Important advancements for E15 were addressed in a recent Growth Energy web discussion.
E15 (15 percent ethanol/85 percent regular gasoline) is approved for any vehicle manufactured since 2001 ? nearly 9 out of 10 cars on roads today ? and it contains more ethanol, which means lower prices, cleaner air, and better performance. The market expansion of E15 remains a top priority for Growth Energy, according to CEO Emily Skor.
?Right now, we have about 2200 retailers selling E15,? Skor said. ?Most of them sell it as Unleaded 88, so that?s the familiarity for the consumer. We?re 200 terminals offering pre-blended E15 for that small retailer that doesn?t have the ability to blend on site. The really good news that I saw coming out of Covid is that E15 sales increased 10 percent despite the huge plummet we experienced in fuel demand.?
Also a part of the E15 discussion was Iowa farmer Kelly Nieuwenhuis who is president of the board at Siouxland Energy, and is also vice president of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. He was excited about the potential for E15 demand which he described as ?extreme.?
?We have potential going from an E10 blend to an E15 blend of increasing ethanol production by 7 billion gallons and corn demand by over 2 billion bushels per year if we could get to a national blend of E15,? Nieuwenhuis said. ?With the infrastructure built and all of the programs going on right now, and a lot of fuel retailers coming on board for E15, it?s low hanging fruit and so we have to go after that.?
Earlier this month, the US Department of Agriculture announced the first round of grants under the Higher Blends Infrastructure Incentive Program (HBIIP) which represented a major milestone in efforts to offer Americans access to cleaner, more affordable fuel choices.
Skor and Nieuwenhuis? full discussion can be viewed here.
