Why BioTown, USA doesn't have any ethanol
Well, this doesn't bode well for the ethanol industry. They've had ten years to get a system in place in Reynolds, Ind. (that's when Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels bequeathed the name "BioTown" on Reynolds), but it just isn't working. The idea is good: power all the cars in one small town with ethanol, heat all the homes with the methane gas from the town sewers and nearby hog farms. The results are not.
While there are 135 "ethanol-burning cars" in town (the article in the Indianapolis Star doesn't specify that they are E85-compatible, but I assume they are), but no gas stations that sell ethanol fuel. The one gas station in town finally began work to install E85 and biodiesel pumps this month. Right now, the nearest E85 pump is 30 miles from Reynolds.
Still, the government and businesses are supporting BioTown. General Motors gave away 20 free two-year leases on E85 vehicles to BioTown residents through a lottery, and gave massive discounts to residents who didn't win but wanted to buy the vehicles.
It's not that the town is against ethanol. The Town Council president told the Star that, "We're addicted to oil. It'd be nice if we were addicted to ethanol" and town residents quoted in the article say they want to use the fuel. The problem is that there's no supply in town and high costs of ethanol where it is available have kept people away from putting E85 in their cars. It's likely, residents said, that when all of the new ethanol plants really start pumping ethanol into the nation's fuel supply in the next few years, that it'll be easier on the wallet to switch. Good luck, BioTown.
[Source: Indianapolis Star]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mark_H 10:17AM (8/25/2006)
First, they've been "Bio-town" for a year, not ten years.
Second, the article (from the Indy paper) talks a lot about ethanol but I didn't see any reporting on whether the town was gathering and using methane from the sewer, hog farms, etc. I'm going to assume that's going about as well as the ethanol thing.
The cynic in me is tempted to see this as a desparate PR move by a dying farming town attempting to be hip or relevant. At least some people got massively subsidized pickup trucks out of the scam.
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Jody Snodgrass 10:31PM (3/13/2007)
In response to your article, Biotown USA was announced in September of 2005. Also, there is currently an E-85 pump at the only gas station in Reynolds as well as a B-20 pump. Verasun announced in January that they a building a 100-million gallon per year corn-to-fuel ethanol facility and groundbreaking for the technology suite (anaerobic digestion, gassification and fast pyrolysis) will be on March 21, 2007.
This project is anything but a scam and Reynolds will be the first energy independent community by the end of 2008. As with all multi-million dollar projects, engineering, design, permitting and fianlly construction takes time and considerable effort by all parties.
As a matter of course, this project was developed by the State of Indiana, not by the Town of Reynolds. Reynolds was chosen because of its location and its agricultural base.
This is a very exciting project for the community and has garnered much deserved attention.
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