A new study showing that E15 damaged car engines in two popular models provides “material evidence” that U.S. EPA moved too hastily in approving the fuel for the market, the oil and auto industries said today.

The industries released the engine study today after circulating preliminary findings last month. They said the findings by the industry-backed Coordinating Research Council provide reason to worry about fuel made of gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol.

“The results of just-completed engine testing of E15 by the Coordinating Research Council confirm that EPA did not perform due diligence and moved too quickly in its E15 vetting process,” said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute. “The tests provide strong evidence E15 could damage the engines of many cars and light trucks.”

The ethanol industry, which says the introduction of E15 is critical to increasing the use of renewable fuels in the country, quickly blasted the study. Even before the results were announced, Renewable Fuels Association communications director Matt Hartwig disputed the study’s claims.

The study comes after several actions by EPA to bring the fuel to the marketplace, including initial approval in 2010 and 2011 for use in cars from model years 2001 and newer. The approvals came after what the ethanol industry describes as the most comprehensive testing a fuel blend has ever received, including catalyst testing by the Department of Energy.

“The Department of Energy conducted 6 million miles of testing on E15 — the equivalent of 12 round trips to the moon — and found no issues,” Hartwig said.

But the oil and auto industries have criticized the agency for going ahead with approvals before testing engine wear directly. The full results released today appear to show that two engines from model years 2001 to 2009 failed when run on E15 and on E20, or gasoline blended with 20 percent ethanol.

Because two of those engines successfully ran on 100 percent gasoline, the study infers there is an 89 percent chance that ethanol was “an influential factor for the engine failures” in those two engines.

Among engine damage found in the study: leaks, increased emissions and failure to meet valve clearance measurements specified by the equipment manufacturer.

“Cars were not built for E15. And now we have material evidence that validates our concerns,” said Mitch Bainwol, president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

The Coordinating Research Council (CRC) began the midblend ethanol project in 2009 in response to the federal renewable fuel standard. At that time, the maximum amount of ethanol allowed in gasoline was 10 percent.

According to the council, the study goal was to identify possible engine wear caused by adding more ethanol to gasoline.

Study ‘significantly flawed’ — DOE official

Critics of E15 were quick to jump on the study’s results as proof that EPA moved too quickly in its approval process.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), who last year introduced a bill that would require EPA to commission a lengthy study of E15 by the National Academy of Sciences before giving final approvals, said the testing shows EPA needs to slow down the process and “get the science right.”

“The EPA and ethanol lobby are telling consumers that using E15 is OK for their cars made after 2001, while the manufacturers of those same vehicles warn the fuel will void the warranty, lower fuel economy, and cause premature engine damage,” Sensenbrenner said in a statement. “We need to resolve the science first for the sake of the American people, before allowing E15 into the marketplace.”

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that has formed an alliance with the oil and auto industries on E15, also criticized the agency, saying E15 will “leave consumers stuck on the side of the highway.” The environmental group has opposed the expansion of corn ethanol production it says will occur with the introduction of E15 into the marketplace.

“The EPA should revoke its registration of E15 until it is positive that the fuel is safe for consumers and the environment,” said Michal Rosenoer, biofuels policy campaigner with Friends of the Earth.

EPA was not directly involved in the study but was kept apprised of its progress in several meetings that also included representatives from the Department of Energy, Patrick Kelly, a senior policy adviser at API, said last month.

EPA has stuck by the testing it conducted, defending it in court last month against a legal challenge by the oil and auto industries (Greenwire, April 17).

In a blog post today, DOE Vehicle Technologies Program manager Patrick Davis criticized the study, calling it “significantly flawed.”

“The CRC failed to establish a proper control group, a standard component of scientific, data-driven testing and a necessity to determine statistical significance for any results,” Davis said.

The study neglected to test the engines with E10 as a control, he added, and used a test cycle designed specifically to stress the engine valve train.

