Tenn. adds 6 stations to planet's longest biofuels corridor

Thanks to a huge, six‐state partnership, Tennesseans now have greater access to E85 and biodiesel in a B20 blend. Five E85 stations are now open in Cleveland and Chattanooga and nearby neighborhoods of Wildwood and Ft. Oglethorpe, and one B20 station is set to open in Knoxville this summer.

The week of June 9‐13 marks the celebration of this project that is five years in the making. In 2009, an ambitious, multistate project started in Knoxville, Tenn.

Through a grant funded by the Department of Energy Clean Cities Program, the I‐75 Green Corridor Project began with the goal of allowing any American driver to traverse any portion of I‐75 and be able to make their entire trip running on either biofuel. The project has significantly increased the availability of the biofuels E85 and B20 along the entire length of Interstate 75, which runs from Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., at the Canadian border to Miami, Fla. Biofuels stations were added with the intent of filling in gaps in biofuels access along the corridor and adding more stations in metropolitan areas, such that a station of each type could be found no greater than 200 miles apart along the entire length of the interstate.

This week we will be celebrating nearing completion of the project, and many partners from all six states and beyond will help spread the word about the project through web presence, social media discussions and picture sharing, press releases, and videos.

Since the project’s inception, more than 3.3 million gallons of biofuels have been sold from stations associated with the project, and 2.6 million gallons of petroleum have been displaced. The project has now displaced more than 61,000 barrels of oil, or alternatively, the U.S. has now produced more than 61,000 additional barrels of renewable, American fuel. This also equates to:

-25,222 tons of CO2 emissions avoided, or

-Eliminating the annual CO2 emissions from 4,817 U.S. passenger vehicles

-The amount of carbon sequestered by 18,946 acres of U.S. forests in one year

-Switching 604,604 incandescent lamps to compact fluorescent lamps

-The energy used by 2,109 homes for one year

Thus far along the entire corridor, E85 has been installed at 26 fuel stations, and B20 has been installed at nine. These numbers are expected to increase in the coming months with another six stations coming online this summer. The project is now in its final year and has resulted in the 1,786‐mile interstate becoming the planet’s longest biofuels corridor.