A lot of people ask why is it that there is so much new about ethanol in the papers and on TV but they see so little of it at the gas stations. The problem depends on where you live.  If you live in the midwestern United States, you probably see a lot of it, especially in Iowa, Minnesota and even Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana.  It’s logistics.  Ethanol is produced in the Midwest, Iowa is the #1 producer.  So distance-wise, it’s closer.  Many of you know that ethanol cannot be transported like gasoline.  Ethanol in higher concentrations can cause corrosion over pipelines tradtionally used to transport oil and oil products like gasoline and diesel.  Concentrations over 10% in a convention gas-powered car will cause corrosion.  There are retrofit kits that cost somewhere around a couple hundred dollars to make you car into a car that can run un E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline), but it might also wipe out your car warranty.  Even if you do decide to go ahead with a retrofit or purchase a flexible fuel vehicle (FFV) – some carry the leaf mark on the car, where are you going to buy the fuel?  With somewhere around 170,000 gas stations in the US, there’s only a couple of thousand gas stations that carry ethanol gas.  For those who want to know where they can get their hands on E85, this website has a map and list of stations you can go to:  E85 stations.

Going green is not easy for now.  It’s a struggle and requires a conscious choice and extra effort.  If more and more people commit, it gets easier and much cheaper.  Why do it? Because we all want clean air to breath (As a kid, I developed bronchitis from the Los Angeles smog) – it does cause respiratory problems, clean water, enough food to eat that is not tainted with toxic chemicals.  In general, we don’t want to see anyone in this world or any living creature suffer, especially for our ignorance and mistakes.