South Dakota Panel: Higher Fuel Blends Critical

BROOKINGS, S.D. - Boosting the level of ethanol used in fuel blends is crucial to continuing the alternative energy industry's rapid growth, a panel of experts said.

About half of the gasoline sold across the United States is blended with 10 percent ethanol, but that percentage needs to increase for ethanol to go from being merely an additive to a true alternative, said Don Endres, chairman and chief executive officer of Brookings-based VeraSun Energy Corp., one the nation's largest ethanol producers.

The Environmental Protection Agency, with a stroke of pen, could approve E-20 or even E-30 blends, which would help demand keep up with an ever increasing supply of homegrown fuel, Endres said Wednesday during a farm bill hearing hosted by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

"Then, I think, the free market takes hold here," Endres said.

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More than 200 people gathered at South Dakota State University for the two-hour field hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee's energy subcommittee.