[b0st0n]

Originally Posted by Jay Pan ROKK

Yes, i know, it helps my argument.

If ethanol is a success in Brazil for sure it can be more successful in USA.

USA is just few years behind, some questions placed in this forum were answered many years ago.

USA dont produce all the oil it needs, USA import most of it.

The same could be done with bio-fuel, the differences would be that many farmers around the world will fulfill USA needs, instead a cartel in middle east.

Well, Brazilian government had many highs and lows with the alcohol program, you probably know what happened here in the last 40 years, a dictatorship was in charge and they wanted to control everything.

But from many years now, bio-fuel industry is completely done by the market.

The problem with importing that amount of biofuel is that ethanol is not easily transported through pipelines...

Ethanol is not easily transported via pipelines for several reasons. First, it is water soluble (has a tremendous affinity to absorb or pick up water). Because water accumulation in pipelines is a normal occurrence (in most cases water enters the system through terminal and refinery tank roofs or can be dissolved in fuels during refinery processes), introducing ethanol into a pipeline risks rendering it unusable as a transportation fuel. Also, if gasohol is shipped in a pipeline, the water may strip some of the ethanol out, resulting in sub-octane fuel. According to a report prepared by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Ethanol Project in 2000, “Once an ethanol blend phase-separates it is extremely difficult and usually impossible to reblend. In many cases the ethanol/water bottoms must be disposed of in accordance with hazardous waste regulations.”

Second, ethanol can dissolve and carry impurities that are present inside multi-product pipeline systems, making it harmful to motor vehicle engines when blended into gasoline.

Third, there is some evidence that ethanol in high concentrations can lead to stress corrosion cracking, which is hard to detect and manage. This may be accelerated at weld joints or bends where the steel ****llurgy has been altered and causes latent stresses. Ethanol stress corrosion cracking of untreated weld joints is currently the subject of industry research.

Finally, ethanol may degrade certain elastomers and polymers. In 2003, the state of California said that because ethanol “has a corrosive effect on the seals and valves of the pipelines,” it is blended at the loading racks of distribution centers

www.api.org/aboutoilgas/sectors/pipeline/upload/pipelineethanolshipmentfinal-3.doc


As you can see there are many pipelines used to transport refined fuels throughout the US, how can it be energy efficient to dramatically increase our importing of ethanol, which has 34% less energy by volume than gasoline, if we have to transport the ethanol via tanker truck throughout the US?