SAN DIEGO — The ethanol pumps weren't very busy Friday at California's only public alternative fuel depot as President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promoted a pact to increase the production of ethanol and other fuels made from plants.
During an otherwise busy three-hour stretch Friday afternoon, only one driver pulled into Pearson Fuel to pump a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Co-owner Mike Lewis said ethanol accounted for less than 5% of the fuel he peddles, while gasoline outsells all the other fuels combined -- ethanol, oil and plant-based diesels, natural gas and propane.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday March 14, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 33 words Type of Material: Correction
Ethanol: An article in Section A on Saturday about the state of the U.S. ethanol industry said corn growers received a federal tax credit. The credit is granted to certain small ethanol producers.
"People love to be green," Lewis said, referring to alternative fuels' environmentally friendly status. "But they like green in their wallets more."
Unless ethanol is at least 50 cents a gallon cheaper than gasoline, "people don't buy it," he said.
Pearson Fuel, with its alternative-fuels education program for schools and its six fuels for internal combustion engines, may be the fuel station of the future. But it's a distant future.
Bush wants Americans to produce and use ethanol, a fuel made from the alcohols refined from plant material, to help reduce the nation's dependence on fossil fuels, particularly those imported from abroad.
The goal of Friday's agreement with Brazil is to make ethanol an international commodity through technology sharing and other cooperative ventures.
However, experts say the accord between the two countries, which already produce 70% of the world's ethanol, would do little to boost production or use of biofuels by the end of the decade beyond the levels already anticipated.
In his State of the Union address in January, Bush called for annual national production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, up from 5 billion gallons in 2006. But more than an international acknowledgment that biofuels are desirable, the U.S. needs development of better ways to make it and an efficient way to transport and deliver it to retail customers, experts said.
Although Bush and others regularly point to Brazil as an example of what a determined nation can do to reduce its dependence on oil -- most motor vehicles in Brazil run on a blend of 80% ethanol and 20% gasoline -- there are huge differences. Brazil has been subsidizing its ethanol industry for several decades, and has a huge crop -- sugar cane -- that can efficiently be refined into ethanol.
