Green Options

Editor’s note: Part three of Alexis Madrigal’s series on California’s ethanol mandate focuses on the challenges of transporting the fuel.

III. How to Move A Billion Gallons of Fuel from Iowa to California

Back in the 1980s, with smog choking American cities, the government decided to tinker with the gasoline hydrocarbon formula to create cleaner burning fuels. The easiest way to do that is to add a little oxygen to the gas. Adding O2 is a little like blowing on a flame: the controlled fire inside your car’s engine burns a little more efficiently and thus a little cleaner, reducing toxic air pollutants, carbon monoxide, and ozone.

Spurred by state and Federal regulations but committed to selling the most petroleum they could, oil companies found the cheapest oxygenate they could, a crude-derived chemical called MTBE. Subsequent environmental impact studies determined that MTBE was a groundwater pollutant, and in 1999, then-Governor Gray Davis ruled that all MTBE had to be removed from California’s gasoline by the end of 2002 (though the phase out was extended).

That left the state casting around for an alternative way to get extra oxygen into its gasoline blend while maintaining the smog-control benefits of the previous blend, and quick. They settled on ethanol, the only scaleable oxygenate available.

“This actually was a major shift in a lot of different things. The phase out was something extremely rapid. It required [the oil industry] to use the only other oxygenate alternative, which was ethanol,” says Rahul Iyer, a founder of the biofuels infrastructure startup Primafuel.

Editor’s note: On July 10th, I asked if you’d be interested in “crowdfunding” a feature article on meeting ethanol mandates in California.  You were: within two days, enough money was donated so that Spot.us, a new venture dedicated to crowdfunded reporting, was able to commission Wired.com staff writer Alexis Madrigal to move forward with his article.

We’re proud to be the first media source to publish Alexis’ article.  It will run as a five-part series: three parts published here on Gas 2.0, and the other two on Ecolocalizer.

I. How to Take Some Oil Out of An Energy System — Fast

“Don’t change horses in midstream.”
–aphorism based on 1864 Abraham Lincoln speech

What happens if, all of a sudden, you need to change the entire energy infrastructure on which California’s transportation system runs?

Most Californians probably haven’t noticed, but that’s exactly what a combination of Midwestern farmers, Big Oil companies, railroad operators, and fuel terminal owners have done over the last decade.

In switching out MTBE, a former component of California gasoline, in favor of ethanol, a behind-the-scenes change of huge proportions took place. The state and its industrial infrastructure companies managed to start putting a billion gallons of ethanol into our gas tanks a year, without anyone really noticing.

“Gasoline is just one component in what is legislated to be motor fuel. You can’t sell it without the ethanol,” says John Mahon, who runs renewable fuels for Kinder Morgan, a key player in California’s liquid fuels market. “Ethanol becomes a critical path.”

A few thoughts and a cartoon popped into my head last week while reading an article in Grist on oil companies having to clean up contaminated groundwater. The article stated that

“Some of the nation’s largest oil companies will over the next 30 years have to pay to clean up groundwater befouled with gasoline additive MTBE. In settling a suit brought by 153 public water providers in 17 states, a dozen companies — including BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron — will also have to pay a total $423 million cash.”

Thought #1: Finally!
Thought #2: 30 years! How about 3? And how about shipping clean water to homes in the affected areas in the mean time?
The article goes on to state that the estimated cost of the cleanup is $30 billion…
Thought #3: Why $423 million then?! I’m taking that same logic with me next time I fill up my car. “What, the cost is $4 a gallon? I’ll pay $1.50.”
It also mentioned that Exxon Mobile (among others) did not agree to settle…
Cartoon #1: Big Oil’s Mess? It MTBE, It Could Be, It Is!
And,
Thought #4: How can 17 states worth of contaminated groundwater even be cleaned up?
That’s when discovered that a few University of Aberdeen researchers have found that a whiskey bi-product may just do the trick.