GATINEAU, Que. – Legislation is in place for a substantial biofuel mandate in the United States but that’s not enough, say industry leaders.
With eight percent of the nation’s fuel supply already containing ethanol, the industry is quickly approaching “the blending wall,” Bob Dinneen, president of the U.S. Renewable Fuels Association, told delegates attending the fifth annual Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit.
Most of the cars travelling on U.S. roads are built to handle a maximum of 10 percent ethanol in their fuel. So no matter what the mandates dictate, that will effectively cap sales.
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General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have all committed to having half of their new car fleet be flexible fuel vehicles by 2012. Flexible fuel vehicles can run on up to an 85 percent ethanol blend.
Dinneen said that isn’t good enough.
“We’d like foreign auto manufacturers to follow the lead of the Big Three in the U.S. But they’re not doing that. They may just need a swift kick.”
The kick would come in the form of a legislated flexible fuel vehicle mandate. A South Dakota congressman has tabled a bill to that end.
Dinneen thinks there is a good chance such a mandate could be attached to legislation providing a bailout for the ailing automobile manufacturing sector if the government decides to go that route.
The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates there are 7.3 million flexible fuel vehicles in use in the U.S. today out of a total fleet of about 220 million cars, vans, sport utility vehicles and pick-up trucks.
“It’s a fraction,” said Dinneen.
Consumers buy about 17 million new vehicles a year. If half of those were flexible fuel vehicles, it would expand the market for ethanol.
“The growth in demand for the fuel is going to be significant,” said Mary Beth Stanek, General Motors director of environment, energy and safety policy.
And it is just around the corner.
“The fact that we made that (50 percent) commitment a couple of years ago, you’re really going to see these vehicles punching out more and more every year,” she said in an interview following her presentation to delegates.
Canada is behind the game. There are an estimated 200,000 flex fuel vehicles on the road in this country but Stanek expects a quick conversion of the fleet here as well.
One concern she has is the lack of filling stations equipped with pumps capable of dispensing an E85 blend for the 18 flex fuel models GM will have available in the U.S. and the 12 models it is releasing in Canada in 2009.
There are 1,868 such stations in the U.S., which represents one percent of the total. There are only a handful in Canada.
“We need to grow the stations, in particular in Canada. We absolutely need E85 stations in Canada,” said Stanek.
Saskatchewan has expressed interest in developing an E85 corridor in the province and there has been talk of building E85 stations along the Trans-Canada Highway. But today there are only four stations in Canada, all in Ontario.
Stanek said it wouldn’t require a lot of stations to build a corridor between Regina and Saskatoon and along Ontario’s Highway 401. Even 200 E85 stations throughout the country would be significant.
“It could change everything. It really could,” she said.
