Semicolin's Blog

Rant 1:
My cousin sent me this article (click title for full article):

Driver ticketed for using biofuel
(Bruce Henderson, The Charlotte Observer)

In summary, Teixeira converted his Mercedes to run on 100% veggie oil and had a sticker that said so. The State of North Carolina fined him $1000 for not paying road taxes and told him to expect an additional $1000 from the Federal Gov. The article says, "To legally use veggie oil, state officials told him, he would have to first post a $2,500 bond".

This is a similar to an NPR story sent to me by Phil (click here for audio feed) and I OBJECT.

It sounds like Teixeira had a single-tank veggie-oil system (does not have to be started or shut down with diesel in the fuel lines), so it was truly 100% veggie oil powered. While this is a bit different than my system, where I need to use some petrol-diesel each day of driving, it's no different than a fully electric vehicle driving on the road without paying the $2,500 bond. Actually, I'm not sure that electric vehicle owners in the US don't have to pay some sort of bond or tax at time of purchase, but in the UK electric vehicles are exempt from road tax at purchase.

My 2-tank system needs to use diesel at start up and shut down and I use petrol diesel while running errands around town or other short trips. On my commute to work (20 miles) I use diesel for almost half the trip. Last year, my fuel consumption worked out to 48 miles per gallon of petrol-diesel (see this blog entry). The Toyota Prius gets an estimated 60mpg for city driving with no extra taxes needing to be paid.

Alternative fuel vehicles should be receiving incentives (WVO/SVO vehicles don't even qualify for IRS's alternative fuel tax credit; natural gas vehicles receive tax credit even if they run most of the time on gasoline, but the natural gas is jacked-up for road taxes). Most owners of WVO/SVO vehicles go through much effort and costs to converting a vehicle for this use and they're reducing particulate emissions by nearly half and, for WVO users, are re-using an existing and abundant waste product.

(Edit: Actually, I don't mind paying my taxes. Stuff gets done with them, such as fixing roads that I use quite a bit. Petroleum prices are higher in most other countries, but this has to do with high taxes that go to government activities (funding alternative fuel research would be nice), not all to fattening petrol-piggy-banks. I wouldn't strongly object to high-efficiency vehicles such as hybrid and WVO having to pay road tax, however I also support a tax break or some other sort of leniency to encourage people to adopt these technologies.)

Rant 2:
Unrelated, but equally ridiculous news I heard yesterday:
D.C. Judge Wants $65 Million for Lost Pants
(Emil Steiner, Washington Post Blog)

Basically, a Washington, D.C. judge sued owners of a local dry cleaner store 65 million bucks over his lost pants. What's the deal? Why are all the little guys paying through the nose? Isn't there enough real crime so that the justice system doesn't have to go out of it's way to find valid things to work on?

Rants done.