In my post of September 1^st, Car dealer runs moonshine?, I noted that locally owned Pearson Fuels was teamed with AE Biofuels of Cupertino to build and supply 55 public E85 ethanol-fueling stations across California over the next 42 months backed by a $6.9 million Federal grant.  The State of California has upped the ante with an additional award of $4.0 million. 

The Pearson Fuels’ business model can be explained in a dozen words.  A massive government mandate flows through the pipes.  Spigot owners win.  The Renewable Fuel Standard mandates a blending of transportation fuels from renewable sources increasing annually to a target of 36 billion gallons in 2022.  California could account for 20% of the mandated amount.  Obviously, renewable fuels represent a longer list than just ethanol.  However, in the short run ethanol is the only renewable transportation fuel being produce in any meaningful quantity.  The pace of development in ethanol technology bodes well for ethanol as one of the long term solutions.

Over the last two years I have attended over 100 clean tech meetings in southern California.  On any topic of discussion there are supporters for a wide spectrum of views except on the economic viability of ethanol from corn.  O.J. has more defenders.  Around here, it is universally understood that the reason for corn ethanol’s existence is to fuel the political machine.  The Pearson Fuels / AE Biofuels combo is attractive because of their intention to move to cellulosic ethanol over time.  Time will tell.  In the mean time they have their hands on the spigots.

Tags: AE Biofuels, Alternative Fuel Station, ethanol, Pearson Fuels

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Biofuel . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.