Feds and California to Build E85 Ethanol Fueling Network
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced selection of a team to receive grant funding to jumpstart a new alternative fuel network in California. The grant will provide partial funding to build 15 publicly accessible E85 ethanol stations in the state.
Members of the team include CALSTART, General Motors, CleanFUEL USA, Pacific Ethanol, United Oil Co., Community Environmental Council, the City of Tulare, the California Energy Commission, the California State Automobile Association, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the San Joaquin Valley Clean Cities Coalition, and the Southern California Regional Clean Cities Coalition.
Headquartered in Pasadena, CALSTART is a nonprofit corporation that works with its 130 participating organizations to accelerate the commercialization of clean and energy-efficient transportation technologies.
E85 consists of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. However, there is currently only one public station that sells E85 ethanol in California, although the state has more than 300,000 flex-fuel cars capable of running on the fuel. This project will create the fundamental building blocks of an E85 refueling network and provide new fueling choices for the owners of those cars.
Ten E85 fuel pumps will be constructed at existing gas stations owned by United Oil in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. Four pumps will be built at stations along the highway 101 route from Ventura to San Luis Obispo County, and a final E85 pump will be installed in the San Joaquin Valley by Highway 99 in Tulare.
Of the more than 300,000 ethano-capable, flex-fuel vehicles in California, one-third have been produced by General Motors.
This project builds on announcements GM has already made with other state governments, oil companies, ethanol producers, and retail partners in California, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Virginia.
Since May 2005, GM has announced partnerships with states and fuel providers around the country to locate up to 175 new E85 ethanol fueling locations by the end of 2006. There are approximately 1,000 E85 ethanol stations throughout the country, most of them in the Midwest.
Ethanol for this project will be produced in California and supplied by Pacific Ethanol, a company headquartered in Madera. There are three existing ethanol plants in the state and efforts are underway to build four more by the end of 2007. Within the next two years, California ethanol production is expected to reach 400 million gallons per year, an amount that would be sufficient to cover the demand from the 15 new E85 ethanol stations.
