For consumers who support E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) and drive a flex-fuel vehicle, E85 became a little easier to find today when the 2,000th E85 pump opened today in Davie, Florida a suburb of Miami. The station is owned by U-Gas, which has brought most of the E85 infrastructure to Florida. As part of the celebration, the station offered E85 for $1.00 a gallon at not only this station, but all stations where U-Gas sells E85.
Willie Urbieta, President of U-Gas is a huge supporter of ethanol and said during the press conference, “For me personally, it feels really good when I fuel up to know that I’m not sending money to countries that are not that friendly to us.”
Corn ethanol was given a reprieve today when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its proposed rule for implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard or RFS2 that includes calculations of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for all fuels. The RFS was signed into law as part of the Energy and Independence Act of 2007 which limits the maximum amount of corn ethanol to 15 billion gallons of the required 36 billion gallons by 2022.
There was palpable concern among corn ethanol proponents leading up to the ruling due to the controversy surrounding Indirect Land Use as well as the passing of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) last week by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which was not favorable for corn ethanol.
By Nick Chambers •
October 27, 2008
In a new report, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) says the events of recent months clearly indicate that production of corn ethanol is not a major driving factor behind the continued high food prices at the supermarket.
In the report, “Will the Plunge in Grain Prices Mean Lower Food Prices at the Supermarket?,” the RFA points out that, while prices for agricultural staple commodities such as corn, wheat, and soybeans have all plummeted by about 50% in the last half year, food prices at the grocery store have remained highly elevated. At the same time, ethanol production has dramatically increased.
When the above factors are taken together, the link between grocery store food prices and corn ethanol production becomes dubious. Not only that, and also somewhat unintuitively, it seems that the diversion of relatively large portions of the US corn crop to ethanol production has very little effect on even the market price of corn.
