Companies Consider Ethanol Pipeline
As the race to find the best and most viable fuel alternative to gasoline heats up, one of the major challenges will be how to transport and incorporate that fuel in locations across the country. Likely that will require new infrastructure.
Two companies have decided to review the feasibility of building this new infrastructure around the growing prospect of ethanol fuel, or E85. Magellen Midstream Partners, LLC, and Buckeye Partners, L.P., recently announced a partnership in which they will study the possibility of building a $3 billion ethanol pipeline across the Midwest, stretching from the fields of Iowa and South Dakota to the New York coast.
The problem with any fuel grown on a farm is that it must be transported to high-traffic areas — in this case the eastern seaboard — and if you’re hauling it by tanker truck this is going to somewhat negate the point of using alternative fuel in the first place. The pipeline has the support of Congress in its new energy bill, which asked for the very same study.
Whether the pipeline is realistic or not remains a question simply because of the “technical and economic issues” that come with pumping ethanol through a pipeline that would span more than 1,700 miles and cross eight states.
Another worthy question: What if ethanol isn’t the fuel of the future that some claim it is? Some worry that ethanol does not solve our long-term energy and environmental concerns, and that it drives up the price of food in the bargain. Although advances in cellulosic ethanol (using waste wood or switchgrass rather than corn) look promising, if ethanol were to fall by the wayside, owning a useless $3 billion pipeline wouldn’t be fun.
Magellan Midstream Partners and Buckeye Partners Assessing $3B Dedicated Ethanol Pipeline System (Green Car Congress)
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I agree that there are lots of risks, but its also true that no one will switch to an alternative fuel until its viable to do so. The pipeline would make it much cheaper to get ethanol in the east: therefor, more people would buy ethanol. Without it, it wouldn't be viable, and people would not buy it.
I think we need to go all out on this and either go bio-diesel or wait for hydrogen to become viable. People say hydrogen is dangerous due to its explosive tendencies: so is gasoline for that matter.
Bio-diesel would gain us 30% better fuel economy over gasoline, and maintain high power output. Hydrogen would solve all problems, if only we can figure out an economic way of harvesting it.
But E85 is a half-ass way of doing it. Not only does corn (the current base) not produce much ethanol an acre, it is also highly water intensive. And water, if you haven't noticed, is getting rarer. In Georgia they nearly ran out last summer, and Californian farmers find its more profitable to sell their water (which they buy at subsidized rates) to cities which need it rather than grow crops.
So rather than causing more problems by using water-intensive crops, a switch to a base which is less water intensive would be nice. Add to it bio-diesel's incredible economy, and we'd have a winning fuel.
Or, again, just plug everything we have into a hydrogen powered economy. That works too.
The worst result, I think, would be anything that still requires oil (as, lets face it, thats not getting cheaper or more available), and requires a basket of different fuels across the nation. Already I've heard proposals that link up the idea of public-transport only for the Bosh-Wash megapolis, bio-diesel for the mid-west, train-only based travel for the southern coastal states, and sea-based travel for the west.
Less strange but similarly fruitless ideas include a basket of different fuels for mobility in the future. Not only would this create horrible problems of incompatibility and incredibly large infrastructure costs, it'd just plain frustrate people that the fuel they need in one area costs oodles more in another (even more so that gas in Chicago compared to gas in Los Angeles), but it'd probably eliminate travel by one means altogether in some areas.
No, a single fuel is needed to maintain the viability of transport as we have it now. As such, either incredibly efficient organic substances such as bio-diesel or a more futuristic approach like hydrogen is the best choice. And a note on that: at one time, people called air-travel "futuristic."