General Motors Vice Chairman Tom Stevens told an ethanol audience in Florida that there is a need for expanding the ethanol fueling station network across the country. GM estimates the country needs to increase the number of stations that carry ethanol blends by 10-thousand. He said this must be done in order to take advantage of the flex-fuel vehicles on the road today.
Stevens pointed out to his audience that- two-thirds of the pumps are concentrated in 10 states and those 10 states have only about 19 percent of the flex-fuel vehicles that we have on the road. Also, there are about 160-thousand U.S. gasoline stations, but only 22-hundred pump ethanol blends.
Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis, says General Motors and other automotive companies have been adding flex fuel capability to their vehicles to help meet federal targets for the production and consumption of renewable fuels. With ethanol use expected to rise to 35 billion gallons by 2022, Buis said, - an investment in the infrastructure to deliver ethanol to consumers is essential. Growth Energy’s position is that increasing the number of blender pumps would give drivers a choice of mid- and high-level ethanol blends in more locations across the country.
|