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Home - News
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Up Front: Dept. of Energy Ethanol pipeline not yet feasible
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Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry wants the federal government to help pay for a $3.75 billion pipeline that would transport 240,000 barrels of ethanol a day from corn fields near Mitchell, S.D., to oil-thirsty New York markets.
But the U.S. Department of Energy said the country’s first ethanol pipeline which would be the longest in the world would only be feasible with “significant” increases in demand or increased percentages of ethanol in gasoline blends.
Terry and Iowa Rep. Leonard Boswell cosponsored a bill in February that would provide federal loan guarantees for the project. The bill remains in committee.
Poet Ethanol Products, an ethanol producer based in Sioux Falls, S.D., and Magellan Midstream Partners, an Oklahoma pipeline company, hope to have the pipeline running by 2015.
“Nebraska relies heavily on the ethanol industry,” Terry said on his website. “This legislation is critical to improving the infrastructure to more efficiently transport ethanol made in Nebraska to other markets across the country.”
On track to produce 12.5 billion gallons of ethanol this year, the industry is already nearing market saturation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
But the pipeline would still be feasible if there’s an increase in demand for E85, an 85-percent blend that runs in fuel-flexible vehicles, or if there’s a switch from E10 to 15- or 20-percent blends, according to a study released last week by the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is running tests on the suitability of higher blends for standard cars.
Other concerns include costs and efficiency.
Currently, ethanol refineries receive a 45 cents tax credit per gallon. The Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, reported that the credits cost U.S. taxpayers more than $22 billion from 2005 to 2010.
Critics of corn ethanol argue it’s not efficient to produce; for example, one gallon of ethanol produced in Nebraska required 780 gallons of irrigation water, according a 2007 report by the National Academy of Sciences. Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel found ethanol requires 70 percent more energy to produce than it contains.
But Gary Radloff, director of Midwest energy policy at the University of Wisconsin’s Bioenergy Initiative, said the processes continue to improve.
“I think it’s a wise investment for this country to look to alternative fuels,” he said. “I think corn ethanol is here for a while, and it’s still the easiest renewable fuel to produce.”
Hilary Stohs-Krause |
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