Refueling and Infrastructure Costs of Expanding Access to E85 in Pennsylvania
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 24, Issue 1
Abstract
United States federal regulations require increasing renewable fuel blending in the transportation sector, a majority of which is corn ethanol. Nationally, ethanol is blended with gasoline up to 10% (E10) for use in conventional vehicles, and up to 85% (E85) for use in flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs). Meeting the blending requirements could mean increasing the ethanol blended with gasoline or E85 use in FFVs. The authors estimate costs typically not quantified for FFV drivers refueling with E85, which are a small component of total costs, and consider the infrastructure costs to expand E85 access in Pennsylvania. Even with a retailer incentive of $0.01 to liter equivalent (gle) to encourage ethanol infrastructure installation, an E85 consumer would still also experience higher refueling costs. A E85 consumer refueling and convenience cost of is higher than historical ethanol subsidies. Additionally, although switching from E10 to E85 could reduce emissions, a refueling incentive of ton is 36 times larger than the average U.S. social cost of carbon () for 2015.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the Fuel Freedom Foundation, The Emerson and Elizabeth Pugh Fellowship Program, the Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program, Center for Climate and Energy Decision Making (SES-0949710 and SES-1463492), through a cooperative agreement between the National Science Foundation and Carnegie Mellon University, and the Engineering and Public Policy Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Special acknowledgments are given to Jeremy Michalek, Ines Azevedo, and Costa Samaras for their suggestions on the analysis, and Dana Peck and Rachel Hoesly for their data analyses assistance.
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Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 24 • Issue 1 • March 2018
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©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 25, 2016
Accepted: Jul 10, 2017
Published online: Nov 22, 2017
Published in print: Mar 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Apr 22, 2018
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