Fuel Expansion Pinches Pennies at the Pump

  • You get more out of your tank of gas if it is purchased in a cold location versus a warm one (Photo by Ben VonWaggoner)

People who buy gasoline in cold
places get more bang for their buck than
people buying gas in warm places. Kyle
Norris explains:

Transcript

People who buy gasoline in cold
places get more bang for their buck than
people buying gas in warm places. Kyle
Norris explains:

Let’s say my friend Ana buys 10 gallons of gasoline in a cold place like the
Canadian tundra. And I buy 10 gallons of gas in the warm state of Florida.
My friend Ana will be able to drive further than I will with those 10 gallons.

That’s because gas expands at warm temperatures. But its energy content
does not.

There’s a gizmo gas stations can put on individual pumps that adjusts for
temperature differences. But each one costs a couple thousand bucks a pop.

Dave Maurer is with the US Government Accountability Office.

“There actually have not been a lot of studies done on the benefits and costs of installing this
equipment. Really what we found is that it’s not really known.”

Right now different states do different things. California has just started a
major study on this topic. But without much research, Maurer said it’s tough
for policy makers to make decisions.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

E-85: The Loneliest Pump

  • This E85 pump is one of two publicly available in the city of Chicago - a city of nearly three million people and dozens of dealerships that sell E-85 compatible cars. The federal government provided incentives to manufacture E85- compatible vehicles, but the fuel infrastructure hasn't kept up. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

If you’ve kicked the tires around
a new car lot recently, your dealer may
have told you about “flex fuel” cars. These
Flex Fuel Vehicles run on gas or they can
burn “E85” – a mix of ethanol and gasoline.
Congress promoted Flex Fuel Vehicles to cut
oil imports, but Shawn Allee reports
on why it really hasn’t helped:

Transcript

If you’ve kicked the tires around
a new car lot recently, your dealer may
have told you about “flex fuel” cars. These
Flex Fuel Vehicles run on gas or they can
burn “E85” – a mix of ethanol and gasoline.
Congress promoted Flex Fuel Vehicles to cut
oil imports, but Shawn Allee reports
on why it really hasn’t helped:

I’m in my car across the street from a gas station. It’s raining right now. Keeping my
distance.

I’ve been watching a pump that dispenses that E85 blend – it’s the stuff with 85% ethanol.

Anyway, this is a very lonely gas pump. I’ve been here for something like an hour and
half and no one’s filled up on E85.

So, I’m gonna head in and talk to a manager to see whether this is normal.

(sound of bell)

Allee: “What’s your name sir?”

McLemen: “Greg McLemen.”

Allee: “How often do you see people fill up on E85?”

McLemen: “It depends on the location. Mostly people just don’t know what it is. They
see a little pump over there that says E85. A lot of vehicles take it, and they don’t even
know it.”

McLemen pulls out a flier that shows which vehicles can use E85.

He says lots of these models pull in, but often pass up his E85 pump.

(sound of crinkling)

McLemen: “You can see most of them are General Motors.”

Allee: “A lot of General Motors – Tahoe, Avalanche, Uplanders.”

McLemen: “We always recommend they go online or check the owner’s manual.”

But there’s something most Flex-Fuel owners manuals don’t tell you.

Nationwide, only about 1% of stations have an E85 pump.

E85 is supposed to cut gasoline use.

So it begs the questions: If there’s not much E85 around, why can so many Flex Fuel cars
use it?

“Currently, auto companies receive a fuel economy credit for producing a flex-fuel
vehicle.”

Environmentalist Roland Hwang tracks car policy for the Natural Resources Defense
Council.

He says the Flex Fuel incentives infuriate him – because they’ve made us waste gasoline,
not save it.

“Just very roughly speaking, like a twenty per mile gallon car might be treated like a
forty mile per gallon, almost like a hybrid-level of efficiency, under these fuel economy
credits. Thereby allowing the auto companies actually to build a less-efficient vehicle
fleet than they would have had to build.”

