Source: San Diego Union-Tribune
A San Diego alternative fuels company is scrambling after ethanol politics sideswiped its efforts at securing millions in stimulus funds.
Pearson Fuels, based in City Heights, was behind an application for $11 million from the federal and state governments to subsidize construction of 55 ethanol pumps across California, including two in San Diego County.
But the regional agency in Los Angeles that would have received the money for the project voted last week to reject it, in part because its members don’t believe that ethanol is a worthy alternative to gasoline.
The rejection by the Southern California Association of Governments has meant big changes at Pearson, said owner Mike Lewis, who started the business when he built an alternative-fuel station in City Heights.
“The administrative assistant I had working here is running the cash register at the gas station today, the people at the gas station got their hours cut back immediately,” he said.
He said Pearson is still planning to expand its network of ethanol pumps in California, but the loss of the stimulus funding is a blow.
Lewis was going to use the money to install pumps for E-85 ethanol at existing gas stations. The fuel, 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, can be burned in flex-fuel vehicles, hundreds of thousands of which have been sold in California in recent years.
Proponents of ethanol say it is better than gasoline because it is derived from plants or other renewable sources and pollutes less.
But opponents say it is bad for the environment because production of corn — the primary raw material — uses copious amounts of water and petroleum-based fertilizers and lots of energy is used to cook the corn and then distill the alcohol after fermentation.
