HVO is it available?

[dmr]

What is the current situation with HVO, have the silly legal/regulation issues got resolved? Is anybody selling HVO canalside?

[Chewbacka]

Not on the G&S canal.  Fuel supplier (supplies mainly farms and construction sites, but boats as well) told me they considered stocking it, but none of their big customers were prepared to pay the extra, not worth their while for the few boats that are interested.

[robtheplod]

4 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Not on the G&S canal.  Fuel supplier (supplies mainly farms and construction sites, but boats as well) told me they considered stocking it, but none of their big customers were prepared to pay the extra, not worth their while for the few boats that are interested.

Wait until 'Just Stop Oil' hear about this! 

[PCSB]

Only place I've seen is Aqueduct Marina on the Middlewich branch, eye wateringly expensive though (iirc approx £2.20 ish).

[Phoenix_V]

4 minutes ago, PCSB said:

Only place I've seen is Aqueduct Marina on the Middlewich branch, eye wateringly expensive though (iirc approx £2.20 ish).

cheaper than chucking your engine out and replacing with electric no?

[PCSB]

Just now, Phoenix_V said:

cheaper than chucking your engine out and replacing with electric no?

Absolutely, but for most it is a heck of a long way to travel to fill up

[IanD]

2 minutes ago, Phoenix_V said:

cheaper than chucking your engine out and replacing with electric no?

Which of course still means burning fuel to power a generator, since solar can't provide enough power for narrowboat propulsion and there's no prospect of any charging network... 😉

 

Replacing a perfectly good diesel with a hybrid setup makes no sense from the money point of view, and given the embedded CO2 in the components probably not from a CO2 point of view either. Even for a new build the numbers don't add up from a money point of view, even if the CO2 saving might be worth it.

 

Switching boat diesels to HVO does make a lot of sense for CO2, but needs the taxation/subsidy issues sorting out to bring the price closer to diesel otherwise nobody will buy it.

 

Which means the government actually taking some action to promote a "green" initiative instead of just talking about it -- but like heat pumps (and many other failed green initiatives like insulation and solar) they'd much rather put out grand-sounding policies without actually doing the work (and spending the money) to make them happen... 😞

[Momac]

5 hours ago, dmr said:

What is the current situation with HVO, have the silly legal/regulation issues got resolved? Is anybody selling HVO canalside?

What legal/regulation issues are you thinking about?

[dmr]

10 minutes ago, MartynG said:

What legal/regulation issues are you thinking about?

 

I read something somewhere about some complicated system of subsidies which meant that the same fuel could not be sold for both heating and propulsion, or maybe that HVO can not be used for heating at all?. This makes selling to boats potentially difficult.

[Momac]

It may be that HVO should only be sold at full road duty rate which means it would be more expensive at  the waterside  than supermarket white road diesel.

In this respect white diesel and HVO are indeed difficult to sell to boats.

 

Also it seems the producers of HVO may not be honest about the source materials used for HVO .

 

 

 

[Peanut]

15 minutes ago, MartynG said:

 

Also it seems the producers of HVO may not be honest about the source materials used for HVO .

 

Maybe there isn't enough source material for all the people that would like to use it. In fact, there never will be.

 

 

[Momac]

The idea is to use inedible stalks of plants  or waste  material or the like. But I suspect this is not economical so there is the temptation to use crops like palm oil which in turn involves destruction of rain forest .

We can't have crops for fuel competing with crops for food on an industrial scale.

 

[dmr]

5 minutes ago, MartynG said:

The idea is to use inedible stalks of plants  or waste  material or the like. But I suspect this is not economical so there is the temptation to use crops like palm oil which in turn involves destruction of rain forest .

We can't have crops for fuel competing with crops for food on an industrial scale.

 

 

The supplier that I have dealt with does provide documentation stating the fuel is renewable, and as long as HVO is a niche market that sounds reasonable, but obviously HVO can not come close to meeting the current total demand for fuel.

 

I am happy to pay a premium for HVO even though this is currently a lot more that the often quoted 10-15%. However if I also have to pay 100% propulsion rather than 60:40 (or whatever) then it really isn't viable.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

While diesel is down at 76p per Litre

I ain’t gonna go green anytime soon

[dmr]

where did you find diesel that cheap?      have you been through that bad tunnel again ???? 😀

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Oh yes👍

 

 

So expect Turners will be cheap again too.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, dmr said:

 

The supplier that I have dealt with does provide documentation stating the fuel is renewable, and as long as HVO is a niche market that sounds reasonable, but obviously HVO can not come close to meeting the current total demand for fuel.

