Fuel for your car growing in Maryland's cornfields

Ethanol station will be state's first

Ed Stanfield, a Baltimore County grain farmer, would like more of his corn to end up in your car's gas tank.

"We've got to develop new markets for our grain if we are ever going to get prices up again," he said.

With big stocks of grain in storage and bumper crops in the field, corn and soybean prices are at 20-year lows.

To help cut into this surplus, the Maryland Grain Producers Association is about to open the state's first ethanol station near Annapolis. Ten more outlets are planned for other parts of the state.

Ethanol is a gasoline substitute or extender that is made from a blend of 85 percent alcohol, made from corn, and 15 percent gasoline.

Ethanol is just one of an increasing number of alternative uses for the corn and soybeans grown in Maryland and other agricultural regions of the country.

A soybean-based ink, for example, is used in the printing of The Sun.

Researchers are also using soybeans in the production of paint, wood glue, plastic, automotive crank case oil, wood stains and paint remover and as an absorbent to clean up industrial oil spills, according to Stephen G. Wildes, a manager at Midland, Mich.-based Omni Tech International Ltd.

Lynne Hoot, executive director of the Maryland Grain Producers Association, said the group is about to sign a contract with the owner of the Shell service station at the intersection of Riva Road and Harry Truman Parkway for the installation of the state's first ethanol pump.

She said the pump is being added with the oil company's blessing and it will take about 12 weeks to have the tank installed.

The ethanol movement is being stimulated, in part, by federal policy that requires 75 percent of the cars and trucks in government fleets of more than 19 vehicles be powered by something other than gasoline.

Hoot said it takes about 100 vehicles using the fuel to support an ethanol station.

She said the state grain group is about to commission a feasibility study to consider the construction of an ethanol production plant in Maryland. Proposals are scheduled to go out next month.

Ethanol attracted more attention earlier this summer when oil prices rose sharply, according to Kevin McNew, an agricultural economist with the University of Maryland College Park.

He said ethanol sales are currently running 14 percent ahead of last year, due primarily to the higher price of gasoline in the Midwest.

Another boost for ethanol could be coming from Capitol Hill. Legislation has been introduced that could lead to oil refineries using ethanol to turn out gasoline that would burn cleaner and be less polluting.

Such a step by the refiners would be a big boost to ethanol, said Robert Dineen, vice president of the Renewable Fuels Association, a Washington-based trade association.

He said the industry produced 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol last year from 555 million bushels of corn.

Dineen told state grain farmers that the market for ethanol could triple in the five or six years.

According to McNew, 2 billion bushels of corn will go into industrial uses this year, primarily ethanol and corn syrup. He said that represents 20 percent of the national harvest.

This is up from 400 million bushels in 1973, which represented 7 percent of the corn crop.

Stanfield was encouraged by the prediction. "It's an absolute must that we find markets for all the grain we can grow," he said.