An alternative fuel filling station opened in Oakland on Tuesday, offering motorists a greener option for powering their cars than standard petroleum based gasoline - but not completely green.

Propel Fuels’ station on Grand and Perkins Street offers an E85-Flex Fuel blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent petroleum fuel as well as a “B5” blend of five percent bio-diesel and 95 percent petroleum fuel.  

Ethanol is a controversial alternative fuel because some environmentalists say it has caused farmers to choose to grow fuel grade corn for ethanol rather than food. Today through Thursday, Aug. 26, Propel is giving away five gallons of either the B5 or FlexFuel formula to customers.  Its retail prices are $2.49 a gallon for the FlexFuel and $3.19 a gallon for the B5 bio-diesel blend, better than the prices advertised at nearby conventional gasoline stations.

The B5 and FlexFuel blends are manufactured to work in many conventional cars, making it economically viable to open an alternative fuel station near downtown Oakland even though few bio-diesel cars are around. The diesel fuel can work in any diesel car without conversion, said Propel spokeswoman Emily Shellabarger.

The E85 Flex fuel can be used in a long lists of models from U.S. automakers Ford, Chrysler, Jeep, GMC, Chevrolet and others models who have equipped their cars to handle flex fuel and petroleum based fuel. Flex fuel cars have a micro chip, which tells the car which kind of fuel has been loaded.

Propel’s blends are “not perfect or a silver bullet” to end green house gas emissions. “But its’s a step in the right direction,” Shellabarger said. “It has to be economically feasible too.”

Customer Jim Petrovic was happy as he drove his 1982 GMC Sierra Classic pickup truck into the Propel station, as was customer Anrie Cruz in her Volks Wagon Golf.

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“Biodiesel was kind of hard to get for a while and expensive,” Petrovic said he liked the price of Propel Fuels, though he acknowledged this was not pure biodiesel and it was ethanol based.

Cruz who drives a diesel VW said looks for biodiesel stations but rarely finds one.

“I was on my way to work and I saw him standing there,” she said referring to a Propel employee who was holding a sign announcing Propel’s grand opening while standing on the curb along Grand Avenue. “Green is bio-diesel of course. I saw green and a good looking guy, so I stopped.” 

Economic and logistical barriers-largely set up by car manufacturers and oil refineries- make it hard do sell purer formers of alternative fuels, according to what Shellabarger described.

Car manufacturers – even those selling flex fuel compatible cars – recommend that drivers use blends with no more than 5 percent renewable fuel in it.

Additionally, gasoline storage tanks under most filling stations won’t allow blends with more than 5 percent renewables.

Propel was able to open its business on a corner of a Chevron station, which lent the economic benefits of already being zoned as a fueling station and which already had underground storage tanks.

Numerous cars and trucks from manufacturers such as Chevy, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Mercedes and Toyota are E85 Flex Fuel compatible, and every diesel vehicle can run on Propel biodiesel blends. Propel offers a list of the flexfuel cars at its stations and on its website here. Propel also offers a personal CO2 emissions tracking system at its site here. 

“We want to get as many people as possible used to using bio-diesel,”

Shellabarger said.

Privately-owned Propel, based in Redwood City, also opened up stations in Fremont and San Jose this summer and has stations in Seattle and Sacramento.