California's biofuels usage is expected to jump nearly 600 million gallons over the next couple of years, but the ethanol supply is already stretched to its limits. Almost all of California's ethanol runs through a single terminal. If there were a disruption at that terminal -- via accident or intent -- the state's gasoline infrastructure could grind to a halt. And even with that terminal, there are serious questions about whether the terminal could
The gas you put into your tank isn't just gasoline. In California, six percent of the liquid fuel is actually ethanol, generally produced from Midwestern corn. Over the next several years, the percentage of ethanol is gasoline is slated to rise to ten percent. Ethanol demand will jump from about 900 million gallons to 1.5 billion gallons, and eventually much more. Regardless of the environmental pluses or minuses of ethanol, there is a serious question about whether that demand can be met.
The clearest physical indication of the problem is the lack of storage for biofuels in the state. At present, Midwestern ethanol has to come to a single rail terminal in Carson, California called Lornita. The terminal represents a weak node in the energy network in California because this one obscure site is necessary for the gasoline infrastructure of the state to work. Without ethanol, there can be no blending, and that's required by state law. A disruption in the ethanol supply could stop refineries from cranking out the gas that the state runs on.
We end the story on a hopeful note with Primafuel, a biofuels company that won a Davos Technology Pioneer award, and is planning a new ethanol terminal in Sacramento.
