Howard,

Don't forget that diesel engines have a much higher torque than a petrol
one, even at a very low rpm, that's why tracks, ships, trains etc use
diesel. It means less fuel consumption and longer lifetime. My old car for
example has a 2.5 litre, 6 cyl turbo diesel and the torque is around 320nm.
The same with a brand new petrol is somewhere of 200nm.  For generators,
lawnmowers, cars the rule is the same: if you use it much, then you save
fuel (not just the lower price of that) and also the maintenance costs are
lower compared to a petrol one, but if you use it rarely it might not worth
the initial investment.

Tamas




On 1/15/08, Howard Winter <HDRW@h2org.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> Thanks for the details...
>
> On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:00:15 -0000, Michael Rigby-Jones wrote:
>
> > 2007 fuel duty (as of 1 October 2007) in the United Kingdom is:
> >
> >     * 50.35 pence per litre for ultra-low sulphur unleaded petrol/diesel
> >     * 53.65 pence per litre for conventional unleaded petrol
> >     * 56.94 pence per litre for conventional diesel
> >     * 30.35 pence per litre for bio-diesel and bio ethanol
> >     * 16.49 pence per kg for gas other than natural gas (LPG)
> >     * 13.70 pence per kg for natural gas used as road fuel.
> >     * 9.69 pence per litre for rebated gas oil (red diesel)
> >     * 9.29 pence per litre for rebated fuel oil
>
> Interesting - the duty on Diesel is more than Petrol - I didn't know that!
>
> Notice that the duties on the liquified gasses are per kg, and assuming
> they are lighter than water (I believe they are, for example petrol has a
> Specific Gravity of
> about 0.8, I think) then the duty is possibly about 25% higher than it
> appears.
>
> What's the difference between the last two?  I'd have thought that red
> diesel would be fuel oil rather than gas oil?  I always thought there was
> *no* duty on red
> diesel - funny how these myths arise!  :-)  Is there such as thing as
> "red" petrol, I wonder?  It seems a right pain to pay duty for something
> that isn't going to be
> used in a vehicle, such as in garden equipment (mowers, strimmers,
> chainsaws) or in generators.  Cheap petrol generators are easy to find, b=
ut
> diesel ones seem to
> be about three times the price, so to get one to use red diesel would mean
> a lot of use before it pays for the difference in the running costs.  I
> calculated the cost
> of using a small (2kW) petrol generator as about UK=A31 per kWh, and this
> was some time ago and as we can see, about 2/3rds of this is duty that is=
n't
> due!  :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Howard Winter
> St.Albans, England
>
>
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
> View/change your membership options at
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
>
-- =

http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist