In the next 15 months two ethanol plants will go on line in northern Oregon, providing E85 fuel for the region that heretofore has relied on Midwestern suppliers.
While fewer than 5 percent of the state's registered motor vehicles are equipped to use the flex-fuel, the number is nearing 90,000.
Within three years, state officials hope 20 percent of the cars and trucks registered in Oregon will be able to run on E85.
To accommodate the new demand, fueling stations will be needed to dispense the flex-fuel and to that end, the Northwest Regional Ethanol Distribution Network was formed.
The public/private partnership's goal is to support 15 retail distribution points along the Interstate 5 corridor with a storage rack in Eugene with rail access to provide an uninterrupted supply.
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"I've always been proponent for cleaner fuels," says Banks, who previously worked for Lane Regional Air Protection Agency, handling grant projects. "This is a completely renewable fuel made domestically. Right now it's brought in by truck, but will soon be delivered by rail."
Banks says three of the 15 fueling sites — one in Eugene and two in Portland — are operational and she's lined up commitments in Washington and the Willamette Valley. However, she's still searching for Southern Oregon locations.
"We'd like to put two in Southern Oregon, preferably in the Medford-Ashland area and Roseburg would be our second choice," Banks says.
Stations adding an E85 pump and tank are eligible for a $10,000 grant through the program.
Although flex-fuel automobiles were introduced in 1994, they were primarily fleet vehicles, says Rick Wallace, an Oregon Department of Energy analyst for the business energy tax credit. "Now it's going more in the mainstream with General Motors and others producing 'green' cars."
Next summer, Pacific Ethanol will open a plant capable of producing 35 to 40 million gallons annually, at Portamorrow near Boardman on the Columbia River.
A second plant operated by Cascade Grange LLC, will have nearly triple the capability at 113 million gallons annually, when it opens in the first half of 2008 in Clatskanie.
While that will increase the availability in the Northwest a significant portion of the new E85 will be shipped to California, where legal requirements demand such a fuel.
"Those large-scale plants won't necessarily sell into the Oregon market," says Derek Reiber with SeQuential Biofuels, which operates in the Willamette Valley. "The majority of the off-take from the Clatskanie plant will go by barge down to the Bay Area and possibly further south. But it will be a large enough supplier to have an impact on the local market and potentially on the price."
Wallace says pump prices for E85, part of the flexible-fuel push to ease America's dependence on fossil fuels, don't fluctuate as wildly as gasoline.
"Over the long-term it has stayed fairly stable," he says.
The pump price at a SeQuential station that began pumping E85 last August in Eugene near Lane Community College is $2.89.
For more information, contact Banks at 541-302-0900 or go to www.cascadesierrasolutions.org online.
Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or at business@mailtribune.com