You don’t have to take Hwang’s word for it – energy analysts in the government agree the
incentives have wasted gasoline.

But some of these analysts say there is a bright side to the Flex Fuel vehicle incentives.

One is Paul Leiby of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Leiby: “The important side of effect Flexible Fuel incentives is that we actually can begin
to achieve energy security with the enhanced capability to use alternative fuels even if
we’re not yet using them.”

Allee: “You mean the flex fuel vehicle program wastes some gas, but having flex fuel
vehicles around is like an insurance policy, for an oil shock or something?”

Leiby: “That’s exactly right. If we have to do something very fast, within one to three
years, we already have some vehicles on the road, that can quickly switch to ethanol.”

Leiby says Congress really believed this “insurance policy” idea, so it let Flex Fuel
vehicle incentives for automakers go on for more than a decade – even while we were
just spinning our wheels when it came to actually saving gas.

But now, the game could be changing.

Congress is phasing out Flex Fuel credits for the car makers.

And, there’s talk about making all cars flex fuel.

It’s a move Detroit doesn’t want to make. Because then they’ll have to actually have to
meet the government’s requirements of a more fuel efficient fleet.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Flex-Fuel Cars Often Burn Gas

  • The seven million or so Flex Fuel Vehicles are just a small portion of the 200-million or so vehicles in the American fleet, but there could many, more in the future. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

For most drivers, filling up at the
pump’s a pretty easy operation – you drive
up, you fill up, and you drive out. But people
who have Flex Fuel Vehicles have another choice.
They can fill up on gas or E-85, that 85 percent
ethanol blend – if they find the right station.
Shawn Allee reports a lot more of us
could have to make that same choice in the future:

Transcript

For most drivers, filling up at the
pump’s a pretty easy operation – you drive
up, you fill up, and you drive out. But people
who have Flex Fuel Vehicles have another choice.
They can fill up on gas or E-85, that 85 percent
ethanol blend – if they find the right station.
Shawn Allee reports a lot more of us
could have to make that same choice in the future:

I’m at a car lot in my home town. I’m not actually in the car market, but I am
curious what these E85 compatible Flex Fuel vehicles look like. I don’t own one
myself.

Anyway, I’m here with Edgar Moreno. He sells cars on this lot. He’s gonna show
me one of these vehicles here.

Allee: “Edgar, what can you show me?”

Moreno: “The Chevy Impala.”

Allee: “I actually don’t see anything that would tell me it’s a Flex-fuel vehicle.”

Moreno: “Usually it says on the gas cap whether you can use E85 or not.”

(sound of twist)

Allee: “It’s bright yellow. It says E85. In fact it says E85-slash-gasoline. What does
that mean?”

Moreno: “You can fill it with either, or.”

Allee: “How many stations are there available where I could fill this Impala up with
E85?”

Moreno: “I think there’s one in the area, but you have to drive quite a bit to get
there.”

Allee: “So, it’s one of those situations where, if I take this Impala off the lot, I could
still use it at a regular gas station, but I might have to search around for an E85
station?”

Moreno: “Yes, you do. Yep.”

Congress and both presidential candidates are considering making every car a Flex
Fuel Vehicle.

Detroit has spent a lot of money promoting E85 vehicles, and you might think they’d
be in favor of this.

Well, I called Ford Motor Company about this and found out that’s not the case.

“You could mandate every vehicle on the road to be a flex fuel vehicle. It would be a
great cost to our industry.”

Curt Magleby is Ford’s point-man on ethanol regulations.

He says if Congress gets its way there’d be more Flex Fuel Vehicles, but not necessarily
more E85 pumps.

“So you can mandate the vehicle side, but unless there’s a real focus on distribution,
it’s wasted money – we’d be putting dollars on the hoods of our vehicles for no
reason.”

