Pataki Wants Drivers to Fill Up With Ethanol or Biodiesel
ALBANY, Jan. 6 - Some 200,000 New Yorkers own vehicles that can run on corn-based ethanol instead of gasoline. But many have no idea that their Ford Explorers, Chevy Impalas or Nissan Titans can use this type of fuel, which some view as a way to liberate Americans from Middle Eastern oil.
In any case, the closest station carrying ethanol is in Ottawa, as the Northeast is the one region of the United States that
uniformly does not offer ethanol to the public.
But Gov. George E. Pataki wants to change that and make ethanol and biodiesel, two controversial alternative fuels, available in the 27 service areas on the New York State Thruway and in 100 more stations throughout the state as early as this year, in a first small step toward reducing the state's petroleum consumption. The governor is also proposing incentives to bring refineries that produce ethanol into the state.
Costs and further details of the plan, which Mr. Pataki first sketched out in his State of the State address on Wednesday, will not be disclosed until he makes his budget proposal later this month. If the plan is approved by the Legislature, it will give New Yorkers one of the nation's most
diverse ranges of fuel choices. Only Minnesota offers an ethanol-rich blend known as E85 at more than 100 stations. Likewise, biodiesel is offered at only a few hundred of the nation's roughly 180,000 stations.
Both fuels can be made from a variety of crops, trees and plant material, and even used grease from fast-food outlets in the case of biodiesel. Ethanol, or grain alcohol, is already mixed with gasoline sold in the New York metropolitan area, but in amounts of about 10 percent. By contrast, E85, as its name suggests, is 85 percent ethanol.
Using it is not far-fetched. In Brazil, ethanol made from sugar cane has become a formidable competitor to gasoline.
Biodiesel is more commonly sold as B20, a blend of 20 percent biodiesel, with the rest conventional diesel fuel. While ethanol smells like moonshine, a car with biodiesel can smell like cooking French fries through a tailpipe. Both
fuels have their share of skeptics and believers. Willie Nelson, for instance, sells his own brand of B20 known as BioWillie and pitches it as an alternative to consuming fuel from the Middle East.
The governor's plan comes after the oil price shocks of the last year and frustration with automakers for suing New York for adopting California's greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars.
The plan also includes incentives to help the state modify its hybrid-electric vehicles so that the cars can be plugged into stationary outlets to enable them to use even more electricity than fuel, a practice discouraged by the auto industry.
"Are we supposed to sit around and wait for Detroit to do these things?" said Charles G. Fox, a deputy secretary to Mr. Pataki who oversees energy issues, in an interview on Friday. Part of the plan, he said, was aimed at promoting the use of alternative fuels that can be used right away, as opposed to
more futuristic fuels like hydrogen. Biodiesel can run in any diesel engine, and several million cars and trucks on the road nationwide can use E85.
Criticism of the governor has come from several sides.
Peter Iwanowicz, a director of environmental health for the American Lung Association of New York, said the environmental benefits of the two fuels were mixed.
"Ethanol increases ozone formation, which is obviously harmful for people with lung disease, and biodiesel increases emissions of nitrogen oxide," he said.
But a variety of research suggests that the fuels can be environmentally beneficial, depending on how they are produced.
Mr. Pataki has been criticized for promoting ethanol because it is made from corn grown in states that include Iowa, which he has been visiting recently to gauge support for a possible presidential
run.
But even the governor's advisers say that making ethanol from corn is a bad idea and that they prefer using wood or certain kinds of grass.
Environmentalists have largely denounced making ethanol-capable vehicles, calling that a boondoggle intended for the agriculture lobby and Detroit. When automakers build cars and trucks that can use ethanol, called flex-fuel vehicles, they earn credits that make it easier to meet fuel-economy regulations, in turn giving them leeway to build more gas-guzzlers.
Automakers have also not even told many customers that they own vehicles with such a capability, but Mr. Fox said New York might do so by consulting state records. Consumers can learn if they own one by examining their vehicle identification number as described at www.e85fuel.com.
Only about
400 stations nationwide sell E85, and none of them are in the Northeast. On Friday, a gallon of E85 was selling for $1.73 - in part because of subsidies - at a station in Akron, Iowa, compared with $2.19 for a gallon of unleaded regular.
That does not represent a discount, in real terms, because ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline, and a driver cannot go as far on a gallon.
Some studies, particularly a recent one by Cornell University, have suggested that producing ethanol from corn costs more energy than it creates, when the diesel fuel used by tractors and the production of fertilizer and other factors are considered.
"Some people think it's an environmental messiah, and other people think it's alchemy," said Ryan S. Karben, a Democratic assemblyman who is the chairman of a subcommittee on renewable fuels. "The question is why put such a controversial technology at the forefront of
the state's energy strategy?"
Mr. Fox, Mr. Pataki's deputy, says the administration is far more interested in fostering research and development of new processes to create ethanol. With corn, he said, "it takes too much energy to make a gallon of ethanol."
Mr. Pataki has the use of a Chevrolet Suburban that can run on ethanol from stations available to government vehicles. If nothing else, his plan would allow him to keep using ethanol after he leaves office.
Stewart Hancock, a spokesman for Northeast Biofuels, a company that is refitting a brewery in Fulton, N.Y., as an ethanol plant, said he hoped to start production within a year.
"I told the governor we'd have some to put in his black Suburban before he leaves office," he said, "so the clock is ticking."
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