Fair fuel price campaign, URGENT !!

[tigler]

I have to disagree. The Fair Fuel campaign has had a direct influence on fuel duty twice now. MP's have taken notice of their constituents and bought the issue to the attention of Ministers. Had it not been for this campaign we would have been paying 10p/ltr more now.
People should remember that this is the thin end of the wedge, unless we protest duty would just continue to increase.
I wish you well with making your own BioD but it's not possible for many people to do that and for those with petrol engines there is no choice but the forecourt.

 

[tttonyyy]

It seems strange that with a struggling economy and high inflation that restricting the population (and companies) transportation would ever seem a sensible thing to do. Civilisations are built by expending energy, we should be addressing the lack of source energy rather than throttling what we've got.

 

[tttonyyy]

I have to disagree. The Fair Fuel campaign has had a direct influence on fuel duty twice now.

I stand corrected - right you are:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18588855

 

[Weldinator]

A spokesman from the Fairfuel campaign was on Radio 4 this morning so the media is aware of the debate tomorrow. Believe it or not there was some other clown on the program advocating an INCREASE in fuel duty to increase the tax intake from people with large cars that use more fuel but can afford to pay it !! Which was obviously countered by the question "what about the people on lower incomes that can't " ?

Simple, big engines/cars over a certain power/litre could pay ten pence more, then people with smaller cars pay 5 p less than they do now, to offset it all somehow.

Probably wont work though, they need money from somewhere, so they think why not from something that mostly everyone desperately needs, getting us over a barrel.

Or maybe they could charge tax per mile instead of per litre/6/12 months.

Just a few thoughts.

Oh and DONE

 

[tttonyyy]

Tax is best per volume because it automatically accounts for engine efficiency. Otherwise tax/distance everyone will run around in V8s

Does beg the question where the revenue will come from if everyone goes electric. But by then all cars may well be equipped with GPS tracking for insurance purposes, which I'm sure the taxman can piggy back on for tax per electric mile or similar. Motoring will never be cheap.

 

[tigler]

Lets not forget why the economy is in crisis but we end up paying to bail it out !
I'm far from convinced that government spending has been reduced as much as it could, thats where the problem lies. Tax revenue would go further if they didn't waste so much !
Funny that Osbourne stated yesterday that the £0.5B that the 3p/ltr fuel tax would cost them would be covered by unexpectedly larger than anticipated savings in government spending ! So they can find the odd half a billion when needed then !! What utter BS governments talk !! Thing he didn't mention was just how much windfall fuel revenue they had been raking in through increased fuel prices caused by the market !

 

[Wozzaaah]

Just a little reminder that we have a no politics rule in place so keep an eye on the content of your posts.
Ok so far but it looks like it might start to go that way.
We're watching!

 

[octo0072000]

Er Wozz
i put this up a couple of months ago but you removed it
this petrol price lobby can do nothing but good everything that is either made or delivered uses fuel of some sort
if a rebate of say 30% for transport this has to be passed down the line to the producer giving all a bit of percent off inflation would not be an issue the government wont like it but the economy would

 

[tigler]

THE LATEST SCANDAL !!
Just received the following in an email from Fairfuel, put yer kickin boots on !! :-

A report commissioned for the G20 Finance Ministers has warned that Oil traders may have fiddled the benchmark trading price of Oil. These benchmarks are used to calculate the cost of the petrol & diesel that we buy at the pump. In other words, it seems there is a possibility that Oil traders have profited from the misery caused by making petrol & diesel more expensive than they need to be. The story has appeared in the Daily Telegraph - you can read it on our blog CLICK HERE

This potential scandal comes on top of the concerns expressed by thousands of our supporters about these issues such as:


Why is diesel so much more expensive than petrol in the UK?
Why is fuel up to 7 or 8p per litre different in price between retail outlets in the same county, town or street?
Why does it seem that when Oil goes up, pump prices go up immediately - when Oil goes down, the pump price either fails to fall, or falls very slowly?
We still believe that the Government is still largely responsible for the cost of petrol & diesel. After all, it still takes about £0.80 per litre in combined fuel duty and VAT on every litre. That's more than 60% of every tank full. However, if Oil traders or the suppliers are manipulating the market at our expense this needs to be stopped.

