A Chevy 400 small-block V8 can’t ever get good milage when the carberator is set so it turns out 300+HP[:D][:D][:D]
UP can give this customer the truth serum by simply requiring the Ethanol folks to enter into a written guarantee of carloadings adequate to allow UP a return on their investment. If they are willing to pay a per car surcharge to make the rehab worth UPs while I’m sure UP would do it. If not, they are simply trying to force someone else to pay their way, a common tactic of rail customers too used to transportation by highway…
LC
TomDiehl and Farmer 03
You guys seem to pay no attention to the thought that in order make ethanol, you have to plow a field, fertilize, plant, harvest, and move the corn to an ethanol plant. Best as I can tell, all of those processes use diesel fuel in trucks and tractors, and that comes from petroleum. Why don’t you take a look at how much fuel is used to produce ethanol before its less than wonderous virtues are touted.
SPIKE
Oil should have run out already. The world’s oil has been pumped for over 100 years. There might be more going on beneath the surface of the earth than we know.
The real fuel solution is to combine photosythesis and photovoltaic panels to break apart and bond chemicals for energy storage and energy production.
Andrew F.
Yes and each and every one of those dollars supports our domestic economy. Brazil was able to convert there cars to 100% alcohol based fuels. They are no longer bound to the Middle East for fuel. If we could retain all those dollars domestically it would make a huge difference in our economy. Who would you rather see get the money? Farmers or Oil companies?[?] As always ENJOY
How much diesel did the tanker use to haul the oil from the Middle East, don’ t forget to figure the empty return. What about the diesel used to power the drill rig etc. How much energy is used in the cracking process. Also in figuring Ethanol don’t forget to subtract for the DDG produced since you would have to produce that much corn anyway for animal feed. How the firgures add up depends on what you want to prove.
LC: Couldn’t agree with you more.
And in this case, to the City of Sioux City, IA:
(1) Mayor Berenstein - Start looking for neweconomic development people. These people are deaf, dumb & blind.
(2) Don Willoughby: Find a new line of work in a different profession.
(3) Baard - Why did you switch developers?
(4) Hire a consulting engineer that can do more than highway. I have got to wonder if the rubes in the “smoke filled room” brigade (Baard/City/Siouxland Initiative) failed to even hire an engineering consultant to look at feasability. Sounds more like a bunch of dumb real estate agents and 5 Watt politicians on a street corner trying to hook the next industry that wanders through.
FM : Financial responsibility is nowhere in your vocabulary - is it? It would appear that unless a shipper/industry gets something on the dole [ie-someone else’s hard earned capital], it’s a bad deal. Dream on. (ps…what you are advocating prompted the Elkins Act 90+ years ago. Bad business practice then, bad practice now.) Railroads do NOT build on speculation anymore, carloadings pay for it. (as in “Show me the money”)
I stand on my original comment. I have seen far too many assumptions and blunders coming from industry planners, economic development groups, real estate agents/morons, developers, politicians and the like. Some things never change, just this case is larger than most. Sioux Falls really got in over it’s head; Uncle Pete may have just done them a huge favor. Hopefully they do a better job at due-dilligence from this point forward.
Andrew -
Whew. Geologists have a pretty good idea what is going on beneath the surface actually. Fields are running reasonable close to projected reserves. Notice the fact that there are many older fields that have closed or are only pumping a fraction of what they were in the past?? Look at Southern California, many parts of Texas and elsewhere. We are pumping from different fields now…
LC
Yikes![:0] Sioux Falls and Sioux City are 2 different places, 90miles apart![xx(]
ETHANOL - BRAZIL EXPERIENCE
Brazil can also draw on the experience of its 30-year-old fuelÊalcohol programme, which was launched after the 1973 oil crisis.
Fuel alcohol or ethanol produced with sugar cane has replacedÊa large part of the petrol consumed in this country of 178 million.ÊNearly 20 percent of the cars in Brazil run exclusively on ethanol.
In addition, all of the petrol consumed in the country consistsÊof 20 to 25 percent fuel alcohol, which saves on oil imports andÊreduces air pollution and smog.
Brazil produces around 16 billion litres of ethanol – half ofÊthe total global production – of which 14.5 billion litres areÊconsumed domestically. Exports are expected to rise fourfold by theÊend of next year.
… Proalcohol emerged in response to an emergency: the suddenÊskyrocketing of international oil prices. Brazil imports over 80Êpercent of the petroleum and by-products consumed domestically.
Proalcohol required heavy government subsidies, and theÊexpansion of sugar cane cultivation caused serious environmentalÊand social problems in the countryside.