The Renewable Fuels Association also faulted the new study as being designed to have E15 fail by using an unrealistic “aggressive ethanol,” or ethanol laced with additives, to test a worst-case scenario that would never occur in real life.

The association also said that some of vehicles tested were under recall by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The oil and auto industries pushed back against the criticism and said their blend was not “aggressive.” They called the CRC test the most comprehensive done to date on E15.

“The question is very basic: Is this risk and cost to consumers acceptable?” Bainwol said. “We don’t think the answer is yes.”

The American Petroleum Institute contended on Wednesday that studies show that gasoline with 15 percent ethanol could harm vehicle engines.

President and CEO Jack Gerard criticized the decision last year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to expand the blend limit of ethanol in gasoline from 10 percent to 15 percent.

“EPA’s decisions in 2010 and 2011 approving E15 ethanol-gasoline blends for most American vehicles were premature and irresponsible,” Gerard said. “EPA approved E15 knowing ongoing vehicle testing had not been completed. Worse, as API noted in its press briefing two weeks ago, it approved the fuel even though government labs had raised red flags about the compatibility of E15 with much of the dispensing and storage infrastructure at our nation’s gas stations.”

Monte Shaw of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said the study is “just bad science.”

“What they did was use a very aggressive form of ethanol blend, about a 17 percent blend, and didn’t use the 10 percent blend as a baseline,” said Shaw. “So you don’t know how much of that engine damage might have happened anyway.”

The EPA’s approval was for automobiles of the 2001 model year or later. The API, which represents the largest oil companies, opposed the expansion of the ethanol blend. About 10 percent of the gasoline used in the U.S. now is made up of the ethanol blend.

The studies were done by the Coordinated Research Council, known as the CRC. It is a nonprofit research and testing organization made up of automobile and oil companies.

Iowa is the nation’s largest producer of ethanol, with 41 plants that in 2011 produced 3.7 billion of the 13 billion gallons of ethanol produced nationwide.

“Ironically, EPA’s decisions actually threaten broader use of biofuels,” Gerard said. “Federal law requires blending of increasing amounts of biofuels in gasoline, and most of the gasoline now sold in America has ethanol in it. Yet, if E15 is introduced and vehicle problems develop, public support for E15 and the federal renewable fuels program could erode.”

The auto and oil industries plan to release a report on Wednesday indicating that some cars running on E15, the 15 percent ethanol blend that was recently authorized by the Environmental Protection Agency, experienced engine damage.

But officials at the Energy Department counter that the study is flawed and that the department’s own research, which the E.P.A. relied on in approving E15, demonstrates that cars now running on the standard blend, called E10, will do just fine on E15.

The report is now online.

The dispute is emerging because of an unanticipated twist in the fuel market, with Congress having mandated the use of more ethanol, which the makers are having trouble selling.

As the market for gasoline has declined, gasoline in many parts of the country is now a mixture of 10 percent ethanol, known as E10, the maximum that was allowed until January. That is the level the automakers say their vehicles can use without damage. (Ethanol producers refer to this limit as the “blend wall.”)

Arguments between the oil and auto industries over which should have to make adjustments to meet clean air goals have been common for decades. But some industry experts describe the current conflict between the auto companies and the government as unparalleled.

It is reflected in inch-high letters embossed on the filler-pipe caps of new Toyotas, a label on which “E15” is shown in a red circle with a slash through it reminiscent of a no-smoking sign.

For years, Ford vehicles have come with a cap that warns against use of E20 gasoline because a few years ago, Minnesota was considering authorizing its use. Ford is now considering changing that warning to refer to E15 as well. General Motors, Chrysler and nearly all of the other automakers also warn that using E15 may damage a car and will void the warranty.

“This really is a significant consumer issue,’’ said Edward B. Cohen, vice president for government and industry relations at Honda. “They’re putting on the market a fuel that cars were not designed for.’’