FairFuelUK is calling for the Government to do 2 things:

Launch an investigation managed by the Financial Regulatory Authorities into whether traders or speculators in Oil have 'fiddled' the benchmark figures
Launch a separate and wider OFT (Office of Fair Trading) investigation into the entire petrol & diesel market in the UK
We need your help to demonstrate to the Government the strength and depth of feeling on this situation. So, please take part in our 'quick poll'. Simply CLICK HERE and we will take the results of the FairFuelUK supporters poll to the Government to demand action on your behalves.


The links won't work in a cut and paste so visit the website please.

 

[hotrodder]

Yeah, it was in the news recently. Not really surprising unfortunatly

Why is diesel so much more expensive than petrol in the UK? because duty is the same for both petrol and diesel in the UK, it's not elsewhere
Why is fuel up to 7 or 8p per litre different in price between retail outlets in the same county, town or street? free market? Presumably if prices were the same they'd be screaming 'price fixing'?
Why does it seem that when Oil goes up, pump prices go up immediately - when Oil goes down, the pump price either fails to fall, or falls very slowly? because life isn't fair and big corporations are evil?
We still believe that the Government is still largely responsible for the cost of petrol & diesel. After all, it still takes about £0.80 per litre in combined fuel duty and VAT on every litre. That's more than 60% of every tank full. where would we rather the revenue come from instead? Probably not one to discuss given the forum rules...
However, if Oil traders or the suppliers are manipulating the market at our expense this needs to be stopped. yep!

 

[rtcosic]

Why is diesel so much more expensive than petrol in the UK? because duty is the same for both petrol and diesel in the UK, it's not elsewhere

Can we kill this myth once and for all PLEASE!

Diesel is SUBSIDISED at the expense of Petrol in the UK just as it is throughout the EU. Just somewhat less so in the UK than - say - France.

The current duty rates are:

Petrol 60.97 p/l
Diesel 60.97 p/l
LPG 37.34 p/kg
CNG 29.07 p/kg

Volume (Litre) is irrelevant. It is MASS (kilogrammes) that matters. It is the MASS of fuel that determines how much ENERGY you have bought and it is the ENERGY content that determines how far you can travel.

We buy and sell retail petrol and diesel by volume purely for historical reasons. It was originally distributed in tin-cans of fixed volume!

At the bulk scale fuel is sold by mass.

So if you express Duty (plus the 20% VAT on the Duty) as pence per KILOGRAMME the rates are:

Petrol 99.5 p/kg
Diesel 87.6 p/kg
LPG 44.8 p/kg
CNG 34.9 p/kg

So the Duty & VAT on Petrol is roughly 20% MORE than on Diesel.


Another historical anomoly. Early CI (Diesel) engines were fairly horrid things and only suitable for stationary use, then ships, then in agricultural equipment. By the 1950s, they improved to the point that they could be used in lorries and buses. These were seen as providing an essential service to be 'supported' whereas Petrol used in Private Cars was seen as a Luxury to be 'discouraged'.

Add in that until Euro VI emissions standards come in, CI (Diesel) vehicles have been allowed to be much 'dirtier' than SI (Petrol) ones so could run leaner and more fuel effeciently, the EU car market has been deliberately skewed to favour German and French Diesel car makers at the expense of others.

That's why you do not see the same obsession with small capacity Diesel engined vehicles in Cities in the North America and Japan. Their emissions and tax rules are non-discriminatory.

 

[the snooper]

talk about using a sledge hammer to crack a wall nut

 

[garethp]

You've got me confused, Diesel is subsidised but more expensive than petrol and fuel is bought/sold per Kg? I thought crude oil was sold using barrels (volume) as units on a wholesale scale?

I thought the cheapness of diesel used to be due to the low demand and now its more expensive because everyone has jumped on the diesel bandwagon as well as the fuel oil use.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying your post is wrong, I'm just curious as it goes against what I've heard/seen upto now.

 

[hotrodder]

Firstly, can we please not use terms like 'diesel is subsidised'. We want the price of the stuff (all flavours) to go down remember!

