Growing an industry is no easy task. Although it has taken several years, the United States has finally started to embrace ethanol. The renewable fuel also has made friends in the auto industry, the political arena—left and right wing—in agriculture and even with oil companies, which didn't seem possible when the fuel was first starting to be produced on a commercial scale. Creating excitement for the production of both corn and cellulosic ethanol in this country in recent times has been surprisingly simple—the reaction to President George W. Bush's call for 35 billion gallons in the next 20 years is a perfect example. Now that the ball is rolling and ethanol production is growing by leaps and bounds, all eyes are focused on consumption.

During the past five years tremendous strides have been made to produce more flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs) and to make E85 more accessible to motorists. With increasing FFV options from General Motors Corp., Nissan, Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler Corp. and other auto manufacturers, consumers have a wider variety of vehicles from which to choose. Today, there are more than 5 million FFVs on the road and E85 is available at more than 1,200 U.S. filling stations. In addition, approximately half of all gasoline currently sold is blended with E10, which is being used in nonflexible fuel vehicles. While all of this growth is positive, it may not be occurring fast enough. When U.S. ethanol production reaches 15 billion gallons per year it's estimated that blending E10 into gasoline will be maxed out causing the demand for the alternative fuel to wane and the industry to hit what has been dubbed the "E10 wall." Coincidentally, 15 billion gallons is also predicted to be the maximum amount of ethanol that can be produced from the U.S. corn crop before encroaching on food and feed reserves. This scenario has caused some to wonder, how is all the ethanol that's being produced going to be used?

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., believes the answer is to increase the ethanol-to-gasoline ratio. In early March, Thune, a ranking member of the Energy Subcommittee of the Senate Agriculture Committee, penned a letter to the U.S. EPA urging the agency to make preparations for the review of an application from the state of Minnesota to approve the use of E20 in automobiles. That would ensure ethanol's access to the market over the next few years after America hits its E10 wall, and would allow E85 to catch up. According to the Congressional Research Service, approximately 99 percent of domestically consumed ethanol is E10 or blends of gasoline with up to 10 percent ethanol, while only 1 percent is consumed as E85, Thune noted in his letter. The waiver application he referred to is being spearheaded by Minnesota's Department of Agriculture, which is currently funding a number of tests to determine E20's effects on nonflexible fuel vehicles.

Ralph Groschen, director of agriculture marketing services for the state's Department of Agriculture, says that E20 came up in the Minnesota legislature because the state has implemented an ethanol use standard targeting the replacement of 20 percent of all its liquid fuels with renewable sources by 2013. In order to help meet this goal, legislators decided that if E85 doesn't appear to be able to replace the full 20 percent by 2010, then the government will move ahead with implementing E20, Groschen explains. "There are a lot of things that have to happen before E85 becomes a significant market factor," Groschen says. "I guess a lot of people feel that we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket and we should look at a variety of approaches to this issue."

To prepare for a possible transition to E20 and because the EPA must certify E20 as a motor fuel through a waiver under the Clean Air Act, the Minnesota state legislature provided funding for E20 testing that is being conducted in collaboration with the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), Groschen says. In order to look at all aspects of E20 use, four separate tests are being conducted: drivability (with a 26-month durability portion), materials compatibility, fuel quality and emissions. The year-long, two-pronged drivability test is being conducted at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and has already gathered vehicle performance data for three seasons since the research was begun last fall. Of the campus fleet of 525 vehicles, 80 were chosen to participate in the blind study, which pairs similar vehicles with similar driving cycles. One is filled with E20 while the other runs on a base fuel containing no ethanol. For one portion of the drivability test, mechanics monitor for any vehicle problems, such as nonstarting, poor starting, illumination of the check engine light, hesitation while accelerating, etc. For the second portion, a team of professionally-trained drivability raters recommended by the RFA come in each season and follow a protocol designed by the Society of Automobile Engineers to evaluate drivability issues associated with a random sample of the test vehicles. So far this portion of the testing has gone surprisingly well, Groschen says.

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