1700-mile US ethanol pipeline will connect Iowa to New York City via Philly and Pittsburgh

In New York, Magellan Midstream Partners and Buckeye Partners said that their proposed 1700-mile, $3 billion ethanol pipeline from the Midwest would connect Iowa with New York City, passing through terminals in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The companies said they would complete their feasibility assessments this year, and said that proceeding ahead with the pipeline would be based also on obtaining Congressional support.

In Washington recently, the Association of Oil Pipe Lines commissioned a study on the possibility of transporting E20 safely using existing oil pipeline infrastructure. 10 percent of the $800,000 study will be funded by a federal research grant. Last September, an official at the Nebraska Ethanol Office confirmed that plans were under discussion by several private firms to develop an ethanol pipeline from the Midwest to fuel markets in California.

Currently, Nebraska’s 950 million gallons ethanol exports travel by two weekly 2.5 million gallon trains from Lincoln to California and a similar train to Chicago traveling at less than a weekly frequency. Recent train accidents have highlighted safety concerns regarding rail transit of ethanol.

In Colorado last year, a train derailed at Windsor. The derailment occurred on a section of track that had been repaired following previous derailments, and involved an empty ethanol tank car.

Recently in Ohio, an ethanol train derailed, caught fire, exploded and forced the evacuation of 1300 homes of people from their homes. Thirty of the 112 cars derailed, including eight that carried the ethanol that caught fire. The train carried one tanker of liquefied petroleum gas, which did not catch fire. The train was bound for Buffalo.

In October 2006, 24 cars, some loaded with ethanol derailed in a remote section of southwestern Pennsylvania, near New Brighton. Nine of the cars caught fire, causing the evacuation of 50 homes.

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