AT present the motor industry is rightly concentrating enormous efforts towards minimising the pollutants produced by the vehicles it makes.

Not only are the factories spurred on by wishing to appear green, but emission regulations are becoming super-strict - and must be met if the firms are to continue in business.

Typical of the progress being made in this direction is provided by Renault which launches its first bioethanol car onto the UK market with the Megane Hatch E85 at the end of 2007.

Renault - and others - consider biofuels to be one of the one of the most effective solutions in the long term quest for control of CO2 emissions. Such fuels are claimed to be ecologically effective as a renewable, plant-based energy source. Biofuels clearly reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and existing engines require fairly minimal modification.

Another major plus point for biofuels is that the growing vegetable crops themselves absorb Co2 from the atmosphere. The E85 bioethanol specified for the Megane E85 can achieve CO2 gains of up to 70 per cent as compared to the same model powered by a conventional engine. An even more direct incentive to employees provided with bioethanol fuelled cars, capable of running on E85 or better biofuel, is that chancellor offers a tax incentive of a two per cent discount on their taxable car benefits.

You might well wonder just what bioethanol is. No complication here so far as the driver is concerned; you use it much in the same way as petrol. It is made by distilling fermented vegetable matter, typically wheat or beet in Europe, sugarcane in Brazil, or maize in the USA. The resulting fuel is then mixed with petrol in varying proportions: from five per cent for E5 to 100 per cent for E100. I wonder if the more enterprising amongst us will eventually be producing home-distilled spirit for the fuel tank!

To avoid the home brew, the availability of bioethanol is becoming easier as demand increases; Ford and SAAB for example have had biofuel cars for some time. Interestingly the supermarket chain Morrisons were the first UK retailers to make bioethanol available to the public.