Prince Charles guzzles English wine, not fuel

prince charles
In the name of reducing his carbon footprint, Prince Charles has retrofitted his 1970 Aston martin convertible to run on ethanol–made from “surplus” English wine.

Wait, surplus English wine? This isn’t France. I thought wine was a new thing in England and they were proud enough to serve it to world leaders? (In 2006 there were actually 365 English vineyards totaling 2,280 acres–not a lot, but more than I would have guessed.)

So just how fuel efficient is it for Prince Charles? I caught my carbon footprint research co-author, Pablo Paster, on chat and crunched the numbers. It turns out that the ethanol the Prince is putting in his car has three times the carbon dioxide emissions of regular fuel–not to mention that he’s soaking up a lot of English wine in the process! It takes about 500 liters of wine to distill into a tank of fuel.

But the exhaust must smell great–chardonnay with a whiff of irony!

8 Responses to “Prince Charles guzzles English wine, not fuel”


  1. What was the catchphrase of the character, Nelson, on the Simpsons?…..


  2. Another royal eco-trip:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/28/monarchy.tax1


  3. The Royal family never ceases to amaze me.

    Cheers
    Cathy
    http://www.wheresmydamnanswer.com


  4. Biofuels are a joke…


  5. now we wonder why food prices go up, and now wine prices… great…


  6. Great post – i cribbed a few quotes for a similar thread on snooth (http://www.snooth.com/talk/topic/is-this-for-real/) hope you dont mind.


  7. Now the story comes out that English vintners are pissed at Prince Charles.

    http://www.decanter.com/news/262737.html


  8. The wine used is surplus wine that can’t be sold due to EU regulations.


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