Ahem. California bought over 1,000 flex-fuel vehicles two years ago, but where's the E85?
This ought to rile people up. Two years ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration in the state of California purchased over a thousand flex-fuel vehicles, making a big deal about how they were green vehicles and would help clean up California's notoriously bad air. Quickly, the hoopla died down and the state has been filling the cars with standard gasoline ever since. Now, two state Senators want to hold meetings to figure out why. The Senate Governmental Organization Committee and the Senate Committee on Air Quality will hold a joint hearing Aug. 15 on the matter. GOC chairman Sen. Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield told the Mercury News that, "This seems to be a pattern. The governor loves to take the time to pose and talk about the greening of California, but very little gets done in terms of doing the hard work."
The National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition lists five E85 stations in California, but three of them are not open to the public and the Mercury News - which helped prompt the Senate hearing with their initial report on the pure gasoline "flex fuel" vehicles - says there is not a single ethanol station is available to the state fleet.
The governor's office replied that the vehicles will be in the fleet for years, and "we hope the fuel will be available in the near future."
[Source: Kimberly Kindy / San Jose Mercury News via Jalopnik]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1985 Gripen 12:44AM (7/12/2007)
I've been following this for a couple of years now. You're mistaken in saying that there are FIVE E85 stations in California. You're right in that three aren't open to the public, but fail to point-out that of the remaining two, one is listed as "coming soon" and is not yet open. A few months ago that station (Conserv Fuel) was listed as having a grand opening date of 21 June. Now it says "coming soon". Problems?
The remaining station has been there for years. One of every eight Americans lives in the State of California. We have an official population of over 36 million (undocumented aliens and their families don't tend to fill-out census forms so it might very well be more) yet we have ONE station to get E85 and it's about a tankful of gasoline (round trip) away from the largest population center.
This looks to me to have been a scam by GM to get the State to buy GM cars rather than those of its competition. See this press release from January 2006:
http://www.chevron.com/news/press/2006/2006-01-05.asp
That's a copy of the original GM press release from Chevron's site. The GM press release magically has disappeared from their own website, nowhere to be found. I wonder why?
My favorite line, "GM intends to offer between 50 to 100 of its E85-capable Chevrolet Impala passenger cars and Silverado pickup trucks for consideration in the state's annual competitive bid process." So they weren't GIVING the state these flex-fuel vehicles. They were allowing the state to consider BUYING them from GM. Geez, thanks GM...
One word: greenwash.
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1985 Gripen 12:51AM (7/12/2007)
Wait, I may have been a little pre-mature in my post above. I found the link to the GM press release at the URL it's always been at. I couldn't find it in a Google search but found it in an old comment of mine here at Autobloggreen:
http://media.gm.com/servlet/GatewayServlet?target=http://image.emerald.gm.com/gmnews/viewmonthlyreleasedetail.do?domain=74&docid=21736
However, it has been removed from GM's LiveGreenGoYellow website that used to directly link to it...
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Sebastian Blanco 2:10AM (7/12/2007)
1985 Gripen,
Thanks for your research. You add a lot to the site.
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1985 Gripen 2:45AM (7/12/2007)
Thanks for the compliment, Sebastian. I admire your posts here.
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1985 Gripen 3:20AM (7/12/2007)
While I've been rough on GM (the whole thing about offering the state the "privilege" to buy their vehicles rather that than those of their competitors rubbed me the wrong way. It might be different if there was a substantial discount. They were simply offering their vehicles in the bid process), it seems to me the party at fault for there not being any new E85 pumps in the state after a year-and-a-half seems to fall on Chevron Technology Ventures. They were tasked to work with CalTrans in installing the pumps necessary to fuel the fleet in Northern and Central California.
The ethanol itself was to come from Pacific Ethanol, who at the time was constructing a large ethanol plant in Madera, California (which has since opened) which was to use locally-grown corn as feedstock for the ethanol production. Carbon dioxide waste from the process was to be sold to local soft drink manufacturers for use in the carbonation process and some of the byproducts of the ethanol production process was to be used as cattle feed at local cattle farms. All feedstock and byproducts were to be in-state to cut down on fossil fuels required for transport. The site in Madera was selected partially due to the proximity of rail lines.
I think ethanol has failed to take hold so far in California due to the expense of transport. Where does the station in San Diego get its E85? I'm assuming they truck it in from the Midwest. That adds a lot of expense and pollution. California doesn't have the state ethanol subsidies like they do in many corn-producing states. How do you get people to buy E85 instead of gasoline? You price it lower. How do you price it lower when you have to transport it from the Midwest and don't have the same subsidies?
