E85Forum.com

jtschrock · Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Posts: 5

This forum is great! Lots of good info and lots of knowledgeable people.

I am a biodieseler from Portland Oregon who drives an 84 biodiesel Rabbit for personal use. I'm glad to not be burning petroleum in that car anymore. My work truck is a '67 C10 pickup, a 292 straight six engine with a single barrel Holly carburettor on top. I knew this truck would run for a long time if treated well (the things older than I am) so I had the engine overhauled 3 years ago. I love this truck and would be very hesitant to replace it with something else, but its a petroleum burner. I've looked into swapping the engine with a diesel. That seems both wasteful and costly. From what I read here (and other places), ethanol would be a great option for this truck. It's old enough that emissions regulations are void, and I'm not trying to pimp my ride or anything, I'm just trying to get myself and my tools to the job without relying on foreign oil.

My main problem with conversion is the fact that there are no distributors of high percentage ethanol anywhere near Portland--I think Boise is the closest. I am assuming that I will have to personally set up a mini infrastructure and hope that others will join my little bulk purchasing venture. I am sure I would be able to get someone to deliver it in bulk. so that brings up my first question. What is generally the minimum amount of bulk fuel that can be bought at a reasonable price (keep in mind I am used to paying $3.10/gal for my biodiesel so my notion of "reasonable" is probably higher than most)? My local biodiesel distributor sells 275 gallon totes that are biodiesel safe. I assume anything that can withstand 20-30% methanol can probably withstand 85% ethanol. Has anyone run into in-town fuel storage regulations for personal use? How volatile would a 275 gallon tote of ethanol be? Would I have a potential bomb sitting next to my garage?

If anyone reading has done this, I'd love to hear your story and the pitfalls you encountered along the way.

PumpingE85 · Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 25

Rather than trying to set up some complicated system for yourself, in my opinion, it would be much better to have some retail E85 fueling near you.

I can tell you that the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition has some small grants to help service stations convert a pump over -- and the expertise to help fuel suppliers in your area get the fuel and price it right. There are other options for help too. In January 2006, a federal income tax credit will be available for retailers that spend money on E85 fueling. It offers up to 30% of the cost of equipment (up to $30k).

If you know a friendly service station owner in your area, have them give the NEVC a call at 1-877-485-8595. It really isn't very hard to do. The difficult part is getting the word out to the gazillion people that already drive E85-capable flexible fuel vehicles.

hotrod · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 872 Location: Colorado

There are quite a few high performance automotive buffs that buy race gasoline in 55 gallon drums. That is probably the smallest amount you can work with. At a whole sale price near $1.40/gall ( just an estimate based on old numbers) that would put a 55 gallon drum at about $75 plus any drum deposit.

The legality of storing it would probably fall on local fire regualtions.

Call your local fire marshal (if your community has one) or fire department and ask them what regs there are about storing combustable liquids in your zoning designation.

You might check around and talk to local speed and performance shops some high performance motorcycle shops store high octane gasoline in 55 gallon drums and sell it to the super bike crowd, and the racers. They have probably already figured out who regulates that sort of storage.

Here in this area most of the small shops that keep fuel in drums, store the drums in a metal structure (strorage shed or connex container) set away from their main building. The one I talked to has a limit placed on him by the local fire department regarding how many drums he can store at any one time. Another outflanks the issue by keeping the fuel drums inside a parked delivery truck (like a 20 ft ryder moving van) on the shop property.

FWIW

Larry

specialgreen · Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 9:14 pm Post subject:

Definitely, the easiest method is to have a friendly fueling station call NEVC.

If you have to go it alone (or while you're waiting for the station to convert a tank), check out the nearest racetrack, and see who delivers alky (methanol); the distributor may be able to deliver some drums of ethanol along with the methanol. I don't think race gas has all the right taxes, so that fuel would be "for track use only" Wink

.

For fuel storage, I'll have to remember the truck idea. That's hilarious... and the truck doesn't even need to be operable! But if you have a farm (or have friends with a farm), you can store fuel in above-ground tanks "for farm use". Here in town, I can't store fuel in tanks meant to fill vehicles... but at work we have an above-ground fuel tank for a generator.

But of course, getting a real filling station is the right thing to do. And it's going to happen anyways, sooner or later (I mean, c'mon, this is Portland we're talking about!). You can help it be sooner.

hotrod · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 872 Location: Colorado

If you have a pickup truck you can also get one of those "construction" fuel tanks that sits behind the cab at the front of the box. And keep your fuel in that. Periodically drive it down to a local distributor and buy a tankful.

I drive 20 miles each way to my local E85 outlet with (2) 5 gal fuel cans in the back seat. Fill the tank to the brim and both 5 gal cans. On my car thats 26 gallons of fuel.

I drive the main tank down to about 1/2 full, throw in one of the jerry cans, when it gets near 1/2 full again I throw in the other jerry can, then run the tank down to near empty.

I get about 20 -22 mpg with E85 depending on how hard I am on the car so that is about 550 miles of driving.

If I get short where it is not convenient to get down to the E85 pumps when I get down near 1/4 tank I add a couple gallons of premium gasoline to stretch the tank until I can get some more.

I always fuel up early sunday morning as the traffic is the lightest between me and where I get the fuel.

Most jurisdictions won't say any thing about 1 or 2 -- 5 gallons cans of fuel.

Larry

specialgreen · Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 9:48 pm Post subject:

Heh

, sometimes I carry two (2.5g) gascans too:

But in my case, it's so I can go ride all day and not worry about where the nearest E-85 station is. Motorcycles have puny little gas tanks Laughing

.

jtschrock · Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Posts: 5

specialgreen · Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:55 am Post subject:

I saw an interesting "gas can" today: a "TEMPO" brand "Gas Walker" part no. GW25. It's a 100 liter gas can with wheels. It looks a bit like this one:

http://www.diamondbacktactical.com/Gas-Walker-P1417C95.aspx

The construction (HDPE) looks limilar to regular gas cans, and it's DOT red. This won't help you in Portland, but others who find themselves a bit far from an E-85 station may be able to put one in the back of a truck, drive to the E-85 station, and fill it once per month.

That one costs $320. A cheaper option could be a gasoline-rated truck bed "fuel transfer tank":

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=6970&productId=200306723&R=200306723&storeId=6970&langId=%2D1&cm_ven=Performics&cm_cat=Performics&cm_pla=Performics&cm_ite=Performics
[img]http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/NTELargeImageView?rfno=200306723&storeId=6970[/img]

That unit is 91 gallons for $600, but I think there are tanks out there for $400 to $1400. It looks like you can spend $5 to $15 per gallon for mobile storage; more expensive per gallon than a typical 5 gallon gas can. However, it may be annoying filling 6 or more gas cans.

specialgreen · Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2005 9:22 am Post subject:

The two E-85 stations in Washington are "government fleet only":

There are a couple of places in the US further from E-85: northeast Montana, parts of Texas, Maine, etc. But it looks like the nearest E-85 to Portland is Boise!

Lgodave · Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 28 Location: WI

Hi specialgreen,

Thanks for the link to the "Gas Walker". Over on my WI gasbuddy.com site I'd been posting about where to find legal large portable gas cans/tanks.

I wasn't aware there where 25 gallon DOT approved tanks out there... after reading your post I looked around and found several similar 28 gallon versions of the "Gas Walker". They all seem to cost around $320... so the large cost makes using a number of smaller cheaper cans more likely, but I like the idea of just taking and filling one container over a bunch. Not having to pickup the cans and over fill/spill gasoline is also a nice bonus.