Building the world’s longest ethanol pipeline

John D. Rockefeller figured out a long time ago that the most efficient way to transport liquid fuels long distances wasn’t on wheels but in pipelines. Today POET, the privately held Sioux Falls, S.D., company that is the country’s largest producer of ethanol, and Tulsa pipeline-builder Magellan Midstream Partners are poised to make the same leap.

They want to build a $4 billion ethanol pipeline — the first in the U.S. and the longest in the world — linking cornfields and refineries in the upper Midwest to fuel-hungry markets on the East Coast, while boosting transport efficiency (equivalent to reducing the carbon footprint) 30% compared with rail and nearly 90% compared with trucks.

This is a big pipe — extending 1,800 miles, crossing seven state lines, carrying 240,000 barrels a day — and it won’t happen without an equally big boost from taxpayers. On Feb. 25, corn-state congressman Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) reintroduced the Renewable Fuel Pipeline Act. (Similar legislation is pending in the Senate.)

The bill’s key provision is an 80% government loan guarantee. Without it, says Magellan CEO Don Wellendorf, there won’t be a pipeline: “We’re not willing to spend the kind of money it would take on a project that’s viable only as long as the government continues its interest in ethanol.”

A recent study paid for by POET and Magellan (MMP) touts the pipeline’s social benefits — surprise, surprise. It relies on “final demand employment multipliers” to claim that 80,000 jobs will be created, although only 143 “directly associated” with the pipeline will remain after the two-year construction project ends. It also envisions a $6.6 billion lasting boost to the U.S. economy. Green jobs and economic stimulus: Who can argue with that?

PR aside, what’s really driving the pipeline is the government’s renewable-fuels mandate — established in 2005 and expanded with fanfare by the Obama administration. The new goal: 36 billion gallons of biofuels in the U.S. fuel supply by 2022, up from 12 billion today.

Whether we’ll get there is an open question. Lower oil prices since 2008 haven’t helped. Nor has the damage done lately to ethanol’s green cred. A recent Duke University paper found that “carbon releases from the soil after planting corn for ethanol may in some cases completely offset carbon gains … for at least 50 years.” Greener cellulosic alternatives, alas, are years away, although the pipeline could carry them as well.

Still, the policy is the policy: Production must rise. The industry expects a boost in June, when the EPA should raise the ethanol allowance in gasoline from 10% to 15%.

Yet even with the political will, obstacles remain. The watered-down bill deliberately sidesteps the toxic but critical issue of eminent domain. Maybe they could offer free fill-ups in exchange.

Building the world’s longest ethanol pipeline

John D. Rockefeller figured out a long time ago that the most efficient way to transport liquid fuels long distances wasn’t on wheels but in pipelines. Today POET, the privately held Sioux Falls, S.D., company that is the country’s largest producer of ethanol, and Tulsa pipeline-builder Magellan Midstream Partners are poised to make the same leap.

They want to build a $4 billion ethanol pipeline — the first in the U.S. and the longest in the world — linking cornfields and refineries in the upper Midwest to fuel-hungry markets on the East Coast, while boosting transport efficiency (equivalent to reducing the carbon footprint) 30% compared with rail and nearly 90% compared with trucks.

This is a big pipe — extending 1,800 miles, crossing seven state lines, carrying 240,000 barrels a day — and it won’t happen without an equally big boost from taxpayers. On Feb. 25, corn-state congressman Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) reintroduced the Renewable Fuel Pipeline Act. (Similar legislation is pending in the Senate.)

The bill’s key provision is an 80% government loan guarantee. Without it, says Magellan CEO Don Wellendorf, there won’t be a pipeline: “We’re not willing to spend the kind of money it would take on a project that’s viable only as long as the government continues its interest in ethanol.”

A recent study paid for by POET and Magellan (MMP) touts the pipeline’s social benefits — surprise, surprise. It relies on “final demand employment multipliers” to claim that 80,000 jobs will be created, although only 143 “directly associated” with the pipeline will remain after the two-year construction project ends. It also envisions a $6.6 billion lasting boost to the U.S. economy. Green jobs and economic stimulus: Who can argue with that?

PR aside, what’s really driving the pipeline is the government’s renewable-fuels mandate — established in 2005 and expanded with fanfare by the Obama administration. The new goal: 36 billion gallons of biofuels in the U.S. fuel supply by 2022, up from 12 billion today.