The E.P.A., on the other hand, cites the importance of lowering oil imports and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy, Bill Gibbons, said that his agency had tested 86 vehicles on test tracks and dynamometers for a total of more than six million miles. “A subset of those engines tested in the D.O.E. study were torn down and inspected with no discernible difference in engine wear between test fuels,” he said.

But the report being released on Wednesday, from a nonprofit technical organization that coordinates research on engines and fuels, the Coordinating Research Council, will describe tests on eight popular engines that were run on an E15 blend for 500 hours. The engines were run at loads and speeds that were intended to simulate the wear that results from 100,000 miles of ordinary driving, the authors say.

Some of the engines were run on ethanol-free fuel (known as E0), some on E15 and some on E20. Department of Energy personnel argue that one weakness of the study is that the engines were not run on E10, which would have provided a stronger baseline.

The study will say that two of the engines showed signs of damage, according to oil and auto executives and government officials briefed on its contents. Muddying the finding somewhat, one of the engines running on E0 also showed damage.

Another point of dispute is what constitutes damage; the study measured leakage from the car cylinders when the piston compressed the air and fuel mixture, just prior to combustion. Government auto experts say that the extent of leakage in the “failed” engines, two of which ran on E15 and one on E20, was typical of cars in service and does not affect gas mileage, horsepower or emissions.

But the oil industry says the E.P.A., which regulates fuels on the basis of the pollution that their usage creates, is relying on a study from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The assumption in that study is evidently that if emissions of particulates, unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide stay low, the engine and the rest of the car’s systems will remain intact.

The Energy Department study, which began in the summer of 2007, used cars that were already several years old and had tens of thousands of miles on them; by the end of the testing, all of them had at least 120,000 miles on them.

The study will not publicly identify which engines were damaged.

Industry committees decide on the scope of a study like this one, and the Coordinating Research Council contracts with laboratories to conduct the work. The Energy Department has helped pay for some previous studies run by the council but did not help finance this one. Department officials said that was because of a disagreement over which engines should be tested.

The American Petroleum Institute, a sponsor of the study, said the engines were chosen to represent a wide portion of the cars on the road from the 2001 model year forward, for which the new blend has been approved.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) today teed up a pre-election vote on extending an array of tax cuts set to expire at year’s end and a new plan to fast-track sweeping tax reform in 2013, adding fuel to a fiery lobbying battle by energy sectors to preserve their current tax structure.

“Any sudden tax hike would hurt our economy, so this fall — before the election — the House of Representatives will vote to stop the largest tax increase in American history,” Boehner said in a speech at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in Washington. “This will give Congress time to work on broad-based tax reform that lowers rates for individuals and businesses while closing deductions, credits and special carve-outs.”

Boehner was silent on whether the production tax credit (PTC) for wind, solar and geothermal power would hitch a ride on the tax-cut extension package he plans to bring to the House floor before lawmakers face voters in November. Presumed to be a part of that bill, however, is an extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all earners — a move likely to ground the House’s proposal in the Senate, where most Democrats align with the White House in seeking to roll back those benefits for wealthier Americans.

One sign that the PTC could get extended until 2013, when Republicans presumably would seek to end it as part of a comprehensive tax overhaul, came last month when a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee said he is open to that option (E&E Daily, April 27).

That committee “will work out the details” of a plan to advance broad-based tax reform next year, Boehner said today, “but the bottom line is: If we do this right, we will never again have to deal with the uncertainty of expiring tax rates.”

The Ohioan likened his party’s pending tax-reform technique to congressional trade promotion authority, used to set a time frame for free-trade agreements to receive floor votes in both chambers without amendments.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took a dim view of the House bill’s future in his chamber, saying that “the tea party direction of the Republican Party is driving them over a cliff” and predicting that partisan divisions would prevent “much of anything” from falling into place until after Election Day.

