East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition

East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition

The East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition (ETCleanFuels) was founded in February 2002 by Jonathan Overly with funding and support from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Energy Division, and the University of Tennessee. ETCleanFuels is a nonprofit organization that serves the entire eastern portion of the state of Tennessee and is a designated member of the . Almost 90 coalitions like ETCleanFuels exist across the U.S. serving various sized areas from small cities to entire states.

The main focus of ETCleanFuels is to get alternative fuels in use in East Tennessee and do three things:

1. reduce regional and national oil dependence,
2. improve air quality, and
3. help Tennessee's economy.

ETCleanFuels directly engages regional fleets to help them move to using alternative fuels, holds public workshop and other events that works to do the same, and works on the education front for alternative fuels at many levels including mainly fleets and in K-12 schools. During the 2009-2010 scholastic year, coalition staff reached almost 7,000 students in East Tennessee to engage them in an in-depth discussion about the various alt fuels and why the United States needs to move to more American-made fuels.

The main alternative fuels used in East Tennessee and other parts of the U.S. include biodiesel, electricity, ethanol, natural gas and propane (or LPG). The most prominent alternative fuels used in East Tennessee currently are biodiesel and ethanol.

A significant portion of ETCleanFuel's efforts have been focused on putting in public and private alt-fuel refueling stations in place so that fleets and individuals alike can use these fuels. One such effort is the Biodiesel Brigade, a group of individuals encouraged by ETCleanFuels to prominently display their use of biodiesel through vehicle magnets and decals.

The ETCleanFuels Website holds much information about their meetings and activities. The organization holds open, quarterly meetings in Knoxville, Chattanooga and Gray, TN to provide the regional community plenty of opportunities to get involved and find out how they can begin using these fuels. The coalition also conducts quarterly fleet manager's meetings to directly assist fleet managers with their questions and issues and work to put together grant response teams.