So, Ford and the other car makers could make less profit on Flex Fuel Vehicles if there’s
a mandate.

At one time, they got government incentives to build Flex Fuel Vehicles, but those will
phase out.

So there’d be no benefit for the automakers.

And there’s another twist in the E-85 story.

The fuel industry is pushing to distribute ethanol in a way that might not require flex fuel
cars at all.

This is a little technical, but most gas already has 10% ethanol in it.

The fuel industry wants to sell 20% or even 30% ethanol blends because it saves oil
companies money. The government subsidized ethanol is cheaper than refining oil for
gasoline.

Ford and other car-makers are fighting this.

Magleby says burning E-20 or E-30 blends would be a disaster for existing cars.

“Ethanol is corrosive and it burns hotter, so you have to have a different fuel tank.
You have to have stainless steel fuel lines. You have to have hardened valves in your
engine.”

Car companies say burning 20% or 30% ethanol blends could hurt existing cars.

Scientists are checking whether that’s the case.

In the meantime, Congress is deciding exactly how it will promote ethanol.

It could mandate all cars be E85 Flex Fuel vehicles or it could promote lower-level
ethanol blends in gasoline.

Either way, over the next few years, we’re going to see big changes in our cars or our gas
pumps.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Small Car Trend to Stay?

  • Since gas prices have dropped, some buyers are showing more interest in big vehicles. (Photo courtesy of the US Department of State)

When gas prices went up, car
companies cut their production plans for
making big vehicles, and made new plans
for more fuel efficient cars. The question
now is, with gas prices falling, will those
plans change again? As Dustin Dwyer
reports, the experts say probably not:

Transcript

When gas prices went up, car
companies cut their production plans for
making big vehicles, and made new plans
for more fuel efficient cars. The question
now is, with gas prices falling, will those
plans change again? As Dustin Dwyer
reports, the experts say probably not:

It’s not as easy to make money on a small car as it is on an SUV.

Small cars are cheaper, and they have lower profit margins. But as gas prices went up earlier this year, auto
executives insisted they’d find a way to make money on small vehicles.

Since gas prices have dropped though, some buyers are showing more interest in big vehicles.

Michael Robinet tracks the auto industry for the firm CSM Worldwide. He says the long term trend still
points to smaller vehicles.

“There may be a ratcheting down by some consumers in terms of the size of vehicles that they’re looking
for, irrespective of where fuel prices go in the future.”

Robinet says the bad economy is forcing many people to downsize. And the federal government has new
rules that mandate cleaner cars, so Robinet says getting smaller will be the big trend for years to come.

For The Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links

Reactor Back Online at High Cost

One of the biggest nuclear power facilities in the region recently brought another idled reactor back online. The Pickering Nuclear station is just east of Toronto on Lake Ontario and has a total of eight reactors. Some say the cost of operating these reactors isn’t worth the power they generate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

One of the biggest nuclear power facilities in the region recently brought another idled reactor back online. The Pickering Nuclear station is just east of Toronto on Lake Ontario and has a total of eight reactors. Some say the cost of operating these reactors isn’t worth the power they generate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


The Pickering facility is Canada’s oldest nuclear plant: two stations with for reactors each. The newer B station has been operational since it was built in the 1980’s. One reactor at the older A station was restarted last year and a second one, this fall, at a cost of a billion dollars.


Shawn Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace says they’re not worth it.


“We know that the other four reactors at the Pickering B station… they’ll be reaching the end of their operational life around 2009. What we should do is prepare for that, and start building other energy sources to replace the energy that we need as those reactors come offline.”


The Ontario government is looking to develop other sources of energy, but the nuclear industry says the province won’t find it easy to give up nuclear energy. They say it’s clean, emission-free, and despite the problems at the plants, it has still proven to be affordable and reliable.


