Dennis McCoy can get part of his corn crop to the bellies of hogs without a hiccup. But the North Dakota farmer believes ethanol made from his other corn acres is hamstrung by traditional truck and rail shipping.
“I think the ethanol industry is overbuilt for time frame right now,“ said McCoy, who has been growing corn for fuel for 25 years near Larimore, in eastern North Dakota. “Maybe the industry needs to step back and figure out the infrastructure to get it where it needs to go.“ Shipping ethanol from farm states to the East and West coasts by pipeline could open up markets and help clear a bottleneck that has kept the fuel additive from getting to the pumps. An industry group is already studying such a project Nwanews.com reported .
Not everyone thinks one is needed. The ethanol industry is still new enough that it’s not clear where the pipeline should go or whether ethanol prices will hold up enough to make it worth building, skeptics say.
Bob Dinneen, president and chief executive of the Renewable Fuels Association, said a dedicated ethanol pipeline may not be as secure as rail cars, barges and trucks.
A pipeline “is an option, but I don’t think it’s the option,“ Dinneen said.
Right now, corn from Mc-Coy’s farm is hauled to a local grain elevator, where a small portion is sold to Canadian hog producers and the bulk to ethanol plants in the region. From there, the fuel has to be shipped by rail or truck to markets across the county.
The Association of Oil Pipe Lines, a Washington,
D. C.-based trade group that represents about 50 pipeline companies, is studying whether gasoline blends containing up to 20 percent ethanol can be transported safely in existing pipelines to break the bottleneck.
The study also will focus on stress corrosion cracking and design requirements for new ethanol-only pipelines, said Mike Mears, chairman of the pipeline group and vice president of Ma- gellan Midstream Partners L. P. of Tulsa. The company operates an 8, 500-mile pipeline network from Texas to North Dakota, and from Colorado to Illinois.
The study will cost about $ 800, 000, about 10 percent funded by a federal grant, Mears said. Pipeline companies are paying for the bulk of the research, he said.
“The pipeline industry, in general, sees some opportunity here,“ Mears said. “But the research being done is very much in its infancy.“ Ethanol production this year is pegged at 6. 8 billion gallons and is expected to swell to 9 billion gallons next year, said Ron Lamberty, a vice president of the Sioux Falls, S. D.-based American Coalition for Ethanol.
President Bush has called for reducing U. S. gasoline use by up to 20 percent by 2017, mainly by increasing alternative fuel production such as ethanol.
The nation has 131 ethanol refineries, 10 of which are expanding, and 72 more are being built according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
Distribution remains a major challenge to the industry’s growth. The price of ethanol dropped by 30 percent earlier this year, and production stalled on some ethanol plants hit by high corn prices and construction costs.
Ethanol is not shipped in existing pipelines because its high oxygen content makes it too corrosive and it also absorbs water and impurities in pipelines.
Ethanol pipelines have been used successfully in Brazil, the second-biggest ethanol producer behind the United States. Lamberty said moving ethanol by pipeline would help the industry “but it’s a chicken-and-egg argument--the infrastructure needs to be in place before there is enough volume to pay for it.“ Shipping ethanol by pipeline would be cheaper and faster, Mears said.
It would also eliminate the need to build offloading infrastructure for rail and truck shipments and ethanol storage tanks at blending terminals, where ethanol is mixed with gasoline. If blended ethanol can be safely moved through a pipeline, it would reduce the need for more multimillion-dollar blending terminals, he said.
Testing on whether ethanol blends can be safely moved in existing pipelines could be done in mid-2008, Mears said.

Jerry and Lynne Dahlheimer wanted to be less reliant on the utility company, so they turned to wind blowing across their seven acres.
The Dahlheimers installed a wind turbine outside their rural Alexandria home, hoping to greatly reduce their dependence on purchased electricity, West Central Tribune said.
“We just wanted to be self-sufficient,“ Lynne Dahlheimer said as she walked across her backyard on a windy afternoon, the nearby windmill blades rotating steadily. “We’re kind of energy conservationists.“
Lynne Dahlheimer is pictured below the 65-foot-tall wind turbine she and husband Jerry installed outside their rural Alexandria home.
The Dahlheimers purchased the wind turbine in an effort to generate their own electricity rather than buy power from a utility company. (Tribune photo by Scott Wente)
The Dahlheimers also have encountered stumbling blocks. The windmill system, which cost more than $15,000, only operates at 35 percent capacity, though its efficiency is improving, and a problem with the bearings recently idled the generator atop a 65-foot-tall tower.