If i'd claimed the moon was made of cheese then i could understand the screams of MYTH. You can argue that retailing and taxing fuel by volume is unfair* but that hardly makes a statement that duty is the same for both a myth. It's calculated 'per litre' and the rate is identical for both petrol and diesel in the UK and has been for some time

The specific energy (by mass) of petrol is slightly higher than diesel
The energy density (by volume) of diesel is higher than petrol because diesel is denser
On paper 1kg of diesel produces more CO2 than 1kg of petrol
In the real world however... compression ignition engines have better thermal efficiency than spark ignition i.e. they make better use of the available energy. Some of diesels better fuel efficiency comes from working in gallons/litres but they're still generally more efficient working in kg or lbs

* tax is never fair for everyone. There's always an angle from which it discriminates and so there'll always be trends developing for tax efficiency...
Road rent in the UK was once based on horsepower resulting in small bore long stroke engines. It's been based on engine size but a small engine in a heavy car is less efficient than a sensible sized engine that doesn't need ragging to get it moving. Currently they're obsessed with CO2.

I thought the cheapness of diesel used to be due to the low demand and now its more expensive because everyone has jumped on the diesel bandwagon as well as the fuel oil use.

Yeah, supply and demand. Demand used to be lower because no one wanted smelly, noisy, dirty diesel engines in their car. Diesel engines improved and became excepted. Then as it became more popular the nasty, dirty stuff needed to be made cleaner which presumably adds to the price of refining and now (whether due to a fiendish plot by the EU or corrupt governments taking backhanders from car manufacturers) everyone owns a diesel, the fuel is no longer cheaper 'cause everyone needs it and the latest generation of diesel cars are covered in emissions tat which keeps breaking further lining the pockets of the car industry.
In amongst all of the above those driving older/simpler diesels could save money by running them on veg oil. Surprise, surprise it caught on and the price of veg oil soared...
LPG is still relatively cheap. What do we think would happen if everyone switched to that?


A study looking at prices from pretty much every angle except by weight... http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/14930/1/14930.pdf
Fuel duty history back to '89 can be downloaded from here... http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageExcise_RatesCodesTools&propertyType=document&id=HMCE_PROD1_023552 Unleaded versus diesel has been the same per litre since '94. Things got skewed/complicated a little when ultra low sulphur flavours of each first appeared

 

[the snooper]

Unleaded versus diesel has been the same per litre since '94.

actually both rates differed from 98 to 2008

 

[hotrodder]

Which was due to the introduction of the ultra low sulphur variants like i said

 

[the snooper]

ultra low sulphur was taxed late 2000, the whole fuel duty thing is just a ripp off just the same as diesel prices shooting up past petrol for the first time i can remember

 

[tttonyyy]

Add in that until Euro VI emissions standards come in, CI (Diesel) vehicles have been allowed to be much 'dirtier' than SI (Petrol) ones so could run leaner and more fuel effeciently

Not sure that's right - diesel engines are supposed to run lean as they are fuel throttled.

Lean => excess of air => clean burn => efficient
Rich => excess of fuel => incomplete burn (belching smoke under hard acceleration) => fuel inefficient

For my sins I used to do diesel smoke tester R&D, please don't hurt me

(mind you you'd hurt me more knowing the duty I pay on my fuel - none )

 

[hotrodder]

I think the point is that emission reducing kit at best doesn't help fuel economy and usually hampers it. Petrol engines had cats forced on them years ago which meant it was easier/cheaper (commercially necessary?) to stay close to stoichiometric for the cats sake. Lean burn technology made sooo much more sense. Diesels were allowed to stay 'dirty' as while they run lean due to being fuel throttled it doesn't necessarily = efficient combustion. They've now passed through 'cleaner by good design' and into being hampered by emission nonsense (dpf anyone?)

 

[snowcat]

In amongst all of the above those driving older/simpler diesels could save money by running them on veg oil. Surprise, surprise it caught on and the price of veg oil soared...

The price of Veg oil however has little to do with its use as a fuel though, in fact the market is pretty insignificant especially in the UK, Its linked to the Global trade, failed harvests globally export bans from black sea country's and not to forget the traders and merchants influence. Growing fuel is not even a slightly realistic solution.