Reid added that he hopes to see a post-election session as productive as the one that concluded 17 months ago, when lawmakers and the president reached a massive tax deal that extended several of the same renewables and efficiency credits now in limbo as 2013 approaches (E&E Daily, Dec. 17, 2010).

The ensuing campaign season has seen repealing oil industry tax breaks become a prominent message for President Obama and his party, ensuring that fossil fuel companies will be as active as renewables interests in anticipation of a 2013 push to overhaul the tax code.

Boehner also laid down a marker for the Capitol’s second showdown in two years over raising the federal debt limit, which could be reached before the election. As he did last year, anteing up in negotiations that brought the government to the brink of shutdown, Boehner vowed that any increase in the borrowing ceiling would have to come with corresponding spending cuts that are larger in size.

“This is the only avenue I see right now to force the elected leadership of this country to solve our structural fiscal imbalance,” he said.

That promise drew immediate rebukes from Democrats such as House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), who noted that Boehner’s conference already is moving to undo part of the trillion-dollar spending “sequester” envisioned for 2013 by last year’s debt deal.

“So while it sounds good, the execution of [Boehner's debt-limit] principle does not seem to be very disciplined,” Hoyer told reporters today.

House Republicans have focused their sequester-prevention efforts on the military, leaving intact a multibillion-dollar discretionary spending cut that is set to wallop U.S. EPA, the Energy Department and the Interior Department, among other agencies (E&E Daily, July 28, 2011).

The next round of fuel economy rules for passenger vehicles will be released this summer, a senior White House adviser said today.

The standards, which would set a fleetwide target of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, were proposed in November, and U.S. EPA and the Department of Transportation have been reviewing comments submitted in February. That process should wrap up within the next two to three months, at which time a final rule would be published, said Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change.

“Dual rulemakings, as I didn’t appreciate before I came into the White House, are a little more complicated than normal,” Zichal said this morning at a breakfast sponsored by Politico Pro. “But that rule is on target to be completed late July/early August.”

The rule would set tightening standards for fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions from model year 2017 to 2025 cars and light-duty trucks that ramp up to the 54.5 mpg corporate average fuel economy standard (Greenwire, Nov. 16, 2011).

It follows an earlier Obama administration rulemaking that set CAFE standards for model year 2012 to 2016 vehicles that increase fuel economy to 35.5 mpg.

Enacting the 2012-16 rule — the first update to CAFE standards in decades — came about as the result of intense negotiations among administration officials, automakers, environmentalists and state regulators.

Zichal praised those stakeholders for their ability to reach an agreement on the 2012-16 CAFE rule and said industry and other interests deserve a lot of credit for returning to the table to work out a deal to set standards through 2025.

EPA power plant rule, lease sale also on tap this summer

As for other pending regulatory matters, Zichal predicted that EPA would meet a July 27 deadline to finalize a new Clean Water Act rule setting standards for cooling water systems at power plants and large industrial facilities.

The rule, which aims to reduce the number of aquatic organisms killed by the systems, has raised concerns among utilities that it may threaten the reliability of the electric grid in conjunction with new or upcoming air and waste rules from EPA. But EPA has dismissed those concerns as based on worst-case assumptions about what the rules would require (Greenwire, Nov. 29).

Zichal also said the administration’s interagency working group on unconventional natural gas would continue its work this year to research how to safely extract gas from shale formations using hydraulic fracturing. And she said the Interior Department would conduct a 25-million-acre lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico this summer.

Looking ahead to a potential second term for President Obama, Zichal indicated she would be interested in staying on as a White House adviser on energy issues.

The death of cap-and-trade legislation nearly two years ago has complicated the administration’s attempt for a comprehensive climate change policy, but Zichal pointed to Obama’s stated support for a “clean energy standard” that would require utilities to generate 80 percent of their electricity from emissions-free sources by 2035 as another possible avenue for a long-term policy that would boost renewable energy deployment and bring down emissions. In the near term, she said Congress needed to extend the production tax credit for wind energy, which expires at the end of this year, to prevent job losses and avoid stalling progress in the industry.

