San Francisco and other Bay Area communities have been busy in recent years promoting greener vehicles. The latest effort by Bay Area officials is a partnership to install E85 and biofuel stations throughout northern California. These stations are intended to accommodate new vehicles by American automakers that run on biofuels. Propel Fuels is working with East Bay Clean Cities and CALSTART to install 20 biofuel stations in the next year including 10 units by December.
The U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission have provided $10.9 million in grants for the Low Carbon Fuel Infrastructure Investment Initiative. This funding includes $6.9 million from the federal Clean Cities program and $4 million from the state’s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program. Propel Fuels announced that it would leverage this grant with an additional $16 million to speed installation of biofuel stations. This initiative will precede fueling stations with a public education program. This program covers the availability of biofuel vehicles in California as well as the benefits of E85.
Propel Fuels has already installed Clean Fuel Points at locations in Fremont, Oakland and South San Jose. The company is also participating in similar initiatives in Sacramento, Portland and Seattle. The Low Carbon Fuel Infrastructure Investment Initiative has a short-term goal of 75 biofuel stations in the state by 2012.
The Propel Fuels Clean Fuel Points can be used as standalone stations or components within a traditional gas station. The Clean Fuel Point is built from recycling aluminum and covers up to 200 square feet. Propel Fuels notes that eco-friendly options like paperless sales and LED lighting add to the value of the Clean Fuel Point. Each unit can hold up to 10,000 gallons of biofuel to reduce the number of replenishment trips.
The projected displacement of gasoline and greenhouse emissions due to the initiative sound compelling. Estimated displacement due to the initiative includes 39 million gallons of gasoline and 187,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. The addition of more biofuel stations will inevitably bring up debates about the cleanliness of biofuel compared to gasoline. Propel Fuels and other Bay Area partners are participating in a diversification of refueling stations that could be replicable nationwide. The Clean Fuel Point could be adapted for EV chargers, hydrogen fueling and other energy source at multimodal stations in the near future.
It’s a strange world. The EPA has concluded hat corn ethanol is presently worse than gasoline:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/slyutse/as_i_discussed_here_last.html
The environmental impacts of biofuel depend on what it is made out of, soy, palm, canola, or waste oils. There is very little waste oil to go around so the lion’s share comes from food stock, grown on arable land.