Posted on Fri, Feb. 02, 2007
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Fuels of future today
A Phila. gas station plans hoopla to tout its biofuels.
By Sandy Bauers
Inquirer Staff Writer
John Costello / Inquirer Staff Photographer
Alternative fuel at the pump of the Shell station at 12th and Vine. It was not a big hit yesterday. But today, dozens of cars were expected to line up for fuels touted as environmentally friendlier. Inquirer photo by John Costello.
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Even though signs said the Shell station at 12th and Vine was selling exciting stuff - Fuels of the Future Available Here Now! Energy Independence for America! - most drivers yesterday reached for regular old petroleum.
That will change at a debut event today, when a parade of 75-plus vehicles will fill 'er up with fuels that proponents say will give the country cleaner air, reduce dependence on foreign fuel, and lower the emissions that contribute to global warming.
Owner John Ciccone has been selling the alternative fuels for several weeks, and he said initial sales had been "promising."
But with various glitches to be worked out, he and advocates wanted to wait until today - the eve of the Philadelphia Auto Show - for the hype.
Stephen J. Levy, director of clean fuels for Sprague Energy, which supplies the fuel, said Ciccone's was one of perhaps a handful of stations in the nation offering both of the newest alternative fuels - "biodiesel," which is regular diesel supplemented with oil often made from soybeans, and E85, a gasoline blend of 85 percent ethanol.
Biodiesel can be used interchangeably with regular diesel. E85 can be used only in specially adapted vehicles.
While several stations in the region sell versions of biodiesel, the closest selling E85 is in Lancaster County.
Many area stations do sell a blend of gasoline that includes 10 percent ethanol, which all vehicles can use.
Proponents say alternative fuels reduce air pollution that causes illness and contributes to global warming. Plus, the alternatives reduce the country's dependence on limited fossil fuels and foreign oil, without costing significantly more.
Critics complain that most ethanol is made from corn, which requires vast amounts of petroleum-based fertilizers and tractor fuel. Some critics also warn of global food shortages because so much corn is being diverted for fuel.
With E85, producers have been plagued by a version of an age-old question: Which comes first, the fuel or the vehicle?
Auto dealers can't sell vehicles that use E85 until the fuel exists, but why make the fuel if there are no users?
The hope of the nation's automakers is that the fuel will feed demand for cars, and vice versa. At last year's Super Bowl, GM debuted an ethanol advertisement with its "live green, go yellow" slogan - the yellow referring to corn. Look for a new "alternative propulsion" ad during Sunday's game, GM exec Brad Beauchamp says.
So-called flexible-fuel vehicles that can use regular gasoline or E85 have been in production for several years. Automotive experts say as many as six million cars in the United States can use E85, and the state Department of Environmental Protection estimates 160,000 of them are in Pennsylvania. However, many drivers of flexible vehicles might not know it unless the feature was emphasized when they made the purchase.
The site www.e85fuel.com lists makes, models and vehicle identification number ranges.
With funds from the U.S. Department of Energy, the Greater Philadelphia Clean Cities Program, which also is joining in today's hoopla, has launched an effort to make E85 available along a 200-mile corridor from State College to somewhere along Route 30 in Montgomery County.
Ciccone said that while most of his customers so far had been individual consumers, he expects much of his business to come from government agencies with mandates to use alternative fuels.
One agency that has switched to biodiesel is the Philadelphia Zoo, which has started using it in its trucks.
"Health, environment and economy; they're hitting on three big cylinders for us," said a zoo official, Matthew Suydam, adding that because biodiesel is a better lubricant, he expects to see longer engine life.
Ciccone, an architect who bought the station in 1986, became a biofuel booster after a cold call from an alternative-fuels advocate five years ago.
"I just got caught up in this whole biofuel thing," Ciccone said. "It's the whole idea that this is needed."
Eventually, he spent $800,000 to dig up the station, clean up the soil contamination that he said is inevitable from years of fuel drips, and install new tanks and pumping equipment.
Yesterday at 11 a.m., Ciccone's E85 cost $2.32 - the same as regular old 87 octane gasoline. The biodiesel cost $2.90; that's 10 cents more than regular diesel.
Most industry observers expect the yellow kernels will be replaced within the decade by the entire corn plant, switch grass, and other "cellulosic" materials.
"We're obviously in the early stages of the development," said John Hanger, president of the environmental group Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, who declared the station's official debut of biofuels "an exciting day."
"We understand that before we can get to ethanol made from cellulose and not corn, the market has to develop," he said. "Today is an important sign that the market is developing."
Timing is on Ciccone's side as he tries to promote more E85 and biodiesel sales.
In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush emphasized the need for more ethanol.
Yesterday, Gov. Rendell announced, as part of a state energy-independence strategy, a plan to grow and use one billion gallons of clean and renewable fuels, which would represent about 12.5 percent of all fuel consumption in the state.
He touted the construction of an ethanol plant in Lancaster County, which will be one of the largest in the East. And he boasted that Pennsylvania companies would produce 60 million gallons of biodiesel by the end of the year.
Oddly enough, Ciccone doesn't have a car that uses either biodiesel or ethanol. But he's working on it.
The real future, Ciccone and others believe, is in hydrogen fuel. When it becomes commercially available, he figures he will sell that, too.
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02-02-2007, 07:55 PM
Retail biodiesel pump in Philly?!?!
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