane fuels.  Just imagine what effect it would have if one of the major chains starting selling bio-ethanol nationwide!

There is, however, a glimmer of hope.  I was in Frankfurt last night and spotted a petrol station belonging to one of the major chains selling gas on it’s forecourt (real gas, not just the American English word for “petrol”!)  I that’s at least a step in the right direction.