In addition, insufficient production in the early 1990s led toÊshortages and a lack of confidence in the new fuel, with demand forÊcars running exclusively on fuel alcohol dropping practically toÊzero.
But the manufacturing of “dual fuel” cars, which can run onÊeither petrol or ethanol, or a blend of the two in any proportion,Êis swiftly restoring the credibility of the government’s ProalcoholÊprogramme.
Source: Mario Osava (IPS - Rio de Janeiro), “Environment-Brazil: New Tests Back Biodiesel Fuel”, IPS-Inter Press Service, September 1, 2004
From the Washington Post
Brazil’s Biofuel Strategy Pays Off as Gas Prices Soar
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 18, 2005; Page D01
yeah, something doesnt make sense here.
$2million to upgrade a rail spur on a $140million project is NOT a deal breaker.
My guess is they decided to pull out due to something else.
Here is something to consider…
Assume that UP’s profit margin is 15% on railcar. Lets assume that their freight rates for hauling the railcar are $900 per car. Assuming that, then the $2million (remember they said 2 to 3 million dollar rail spur) would require $13,333,333 dollars of freight revenue before it achieved a break even point.
At $900 revenue per car that is 14, 815 cars before break even. At 15 cars per day that is 988 days or nearly 4 years of 5 day a week shipping.
And that assumes the plant would ship via rail…
Interesting way to look at the numbers.
ed
Whoops …meant the the south Sioux one[:I][:I][:I] (The bigger burgh )
And where did you get the idea I said it was a wonderous fuel? I said it’s safe and quite possible to run in standard gasoline engines when combined with gasoline. In the small, start up quantities, it probably won’t be much of a savings, but developing and using a domestic source of energy is preferable to funding terrorists with our lust for petroleum based fuels. Going with your statement, it sounds like we should do nothing. Not a viable option.
What you don’t understand is that the money used to make and made from ethanol is kept DOMESTIC. And I don’t know of a farmer producing said corn for ethanol who doesn’t use bio-diesel. Yea, lets dump some more MTBE into our gasoline and poison the next (my) generation. Sweet deal!
What was the shortline viability rule of thumb? 100 carloads per mile per year?
How many carloads minimum would probably ship from this plant each year, more than a few hundred?
If so, then UP can more than afford to pay for a few miles of upgraded spur line. Remember, this plant will be captive to UP, which means UP is getting up to 400% of revenue to variable costs.
Obviously, something else is going on with the railroad’s management to derail this project. Something other than reasoned logic and up front honesty.
But as mudchicken points out, the railroads are right and everyone else is wrong!
Humor me for a minute,
OK, if I’m already burning 93 octane gas in my Mustang, I’d suppose going to E-85 should give me quite a horsepower jump, shouldn’t it, since it’s 103 octane? I get between 21-22 mpg. Would that go down, or stay the same? Would I have to re-re-program my chip too? I don’t know much about E-85, and I haven’t come across any to try, but from what you guys have said tonight I’d like to try a tank full.
If I’ve gotten too far off topic, I’m sorry, just tell me so, but this is the first really good discussion I’ve read about different fuels like this. I think this is interesting, ‘specially coming from railfans’ perspectives!
Also, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned…Nothing smells better than about 20 sprint cars on a humid Saturday night belching out methanol exhaust!
mike
For what it’s worth, we(Sioux Falls) are the bigger of the two, even if you take into account all three of the Sioux Cities, in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. Where they do have us beat is in railroads.[:(]
It’s my understanding that your car has to be E-85 compatible from the outset, not all cars are. My mechanic says that once you switch over to E-85, you can’t switch back without replacing a computer chip(?) Lat summer, we were in Aberdeen, S.D. when gas had spiked at $3.20 a gallon. That day, E-85 was at $1.60!! Now, the difference is more like $2.38 to $2.05. Being a sprint car fan too,I whole-heartedly agree with you on the methanol exhaust![:)]
You’re making an assumption that it is automatically the railroad’s fault. I guess I don’t see anything that leads me to that assumption. One would guess that there are a lot of other things going on behind the scenes that none of us know about. If it’s not a profitable deal for UP, they’re not going to do it. Would you?
At the risk of oversimplifyng, you will only see a horsepower gain from a higher octane fuel if you raise the compression ratio of the engine to take advantage of it. The sprint cars you speak of have very high compression ratios (14:1 or so). Your mustang is around 9:1, if it is stock.
The UP is a business, if I were a stockholder I would expect sound business decisions, not charity.
Besides, they have lots of work hauling asian made goods to Wal-Mart.
My apology for getting off topic.