CINCINNATI – Supermarket giant The Kroger Co. and VeraSun Energy Corp., one of the nation's largest ethanol producers, have announced the opening of 20 VE85 fueling locations at existing E85 Kroger convenience stores in Texas.
Kroger will offer Brookings, S.D.-based VeraSun's branded E85 for flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs) at 20 locations in and around the Dallas and Houston metro areas.
"The combination of an established Kroger brand with our emerging VE85 brand is important as we continue to expand to new markets," said Bill Honnef, VeraSun senior vice president of strategic [image-nocss] initiatives. "There is a growing demand for E85 in the United States as the number of flexible fuel vehicles on our roads increases, and having a partnership with a national retailer like Kroger adds tremendous value to our initiative of increasing overall E85 availability."
With the addition of the 20 VE85 fueling locations in Texas, VeraSun now has more than 140 retail fueling stations in 13 states and the District of Columbia. VeraSun and Kroger initially partnered in August 2007 to open VE85 fueling locations at 20 Kroger c-stores primarily in Ohio. With the addition of the Texas locations, VE85 is now available at 44 different Kroger fueling locations in four states.
Cincinnati-based Kroger operates almost 2,500 supermarkets and multi-department stores in 31 states. The company also has more than 750 c-stores and 650 supermarket fuel centers. Currently, the state of Texas has 30 retail E85 fueling locations, 20 of which are Kroger locations.
According to the Texas State Energy Conservation Office, Texas has more registered FFVs than any other state. The National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition estimates that number to be more than 500,000 registered FFVs.
VE85 was launched in May 2005 with seven stations in Sioux Falls, S.D., and is now available in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Pittsburgh, in addition to the Ohio metro areas of Cincinnati, Columbus and Toledo. In June, VeraSun, General Motors and Enterprise Rent-A-Car partnered to open the first E85 retail location in Washington, D.C.
VeraSun Energy has 560 million gallons per year of production capacity through five operating ethanol production facilities in Aurora, S.D., Fort Dodge and Charles City, Iowa, Linden, Ind., and Albion, Neb. Four facilities are currently either under construction or development in Hartley, Iowa, Welcome, Minn., Reynolds, Ind., and Bloomingburg, Ohio. Upon completion of the new facilities, VeraSun Energy will have an annual production capacity of approximately one billion gallons. The company also has begun construction at its Aurora facility to extract oil from dried distillers grains, a co-product of the ethanol process, for use in biodiesel production.
Meanwhile, questions still remain about the long-term viability of ethanol-based fuels. Yesterday's Kraft/CSP Daily News Poll asked, Do you believe ethanol-based fuels will reach critical mass with consumers? Nearly 30% of the almost 175 respondents answered, "No, and they are not as 'green' as promised"; more than 22% said "Yes, given more time, consumer education and vehicle options"; about 21% answered "It's possible, but not soon"; nearly 9% said "No, they are too expensive to produce"; more than 7% said "No"; about 7% said "Yes"; and more than 5% said "Yes, they already have."
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