Renewable Fuels Association News
According to the latest government report, ethanol's share of the U.S. gasoline market reached a new record of ten-point-two percent last week.
Monte Shaw with the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association says he's not surprised that ethanol has broken through the ten percent so-called "blend wall".
"It's not surprising to those of us in the industry that have seen the growth of higher blends like E15 and E85," says Shaw, "but when Big Oil is out there trying to tell everybody there's this bogus blend wall and we can't get past E10 and all this stuff-I guess a lot of air just got let out of their balloon."
Shaw says the increased availability of E15 is a big factor, with more and more retailers now offering the higher blend.
"Here in Iowa, a couple of years ago, we had ten (E15 outlets). By the end of this year, we should be around 100, and that's just going to keep growing," he says.
Shaw says the next big challenge is to convince the EPA to drop its summertime volatility restrictions on E15, which force many stations to put their E15 sales on hold during the summer months.
"There's no doubt that is probably our number one hurdle in not just selling more E15 from where it's available, but from dramatically increasing the number of retailers who are willing to offer E15."