Most of the ethanol is produced in the Midwest and most of the market for the product is on the coasts. This is a serious problem which has yet to be overcome from what I can tell. Unless they build ethanol pipelines (which is a problem in itself due to the absorbency of ethanol, leading to rust in the pipes, a problem biobutanol doesn't have) I don't think E85 can be profitable. That is, unless the price of gasoline rises A LOT. But remember there's still 15% gasoline by volume in E85, so its price would rise too.
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Raven 1:32PM (7/13/2007)
While driving through IL i noticed all of the fuel at the pumps was, by state law, mandated to be at least 15% (?) ethanol. Is this true? Could this be a spreading trend?
At the very least it seems to be a step in the right direction.
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MikeW 11:27AM (7/12/2007)
No.
We are already giving up 3% in mileage, for what? 15% ethanol might be a 5% reduction (considering the loss in driving range is causing an overall loss greater than the mechanical 4.5% loss in energy brings, and possibly higher evaporative losses in the tank)
It made sense to have an oxygenate in the fuel when cars still had carburetors.
It should have been pulled (as a mandate) when OBDII was humming along. Say Jan 1 1995.
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iamhoff 1:02PM (7/12/2007)
Well, the company I work for is currently preparing Environmental Impact Reports for 2 Ethanol plants in Imperial County and one more in (I believe) Kern County. 2 are biosolid plants and one is a sugarbeet plant. So they're working on the supply, now they need to figure out the distribution. I do live in San Diego and I know where the Pearson Ford fueling station is (hell, they carry just about anything you might want to put in your tank). Hopefully the powers that be will get to work on setting up more fueling stations so that we can actually make use of the flex fuel technology.
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bioburner 8:46PM (7/12/2007)
Lets not put the carriage infront of the horse. The flex fuel vehicles have to be on the streets before the captains of industry will begin to build enough ethanol production capacity to supply the demand for E10 or E15. E85 seems to be taking a back burner to the federally mandated E10. To produce enough ethanol for the E10 for say 100 billion gallons of gasoline will require a lot of 100 million gallon a year ethanol plants. If you wants lots of E85 on top of that you will need way more ethanol.
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DGS employee 9:45AM (8/09/2007)
Just to clarify a couple things:
The E85 tanks are in and pumping for CALTRANS, who is operating the "test" vehicles- Chevron came through.
That being said, everything else posted is accurate. Watch the Senate hearing for yourself here and you be the judge who is being deceptive:
http://www.calchannel.com/search.php?date=071807&source=All&type=All&title=&Search=Submit
select the "Air Quality- Flex Fuel" from the archives. It's for 071807 date if the link is off.
What you have here is buddy buddy with former Senator and former Secretary of State Bill Jones of PAcific Ethanol cozying up to administration appointees and Arnold's GM buddies in a huge greenwash orgy of attempted media hijacking.
DGS claims they bought 1,000 + FFV Impalas in order to drive the E85 infrastructure but the same liar who makes that claim also testified that there were already 250,000 to 300,000 FFV's in private hands. If 250k to 300k FFV's isn't bringing pumps to CA the 1,000 DGS units won't cut it. Also, this idiot brought in a falsified chart and was caught in his lie. It's great video.
Nothing but green posturing
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jwl 2:07AM (8/02/2007)
Blame the ARB for taking so long to approve dispensing pumps for stations who are ready to install them. Arnold needs to ride herd on them.
But little ol' Tulare California( on Hiway 99) will get the first new public use e-85 station next month-not in 2009 as others suggest.Bring your flex
fuel cars and trucks to the central valley to fill'r up for less. Tulare needed a waiver to install the pumps because ARB still has'nt approved the pumps used everywhere else in the nation.
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Susan Galbraith 8:08AM (4/14/2008)
I have been researching alternative fueled vehicles for a county in NYS. New York, like California, has been buying flex fuel vehicles and then fueling them with gasoline. While this initially struck me as hypocritical, I realize that there is no reason for a retailer to invest in E85 pumps until there are cars on the street that can use E85. So there is some justification for a government to buy a bunch of flex-fuel cars for the fleet before there are E85 stations to fuel them.
I am irritated, however, that the manufacturers seem to be selecting their largest, least fuel efficient models to sell as flex fuel cars. It makes more sense for government fleets to buy small cars with good fuel economy rather than buying full-size sedans just because they're flex-fuel.
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