18-Jul-2006
- The Environment Agency is playing its part in
driving down global warming by investing in its
first bioethanol powered car.
The Ford Focus Flexi-Fuel Vehicle
(FFV), the first manufactured bioethanol-powered
car in Europe, made its debut at the Environment
Agency offices in Bridgwater this week with an
official handing over ceremony.
This is part of the groundbreaking
partnership between the Environment Agency, Somerset
County Council, Ford Motor Company, Wessex Water,
Avon and Somerset Constabulary and Wessex Grain,
to bring 40 all new bioethanol powered Focus cars
to the county.
It is hoped that the Ford Focus
Flexi Fuel vehicle will help reduce CO2 emissions
the main contributor to global climate change.
This will include the establishment of five bioethanol
fuel pumps in the county.
The biofuelled cars are also
capable of running on any mixture of ethanol and
petrol in the fuel tank so can refuel with petrol
if outside the range of a bioethanol pump.
Wessex Grain, will arrange the
supply of bioethanol, initially from a bioethanol
plant in Spain using wheat grown in the South
West region. Wessex Grain are finalising proposals
for a bioethanol plant at Henstridge which would
allow cars in Somerset to run fuel from locally
grown wheat by 2007.
The Ford Focus car was handed
over to Environment Manager Jim Flory and his
team at their offices at Rivers House, Bridgwater,
by the Fleet Operations Manager
Mark Walmsley.
The sustainable fuel powering
the bioethanol car can be made from British grown
crops such as wheat or sugar beet, which absorb
CO2 prior to harvest for bioethanol production.
There are at present five garages in the area
around Bridgwater which sells the fuel.
By factoring in this CO2 absorption,
the fuel reduces overall carbon emissions by around
70 per cent compared with petrol.
The availability of bioethanol
in our area makes this a real alternative to using
vehicles which can operate only on conventional
fossil fuels, said Mark Walmsley, from the Environment
Agency.
We hope that people will begin
to see the huge environmental and economic potential
biofuels can offer. The team at Bridgwater are
extremely enthusiastic about the new bioethanol
car.
Paul Gainey
