The I-75 Biofuels Corridor: now, the world’s longest
Complete this summer — this 1786-mile stretch of American interstate highway aims to offer the longest all-biofuels driving experience on the planet.
B20, E85? Here are the need-to-knows.
This week across six US states, stakeholders are celebrating the impending completion of the “World’s Longest Biofuels Corridor”, The I‐75 Green Corridor Project. The Project was launched five years ago with the goal of allowing any American driver to traverse any portion of I‐75 and be able to make the entire trip running on either biofuel. Interstate 75 runs from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan at the Canadian border to Miami, Florida.
Thus far along the entire corridor, E85 has been installed at 26 fuel stations, and B20 has been installed at 9. These numbers are expected to increase in the coming months with another 6 stations coming online this summer. Just a few of the remaining stations in Florida are not completed, but are expected to be finished in June and July.
[nextpage title=”The Impact”]
According to the project sponsors, “the significance of this project lies not only in the extensive length of American interstates involved or the six‐state, multi‐partner coordination that has taken place. There is also significance in the fact that American drivers now have a greater number of fueling options, as well as alt‐fuel vehicles. There are nearly 100 flex fuel vehicle (or “FFV”) models on the market today. Couple that with the fact that, by conservative estimates, there are over 10 million flex fuel vehicles already on the road, and there is strong evidence for the need for more stations offering E85.”
Since the project’s inception, over 3.3 million gallons of biofuels have been sold from stations associated with the project, and 2.6 million gallons of petroleum have been displaced. The project has now displaced over 61,000 barrels of oil.
This also equates to:
• 25,222 tons of CO2 emissions avoided, or:
• Eliminating the annual CO2 emissions from 4,817 U.S. passenger vehicles.
• The amount of carbon sequestered by 18,946 acres of U.S. forests in one year.
• Switching 604,604 incandescent lamps to compact fluorescent lamps.
• The energy used by 2,109 homes for one year.
The original goals
The coalition originally aimed to: “Establish I-75 as the nation’s longest biofuels corridor, enabling travel along the entire 1,786 mile-length using either of the 2 primary biofuels, E85 or B20. Add 25-30 public E85 or B20 pumps along I-75 filling in the gaps where no such stations exist, working to place each biofuel no greater than 200 miles from the next or last biofuel pump of that same type. Place these new pumps within a maximum distance of 3 miles from an I-75 exit. Furthermore, build this refueling infrastructure in cities along that corridor to further enhance the growth of these fuels in America’s cities.”
[nextpage title=”The Project Background”]
In 2008, the East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition was looking for opportunities for larger, multi-coalition projects to have a greater impact for America and for an American energy resurgence. Through the DOE Clean Cities grant process, ETCleanFuels applied for two project ideas, both for creating new biofuels corridors across the country: north to south across the U.S. via I-75, and east to west via I-40. The coalition established partnerships across Clean Cities coalitions, fuel providers and other necessary related-industry organizations to build both of those corridors into proposals to DOE. In the end, I-75 was funded, and I-40 was not. (This is another project that could still be brought to life with the right partnerships.)
For the proposal, a total of 21 different organizations came together to be part of the project. The award covered $800,000 of the total project cost of about $1.8 million.
[nextpage title=”The Partners and Locations”]
Lead Partners: East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, The U.S. Department of Energy, Clean Cities Program, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Major Partners: Protec Fuel Management, Center for Transportation and the Environment, Clean Emission Fluids, FFV Club of America, National Biodiesel Board, Clean Fuels Development Coalition, AAA of East Tennessee, Hartland Fuels, Michigan State Energy Office, Tennessee State Energy Office, General Motors
Coalitions: East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, Michigan Clean Energy Coalition, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, Clean Fuels Ohio, Kentucky Clean Fuels Coalition, Clean Cities-Georgia, Central Florida Clean Cities Coalition, Clean Cities Tampa Bay, Middle Georgia Clean Cities
Stations: Thorntons, Mapco Florida Turnpike Services, CARAF Oil
The Locations
[nextpage title=”A Cautionary Note”]
Aside from the “six more stations opening this summer” bit, the project is, er, not quite done with the B20 portion of their task. It’s 509 miles from the last B20 stop in Atlanta to the first stop in Florida (Sarasota) — somewhat beyond the range of many B20-capable vehicles.
The Bottom Line
Though the celebration is kicking off a smidge early, its a striking accomplishment for the team. Now, we’ll see if the pricing remains attractive enough to build more market share for E85 and B20.
Complete project background, station maps and more
Social links of note
Twitter: @ETCleanFuels and the hashtags #I75, #Green
Facebook: ETCleanFuels
Flickr: Many photos from the project can be found here! http://bit.ly/i75‐
green‐corridor‐pics
Instagram: ETCleanFuels
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