 

I am happy to pay a premium for HVO even though this is currently a lot more that the often quoted 10-15%. However if I also have to pay 100% propulsion rather than 60:40 (or whatever) then it really isn't viable.

HVO is a good solution for the small niche markets where batteries recharged from renewable energy don't work, such as canal boats and classic cars -- or Alan wanting to drive 500 miles non-stop while towing a trailer weighing several tons with a vehicle costing a couple of grand... 😉

 

It's not a solution for the big markets like cars, where EVs are a far better solution for most people -- at least, when the cost of secondhand ones drops enough.

 

But even for the niche markets the fuel cost premium over diesel needs to be small enough that people will use it, which isn't currently the case for boats... 😞

Edited May 5, 2023 by IanD

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

What does HVO taste like?

 

[dmr]

45 minutes ago, Goliath said:

What does HVO taste like?

 

Don't think I tasted it, but it has very little smell so probably not much taste. If I ever manage to get some more I will report back.

[Chewbacka]

12 hours ago, dmr said:

 

The supplier that I have dealt with does provide documentation stating the fuel is renewable………….l,

But then Drax power station also claim their wood chips are carbon neutral and never taken from whole trees cut from primary forests……..

[jpcdriver]

And the Deutsche Bahn locomotives pulling those wood chips to Drax are now supposedly using HVO (or that's what they have painted on the side of them, spotted one a few days ago). Unless they have their own special supply that will be soaking up a huge amount of HVO production.

[Chewbacka]

6 minutes ago, jpcdriver said:

And the Deutsche Bahn locomotives pulling those wood chips to Drax are now supposedly using HVO (or that's what they have painted on the side of them, spotted one a few days ago). Unless they have their own special supply that will be soaking up a huge amount of HVO production.

When you get £2m per day in green subsidies from the uk government you can afford to pay a bit extra for HVO.  All helps with the green image.

[MtB]

20 minutes ago, jpcdriver said:

And the Deutsche Bahn locomotives pulling those wood chips to Drax are now supposedly using HVO (or that's what they have painted on the side of them, spotted one a few days ago). Unless they have their own special supply that will be soaking up a huge amount of HVO production.

 

Same with the Waitrose articulated lorries around here. I'm noticing more and more of them with "Powered by 100% renewable fuel" written on the side. Presumably HVO. (If not, what else could it be?)

 

It draws my attention for being quite a bold claim and there are a helluvalot of Waitrose lorries that are probably buying the stuff, funded I would imagine by the somewhat higher prices of nearly everything in Waitrose shops. 

 

 

 

P.S. a brief goggle suggests these trucks are running on "biomethane" not HVO.

 

 

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by MtB
Add the question.

[Up-Side-Down]

An alliance of the IWA, RYA and the Cruising Association are working on a strategy to lobby Government to make HVO affordable and available to all recreational boats at the same price, whether it be used for propulsion or domestic purposes. As stated above, HVO used for non-propulsion purposes does not attract the subsidy (RTFC) which is currently worth about £0.50/litre.

 

Placing the emphasis on the word 'Recreational' means that the case can be presented to DCMS rather than DfT or DEFRA where we have had little success.

 

In the meantime Crown Oil will despatch 'pallet loads' of HVO either in 205 litre drums or 1000 litre IBC's. Expect to pay £0.10/litre for carriage and container(s) on top of the current rebated (red) price of approx £1.35 + 5% VAT. Two drums fit on a pallet so more economical to buy drums in pairs. PM me for more details.

[Alan de Enfield]

10 minutes ago, Up-Side-Down said:

Placing the emphasis on the word 'Recreational' means that the case can be presented to DCMS rather than DfT or DEFRA where we have had little success.

 

Would that not mean that all the commercial boats (Fudge boat, coffee boat, etc etc and the hire boat industry) will not be allowed to use HVO, or only unsubsidised HVO which is going to be extremenly highly priced compared to exsiting Red-Diesel.

Are canal suppliers / marinas going to stock / sell two different fuels, or will it just be that recreational boats can claim a price reduction. (ala existing 60/40 split)