If you drive a car, you’d probably welcome a way to power it with fuel that’s better for the environment and costs less than regular gasoline.
That’s what Lancaster-based Rhoads Energy thought when it was planning renovations on the Pacific Pride fueling station it runs in Harrisburg. Pacific Pride stations, which consist of fueling pumps open around the clock to customers who have access cards, primarily serve commercial fleets that use a lot of fuel (the general public is also welcome). When Rhoads heard that ethanol-industry lobbying group Growth Energy was offering grants for pumps that dispensed ethanol with gasoline, Rhoads thought it was a perfect opportunity.
Rhoads’ Harrisburg Pacific Pride station now features what’s known as a flex-fuel pump. Customers who use it to fill up can choose between gasoline with a traditional blend of 10 percent ethanol, the 85 percent-ethanol mixture known as E85, or E30, a blend of 30 percent ethanol. The ethanol being used now is derived from grain.
“The E30 gives consumers a better option,” says Scott Burky, Rhoads’ VP of operations. He adds that it costs about 16 cents per gallon less than regular gasoline and might be more palatable to customers hesitant to fill up with E85, which gets fewer miles per gallon than a normal blend.
This happens to be the first flex-fuel pump in the state. “Were kind of on the bleeding edge,” Burky says.
Source: Scott Burky, Rhoads Energy
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen