Liberal Talk Radio

It turns out that ethanol is big in the Midwest. But there are still some kinks they need to work out:

Standing next to his pickup truck at a service station here, Robert Beck squeezed a yellow nozzle and filled up with the corn-based fuel blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline that car companies, farmers and politicians alike love to promote as a way out of America’s oil addiction.

Mr. Beck, an agronomist who travels throughout the Midwest, likes the idea of E-85, as the fuel blend is known, because it is made mostly from a domestic crop. But he still finds that buying the fuel is almost more trouble than it is worth.

“Everyone talks about it, but exactly where is it?” he said. “You have to have more fuel out there for consumers to buy.’’

That could take a while.

. . . 

After buying his truck in April, Mr. Beck discovered only two months ago that it was dual-fuel. In the past, most drivers did not even know they had flexible-fuel vehicles because the car companies did not bother to tell them and the engines are virtually indistinguishable.

But from now on, “we’re going to do more to let people know what they have,” said Susan Cischke, vice president for environmental and energy engineering at Ford. She said Ford marked its flexible-fuel vehicles on the hood and fuel cap.

. . . 

Unlike the standard gasoline pumps, the E-85 pump at the Qik-n-EZ did not take credit cards, forcing Mr. Beck to stand in line for 15 minutes behind customers buying beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets.

“You would think it would be as easy as buying fuel,’’ he said, “but it is a pain in the fanny.”

And there is no room for error when trying to drive only on E-85. Do not leave Emporia, Kan., for instance, without fueling up a nearly empty tank first. Otherwise, somewhere on the Kansas Turnpike the fuel gauge needle goes below empty.

What then? Turn off the air-conditioning, coast part of the way in neutral and, finally, a service station — the only one for another 30 miles — has gasoline. But no E-85.