"Alternative Fuel" Station
We should consider changing the zoning regulations to permit a gas station, but not just any gas station. We should think outside the box and consider allowing a regular gas station that would also be required to have “alternative fuel” offerings, such as biodiesel, electricity, ethanol, hydrogen or natural gas. This could address a whole host of concerns, such as minimizing taxes, improving our quality of life, protecting the environment, improving our national security, improving Cheshire's image within the business community, minimizing the price of gas at the pump, improving our health and maybe a real go-getter could make some money off of this.
How would Cheshire residents benefit?
1) We could minimize taxes. Besides the increase to the grand list, with an alternative fuel station readily accessible here in Cheshire, the time (and cost) involved may be right for the town government (including schools) to expedite our transition away from fossil fuels and away from our dependency on foreign oil. (Town hall did buy a hybrid last year. So we’ve already started.) Perhaps we could convert our school buses to use alternative fuels. Or perhaps we could save money by receiving grant money to purchase new buses. (http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/02/tucson_to_recei.html) Just this month (Feb 06) Tucson AZ received a $493,000 grant to purchase Compressed NG school buses. And right here in the Nutmeg state, Old Lyme and Fairfield received grant money (http://www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/demo_projects.htm) to clean up their buses. Grant money is available. We just need to look for it.
2) We could improve our quality of life. With a gas station easily accessible from the highway, many commuters may save some time that would be better spent with their families.
3) We could help protect the environment. For example “Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning alternative fuels available and offers a number of advantages over gasoline.”
(http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/gas_benefits.html) (By the way, I do recognize that this would be near the aquifer. But I think it best to first start this discussion, then bring in the experts, rather than just avoiding the discussion entirely.)
4) We could help improve our national security (albeit in a small way). Our dependence on foreign oil is inarguably linked to our national security and what occurs in the Middle East. (84% of America's natural gas is derived from within our borders. (http://www.naturalgas.org/business/analysis.asp#domesticng) And the balance is basically from Canada. Biofuel is what I believe President Bush meant when he said we could make gas from grass. No doubt, we could make quite a bit of this domestically. (http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/biodiesel_basics/default.shtm))
5) We could improve our business climate through showing our support for the much-rumored natural gas pumping station project by having an alternative fuel station, or specifically a Natural Gas (NG) station. (According to some, Cheshire is on the verge of adding a long-awaited natural gas pumping station. And with the continued proliferation of NG stations (or other alternative fuel stations), I suspect that people will begin considering purchasing cars that run on alternative fuels. In fact, according to NREL we’ve already got CNG stations in Meriden and Waterbury (http://afdcmap.nrel.gov/locator/LocatePane.asp) at each end of I-691 and other alternative fuel stations around the area. And we've got several biofuel stations nearby as well (http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/retailfuelingsites/showstate.asp?st=CT).)
6) We could help minimize gas prices. Gas prices are sky-high, but with every car that uses an alternative fuel, we reduce the demand for gas. In turn, the price of gas will go down.
7) We could help improve our health through reduced emissions. (http://www.record-journal.com/articles/2006/03/05/news/news03.txt)
But that's from the perspective of the taxpayer. The other question is...
Does it make good business sense? I’m not sure, but here are some reasons why it may make sense:
1) Alternative fuel stations offer significant tax incentives
(http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/progs/view_ind.cgi?afdc/4286/0)
(http://www.doe.gov/taxbreaks.htm, see "Biodiesel/Alternative Fuels")
(http://www.biodiesel.org/news/taxincentive/)
2) There is technical & advisory help available for such stations
(http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/progs/view_ind.cgi?afdc/4294/0)
If we are going to consider rezoning to allow alternative uses in the northend, we should think outside the box and consider opportunities such as this.
Tim White
Town Council, 4th District
TimWhite98@yahoo.com
10 comments:
Ethanol, specifically E85 which is the blend of 85 percent ethanol , 15 percent gasoline derived from corn is available today. The biggest problem , is geeting the major manufacturers to build every new vehicle capable of running on either E85 or Gas. GM is building a number of vehicles today.
Currently E85 is expensive in part due to its high production cost, and lack of availability. However is the US Government woudl start providing incentives to manufacturers of Ethanol and Ethanol vehicles, this woudl go along way to reducing the cost.
More importantly, we need no one other than our own Growers to produce enough corn product to produce ethanol. As you know it can also be produced from other derivatives. The point here is, we can very easily reduce the demand on foreign oil if we want to. That thats the key Tim, if we want to. I think Americans do. However as a collective group of citizens we need to place enormous pressure on the Government and industry to move away from fossil fuel to these new fuel sources. Until we make them realize the long term financial incentive and long term national security interests in doing so, it will be difficult to make them do the right thing.
I have already said the next vehicle I buy will either be hybrid or ethanol capable.
One more thing, I agree with you wholeheartedly that this town needs to research this and take initiative in moving towards alternative fuels. We should insist that any new town vehicles be both fuel efficient and use alternative technology.
Hey here is a thought, instead of the State giving us $850k for artificial turf how about they invest that towards towns moving toward fuel efficient and alternate technology. What a concept huh?
