PHX Perspective

Fuel Site Makes Sky Harbor More Environmentally Friendly

As part of America’s Friendliest Airport®’s ongoing efforts to be more environmentally friendly, a new fuel site has opened. This site dispenses E85 fuel to city of Phoenix Aviation Department cars and vehicles.

E85 fuel, which consists of 85% ethanol and 15% unleaded gasoline, is becoming a more prevalent fuel as car manufacturers market flexible or flex fuel vehicles. Many of the flex fuel vehicles are designed to run on everything from 100% unleaded gasoline all the way up to 100% ethanol. Even cars that run in the Indy 500 and other races are using E85 or other ethanol boosters.

PHX Sky Harbor’s E85 fueling facility is the first operated by the city of Phoenix. However, using cleaner and alternative fuels is not something new to PHX Sky Harbor. In fact, over the past few years, PHX Sky Harbor has provided on-site CNG fueling for city of Phoenix vehicles which run on compressed natural gas. Sky Harbor has also been fueling all diesel powered heavy trucks and off-road equipment with B20 Bio-diesel. B20 Bio-diesel is 20% Bio-diesel and 80% diesel. There are approximately 32 vehicles that use E85 fuel, 51 that use CNG, 54 that use bi-fuel CNG and unleaded, 38 bio-diesel vehicles not counting off-road equipment, and two hybrid vehicles.

So why the new facility with E85 fuel? E85 is designated by the U.S. Department of Energy as an alternative fuel and it burns much cleaner than gasoline therefore polluting less.

Rental Car Center Fleet Maintenance Manager Joe Gray said that E85 is made from materials such as corn, beets, sugarcane, bio-mass etc. Bio-diesel is made from organic oils, soybeans, algae, etc. This will give farmers more to grow. It also lessens our dependence on foreign oil and reduces pollution.

According to e85fuel.com, tests conducted have shown that vehicles that use E85 can reduce hydrocarbon and benzene emissions which are harmful in addition to carbon dioxide.

And, something else that is important to note about this new fuel station is that the layout was reconfigured to allow vehicles to be able to fuel on all four corners. “Basically, we have doubled the ability for fueling vehicles with the new layout,” Gray said.

Above and to the right, see pictures of the new E85 fuel pumps at PHX Sky Harbor.

First published: September 21, 2010