With no fanfare or public awareness campaign, local businesses last week began pumping gasoline products with a 10 percent mixture of that corn-fed fuel proponents say curbs carbon emissions and reduces America's dependency on foreign oil.
Local fuel retailers have been busy adjusting to the ethanol mixture. They're changing filters, checking tanks and ordering green stickers they will soon slap on pumps to notify the motoring public.
Texans Texaco on Interstate 35 in North Temple has been selling the 10 percent ethanol blend for several days. Co-owner Jared Westmoreland said they had to pay a service company several hundred dollars to ensure the new blend caused them and their customers no headaches. Because ethanol like other fermented products is an alcohol, it has a high water content, and can clog fuel filters at the gas pump and in vehicles.
Westmoreland said they had to remove all water from the bottom of their four 10,000-gallon tanks and install new filters on all pumps. Total cost was more than $500.
"There's a pump system that literally sucks the contaminated water out of the bottom of the tank. Even an inch can cause problems," Westmoreland said. "We're going to have to replace filters probably for the next few weeks. Every time somebody's fueling up here, we've got to keep an eye on how fast the fuel is going, if it starts to tick in penny increments we've got a problem."
The manager at the Conoco station on Southwest HK Dodgen Loop said they were monitoring the new fuel's water content with a special paste. Slap some on the long dipstick used to measure fuel level in the underground tank, and like litmus paper dip it in the liquid to take a reading.
The ethanol mixture is the result of 2005 and 2007 federal energy acts requiring specific benchmarks for refineries to produce cleaner-burning fuel.
"Because ethanol is the only biofuel source with sufficient production and base feed stock to meet these mandates, it has been the most widely used by refiners to meet the new federal mandates," said Chris Martin, spokesman for the Texas Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association.
Mandated amounts of renewable fuels will increase each year between now and 2022, Martin said, thus the 10 percent ethanol mixture will eventually increase, probably to 15 percent.
When that happens, retailers will have to buy new pumps and refinery companies will face a major obstacle delivering the product.
"There's a train wreck ahead. It (ethanol) can't go through the pipelines like a traditional fuel because it attracts water molecules," Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, said. "So while you have 100 different motor fuel products that are transported via pipelines (diesel, jet fuel, crude oil, refined products) ethanol has to be either barged, trucked or transported via rail, so it creates some distribution challenges as well."
The ethanol debate has gone back and forth for years.
Agricultural and environmental interests have touted ethanol made from corn, pointing out it burns cleaner than gasoline and creates jobs. On the other hand, auto repair facilities say ethanol is tough on older vehicles, provides fewer miles per gallon, and makes cold weather starting more difficult.
"The later model vehicles handle it real well, but you start looking at your mid-'90s and back, you start having some issues," said Adrian Jez, owner of Adrian's Garage on South 31st Street in Temple. "Any older lines, steel lines and rubber lines and aluminum lines corrode … just because of the alcohol itself. A vehicle that is flex-fuel, or a multi-fuel type vehicle, is the best situation. Your early model vehicles won't get as good a fuel mileage, as good a performance because it won't have any way to compensate for the fuel requirements."
