GM Promotes E85 in Denver
85 Cent per Gallon Ethanol Promotion for Flex Fuel Vehicle Owners
Biofuels Forum at University of Colorado to Highlight Cellulosic Ethanol
DENVER – If the 15,500 owners of General Motors E85 ethanol-capable vehicles in the Denver area refueled solely with the blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, they could save more than 9 million gallons of gasoline every year.
Millions of additional gallons of gas could be saved if all owners of flex-fuel vehicles regularly used mostly renewable E85 ethanol. Colorado currently has 40 of the 1,370 ethanol fueling stations in the country, a ccording to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition, www.e85refueling.com. By the end of the year, the Governor’s Biofuels Coalition will have installed 50 fueling stations for biofuels. This quadruples the original number from the beginning of the year.
Promoting greater use of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline and building the nation’s infrastructure to make E85 ethanol more readily available to drivers of flex-fuel vehicles is the goal of GM’s E85 Fall Kick Off of the Fuel for Thought Tour. Denver is the fourth stop on the national tour that runs through mid-December.
“At GM, we believe ethanol has by far the greatest potential of anything we can do during the next decade to actually reduce U.S. oil consumption, reduce oil imports and reduce carbon gas emissions,” said Elizabeth A. Lowery, GM vice president, Environment, Energy and Safety Policy.
On Nov. 8, from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., representatives from GM, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels (C2B2) and the Governor’s Biofuels Coalition will participate in a biofuels forum at the Discovery Learning Center at the University of Colorado, in Boulder. Forum topics include the migration from corn to cellulosic ethanol and cellulosic research being conducted in the state; the availability of ethanol in Colorado, and facts and myths about E85 ethanol.
Last week, C2B2, which is based at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and includes UC, NREL, Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Mines, announced $500,000 in grants to fund 10 renewable-energy projects.
Research projects being funded by C2B2 are focused on finding ways to make biofuels out of non-edible cellulosic feedstocks such as grasses, wood chips, and corn stalks, as opposed to corn. http://www.colorado.edu/che/c2b2/index.html
To encourage flex-fuel vehicle owners in Denver to refuel with E85, GM is sponsoring four drive-time promotions on Friday, Nov. 9, during which owners of flex-fuel vehicles can purchase E85 ethanol for 85 cents per gallon. The offer is good from 7-9 a.m. at the Western Convenience, at 9190 Huron St., in Thornton and First Stop, at 900 Ken Pratt, in Longmont. The offer also will be good from 3-5 p.m. at the Western Convenience on 800 S. Wilcox, in Castle Rock and at the First Stop on 15201 E. Hampden, in Aurora.
“ Colorado has done such a great job in getting the number of stations offering E85 going that we wanted to do something special to recognize the effort,” said Mary Beth Stanek, GM director of Environment, Energy and Safety Policy. “We usually do a single station promotion, but this time we wanted to do more.”
GM is the automotive industry leader in FlexFuel vehicles that run on E85 ethanol with more than 2.5 million vehicles on the road today and annual production of 400,000 E85-capable vehicles that is expected to double by 2010.
For the 2008 model year, GM offers 11 FlexFuel models, identifiable by FlexFuel exterior badging and yellow gasoline caps.
General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), the world’s largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 76 years. Founded in 1908, GM today employs about 280,000 people around the world. With global headquarters in Detroit, GM manufactures its cars and trucks in 33 countries. In 2006, nearly 9.1 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn and Vauxhall. GM’s OnStar subsidiary is the industry leader in vehicle safety, security and information services. More information on GM can be found at www.gm.com.
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