For the GLRC, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

Related Links

Suburb Sees the Light in Rail

  • The town of Elburn, IL is working to preserve their small town feel in the face of sprawling development headed their way. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:

Transcript

Rural towns on the edge of big cities often see encroaching
suburban development as a threat to their way of life. One small town
is feeling those pressures too. And it’s taking a page from its past
to fight them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee
has this report:


Eric Gustaffson is a young guy who works at his family’s drug store. He says he plans to stick around because he likes his small town – Elburn, Illinois – just as it is. It’s still got a working grain elevator and animal feed stores. It also has a real town center, a strip of shops that people can walk to.


But like a lot of his neighbors, Eric’s bothered by some of the sprawling subdivisions that are popping up nearby. He doesn’t want to see that that kind of development come to Elburn. He says it would become a place where neighbors live too far apart and everyone has to drive to get anywhere. He does have hope, though.


“I really think that the plan that Elburn has set in place will work a lot better and will control how things grow a little bit more instead of just things from popping up in random places.”


So, what’s the plan? Well, it turns out Elburn’s looking to its past for help. Residents used to catch passenger trains here for day trips to Chicago. The passenger service died out decades ago, but now Elburn’s bringing in a new train station. It will be part of the region’s Metra commuter rail system.


By next year, commuters will be able to avoid the congested roads that lead to Chicago, but the town also wants the station to be the center of a new neighborhood, a cluster of new shops, smaller homes, and even apartments.


The idea’s to get people to walk to stores and the train instead of driving to them, all of which is very different from what’s happening in nearby subdivisions. Those are pretty much isolated tracts of big houses and little else.


There is some danger in Elburn’s plan, though. The proposed development could double the population, and the train station will attract extra car traffic to its parking lot. During our drive to the construction site, I ask the mayor, Jim Willey, whether this plan might kill the town while trying to save it.


“I get the impression sometimes people wish that we had some secret sauce we could spray on the town and keep it just the way it is. It’s sad, but you can’t do that and change happens, and we have to deal with it.”


(Sound of heavy machinery)


At the site, construction machines pack down a couple of acres of dirt. It took a decade, a lot of political will, and a hundred and forty million dollars to start the project. But Jim says that was the easy part.


It will be harder to resist the temptation to stray from the plan, and build only big, single family homes here. He says a compact mix of stores and housing will be good for the region, not just Elburn. If there’s enough housing here, maybe there’ll be less pressure to build houses on the nearby farms.


“You can’t go anywhere in the world and find finer farmland than where we’re at right now. So the least that we can do is, when we’re going to convert this to housing, is let’s think about what we’re doing, let’s try to make some intelligent decisions.”


There are towns that look like Elburn’s vision of the future. Last century, commuter towns with compact development sprung up along the country’s commuter rail lines. But they all got their start in the days before interstate highways and long car commutes. So, is it possible to mimic those towns now, in the post-automobile age?


Well, I put that question to Dave Schulz. He’s with the Infrastructure Technology Institute, a federally-funded transportation research group. He says it’s hard to keep projects like Elburn’s on track; homes are clustered close to shops, what planners call high-density. He cites Glenview, another Illinois town with a commuter rail station.


“Basically, a number of members of the Glenview board who were voted out of office for approving a townhome development that was judged, apparently, by voters to be too high density near the train station. I think we have a situation where people in the suburbs fear density.”


Schulz says it’s hard to change that attitude. But to fend off the sprawl of suburban development, towns like Elburn need to stay the course. Otherwise…


“If all you’re gonna do is build a bunch of stations in the middle of the cornfields with giant parking lots to allow people to drive to the station from wherever they choose to live, I think a fairly strong argument can be made that you’re not fighting sprawl, but you’re in fact facilitating sprawl.”


Dave Schulz says places like Elburn could be onto something. Maybe its plan for compact development will attract people looking for something different from typical suburban homes. If Elburn can keep its small-town feel, maybe newcomers won’t mind giving up their spacious yards and extra cars.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links