A recent article published on the BBC's website made for a very interesting read this morning.
According to the RAC foundation, Britain’s motorists could find that there won't be any Diesel at the pumps because of our growing independence on foreign fuel.
Here's a bit of background information...There were 11 million diesel cars on the road last year, compared to just 1.6 million in 1994. The RAC foundation says that, at this rate, diesel will be four times more popular than petrol by 2030.
The RAC states that UK refineries are struggling to cope with this increase in demand, as we are consuming twice as much diesel as we produce.
Speaking with the BBC, Steve Gooding, Director of the RAC foundation said "We consume twice as much diesel as we produce, and that growing reliance on countries including Russia and India to supply the fuel could leave motorists "at the mercy of the global market" in future.
"Even if we are not in conflict with those countries that control the taps, they might simply decide they need more of what they produce for their own markets,"
"The UK keeps fuel reserves in case of emergencies, but they are not uniformly spread and the South East of England is particularly vulnerable to shocks to the supply chain."
The report says that in 2009 there were nine big refineries in the UK. But since then, three have shut and several others are up for sale. The older refineries were never set up to make diesel because it was a niche product when they were built in the sixties. Converting them is too expensive, Mr Gooding said.
The big increase in consumers buying Diesel cars all started with a change in Government legislation back in 2001. To meet emission targets, the Labour Government decided to encourage consumers to buy Diesel cars rather than petrol. To do this they changed the tax people would pay, based on the CO2 emissions generated by their car. Clearly this initiative worked, as today, half of all new cars in the UK are Diesel. Even the likes of Porsche and Maserati now build Diesel cars!
Anyone thinking about buying an electric car after reading this?
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