Dallas Texas Ethanol Terminal

Within the debate over the pros and cons of ethanol, a lot of thought has to go into its transportation. Because of the phase separation that occurs with ethanol in gasoline, the possibility occurs for it to mix with small amounts of water in a gasoline pipeline and carry particulate matter. This is undesired and has eliminated the possibility of transporting ethanol through conventional gasoline pipelines. On the plus side, this has led to a railroad renaissance and produced talk of expanding rail capacity or upgrading existing lines to meet the need for transport. May 28th will see a huge step in upgrading the nation's rail systems due to ethanol's effect. Texas, and particularly the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is a huge potential market for ethanol. Providing cheap and efficient transport into that area would be a huge benefit to Midwest ethanol plants and a good way to jump-start ethanol usage in the South while cellulosic technologies come online in the area. US Development Group, in alliance with Union Pacific, has built a state of the art ethanol terminal in the Dallas area, set to open May 28th, which will be a major jumping off point for ethanol to end up in that city or to be trucked to other major areas in the state.
The company indicates that this state-of-the-art terminal was built specifically so that ethanol trains would not add any congestion to existing rail lines. Also, the terminal is capable of quickly offloading an 84-car unit train of ethanol with dedicated pipelines to truck terminals that will allow for quick and easy distribution of the fuel to gas stations. In recent weeks with the astronomical rise of first crude oil and now gasoline, and the relatively flat price increases in ethanol, blending 10% ethanol into gasoline will not only be a huge windfall for gasoline blenders but hopefully also for consumers. This is because since so much ethanol currently exists, the price per gallon is nearly a dollar cheaper than gasoline. Once blending occurs, retailers should offer at least 10 to 15 cents per gallon off of a gallon of E10 gasoline to offset the energy density decrease in ethanol and because their fuel is at least that much cheaper to produce.
With this efficient connection to the South the United States will see a much more widespread use of ethanol. With it will come more people enjoying the fuel but also a renewed need to work quickly to solve some of the problems that exist in the ethanol process before the fuel becomes more widespread and produced in higher quantities.