Zichal would not speculate on how prominent a role climate change would play in a second term, compared with other hot-button issues where progress has stalled, such as immigration.

Ethanol helped reduce wholesale gas prices by an average of $1.09 per gallon last year, according to a university study being touted today by the ethanol industry.

Without ethanol blended into gasoline, prices at the pump would have averaged $4.61 a gallon in 2011 instead of $3.52, the industry said of the study. That difference saved the average American household $1,200 at the pump last year, the Renewable Fuels Association said in a statement.

“While it’s hard to imagine that gas prices could be even higher than they are now, this study clearly underscores that the current pain at the pump would be far worse without ethanol,” said Bob Dinneen, RFA’s president and chief executive.

Ethanol had the largest effect on wholesale gas prices in the Midwest, where corn reigns, according to the study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Iowa State University. There, it dropped the price per gallon by $1.69.

Ethanol had the least effect on gas prices in the Gulf Coast region, the national hub for crude oil refining and the center of the pipeline distribution system, the authors wrote. Ethanol there accounted for a 73-cent reduction in price.

The study is an update to a 2009 report published in the journal Energy Policy by professors Dermot Hayes and Xiaodong Du. The report released today found that, on average, from 2000 to 2011, ethanol has reduced wholesale gasoline prices by 29 cents a gallon.

According to the authors, the effect was higher last year because of elevated oil and gas prices and larger amounts of ethanol being produced and included in the domestic fuel supply.

“Growth in U.S. ethanol production has added significantly to the volume of fuel available in the U.S.,” Hayes, an economist at Iowa State University, said in a statement. “It is as if the U.S. oil refining industry had found a way to extract 10 percent more gasoline from a barrel of oil.”

Ethanol is currently restricted to 10 percent of the gasoline supply, but the industry is pushing to open the market up to E15, or gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol.

E15 is well on its way to gas stations but still faces several hurdles on the state level and the litigation front. U.S. EPA has approved E15 for use in car models from 2001 and newer and allows producers to make the fuel, but according to RFA, no individual retailer has yet received EPA’s approval to offer the fuel for sale.

The oil industry and automakers have opposed the introduction of E15 into the market. The American Petroleum Institute said it will release tomorrow the full results of a study that found E15 damages the engines of popular car models (Greenwire, April 4).

Renewable fuels group says ethanol cuts gas prices; oil group to release E15 study today

Robert White, market development director of the Renewable Fuels Association, speaks about the value of ethanol at a press conference Tuesday at a Dahl’s gas station in Des Moines. / Andrea Melendez/The Register

Ethanol and the oil industry continued their escalating battle this week, with Iowa ethanol producers saying their product cuts gas prices while the petroleum industry argues that larger blends of ethanol can harm consumers and the environment.

Lucy Norton of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said at a news conference in Des Moines that instead of being criticized, ethanol should be credited with saving motorists up to $1.69 per gallon at the pump.

Norton quoted a study by the Iowa State University’s Center for Agriculture and Rural Development that was commissioned by the Renewable Fuels Association. It factors the $1-per-gallon difference in wholesale price between ethanol and gasoline, as well as other savings to the economy that accrue from exports of U.S. ethanol.

“Growth in U.S. ethanol production has added significantly to the volume of fuel available in the U.S.,” said ISU professor Dermot Hayes, one of the authors of the study.

Meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the largest oil companies, plans to release a study today of results on engine tests using 15 percent blended ethanol, which was legalized last year by federal regulators.

In a statement last month, the API noted that the use of E15 would require considerable upgrades of pumps and tanks at the nation’s retail gasoline outlets. “Selling E15 may increase the risk for staff and customer safety, and present environmental consequences,” the group said.

