Madison Daily Leader - Study of ethanol pipeline could boost industry's future

News

Classifieds

Community

Directory

Marketplace

My Zwire!

Clear -6°
5 Day Forecast

Wednesday 10 February, 2010

News

Top Stories

Local News

State News

Sports

Weather

Farm

Business

Entertainment

Obituaries

Opinion

NEW! Photos

Our Newspaper

Contact Us

Classifieds

Employment

Real Estate

more...

Community

Community Calendar

Community Websites

Business Directory

Advertisers Index

Discount Coupons

All Categories

more...

Fun and Games

Crosswords

Horoscopes

Classic Games

more...

Madison Daily Leader	home : news : news : opinion

Study of ethanol pipeline could boost industry's future

By JON M. HUNTER, Publisher

03/26/2009

Email to a friend

Printer-friendly

Biofuels company Poet and Magellan Midstream Partners announced a joint venture recently to study whether they can build a dedicated ethanol pipeline from Midwestern states to the northeast part of the United States.

The 1,700-mile pipeline would cost more than $3.5 billion, and would take ethanol from manufacturing plants to distribution terminals.

The public discussion about ethanol tends to focus on political issues like reducing our dependence on foreign oil, air quality and the efficiency of producing ethanol. This is the first time we've heard about the post-production delivery of the product.

But it makes sense to find new efficiencies, and a dedicated pipeline may have a big effect on the future viability of biofuels. The wind energy people talk all the time about the importance of delivering electricity produced by windmills to end users in Minneapolis, Chicago or other places the power is needed.

There is uncertainty about how ethanol will be made in the future, perhaps switching from corn as a raw material to other crops or sources, but we do know that it will always need to be transported to end users. While there might be concern about electric cars replacing conventional cars, we can't imagine there being much of an impact on the sale of domestically-produced ethanol in the next few decades.

The project is just in the study phase, but we're excited about the possibility of new efficiency coming to an industry that helps South Dakota so much. We hope this opportunity comes to fruition.

Email to a friend

Printer-friendly

Top

Send us your community news, events, letters to the editor and other suggestions. Now, you can submit birth, wedding and engagement announcements online too!