By DALE HILDEBRANT, Farm & Ranch Guide
Sen. Dorgan addresses the ethanol summit. Photo by Dale Hildebrant
FARGO, N.D. - With new ethanol plants coming on line at a rapid pace, the use of ethanol needs to grow or we could soon end up producing a surplus of ethanol. That was the message that came out of an ethanol summit meeting sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) on Nov. 27 in Fargo, which included ethanol industry leaders.
According to Dorgan, North Dakota has fewer than 30 E-85 pumps in the state, even though we have over 15,000 flex-fuel vehicles traveling the state’s streets and highways.
“Our future is not in a 90-10 blend. If it’s only a 10 percent ethanol blend we are going to produce more than we need and we are going to run into a problem here,” Dorgan said. “We need to address how do you put a higher blend into these vehicles that Detroit has made and is going to make, so we can consume a substantial amount of additional renewable fuels and displace that which we need to bring in from foreign sources of oil.”
North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson told the group that currently the nation burns about 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year, and if ethanol is used in only a 10 percent blend, that would require 14 billion gallons of ethanol a year. However, by 2010 USDA is predicting the U.S. will produce well over 10 billion gallons of ethanol. That domestic production, combined with imports could result in oversupply and deal the infant ethanol industry a stunning blow.
“The only way we are going to begin to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil is to have some sort of a requirement or extremely powerful incentive to have every gallon of gas have a percentage of ethanol,” Johnson said. “The real question is how do we continue to put forth more ethanol in every gallon of gas?”
Many owners of flex-fuel vehicles are bypassing the E-85 pumps and filling with an E-10 blend because the E-85 fueled vehicles don’t start as well in cold weather. And because of decreased gas mileage with E-85, the present cost savings doesn’t make up the difference for the lower mileage rate, thus making economics an issue.
Instead, the best economies seem to come from a 30 to 40 percent blend of ethanol to gasoline. By offering such products, the use of ethanol would increase and customers would be getting the most value for their money.
However, gas station owners represented at the meeting said that concept would not work because it would involve too many pumps offering the five or six grades of gas.
A few dealers from South Dakota, who were attending the summit, mentioned some service stations in South Dakota are using blender pumps, which draws from two tanks, one regular gasoline and the other ethanol. The customers are then able to fuel their vehicles with whatever blend of ethanol they choose.
They claimed that managers at various South Dakota blender pump locations claim the 40 percent E-85, which is actually 30 percent ethanol, is their best seller compared to the E-10 blend or straight E85.
Other station owners, however, claim the costs of the blended pumps, which some said could cost around $15,000 each, would be prohibitive, especially in larger service stations with several pump locations.
Dorgan, who was one of three senators who helped write the federal renewable fuels standard that calls for using 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol per year, said the federal standards must continue to increase and each state must adopt renewable standards as well.
“I think states should have renewable fuel policies in place - a number of them now do. Our state (North Dakota) does not,” he said. “Our state legislature should develop a renewable fuels standard that says ‘here’s what we aspire to achieve, this is want we want to do,’ so that we have a goal. Otherwise, it’s just whatever happens, happens.”
Mike Williams, a Fargo City Commissioner and an officer in the N.D. Renewable Energy Partnership, said maybe a change in terminology is needed when it comes to activity at the state legislature.
“Whenever renewable energy comes up in the legislature, you always hear, ‘they’re going to mandate something’,” Williams said. “Well, I’m on the city commission and we make laws all the time and that’s a mandate. Mandate is just another word for a law, but mandate is kind of a scare word.”
Williams mentioned the standards that were adopted years ago, which made the American automobile better as new levels were put in place for mileage and emissions.
“We’ve also heard that our residents don’t want these mandates or goals,” he continued. “But a survey conducted by the UND Bureau of Governmental Affairs that included interviewing over 600 people throughout the entire state, 93 percent of the respondents were familiar with 10 percent ethanol, 80 percent support a 10 percent ethanol blend requirement, 87 percent favored a tax benefit for ethanol that would make it cheaper than regular gas and more than half prefer to purchase gasoline blended with ethanol. The people of North Dakota understand that home grown energy is in our best interest. We have these misconceptions out there that we need to quell.”
Those attending the summit also said work needs to be done on three fronts as far as motor vehicles are concerned. First, more consumer education is needed showing that using ethanol won’t harm a vehicle’s engine.
“Some would blame a flat tire on using ethanol,” Dorgan quipped.
But the auto industry has two concerns they need to address: the first is developing engines that burn higher blends of ethanol more efficiently; and then to address the liability issue for those not owning flex-fuel vehicles, but still desire to burn ethanol blends greater than 10 percent. That liability problem is what is preventing some service stations from offering higher blends, but Dorgan said rewriting liability waiver legislation would be difficult to do.
At the end of the summit, Dorgan said the comments raised created just as many questions as were solved.
“I think we are facing some really significant potential on the upside and very significant potential for trouble if we don’t find a way to address the demand side of this,” Dorgan concluded. “Our intention was to use a whole lot of renewable fuels through our carburetors and fuel injectors. That’s the purpose of all of this.”
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