The federal Renewable Fuel Standard, passed by Congress in 2005 and revised in 2007, represents the basis for the demand for ethanol. The expansion of domestic oil production from new fields in North Dakota, which wasn’t envisioned even a half-decade ago, has emboldened many oil supporters to question the need for the RFS.

“Big Oil is going after the RFS any way they can,” said Robert White, director of market development for the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington, D.C., who came to Des Moines to appear with Norton and Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, at Tuesday’s news conference.

Shaw said he was “comfortable” with the fact that both President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney have endorsed both E15 and the Renewable Fuel Standard.

In the short run, ethanol’s principal challenge is to return to the profitability of 2011, which was lost after the 45-cent-per-gallon blenders’ tax credit expired Jan. 1.

The lost tax credit has been the biggest factor in the drop in wholesale price of ethanol from more than $2.70 per gallon last November to $2.12 per gallon this week.

The widened margin between ethanol’s shrinking price and the $3-per-gallon wholesale price for gasoline is the main reason Iowa ethanol producers could make the boast that their product saves consumers money. But it also has robbed ethanol producers of most of their profits.

“The producers who are also selling corn oil are probably making a little money now, but most have their nose right at the water line,” Shaw said.

Prospects for the remainder of 2012 are uncertain. The U.S. Department of Agriculture last week forecast corn prices at $1 per bushel or more below the $6.20 paid in 2011, which will help ethanol producers.

But the U.S. Department of Energy forecasts gasoline consumption this summer at 8.8 million barrels per day, the lowest since 2001 and about 6.4 percent less than 2007’s record summer demand of 9.4 million gallons.

The reduced demand comes primarily from more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road, as well as cutbacks in driving habits after retail gasoline prices brushed against $4 per gallon in 2008 and again last year. Any declines in demand for gasoline would be mirrored in demand for the ethanol with which it is blended.

The $4 price was in play this year until a recent slump in crude oil prices, which have fallen from $112 per barrel at the beginning of March to a close of $93.98 Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil last finished that low on Dec. 19.

In Des Moines, the average pump price this week is $3.37 to $3.39 per gallon, well below the $3.92 per gallon a year ago.

As the battle wages on over the safety of feeding antibiotics to livestock for growth promotion, a new report reveals yet another source of unregulated antibiotics in American animal feed–spent ethanol grain.

The new report by advocacy group the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy suggests that a relatively new source of food for livestock may contain levels of penicillin, erythromycin and other antibiotics. Both of these are medically important drugs whose effectiveness in treating humans can be compromised by overuse in animal feed for non-sick animals.

When the Food and Drug Administration discovered the antibiotic residues in the grain in 2008, it started requiring ethanol/distiller grain producers to get approval for their presence as a food additive. But the IATP report claims that the antibiotic companies are skirting this rule by relying on their self affirmed GRAS status as approval enough. GRAS (generally recognized as safe) approval requires only that a company proves to itself that its product is safe. It can voluntarily report those findings to the FDA as well.

Monday the FDA acknowledged that feeding animals distillers grain with antibiotic residues “may contribute to the emergence of drug-resistant organisms that can potentially infect humans who eat food products derived from those animals. Given the significant increase in the use of distillers dried grains as a livestock feed ingredient, FDA has decided to explore possible options for increased regulatory oversight over the use of antimicrobials in the ethanol production process when the byproducts of this process are used for animal feed.”

Last Friday Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) and Louise Slaughter (D-NY) sent a letter to the FDA asking what it would do to better regulate these residues and why it has not released more information about its 2008 findings of antibiotic residue in half of the spent grain tested.

Charles Staff of the Distillers Grain Technical Council took issue with the report, however, saying that it conflated concern over the use of antibiotics added directly to animal feed with the “far far lower levels” in distillers grain.

