A recent article by Red Herring reporter Justin Moresco called the need for ethanol distribution and retail infrastructure “Ethanol’s Unsexy Dilemma.”
Moresco quotes Karl Doenges of CleanFuel USA, Michelle Kautz with the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition (NEVC), Robert White of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) and Matt Hartwig with the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), among others, about the challenge of making E85 available for the six million flex-fuel vehicles already on the road.
If each station assisted 300 of the flex-fuel vehicles on the road today, said Michelle Kautz of NEVC, there would have to be 20,000 stations.
“I would say our biggest hurdle is the potential cost to the retailer of putting infrastructure in and the education needed to get customers to support that,” said Robert White, of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, a trade group.
Putting in an E85 tank and dispenser costs from between $6,000 and $30,000, said Mr. Doenges, vice president and general manager for CleanFuel USA, which has equipped several hundred stations.
The simplest overhauls need a tank cleaned and a new dispenser. The big jobs—with all the “bells and whistles”—require ripping out concrete, adding new tanks and dispensers, and extending islands and canopies.
There are federal tax breaks and a growing number of state incentives for stations to add E85 infrastructure.
But Mr. Doenges said the other hurdle to ramping up E85 is the oil companies.
That’s why CleanFuel also acts as a distributor to bring ethanol to retailers. At the same time, change is happening.
Matt Hartwig of the Renewable Fuel Association said that ethanol storage tanks are popping up at terminals across the country.
“You see the infrastructure being put in place,” he said. And once the ethanol is at the terminals—even if it’s intended for E10—that will make the jump to higher blends easier in the future, he said.
According to a 
Wisconsin’s first soybean crushing facility is being built… thanks to a $4 million grant from the state.
A ferry carrying 124 cars in Washington State’s Puget Sound has been running on biodiesel since last month, and officials are hoping to expand the green fuel into another transport.
Fifty years ago, you could see acres and acres of flax growing in the southern part of Texas. Today, the crop once grown for vegetable oil, is finding new life as a feedstock for biodiesel.
“It’s kind of like we’re coming full circle,” said Dr. Gaylon Morgan, small grains researcher and member of the Texas A&M AgriLife project team. “Flax was grown on about 400,000 acres during that time and Texas AgriLife Research had an active flax breeding program.
“Schools, truck drivers, small businesses and families across the commonwealth are feeling the pressure of higher fuel bills on their budgets and wallets,” said McGinty. “Switching from conventional fuels to homegrown biofuels will help break our addiction to foreign oil, bring down costs, strengthen national security, and grow our economy.
Roe explains that Coskata combines both biological and thermochemical processing and can use a wide variety of feedstocks, from wood chips, weeds and non-food crops like miscanthus, to even human waste and carbon-heavy garbage like tires.
Sales of alternative fuel vehicles in the United States, including flex-fuel and hybrid electric, reached 1.8 million last year, about 250,000 more than in 2006.
According to officials, the site has been electronically energized and the turnover of individual systems to start-up and operating teams has begun so that the functional capabilities of each system can be tested. In total, more than forty separate systems will be evaluated over approximately the next three months.