Like the Dahlheimers, Minnesota renewable energy advocates see great opportunity in wind-generated electricity, but the state struggles to reach that goal.
A new state energy standard requires most utilities to derive a quarter of their electricity production from renewable sources--including wind, solar and hydroelectric generation--by 2025. The state’s dominant utility, Xcel Energy, has a tougher mandate.
State officials expect most of renewable electricity to be wind generated.
The state’s wind could produce enough electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes. At the same time, plant-based energy--such as turning wood and crop waste into electricity--is being touted as another home-grown energy source.
But efforts to increase Minnesota’s use of wind energy face an inconvenient reality: The state lacks enough transmission lines to move the new electricity from wind turbines to customers.
“We see that problem,“ Deputy Commerce Commissioner Ed Garvey said.
Also, while wind-generated electricity is more than half of Minnesota’s renewable energy, even supporters acknowledge it only works when the wind is blowing, so other energy sources still are needed.
“I would hope that over time on the baseload energy mix that we could reduce the coal part of that, at least the old coal, and move into clean coal, move into wind, move into solar, move into biothermal and the like,“ Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in an interview.
Minnesota ranks fifth in the country in wind-produced electricity.
The greatest amount of wind-generated energy comes from southwestern Minnesota. Hundreds of large wind turbines dot Buffalo Ridge, where Xcel draws most of its wind-generated power.
Other large wind projects are coming online as well. Earlier this month, the 137-turbine Fenton Wind Project was dedicated in Chandler, northwest of Worthington.
New transmission lines will deliver wind-generated electricity to the Twin Cities area, but more are needed if wind power expands to near its potential.
There are plans to add transmission lines around the state, which supporters say could be used for wind-generated energy, but in some cases they are part of controversial coal-fed power plant projects.
Five utility companies want to build a coal-fired power plant just across the Minnesota border in South Dakota. While Minnesota regulators do not have jurisdiction over the proposed Big Stone II plant, they must decide whether to approve transmission lines to move the electricity from Big Stone and southwest Minnesota’s wind generators.
Public Utilities Commission Chairman LeRoy Koppendrayer said that Minnesota needs to build electric transmission lines even if Big Stone II does not happen, but some say it will take a big plant like Big Stone to fund new lines.
Smaller, community-based projects have shown wind-generated energy can be a viable alternative. The University of Minnesota Morris, considered a leader in renewable energy efforts, relies on a wind turbine for half the campus’ electricity.

Carbon dioxide emissions from UK homes could be cut by up to 80% by 2050, according to a low carbon strategy produced by Oxford University.
According to BBC, Financial incentives for home owners and tighter energy efficiency standards were among the study’s recommendations.
The measures would enable households to reduce their energy bills by £425 each year, the report’s author suggested.
The UK government is introducing legislation that will require CO2 to be cut by 60% from 1990 levels by 2050.
“This report is in support of the Climate Change Bill,“ explained report author Brenda Boardman, a senior research fellow at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.
“The bill calls for at least a 60% reduction, which is great, but this report shows that you can get an 80% cut in the domestic sector by 2050.“
Dr Boardman said reducing emissions from energy use in people’s homes was “absolutely crucial“ if the government was going to achieve the soon-to-be legally binding target.
“It is crucial because it is large. Depending on what year’s measurements you use, it accounts for about 25-27% of all the UK’s carbon emissions.“
The report’s blueprint for future low carbon homes includes:
Legally binding emission targets - housing sector obliged to cut emissions by 3.8% each year from 2008
New homes--built in urban areas to increase the density of dwellings, cut car use and encourage take-up of micro generation systems
Financial support--“robust program“ of tax incentives, including Stamp Duty rebates for insulated homes, and reduced VAT on energy efficient goods
Fuel poverty--develop a database of energy efficiency for every home, and target funding at those in greatest need of support
“The technologies are already there,“ Dr Boardman told BBC News. “People know about cavity wall insulation, double glazing and more efficient boilers and lighting.
“We are trying to give a framework to government policy so everybody will realise this is important and what we have to do in our homes to help with climate change mitigation.“
One technology that could deliver sizeable saving is micro combined heat and power (CHP). A separate study by the Carbon Trust found that larger homes and small commercial enterprises could cut carbon emissions by up to 20%.
