Congratulations are due for the US state of Maine, which has reached a goal of including a 10 per cent ethanol (E10) blend in nearly all its gasoline, despite the fact that there is no legislation making this a state requirement.

According to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the introduction of an E10 blend is due to state and federal tax regulations as well as tax incentives and current fuel market forces.

There are many reasons why Maine has been able to accelerate the introduction of E10 including:

• - Tax incentives for the manufacturing and distribution of biofuels.
• - Refiners and distributors choosing an ethanol blend due to a federal tax incentive - for E10 this is $0.051 a gallon.
• - The Energy Independent and Security Act 2007, which mandates an increase in the amount of renewable fuels nationally to nine billion gallons to be blended in the fuel supply in 2008, which will increase to 36 billion gallons in 2012.

From August onwards, 39 states provided incentives promoting ethanol production and use with 12 also introducing their own renewable fuels standard with eight mandating E10 and one (Minnesota) mandating E20 by 2013.

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