Carlsbad family switches to ethanol car

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Saturday, July 8, 2006 9:57 PM PDT ∞

CARLSBAD ---- When it came time to replace the family car, the baseball-loving Orens, with their border collie named "Fenway," decided to buy a used car instead of a new one.

"We like to eat sunflower seeds and spit them out the window," said Mary Oren, 46, of Carlsbad, in a recent interview. "It's disgusting. So why buy a new car if it's just going to get yucky real fast?"

Oren said she persuaded her husband, Mered, to shop for a car that would get better gas mileage than their 1994 Chevrolet Suburban, which had 150,000 miles on it and burned a gallon of gas for every 11 miles it moved down the road. The family finally settled earlier this summer on a 2004 GMC Yukon that offered the promise of slightly better mileage, 15 miles to the gallon, and, more importantly, the chance to burn a more environmentally friendly fuel: ethanol.

"I truly could not buy a gas-sucking SUV and feel good about it anymore," Oren said.

The Oren family never dreamed, however, it would be so difficult to fill up. They have had a difficult time finding the fuel because only one public station in the entire state carries it.

Ethanol is widely available in one sense. It has been used as an additive in regular gasoline at stations throughout California for several years, ever since the state banned the additive MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) in 1999 because it was polluting groundwater and lakes.

MTBE was added to make gas burn cleaner and pollute the air less, and ethanol has taken its place. According to the California Energy Commission, more than 95 percent of gasoline sold in California today contains 6 percent ethanol.

In short supply, however, is the emerging alternative fuel known as E85, so named because it is composed of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. The Orens' "flex-fuel vehicle" is designed to run on either that concentrated ethanol fuel or on gasoline. The Orens would prefer the former because it is considered renewable ---- it is made from corn that can be grown over and over again ---- and can reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

"I love the idea of the fuel going into my car coming from farmers in the United States instead of from foreign countries," Mary Oren said.

Taking care of planet is taking care of kids


Oren, who recently found inspiration in Al Gore's documentary movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," on global warming, said she also wants to do her part to counter climate change, something she suggests poses a greater threat than anything else to future generations.

"We do so much for our children. We choose nice neighborhoods for them to live in, we watch what they eat and we help them in school," said Oren, who grew up in Santa Barbara and earned a bachelor's degree in speech from San Diego State University in 1983. "It's ironic because we are trying so hard to provide everything we can for our kids in the short run, but they will be worse off in the long run because of our behavior. The best thing we can do for our kids is to take better care of our planet."

Both of her kids are boys: Wyatt, 13, and Davis, 11. And both are baseball players. Given the name of their 4-month-old pet, it hardly comes as a surprise that their favorite team is the Boston Red Sox.

What is surprising, perhaps, is that the family obtained the pooch from a family of avid New York Yankee fans, she said. The Orens were careful to wait until after they came home to name the dog.

Soon after the Orens began tooling around in their used Yukon, the challenge of personally taking better care of the planet came into sharp focus. Filling up on the alternative, clean-burning fuel turned out to be anything but convenient.

While more than 800 gas stations across the United States sell the concentrated ethanol fuel, only four in California do, according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes the 85 percent ethanol fuel. And only one of those four stations is open to the public.

It just so happens that the one station is in San Diego County. It is Pearson Ford Fuels at the Regional Transportation Center at 4001 El Cajon Blvd. in central San Diego, off Interstate 15.

Pent-up demand


The only problem is, it's more than 25 miles from Carlsbad. Just getting there requires burning nearly 2 gallons of fuel, not to mention the return trip. So the Orens have been mostly filling up with gasoline.

Oren said the lack of availability is frustrating.

"Why can't we get ethanol in North County?" she asked. "In a state that has more cars on the road than in any other state, we can't get alternative fuels. That's crazy."

Michelle Kautz, a spokeswoman for the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition in Jefferson City, Mo., said her group is trying to do something about that. The coalition is lobbying California to refine its process for certifying stations that sell E85, a process some suggest is expensive and cumbersome and a major obstacle to the establishment of stations, Kautz said.

"There is much pent-up demand for the use of E85 in California," Kautz said.

Susanne Garfield, a spokeswoman for the California Energy Commission, said any efforts to streamline the process will have to be tempered against concerns about the potential damage the fuel can cause. Garfield said the ethanol tends to eat away at some gas-pump parts and that's why the state requires service station owners to purchase fuel dispensers with upgraded materials that are more expensive.

As for the fuel itself, the state looks on it favorably, said Jerry Martin, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, because it holds down levels of all types of air pollutants. In contrast, the fraction of ethanol in most gas actually tends to slightly raise levels of one pollutant, nitrogen oxides, which is a concern in high-smog areas such as the Los Angeles basin, Martin said.

Kautz said she is optimistic that the coalition will reach an agreement with the state that soon will pave the way for more California ethanol stations.

But Mike Lewis, general manager and co-owner of Pearson Ford Fuel Depot, a futuristic-looking service station that sells nine different fuels, said he's not holding his breath.

"San Diego will not have any more ethanol stations for a while, and neither will California," Lewis predicted, saying his center that sells nine different types of fuels obtained a special permit from the Air Resources Board several years ago to sell E85. The company also sells compressed natural gas and biodiesel, besides traditional gasoline, and recharges electric cars.

Lewis said the fuel center invested about $100,000 in ethanol dispensing equipment and had to endure lengthy state reviews.

Besides the ethanol, the depot boasts an EcoCenter for Alternative Fuel Education that teaches busloads of children about alternatives to fossil fuels. Ford Motor Co. contributed $1.4 million for the center's development.

More ethanol cars to come


Lewis said the central San Diego station annually sells about 70,000 gallons of E85.

"The demand for the fuel fluctuates wildly, and it fluctuates based on the price of gasoline," he said. "There are days when I sell nothing and there are days when I sell 500 gallons."

At one point, ethanol was half a dollar cheaper when gas prices were hovering around $3.50 a gallon, Lewis said. More recently, E85 has been running about a nickel higher than gas, he said.

Nationwide, more than 30 states have ethanol stations. But they are heavily concentrated in the Midwest, half of them in Illinois and Minnesota, the coalition says. The nation's 813 ethanol outlets compare to 170,000 service stations nationwide.

At the same time, the coalition estimates there are 6 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road, including more than 200,000 in California. That compares to a total of more than 200 million passenger cars and trucks in the United States.

The number of ethanol cars on the highway is expected to accelerate in coming years. Just last week, DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. announced a plan to double the nation's current annual production of flex-fuel vehicles to 2 million by 2010.

According to the coalition, 22 flex-fuel models were produced for model 2006 cars and more are coming for model year 2007.

But all those cars won't make a dent in this country's dependence if not a drop of ethanol can be found.

"We can't show our buying power until they give us the fuel," Oren said. "The truth is, people want to buy it, businesses want to sell it and we should be able to get it."

Contract staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.