Whether we’ll get there is an open question. Lower oil prices since 2008 haven’t helped. Nor has the damage done lately to ethanol’s green cred. A recent Duke University paper found that “carbon releases from the soil after planting corn for ethanol may in some cases completely offset carbon gains … for at least 50 years.” Greener cellulosic alternatives, alas, are years away, although the pipeline could carry them as well.

Still, the policy is the policy: Production must rise. The industry expects a boost in June, when the EPA should raise the ethanol allowance in gasoline from 10% to 15%.

Yet even with the political will, obstacles remain. The watered-down bill deliberately sidesteps the toxic but critical issue of eminent domain. Maybe they could offer free fill-ups in exchange.

Brazil Flex Fuel Cars Cut 83.5 Million Tons of CO2 since 2003

Brazilian use of flex-fuel cars, which run on any mix of gasoline and ethanol, have prevented 83.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions since 2003, according to UNICA, the country’s main sugarcane growers association. The amount of the greenhouse gases such vehicles prevented from entering the environment is equal about a fifth of annual emissions in Brazil, the world’s eighth-largest economy, according to the United Nations. Thanks to laws requiring hydrous ethanol pumps in all filling stations in Brazil and requiring all gasoline blends to be 20-25% anhydrous ethanol, biofuels made up 22.3% of fuel use in 2009, 14% more than 2008. (See related article: EPA Confims Sugarcane Ethanol is a Low Carbon, Advanced Renewable Fuel).

Brazil Flex Fuel Cars Cut 83.5 Million Tons of CO2 since 2003

Brazilian use of flex-fuel cars, which run on any mix of gasoline and ethanol, have prevented 83.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions since 2003, according to UNICA, the country’s main sugarcane growers association. The amount of the greenhouse gases such vehicles prevented from entering the environment is equal about a fifth of annual emissions in Brazil, the world’s eighth-largest economy, according to the United Nations. Thanks to laws requiring hydrous ethanol pumps in all filling stations in Brazil and requiring all gasoline blends to be 20-25% anhydrous ethanol, biofuels made up 22.3% of fuel use in 2009, 14% more than 2008. (See related article: EPA Confims Sugarcane Ethanol is a Low Carbon, Advanced Renewable Fuel).

U.S. Produced 10.7 Billion Gallons of Corn Ethanol in 2009

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) says U.S. corn ethanol production exceeded 10.75 billion gallons in 2009, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

“Despite trying economic circumstances, America’s ethanol producers once again rose up to meet the challenges the nation has put before it,” said RFA President Bob Dinneen. “Moving forward, once-idled facilities are restarting and new biorefineries are coming online to ensure that the volumes of ethanol called for in the Renewable Fuels Standard are met by domestic supplies.” (See related article: USDA: More Corn Crop will go to Ethanol)

U.S. Produced 10.7 Billion Gallons of Corn Ethanol in 2009

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) says U.S. corn ethanol production exceeded 10.75 billion gallons in 2009, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

“Despite trying economic circumstances, America’s ethanol producers once again rose up to meet the challenges the nation has put before it,” said RFA President Bob Dinneen. “Moving forward, once-idled facilities are restarting and new biorefineries are coming online to ensure that the volumes of ethanol called for in the Renewable Fuels Standard are met by domestic supplies.” (See related article: USDA: More Corn Crop will go to Ethanol)

PALO ALTO, Calif.--This is sort of like the "two, two, two mints in one" solution for the clean-tech set.

Australia's Terra Fuel Technologies has come up with a device that, when added to a diesel car, bus or truck, lets the vehicle also run partly on ethanol. You need to add a second gas tank on the vehicle to hold ethanol, but in the end, it's an ethanol-diesel car. The device, a black box, controls the flow of ethanol into the engine.

The company has tested it and will start selling it in the United States.

Who in their right mind would want this? Adding ethanol to a diesel engine actually improves performance of the vehicle by about 10 percent while reducing emissions, said Alexander Daniel, vice president of Business Strategies International, which is trying to help Terra Fuel get traction in the States.

Running a diesel engine on vegetable oil, a clean alternative, can degrade performance a little, even according to biodiesel fans.

Diesel drivers, of course, can reduce emissions by running their cars on a mix of regular diesel and biodiesel. But biodiesel is made from oil, Alexander and others at BSI noted, and a lot of countries don't have a lot of spare vegetable oil. Australia, for instance, grows sugarcane, which can be turned into ethanol.