Station in the fast lane with alternative fuels

SAN DIEGO — With his blue button-down shirt, neat khaki pants and rimless glasses, Mike Lewis doesn't look like much of an evangelist.

But that's what he is: an advocate for alternative fuels -- and their profit-pumping potential.

Lewis is co-owner of Pearson Fuels, a gas station on El Cajon Boulevard just east of Interstate 15 that sells biodiesel, two kinds of natural gas, vehicle-grade propane and ethanol alongside the usual pumps for gasoline and diesel. Pearson also has six bays for charging electric cars, but they have been little used since 2004, after major automakers pulled the plug on electric vehicles.

While other businessmen keep sports trophies or bronze paperweights on their desks, Lewis adorns his with samples of biodiesel in plastic soda containers.

"You see how there's no sediment in this one?" he said, picking up a bottle and holding it up to the light to admire it the way a sommelier would regard a nice Bordeaux. "This is a very clean-burning fuel."

These days, the 42-year-old entrepreneur is most enthused about ethanol, a high-octane fuel usually derived from corn and other grains.

Gasoline remains the station's bestselling fuel, but ethanol has been running a close second as drivers search for something cheaper to power their rides. On a recent Wednesday, Lewis sold 1,281 gallons of ethanol compared with 1,835 gallons of regular-grade gas.

Like most independent gas station owners, Lewis has been struggling as soaring fuel prices have put the brakes on retail sales and pumped up wholesale fuel prices faster than he can pass them on.

What keeps his station afloat is its growing ethanol business, which has better and more-reliable profits. Gasoline sales at the station have dropped by more than half -- from 250,000 gallons a month in 2005, when gas prices were less than $2.50 a gallon, to about 120,000 gallons a month this year.

Ethanol has become a larger part of the mix, thanks to customers like Jesse Garcia.

At $3.69 a gallon, ethanol cost 83 cents less than Pearson's lowest-priced gasoline, saving Garcia $13.45 on the 16.2 gallons he poured into his mirror-black 2008 Chevy Avalanche, which has a FlexFuel engine that can burn either ethanol or gasoline.

"With the way the economy's going, I figure this can help me save some money," said the 29-year-old Navy petty officer as he filled up while on his way to visit his family in Los Angeles.