“We are talking about parts per billion that is potentially present,” Staff said, adding that levels of antibiotics in distillers grain have dropped significantly since the 2008 FDA analysis. “We are talking about minuscule levels and you can see that in the later 2010 samples taken by the FDA. [Ethanol producers] have better control and the antibiotic companies have established technical service and people who go out out to the ethanol plants and monitor how they are using it.”

As government programs have aggressively funded and promoted the proliferation of ethanol in the last decade, production of this grain byproduct (known as DGS) jumped by 1,264 percent, from 2.5 to 34.1 million metric tons per year from 2000 to 2010, according to the report.

Many ranchers and ethanol enthusiasts often point to its use as a selling point for the efficiency of ethanol production.

According to the IATP report “The beef industry uses 41 percent of all DGS, the dairy industry consumes 26 percent, 5 percent are fed to swine and 4 percent to poultry; 22 percent are exported for use by meat producers overseas.

“DGS have rapidly become a mainstay of the conventional livestock diet, replacing 914 million bushels of traditional corn feed in the 2010-11 production year.”

Antibiotics are used in the production of ethanol to reduce the development of bacteria during the distilling process. But not all distillers use antibiotics, opting instead for antimicrobial methods that do not leave possible antibiotic residue in the grain.

Ethanol extended its longest streak of losses in almost a month on concern that Greece’s debt crisis will spread and choke fuel demand.

Future fell for a fourth day after Greek President Karolos Papoulias failed to secure agreement on a unity government and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party lost a regional election to the main opposition Social Democratic Party.

“This is one of those days where you think your quote device has low voltage,” said Peyton Feltus, president of Randolph Risk Management in Dallas. “The global economy is set to contract.”

Denatured ethanol for June delivery slipped 0.5 cent to settle at $2.103 a gallon on the Chicago Board of Trade, the lowest price since Dec. 16. The drop marked the most consecutive losses since April 18. Ethanol has fallen 4.5 percent this year.

In cash market trading, ethanol on the West Coast dropped 1.5 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $2.28 a gallon and in the U.S. Gulf the biofuel increased 0.5 cent to $2.175, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Ethanol in Chicago added 0.5 cent to $2.105 a gallon and in New York the biofuel rose 1.5 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $2.185.

Looking back a year after a special showing of their documentary, Freedom, at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo, Josh and Rebecca Tickell reflect on what they learned as they toured the U.S. showing the film and interacting with audiences. Although the three and a half month tour of 50 cities is now over, work to spread the message is far from over. This year, they have big plans to keep the momentum going through their nonprofit organization, “I’ll Be the One,” formerly known as the Veggie Van Organization. Their first plan of attack is to get educational materials, including student and teacher manuals, to 10,000 schools. Second, the film will be released on television late in the year, with possible showings in select theaters as well as other formats, such as Netflix, iTunes and Pay-Per-View, Josh says.

In the meantime, they encourage the ethanol industry to use their movie to reach others with the truth about ethanol. Besides distributing copies to people they know, Josh suggests looking into booking viewings at local colleges. “If you really want to shift Congress, shift the next generation of American engineers and their scientists and their biologists and their policy makers,” he says. “I think we need to focus more energy there, because we keep trying to deal with the people we have, but some of those people are just not going to change.”

Getting There

In the past, Josh has said negative things about ethanol. Some of those comments appeared in his film Fuel, which won the documentary audience award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. After researching the topic himself for the documentary film Freedom, however, he’s publically taking those words back. Today, Josh believes his prejudices were the result of an “insidious and strategic disinformation campaign” against the renewable fuel. “As somebody who was very indoctrinated from that movement, I had very specific perceptions against ethanol,” he tells Ethanol Producer Magazine.

The catalyst for his change of heart was the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Josh and his wife began filming and didn’t stop until they had enough material for two films, The Big Fix, about the oil spill, and Freedom. The process of making these films was a journey to the truth—uncovering the lies about the oil spill as well as about ethanol, Josh says. As the husband and wife team traveled around, visiting ethanol production facilities and speaking to people on both sides of the issue they realized they had been in the wrong about ethanol. “This is really the only option that America has near term to deal with our fossil fuel dependence,” he says, adding later that, “The positives well, and truly, outweigh any negatives.”

