If you follow that rule, which dates back to the days just after Staggers you’d better be prepared for an expensive reality check. The kind of traffic I’d expect out of this facility is gonna require a heavy rebuild, hence the high cost numbers. Those tanks are heavy beasts and have a nasty tendency to pick on every weak spot in the track structure.
If you read the article, again, you’ll notice that UP was asked to rebuild the spur for between $2Million and $3Million. Also, Baard was getting 60 acres of land that the City bought for $600,000 (60 acres @ $10,000/acre) for free ($1). Finally, Baard says the plant will “eventually” produce 100,000,000 gallons of ethanol (I am assuming annually although it is not said). So, obviously, having gotten $600,000 in property for free and having NO CLUE about that nice choo choo over there that will bring us our corn…we’ll just guess that it’s free too… A lot of these ethanol outfits are out there trying to get RRs interested in helping them. They get big government tax breaks and tax credits for building these facilities and running them, plus BIG incentives from the local and state governments including land purchases, services (watrer, sewer, electric, gas an
He’s right about raising the compression ratio to take advantage of burning higher octane.
But, to burn E-85 as I said before requires a flex-fuel vehicle or to have your vehicle (re)programmed to burn the E-85. It takes more ethanol to create the same energy as regular gasoline, which is the reason for the mileage drop because you’re using more fuel.
So in turn, burning straight E-85 in your car which is programmed to burn regular
It will be a LONG LONG time before they run out though, They are Projecting a Boom in the Jonah Field north of Rock Springs to produce oil for the next 10-15 years, estimated to contain about 10.5 trillion barrels, and remember, when the Geologists calculate the amount of oil or gas it is always on the low side. By the time this field runs out, they will find a way to get the Keregin(sp?) (like oil) out of the oil shales in this area of Wyoming, we will be set for a very long time. The estimated amount of oil in the oil shales in SW Wyo. is about 1.1 TRILLION barrels, which is way more than the whole world has even used up to this point in time. Althoughthey will only be able to get about 60% of that, it should be enough to keep us in oil for years to come. Yes, I agree that we need somthing to happen that will bring the oil prices down, but I am all for oil exploration and drilling as it has given a HUGE boost to our econemy. It is even good for the railroads, They are the ones that bring in all the Frac Sand that the drillers use to drill with. It has done great things for this town and has made things better for future generations.
Google Jonah Field and you will come up with pages of information on it, It even helped the University. Encana donated $5 million to the school, now the stadium is called The Jonah Field at War Memorial Stadium.
You all use more things that depend on Southwestern Wyoming rescources than you know.
To add to Murphy’s comments, industrial spurs and sidings were traditionally the property of the industry, and were the responsibility of the industry to maintain/repair/upgrade. There’s no reason whatsoever that the railroad should upgrade someone else’s property without compensation or a contract that will have this pay them to do it. The UP’s BOD and stock holders would be up in arms about this, and rightly so.
nice job of taking the numbers and giving us reality. At 500 cars per year…this just doesnt seem to be a deal maker.
FM…got an idea. Why not raise some $$$, rehab the line and do the open access/toll railroad system on this spur? Charge either UP or the ethanol plant a per car charge and go with it.
Give us the projected numbers and let us discuss it. LC did this on his shortline and we all had lots of fun with our slide rules.
You know it is quite easy to accuse the UPRR for being stupid in this decision. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut do you know all the factors? Did you sit in on the meetings to see the pros & cons of project? Do you know why the decision was taken by UPRR management not to proceed? If you repliy to all the questions posed is a big fat NO then maybe you are the silly one for calling the UPRR silly cause you have not the slightest idea why the UPRR made the decision they did. I am sure that if the poposed project would have been deemed profitable by the UPRR then would have proceed immediately. [:o)]
Union Pacific Railroad could have told ethanol plant and Sioux City, Iowa city officials months ago it that its railroad spur into an industrial tract could not handle the trains needed to deliver grain to the plant.
Instead, Baard Renewables officials continued planning to construct the facility near Sioux Gateway Airport. Earlier this week, that proposal to build a $140 million plant near Sioux Gateway Airport was derailed by the railroad.
“You don’t just pick a site and then come to the railroad,” Wayne Borg, senior business manager for Union Pacific’s industrial development, told The Journal on Friday from Chicago. "The point is in today’s environment, when there is more business on the rail in the history of railroads and to say this is my site and bring the rail here – those days are over.
“It just doesn’t work that way. We could have saved them a lot of time.”
He said he first learned of the proposal in February after a city official called him. Baard officials announced their plans to build the plant last November.
“We run every new prospect by marketing, engineering and operating. I’m not sure to what extent they spoke to the rate folks either.”
Baard officials said they had been discussing rate charges all along with UP officials.