Aaron... our state legislators said that the $850k is earmarked for "recreational" projects. (for details, see the link I added to my "artificial turf" post.)
But the state's priorities are wrong. While I'd love to see the state legislature eliminate the money they've designated for recreational projects and cut taxes, I doubt they'd do that. But short of that, I'd really like to see them move the "recreational" money to energy-related projects... either for conserving energy or clean energy. In my opinion, both would have significantly more benefits than recreational projects.
I had a long discussion with a couple of coworkers last week, (one a cheshire resident). We all had the same thought which was, why is the State funding local recreational projects? Its one thing for the state to provide funding for state parks and facilities, yet to fund local town projects in light of a tight economy where the money is better spent is absurd.
How can the state honestly not adequately fund the Husky Health program for example, but give towns like Cheshire $850k.
I dont agree with the philosphy that sasys, "well if we dont taker it, another town will". How about individually standing up for principle and saying, its wasteful and we dont want it. if enough individuals,and towns started crying about reckless State spedning maybe it can be changed. But whast happening is everyone just goes along. The taxpayers dont have a bottomless pit of money, despite what some people think. Until we collectively stand up and say enough, it wont change.
And here's another option (although apparently it's only available in California so far):
Honda GX (runs on compressed natural gas) and a "Phill." The Phill is a "home-based" natural gas station. It costs $2,000.
Something to think about....
http://automobiles.honda.com/models/model_overview.asp?ModelName=Civic+GX
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5960905
The Honda GX has a $4,000 federal tax credit and MSRP is about $22k. The big uncertainty is probably the cost of natural gas. Although I don't even know what the cost of regular gas will be tomorrow.
I should have said it runs on CNG. However, if there is no CNG station nearby, you can buy a Phill and, to a certain extent, get around the lack of a CNG station in your area.
You can't just put in an alternative fuel gas station in town when the majority of people who drive cars in the United States is not equipped to handle alternative fuel sources. In order for a community and an individual to decrease their dependence on fossil fuels, the federal government and manufacturers of automobiles need to as well. No person is going to invest in the constructon of an alternative fuel gas station if there is no money to be made yet. We, as a nation, are getting closer but we're just not there yet. We also need to get individuals thinking differently about fossil fuels and alternative energy. We need to place more pressure on federal government before placing pressure on local government and industry.
If you doubt the state would switch money from "recreational" use to more sound projects such as energy conservation projects than maybe you're priorities are in the wrong order. Maybe you should spend more time lobbying state and federal government first and educating people, outside Cheshire, about alternative fuel. In order to gather people to stand collectively for a particular cause, enough people need to believe in it and educate them about how it benefits them and their surroundings. For the most part, people won't change until they see how an issue affects them.
Anonymous… sorry for taking a while to respond. Anyway… many, many points you make and I’ll say this… it sounds as though we agree on the goal. I think we agree that moving the country away from oil and to alternative fuels is the right thing to do. (Am I right, so far?) However, we disagree on the approach to achieving that goal? You seem to feel that federal intervention is the first step in achieving this goal, while I advocate taking a multi-pronged approached.
I feel that everyone should be involved in addressing this: federal, state & local government, business and other institutions and, most importantly, individuals. And the sooner we all start, the better.
I agree that a sea change is necessary. But it may have already begun. In a conversation I had with someone just this week, I was told several interesting things (although I haven’t verified any of these assertions):
1) metro Boston has 14 compressed natural gas (CNG) stations;
2) metro NYC has 50 CNG stations; (I believe both NYC & Boston are regular “fill-up-your-car-type-stations”… not gov’t exclusive);
3) CT is behind the curve largely due to decisions made within state gov’t (I didn’t get many details on this… so this is really fuzzy at this point)
4) Municipalities may soon be eligible for grants directly from the federal gov’t (no state pass thru) for capital construction costs of CNG stations.
5) Most natural gas runs in pipelines everywhere it is available, including fuel stations and houses.
Putting #4 with my original post (see http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/02/tucson_to_recei.html) and I think things are falling into place where this may be the time for Cheshire to move to alternative fuels. (I realize there are many IFs here, but I think floating ideas and having discussion is good.)
As for car manufacturers adopting alternative fuel technologies, it is happening. Manchester Honda sells the Honda Civic GX, a CNG car. It’s more expensive than the Civic Hybrid upon which I recently placed a down payment ($25k vs. $22k), but it comes with $4,000 fed tax credit, not a $2100 tax credit (http://www.aceee.org/transportation/hybtaxcred.htm). And if my statement above (no. 1-5) is true (I don’t know it to be fact, but the person was extremely knowledgeable), then the fuel stations are already coming on line in New England.
As for where something of this nature could, and should, happen in Cheshire… it could happen anywhere that natural gas pipelines are nearby. And I know that we have pipelines around town. But this could also be a showcase for Cheshire, if we were to get a natural gas pumping station and a natural gas station for cars in the same place.
As for the traffic… what can I say, but I agree 100% that it can be a negative. And I acknowledge that I know very little about traffic flows. But similar to concerns about any development over the aquifer, I’m not an expert. So I need to defer to others and trust their advice. (Again… just starting a discussion here.)
sorry... my above comment was in response to Tim S... sorry for not starting out by writing that!
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