The Tickells consider Freedom a tool for changing other people’s minds about ethanol. They watched it happen during the Freedom Tour, which ended with a final showing in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 26. While they mentally prepared for push back—even protests—in some of the locations, that didn’t happen. Instead many attendees accepted their message and got inspired. “It was really amazing,” Rebecca says. “I know that it helped shift the tide.” At almost every one of the 50 scheduled stops, there were former ethanol haters who thanked the Tickells for giving them access to the truth about ethanol. “People got kind of upset that they had gotten the wool pulled over their eyes,” she says. “They felt like they had been duped.”

San Francisco and Sedona, Ariz., were two locations that stand out in Josh’s mind. He was pleased with a standing ovation in San Francisco, a left-leaning, highly environmental community. In Sedona, 600 people attended and work is now ongoing to install the city’s first E85 pump. Overall, Josh agrees with his wife that the tour was extremely successful. Still, he realizes that the misinformation campaign about ethanol has a strong grip on many. “Where people were neutral, I feel we moved people to positive,” he says. “Where they were negative, we often moved them to neutral.”

The Freedom Bus was another tool the Tickells had in their arsenal. The bus, a 1986 Blue Bird school bus with a General Motors 8.1 liter V8 gasoline engine in it, contained a mobile learning lab. Before starting the Freedom Tour, the Tickells attempted to contact an unresponsive GM about using E85 in a nonflex-fuel engine, Josh says. In the end, they went ahead and installed an American-made conversion kit that made it possible to run the bus on up to E100. Although E85 was not available in some locations, the bus ran on E85 for more than 90 percent of the tour.

Occasionally switching from E85 to gasoline provided an unexpected learning opportunity. When running on E85, not only were there no noxious odors on the bus, but putting a hand up to the tailpipe of the bus resulted in getting a wet hand, as the bus emitted water vapor. When the bus ran on gas, however, putting a piece of paper up to the tailpipe turned the paper brown. “From a practical standpoint, I think it’s really important to try it and use it,” Josh says of E85. “It’s one thing to research it and do a movie on it—it was another thing to drive across the country in a huge bus on the fuel.”

Propaganda Machine

In the film, the Tickells reveal a coordinated campaign to discredit ethanol, which many have fallen for, hook, line and sinker. Yet, when asked, these arm-chair critics often can’t clearly articulate what is so bad about ethanol. Josh calls it the indoctrination of wishful thinking. Rather than using ethanol, a very good solution that already exists, many people would rather wait until the perfect solution comes along. In the meantime, those people continue to get their power from petroleum

The use of oil is so ingrained in our society, Rebecca says, that we fail to look at the total impact. For example, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had a very personal impact on her. Although the Tickells did their filming on the beaches of Louisiana after it was reported in the media that it was safe again, she came into contact with oil and oil dispersant, a toxic combination that resulted in 13 upper respiratory infections and other medical problems long after they left. In fact, she may never be able to have children due to her exposure. “I had no idea that the impact of being down there would continue to affect me after we left the Gulf,” she says.

Something needs to shake Americans out of the willingness to go along with the status quo. “We can be green all day long and talk about ethanol until we are blue in the face, but for the most part, almost all Americans are going to get in their car and they’re going to go to a gas station and they are going to fill up on gasoline,” she says. “So there’s overwhelming agreement in our society that even though we have a sense that there’s something not right—it’s just what we’re going to continue to do.”

It’s a big battle, she acknowledges, especially for a small nonprofit organization. Still, it’s not something she’s willing to give up on. “We’re going to continue to fight it despite the complacency in our society,” she says. “Eventually we’ll prevail, there’s no doubt about it. Eventually people will understand.”