U.S. Energy Information Administration
March 7, 2014
The number of retail fueling stations offering motor fuel that can be up to 85% ethanol, known as E85, has grown rapidly since 2007. According to the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC), Minnesota continues to lead the nation, with 336 E85 retail locations. However, in recent years, states outside of the Midwest have experienced some of the fastest growth. Currently, 2% of all retail stations in the United States offer E85, serving the approximately 5% of the U.S. light-duty vehicle fleet capable of running on E85.
Retail stations selling E85 have historically been concentrated in the Midwest, where they benefit from a readily available ethanol fuel supplied to blenders. In 2007, the earliest year for which state-level data are available, the majority of E85 stations were located in just five states—Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin. While states in the Midwest corn-growing region continue to add significant numbers of new E85 retail locations, California, New York, Colorado, Georgia, and Texas have also experienced rapid growth of E85 availability, adding more than 49 retail locations each between 2007 and 2013. As a result, the share of nationwide E85 stations in the five traditional ethanol-producing states of the Midwest fell from 54% in 2007 to 36% in 2013.
California and New York have seen some of the fastest growth in new E85 fueling stations, increasing from fewer than a dozen stations combined in 2007 to more than 80 stations each in 2013. Only two states (New Hampshire and Alaska) currently have no E85 fueling stations, compared to nine that had none of these stations in 2007.
Growth in the number of E85 fueling stations has slowed in the past two years. The number of E85 fueling stations in the United States almost doubled between 2007 to 2011, from 1,229 to 2,442, but only increased by 7% from 2011 to 2013, when the total reached 2,625. Notwithstanding the increase in the number of retail outlets selling E85 since 2007, the vast majority of the nation's approximately 156,000 retail motor fuel outlets do not offer E85.
Read the original story here : Minnesota Leads In E85 Stations