New fuel delivery system blends ethanol with savings

Unity Biofuels working to bring self-blending ethanol/gas pumps to Iowa

By SCOTT NILES Courier staff writer

FAIRFIELD — An alternative fuels organization hopes a new fuel delivery system will be the wave of the future.

Unity Biofuels is working on bringing self-blending ethanol/gas pumps into Iowa and will introduce two of the new pumps next month in Henry County — at Olds and Mount Pleasant.

“Basically what we are doing with the blended pumps is we are putting in 98 percent ethanol, then a tank of straight 87 octane (gasoline),” said Unity Biofuels Manager Jason Egli.

Unity Biofuels Board member Tom Fullenkamp said the nice thing about these pumps is that the ethanol is blended with the gasoline right inside the pump itself, saving the consumer the blending fee, which will lower the prices of the ethanol fuels — anything from E20 and higher.

Egli said they will offer four different blends of the ethanol gasoline: E10, E20, E30 and E85. The number is the percentage of ethanol in the blend.

Right now because of the Clean Air Act, regular cars can only use the E10.

However, flex fuel vehicles can use any of the ethanol blends.

“This will mainly be for people with flex fuel vehicles, but is could be for regular cars very soon. We hope this also helps promote the sales of more flex fuel vehicles, too,” Egli said.

He said since the gas companies will not be pre-blending fuel for these pumps, Unity Biofuels will be getting the blenders credit, which will actually go back to the consumers and lower the prices on the E20 and higher blends.

“We are going to use that credit and give it back to the consumer so they get a lower price at the pumps,” Egli said.

But soon, regular cars may be able to use the E30 gasoline blend. He said the University of Minnesota did a study of the different ethanol blends and found that regular cars are able to withstand up to E30 without any harm to the environment or to the vehicle itself.

Egli said the idea for the project started last spring and they actually started construction the last week of June.

“We are hoping to have the first pump in operation by next Wednesday,” Egli said.

However the grand opening will be from 12-5 p.m. Sept. 5 in Olds just off Highway 218.

They group has not yet set a date for the operation of the blending pump in Mount Pleasant.

“It is still under construction,” Egli said. “We are hoping to have it up and running within two weeks though and have the grand opening for it sometime in early September, as well.”

“Our goal is to use Iowa resources to fuel Iowa cars. We want to offer different blends to Iowa customers, especially on the main corridor of [Highway 218/Avenue of the Saints] and U.S. Highway 34 where there is no other direct route to a gas station that offers any ethanol blends for the flex fuel vehicles,” Egli said.

He said there are some pumps in West Burlington but they are not readily accessible from 34 or 218.

Egli said the both pumps have cost around $500,000 to construct.

“One of the things is availability. I feel this will help with the flex fuel vehicle market as well. Both Ford and GM have committed to have a large portion of their vehicles become flex fuel in the next couple years,” he said. “This is a big breakthrough for Iowa’s future.”

Scott Niles can be reached at (641) 683-5360 or via e-mail at sjniles@mchsi.com.