11-15-07 by dugan
Listen up, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, Conoco and BP. A little family-owned gasoline station in West L.A. (location below) called Conservfuel will soon be the first in Los Angeles and second in California to publicly offer high-ethanol E85 fuel for the approximately 6,000 flex-fuel vehicles on the road in California, as well as the almost equally rare B-99 biodiesel. They’ll also have gasoline.
(The other E85 public station is independent Pearson Fuels in San Diego. I gave them a call and the manager says they’re doing pretty well financially with it after starting up four years ago. "A lady just drove all the way from Escondido to fill up," he added.)
As OilWatchdog first reported early this year, Chevron and other majors make it expensive and difficult for their franchise stations to offer biofuels, even as the companies pay for multimillion-dollar greenwashing PR campaigns. BP goes so far as to tout a new company-owned gas station in LA as the "greenest," yet it sells nothing but ordinary gasoline (You can, however, also get free wildflower seeds with purchase.).
None of the majors is selling E85 at company-owned stations, and most B99 is sold by back-lot operators trying to do the right thing. California Gov. Schwarzenegger ordered state offices to buy 1,138 flex-fuel vehicles from GM (maker of his Hummers) in a very fishy deal, but there’s still no E85 to be bought in Sacramento. The "green" vehicles thus use more gasoline than the vehicles they replaced.
One Shell station and one Texaco station offering E85 are "scheduled to open" next year in California, says the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition. Good if they do, but way, way too little too late.
We’re happy to acknowledge that corn ethanol is not an overall replacement for gasoline, but it’s an available start. Stations selling corn ethanol today will be ready to sell more sustainable ethanols in the future.
So. If you’re on the West Side of LA, even gasoline-only drivers ought to thumb their noses at Chevron, Exxon and friends by stopping by San Vicente and Barrington for a fill-up at Conservfuel. That doesn’t mean you need to drive from Escondido to Brentwood for a fill-up.
Bonus: the station has attractive water-thrifty landscaping, not just a marketing tool like wildflower seeds.