The Energy Evolution - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 11

Biomass can be a renewable feedstock for methane. Biomass feed-
stocks for methane production include crop residues, municipal solid
waste (MSW), and wood resources. Biomass resources for the production
of alcohol fuels are estimated at about 5 million dry tons per day which
could provide 500 million gallons of methanol per day.
In the 1990s the U.S. methanol industry was producing almost 4 million
gallons of methanol per day. Only a third of this was used as fuel for trans-
portation and much of it was converted to MTBE. Methanol is also popular in
high-performance racing because of its octane-enhancing qualities.
California has more than 1,000 methanol vehicles including cars,
trucks, and buses on the road in a state program with auto manufacturers
and oil companies. New York City also uses buses that run on methanol.
Arizona Checker Leasing uses methanol vehicles with a fleet of 450 M85
fuel flexible vehicles.
ETHANOL
Ethanol, or grain alcohol, is an alcohol fuel widely used as automo-
tive fuel. It can be made from a variety of feedstocks, mainly grains, forest
resides, and solid waste. It can be used in its pure form, but is more widely
used in a blended form. Gasoline blends (90% gasoline/10% ethanol) have
been widely used in many areas of the country. Ethyl tertiary butyl ether
(ETBE) is a feedstock for reformulated gasoline based on ethanol.
In the early 1990s, almost 8% of the gasoline sold in the United States
was an ethanol mixture with 850 million gallons of ethanol produced each
year. About 95% of this was from the fermentation of corn. Most of this was
used as a gasoline additive to produce the 10% ethanol/90% gasoline mix-
ture called gasohol. About 30% of the nation's gasoline had some alcohol
in it. Most ethanol use in the United States was in the Midwest, where corn
and grain crops were used as feedstocks.
In 1979 only 20 million gallons of ethanol were being produced in the
United States each year. By 1983, this had jumped to 375 million gallons an-
nually and by 1988 to almost 840 million gallons annually. More than sixty
ethanol production facilities were operating by 1993 in the United States in
twenty-two states. Farm vehicles were being converted to ethanol fuel and
demonstration programs were underway for testing light-duty vehicles.
The nation's first E85 (85% ethanol) fueling station opened in La
Habra, CA in 1990, operated by the California Renewable Fuels Council.