"Ethanol"-branded outlets

[russell Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close russell]

What's everyone's experiences with these? Their website says you can buy ethanol "or" biodiesel at the outlets listed. And an old thread here has a mention of someone buying a biodiesel blend at Ethanol West Ryde. I went to that outlet today and filled up. The pump didn't have any notice on it stating it was biodiesel or biodiesel blend. While it had a golden hue about it (which iirc petrodiesel doesn't have?), it smelled strongly of petrodiesel so I doubt it is a high blend. I think I will stick to Volume Plus Guildford and Wentworthville, these seem to be consistenly high blend biodiesel.

[Robert Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Robert]

Re: "Ethanol"-branded outlets

The environmentally aware consumer really gets a rough deal at the moment. The fact that it looks a bit yellow would be a good indication of a blend, but how strong? It is difficult to say without chemical analysis. I spoke to the Ethanol branded stations a year or so ago to ask them about supplying biodiesel. Back then Manildra was supplying them with ethanol and they said they would soon do biodiesel.
Now that it seems to have happened, we are still not given any real info on it.
As for Volume Plus at Guilford (where I also have filled up). I am not terribly filled with confidence from them either. You are right, it is a high blend, possibly between B80 and B100, but there are other unknowns that are also being added. A chemical analysis was done from there a while back and it showed a lower blend than they use now, but it also showed about 15% of "something else" present in the sample. That concerns me.

I would really like for us consumers to be able to:

1. Have a definitive list of where to buy biodiesel.
2. Have clear labelling and consumer information on biodiesel including the blend strength.
3. If any winterising has been done, be told exactly what proportion of which substance was used to do it.
4. Be told about the producer/supplier and where they sourced their feedstocks from (for example, I would not want to buy biodiesel made from non-sustainable Malaysian Palm Oil.)

Work for all of us to do in the future.

[russell Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close russell]

Re: "Ethanol"-branded outlets

Yeah, at that level of things I do not quite understand why someone does not start a business, selling high-blend ethanol and biodiesel and marketing along environmental and energy security lines. Maybe I'm way off but I can help but think there would be a large market for it, anywhere from 5-25% (demand probably exceeding supply) -- especially if the fuel is priced slightly cheaper than petro. I could imagine that once it started to take off, the big corporations would either buy it out or start installing their own bio pumps but either way there would be some money to be made up until that happened, and consumers would benefit too, of course.

Am I missing something??

I know "the biodiesel station" was started and closed but maybe it just wasn't taken seriously enough with capital and/or marketing?