Capitalist countries, as the UK has always been, don't price goods on a cost-basis, they're priced on a supply-and-demand basis - basically as much as the market will stand so don't expect E10 price to come down, despite using more!

How to save the planet!

Despite all the claptrap about being eco-friendly and reducing emissions, the govt's overriding objective is to 'grow the economy' to keep money circulating at high speed. Doing that is unlikely to help the global warming problem, especially if it is helped by letting the population grow at the same time.

If/when life becomes impossibly warm, humans will probably respond by turning up the air-con. Personal needs usually come before society's - especially when any blame can be aimed at China, who are doing conspicuously little to help. They just go on selling us cheap tat to keep our economies turning.

I dont know how much it cost to produce Ethanol, but if it is cheaper than petroleum then surely the price of fuel should come down! Also as Ethanol is made from corn, farmers in some parts of the world will be cutting down rain forests so that they can plant more corrn to satisfy the demand from the oil companies.How to save the planet!

Logically, unless supply rises in sync, the price of ethanol will increase with the rise in demand until it reaches the cost of the petrol or the ethanol content of E10 (which can be anything between say 5.5% and 10%) for the UK reaches 10%.

I don't know what the relative prices are currently but not many weeks ago ethanol was actually more expensive than petrol.

Possibly one reason why the selected date was 1 September is that it's the month when winter petrol is phased in. This requires the vapour pressure of premium fuel to be raised which is also an effect of adding more ethanol. However there clearly are other means of achieving that including adding butane which is cheaper.

Edited by Manatee on 06/09/2021 at 20:35

I had no option but to fill Mrs BJ's Panda up with E10 petrol today - Tesco had run out of my favorite E5 99RON Greenenergy. I wonder if more people are now buying the higher octane E5 stuff now?

Edited by Big John on 12/09/2021 at 19:07

I filled up with E10 last week and so far the car's average consumption calculation, which is usually pretty accurate, is showing no loss of economy at all.

I always do "brim-to-brim", so will have more idea when I fill again.

I do realise, of course, that E10 means "up to 10%" ethanol, so it's possible I got the same stuff I was using before anyway.