Nearly half of the gasoline consumed in the United States today includes ethanol, and some 4.6 billion gallons of ethanol will be used in 2006, API President and CEO Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said at the Advancing Renewable Energy Conference October 11 in St Louis MO.
“In our view, ethanol is here to stay, and it is a very important part of our nation’s gasoline pool,” Cavaney said. “It is absolutely essential that ethanol and the entire biofuels industry become strong, vital and self-sufficient.”
At the same time, he said the industry does not want to "be a party to any over-promise and under-perform commitment. All of us have to be realistic in our expectations and pronouncements about the relative merits of various alternative energy sources.”
Cavaney said the industry was concerned that some ethanol proponents are focused exclusively on E-85, a fuel containing 85 percent ethanol, as the way to boost ethanol use. He pointed out that the price of ethanol has exceeded that of regular gasoline on a volume basis for 28 of the past 33 months and significantly exceeded the price of gasoline on an energy-content basis. Ethanol has about 70 percent of the energy per unit of volume as gasoline.
“We believe allowing market forces and consumer preferences to determine where and how ethanol is consumed is the most effective and least costly way to integrate ethanol into the nation’s transportation fuels pool,” he said.