Borg met with city leaders and ethanol plant representatives Tuesday to discuss the rail spur issue. At that time, he said he told them Union Pacific is not interested in spending $2 to $3 million to upgrade the track to Bridgeport West, the new industrial site near the airport.
Mayor Craig Berenstein told reporters at Friday’s morning press conference that construction of the ethanol plant in Bridgeport West “is not likely to occur.”
He further elaborated on comments he made Thursday to The Journal about the stunning news that the ethanol plant won’t be built at that location. The council had plann
In today’s world of Electronic Fuel Injection, no carburated car will ever get as good of milage or performance as engines that have EFI and have the computer mapped to provide the most effective fuel delivery rates for both power and economy.
Now that we have a new article and even more facts it is interesting to see what the experctations were of the Baard Energy folks.
Note that they were expecting the UP to build an entire unloading loop in addition to upgrading the entire spur to higher weight (probably 286,000lbs) capacity. Up told them they would need at least 80 acres to make the radius of the loop workable. A loop is asking UP to build at least a mile of new track. FOR FREE??!!
Also note that the real figure is 55,000,000 to 60,000,000gals annually with a possible increase to 100,000,000gals annually. So if you discount this new number you might only have 250 to 300 cars first year. Even if the plant grows there is talk in the industry of a serious deficit in the number of available tank cars for this service. Given the competition by other ethanol plants and corn syrup service already existing and the fact that these guys obviously have no clue about railroads what do you think they’ll say when someone points out this lack of cars??? HUH? CARS?
There appears to be a little confusion. Was the grain to be barged to the facility or by rail, or both? So there possibly would be inbound grain and outbound ethanol.
Is there a real solid projection of inbound and outbound traffic flows available?
the loop really throws the project for a loop…pun intended. That is a bit more than just rehabbing a line.
regarding availability of tank cars…railcar folks are going crazy right now building new tank cars. It would be interesting to see if there is a deficit of equipment projected.
Yea, you’re forgetting they are planning on bring the corn in by rail also. So there will be more than the half dozen tank cars daily. I would assume the loop would be to unload a trainload of corn…?
As the article refers to unit trains of corn blocking crossings I would assume corn inbound and ethanol and probably corn husks/debris outbound for animal feed.
I missed that part of the article, my bad. I just thought I’d throw that out there since the bulk of the conversation has been about only the outgoing ethanol in the tank cars and not the grain coming in.
There are 3 different ethanol plants going up in my area. One east of Princeton on the BNSF, one in Hennepin on the Iowa Interstate and near Mineral on the IAIS also. There was a fourth proposed in Henry, which is downriver from Hennepin but that was thrown out because of the “impact” it would’ve had on the recreational boater traffic on the river and the air quality. While I’m sure it’s not the highest paying job around, but leave it to this area to put some boaters above some new jobs.
It’s funny, but the gas and electric companies regularly build their infrastructure into an industry’s property, placing the meter (e.g. the dividing line between utility responsibility and property owner responsibility) right up to the factory wall.
Question: Why can these other service providers build infastructure on the customer’s property, but
Dave: I can’t really say that the comparison to the gas company is applicable. Note that the gas can’t come into this property by way of a government built and maintained highway/street, nor can it come in on the government maintained waterway. Perhaps a more applicable comparison would be the open access scenario [:O]. Multi-modal competition (barge/train/truck) would allow the market to determine who could best serve the customer. Any competitor that decided that it wasn’t worth the investment could say “no thanks”. If you read the article(s), you’ll note that is basically what UP has said. Seeing how this would be such a great investment, couldn’t a private party bankroll this project, and pay it off with all the money it would produce?[:-,]
"It’s funny, but the gas and electric companies regularly build their infrastructure into an industry’s property, placing the meter (e.g. the dividing line between utility responsibility and property owner responsibility) right up to the factory wall.
Question: Why can these other service providers build infastructure on the customer’s property, but the railroad can’t?
Most casual observers would conclude that the railroad just doesn’t want the new business.
And it is especially ironic, in that the utilities revenues from the new deal are regulated at 9% to 11% ROI, but UP’s rates are unregulated and unchallenged by any other railroad competitor for this new business. Are we to conclude that 400% of R/VC will not lead to an ROI of over 11% for this venture?"(futuremodal)
And the utilities just do that as a big favor? Where did you learn that? And why doesn’t the electric company pay for the wiring right up to the outlet socket or light fixture?
And you have it on good authority that the UP was going to set rates at 400% of variable cost for this move? So what if they did and the business still would not generate enough revenue to justify the investment?
Your insistence that railroad investments for capacity improvements should go into the infrastructire for business with the highest R/VC just proves that you have no concept of the impact of volume on revenue generation.