Today I had an appointment about 100km today, and it was only last night that I realised that I didn’t have enough bio-ethanol in the tank for the return journey.

For the first time, I had to make a detour to fill up with bio-ethanol, meaning that I had to leave earlier to allow enough time to drive to Bad Homburg before I hit the motorway.

Of course, I could have driving down the road to the nearest petrol station and filled up with normal 95-octane fuel, but with that sort of fuel costing around 50% more than bio-ethanol, I felt it was worth making the detour.

But the whole situation did make me conscious of the restrictions of the bio-ethanol fuel.  After all, I don’t get as many kilometres out of a tank as I used to with normal petrol.  I quick check of the list of petrol stations that stock E85 also showed me that there was nothing suitable in the area that I was travelling to.  Well, at least not without going out of my way and looking for it.

So in the end I took the quickest option and visited my usual petrol station, and wished it hadn’t been necessary.  Will the main petrol stations, especially those on motorway service stations, ever start stocking bio-ethanol?

I guess it had to happen in the end.  After months of blogging about the price of oil and hence the price of petrol, now the price of bio-ethanol has gone up.

The following sign greeted me when I went to fill up this week:

So now the price is at 0,949EUR/Litre, but that’s still a lot cheaper than buying normal petrol!

Readers in Germany may find this article interesting.  Once again, bio-fuels are being blamed for taking the food out of other peoples’ mouths.

What’s new about the argument this time, is that there is an explanation as to why this is happening.

Normally I hear a straight forward claim, that the production in Europe is taking food out of the mouths of people in Africa – without any thought as to whether the food would have actually been transported to Africa in the first place.

The new claim is somewhat different – due to the bio-ethanol production the price of the raw materials has risen, and that means that aid agencies have to pay more for things such as grain.  This in turn means that they can buy less of it to feed people.

Perhaps more regulation of the system is required so that the aid agencies still get their grain at a reasonable price, without stifling the competition of the bio-fuel producers?

I assume that other types of bio-fuel, eg. from wood chippings, is not affecting these prices and could therefore be a better option?

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.