Q1 2008 Ethanol production jumps 37%, still hard to find E85
Production of ethanol in the United States is continuing to accelerate with production in the first quarter of 2008 up 37 percent over 2007 levels. The U.S. now has almost 150 ethanol plants, nearly double the number from five years ago, and they produced 1.9 billion gallons of alcohol in the first three months of this year for an annual pace of 7.6 billion gallons. Ethanol producers still have a long way to go to reach the 36 billion threshold required by the December 2007 Energy bill. They do of course have until 2022 to achieve that level by which time hopefully most of it should be coming from cellulosic sources instead of corn. In the meantime for those driving flex-fuel vehicles it's still tough to find E85 in most of the country. There are an estimated 1,200 E85 filling stations in the U.S. right now with the heaviest concentrations in the Midwest region. For now, most of the ethanol being produced is blended into gasoline at low concentrations to produce E10 which can be used in all cars and trucks (at least the ones that don't run on diesel)[Source: Reuters]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Phil L. 8:00AM (4/15/2008)
An item I've noticed about locations in my area that have E-85, as listed on various on-line sources: Many of them are municipal, government or industrial sites that aren't open to the public. For this reason, I believe the "1200 E85 stations" figure is overly optimistic.
My concern (I'll leave the "does ethanol make sense" argument for others) is that creating a wide distribution network for alternative liquid fuels is likely harder than most give it credit. This could be viewed as another advantage for the EV folks; or simply recognition of where our challenges lie.
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phil easler 8:41AM (4/15/2008)
I think it would be helpful to express output in barrels instead of gallons. Our addiction is about 20.5 million barrels a day. At 36 Billion gallon of ethanol = 857 M barrels = 38 days of daily consumption @ 100% of ethanol. A spit in the bucket, ( one month out of 12) but its better then nothing. Oh, this is by 2022, sad.
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rar 8:50AM (4/15/2008)
Phil L., there are three stations within five miles from my house that sell E85. I wish I could use it.
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Phil L. 9:48AM (4/15/2008)
rar -
Interestingly enough, http://www.e85refueling.com says the 3 closest locations to me are each 15 miles away (awfully far, as none of them are near any of my normal driving). Two of them claim "Private facility. No public access", so no luck there. The third is a county facility listed with "Call to request public use waiver" - so I suspect they really aren't interested in selling to plain 'ol drivers, and probably are only open during municipal business hours.
Not that it matters right now for me - none of my vehicles allow E85 use in stock form.
It troubles me that some factions believe E85 can make a difference - but real-life availability is far more limited than sound bites would lead us to believe.
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MattKelly 12:29PM (4/15/2008)
This is why I believe Congress needs to get in the act and mandate the availability of pumps to sell ethanol. Automakers are doing their part by building the vehicles to run on this fuel, now we need the pumps, but if they are not required to do so, I doubt Big Oil will put the pumps in themselves.
Interestingly, Lifeline Foods in Missouri has a process where they are able to take the corn kernel and separate the ethanol and the meal, proving that there in fact is enough corn to make fuel and food.
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GreyFlcn 6:18PM (4/15/2008)
1. Ethanol doesn't make the air cleaner
http://greyfalcon.net/ethanol2
greyfalcon.net/ethanol9
2. Of course there's no more stations, unlike E6/E10, E85 has always been sold as a boutique or fire-sale product.
http://greyfalcon.net/e85stations2.png
http://greyfalcon.net/e85stations.png
_
3. For the sake of argument, lets make the assumption that biofuels aren't absolutely horrible for the environment.
greyfalcon.net/time
greyfalcon.net/ethanol10
Even then, why in the world should we waste billion of dollars on making an ethanol infrastructure, if they could just as easily make "bio-gasoline" in that same timeframe?
reuters. com/ article/pressRelease/idUS129991+09-Jan-2008+PRN20080109
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Kevin Nugent 7:39PM (4/15/2008)
That figure of 2022 in my opinion is way to far from now . Also i think that the amount of filling stations we have in the u is far less.
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