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Sep 28, 2006 7:21 pm US/Mountain
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Alternative Fuel Economical, But Hard To Find
Tough Question: Why Is E-85 So Hard To Find?
By CBS4 producer Libby Smith
by Alan Gionet
ARVADA, Colo. (CBS4) ―
Some drivers are filling up their gas tanks for just $1.99 a gallon. They're using an alternative fuel called E-85. It's made from 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.
But E-85 is not always easy to find.
There are 5 million vehicles on the road in the U.S. that can use E-85. They're called "flex-fuel vehicles." In fact, sometimes, people don't even know they have a flex-fuel vehicle. Bill Fowler is one of those people. He talked to CBS4 while filling up at an E-85 pump. He said that a friend showed him the flex-fuel designation on the inside of his gas cap.
"If I hadn't been notified that it said that on the inside of my gas lid, I wouldn't have even known that I could use it." Fowler said.
CBS4 reporter Alan Gionet asked Fowler, "Does it frustrate you that it's not more widely available?" Fowler replied, "I think so, given the benefits for the environment and the reduction in cost."
It's cheaper and some say it puts out less pollutants into the air. One of the down sides of E-85 is reduced mileage. That means drivers who use it fill up more often. But many drivers who use it say even taking that into account, it's still cheaper than regular unleaded gasoline.
The Sinclair Station at West 58th and Sheridan in Arvada became the most resent seller of E-85. Owners added a pump just last week. That brings the total number of stations selling E-85 in Colorado to 12.
There are pumps in Aurora, Bennett, Brush, Denver, Greeley, Lakewood, Pueblo, Watkins, Yuma and two in Colorado Springs. Ed Lewis, Senior Deputy Director of the Governor's Office of Energy Management and Conservation, tells CBS4 that station owners may be reluctant to put the pumps in.
"It has been very expensive to put in the pumps and in some cases hard to convince the owners of stations to install," Lewis said.
However, there are some incentives. Lewis said that "the state has a program to give tax breaks to gasoline station operators who change fuel tanks to ethanol plus a federal tax break."
The ethanol in E-85 is made from corn. While, it may seem that the U.S. has no shortage of corn, makers of ethanol can't keep up with the demand. Dan Schell, senior biochemical engineer at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden says that the technology is just not there yet.
"Corn ethanol production can increase up to about 8 billion gallons per year but our gasoline market is on the order of 140 billion gallons per year," Schell said. "It's certainly going to take cellulosic ethanol to start filling that gap."
Cellulosic ethanol is made out of all kinds of plant material including switchgass which grows easily in Colorado and without a lot of water.
Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab are looking for affordable ways to make ethanol from all kinds of plant materials.
"I think we're still going up the hill and we'll still be going up the hill for another 10 or 15 years," Schell said. But he predicts that eventually companies will be standing in line to make this new fuel.
(© MMVI CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)