It will come as no surprise that Reading Transport has withdrawn from the forthcoming Bus Oscars 2009, the annual UK Bus Awards. It was one of six contenders within the Innovation category. Reading based its bid on the UK’s first fleet of bio-ethanol fuelled double decks on its busiest route, the 17 to Tilehurst.
Bosses at Reading Transport have not only found that in the teeth of recession the costs of the bio-ethanol experiment means they must abandon their experiment, they’ve had to admit the source was not Norfolk sugar beet as first thought, but Swedish wood pulp & paper waste.
I’m no expert on bio-fuels but there’s an increasing body of opinion that argues they simply take agricultural land out of food production and therefore contribute to. rather than mitigate, environmental degradation.
Ironically, in Reading’s case, this means that the wood pulp-sourced fuel is actually more environmentally friendly than the sugar beet Reading thought it was using. This is because wood pulp is genuinely a waste product rather than from land specifically cultivated for sugar beet-to-fuel, or from speculative beet production.
Last week, Reading Transport removed references to bio-ethanol from its website, including a statement that once read, “Our joint investment with Reading Borough Council for these 14 bio-ethanol buses will bring about a massive change in Reading's transport…”
It’s said the buses reduced carbon emissions by some 80 per cent. The bad news was that they used approximately double the fuel when compared to diesel. It’s reported the Scanias were each purchased at a £50,000 premium plus a £200,000 investment in the fuelling system.
You have to feel sorry for Reading Transport, as it appears it was genuinely misled about the source of the bio-fuel it was using. Critics of the company would do well to remember that this was a bold experiment aimed at demonstrating transport as a green alternative. Like man such experiments before it, It just goes to show that you need to go a long way to “beet” dear old diesel.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Just Can’t ‘Beet’ Diesel
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
You do well to say it was Reading Borough Council who had a lot of the blame, not just Reading Buses.
Sorry I'm a bit late to the party, I've been away but I'm totally surprised on returning to read that Reading Buses and Council had "only just" found out that their fuel was not what they thought - because I told them this in June 2008!
After getting no-where asking direct questions to Reading Buses, I spoke to Peter Watson of British Sugar on 24th June 2008, and he followed up with an email clarifying that it was never "sugar waste".
I then forwarded this to Reading Buses and Reading Borough Council - about 3 days later I got a very, let's say "robust", phone call from Sam Simpson from Reading Buses. He proceeded to launch into a hatchet job on Dr Paul Bardos (more on him later) basically saying he was Tory and therefore biased and incorrect and he hated the environment and wanted to kill fluffy bunnies and kittens with hoses run from exhaust pipes into their warrens etc (or something along those lines), and that bioethanol was definitely a waste by-product of growing sugar beet.
Also in June 2008 I had the following reply from Reading Buses board member Warren Swaine in reply to "were Reading Buses conning us?":
"As far as RTL is concerned, conned is not the right word. There was a misunderstanding which wasn't cleared up until after the initial publicity had gone out. Reading Buses acted in good faith when putting together the publicity as they were under the impression at the time that it was actually waste product."
Also, in the Reading Forum, on 24th June 2008, he also wrote in reply to further questioning on this:
"I will ask. They cannot lie, spin or whatever you wish to call it to me... I'm a director!"
It appears they were always going to be safe though - when I contacted the Advertising Standards Authority explaining that I felt this "sugar waste" claim to be misleading, I received a reply dated 22nd July 2008 explaining that they do not cover:
"statutory, public, police and other official notices/information, as opposed to marketing communications, produced by public authorities and the like".
I did try and persue this explaining that I felt the sign was a marketing communication, but they we steadfast.
I got a reply from Reading Trading Standards with an almost identical position - as Reading Buses was a council owned company, they could do nothing.
Around this time, I also made contact with this Paul Bardos who Sam Simpson had mentioned. Dr Bardos appeared to have had a similar experience to me - asking lots of questions but getting a lot of brush-offs in the process.
All of this, multiple emails etc, happening across June and July 2008 - unfortunately I moved and changed jobs at around that time, and having tried the best I could, this got pushed to the back of my mind.
But I don't believe for one second that this is a "surprise" to anyone at RTL or RBC - unless they had a two month long "flash forward" style amnesia moment during June and July 2008!
If anyone wants copies of the relevant notes and emails, feel free to ask.
I had wondered whether Reading new about it all before hand.
It seemed strange that the original ethanol demonstrator, that spent ages away being done up, and was meant to come in a generic version of the ethanol livery, actually turned up in standard livery with some branding that could easily be taken off....
Post a Comment