Micro CHP systems generate both heat and electricity locally, and reduce costs and emissions by offsetting energy needs that otherwise would have been drawn from national electricity and gas distribution grids.
Mark Williamson, director of innovations for the Carbon Trust, said: “Our analysis of more than 30,000 days worth of data shows that micro CHP can deliver significant CO2 savings for small businesses and certain types of housing.
“However, if the market for this exciting technology is to develop, it needs a policy framework which provides appropriate incentives to target applications which offer worthwhile carbon savings.“
In September, the government announced that intended to make every new home built in England “zero carbon“ from 2016.
In its policy statement, the Department for Communities and Local Government defined zero carbon as “over a year, net carbon emissions from all energy use in the home would be zero“.
It was a move that Dr Boardman supported: “It may be the case that we could do it sooner because the Welsh Assembly are planning to do it by 2011.“
But she added that 80% of homes people would inhabit in 2050 had already been built, yet ministers had failed to set out clear policies to improve energy efficiency in these properties.
“What (this report) has done is built a lot of policy around the Energy Performance Certificates that the government is introducing for people selling their house.“
Dr. Boardman said the certificates should also be required by people who want to carry out improvements, such as converting a loft or building an extension.

Each year from Thanksgiving to Christmas, Americans throw away roughly 44 million tons of waste.

The holiday season is upon us--a time of thanks, celebration and tons of trash. “We take what society has deemed to be the lowest value--and that’s trash--and make it into a high value product.“
According to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, each year from Thanksgiving to Christmas, Americans throw away roughly 44 million tons of waste--a 25 percent increase over the average nation-wide trash disposal during the rest of the year, renewableenergy.com reported.
Each year consumers are buying more, developers are building more, and cities and towns all over the country are beginning to run out of landfill space. So what to do with all this waste? One answer is to convert the waste into another product that Americans have an insatiable appetite for: electricity and fuel.
One company, California-based BlueFire Ethanol, views the issue of residential and commercial waste not as a downside to American consumerism, but as a lucrative business opportunity.
“We’re running out of landfill space in this country and in certain areas it is getting much more difficult to site new ones. We saw this problem and now, by using a lot of the waste entering a landfill, we can extend the longevity of existing landfills while creating a high-quality fuel,“ says BlueFire CEO Arnold Klann.
BlueFire uses concentrated acid hydrolysis to make cellulosic ethanol out of wood scraps, paper, agricultural residues and other organic materials. High concentrations of sulfuric acid break down these materials into sugars that are then fermented and purified into fuel for trucks and cars.
“We take what society has deemed to be the lowest value--and that’s trash --and make it into a high value product,“ says Klann.
The cellulosic ethanol industry is very much in its infancy, but the government has been working with industry to get companies like BlueFire producing fuel at a commercial scale. Earlier this year, BlueFire was selected to receive a $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), allowing the company to build a 19 million gallon per year (mgpy) ethanol refinery in southern California that will begin operation in 2009. In addition, the company will receive a $200 million loan guarantee from the DOE to build a 55 mgpy facility, also in southern California.
“We are going commercial--these are not experimental plants. Our technology is ready for the marketplace,“ says Klann. “The only thing that might hinder progress is the inability to get capital, and that’s where government has played a very important role.“
Waste Management is another company making the best of the trash piling up at landfills around the country. This past June, Waste Management announced that it would develop 60 additional landfill gas to energy (LFGTE) projects over the next five years, generating more than 700 megawatts (MW) of electricity from the renewable natural gas.
With 103 such facilities already in operation, the company is the largest owner/operator of LFGTE plants in the country.
Landfill gas is produced when microorganisms break down organic material, producing approximately 50-60 percent methane and 40-50 percent carbon dioxide.
At most landfills in the U.S. these greenhouse gases are simply burned off or “flared.“ Waste Management collects the gasses through a network of wells and pipes to a central area, fueling gas turbines to generate electricity.
LFGTE plants are attractive to utilities because they provide a reliable form of baseload power, says Paul Pabor, Vice President of Renewable Energy at Waste Management. The facilities run about 95 percent of the time, making LFGTE a good fit with intermittent renewables like wind and solar.
“Landfill gas is a part of the solution to the renewable energy demand in this country,“ says Pabor. “We fill a particular niche in the renewable energy market.
It’s a product that is in higher demand because of the growing number of renewable portfolio standards in the US and the shrinking space in some landfills.“
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP), there are about 425 LFGTE facilities in operation around the country today generating 10 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year.