Ethanol Refinery Capacity

BIOFUELS DISTRIBUTION INFRASTRUCTURE DATABASE DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY This phase of the project began with the development of a geodatabase with the focus predominantly on Ethanol. The task involved collection of data on ethanol production locations, transportation networks, production and storage capacities, transloading and blending locations and geographic marketing areas. The data were obtained by contacting the authorized person(s) in the ethanol plants. The plant contact information was gathered from the related websites, the exact physical location of the plant was verified, the production and storage capacity at the location, the mode of transportation used to ship ethanol to the marketer and the loading capacity were also obtained from the source. The contact information of the person had also been recorded for future reference. The information obtained had been updated to the geodatabase. Few organizations have been reluctant to share information due to proprietary issues. The second task in this phase was to obtain the closest latitude and longitude positions to the plant locations and transloading terminals in order to generate the shape files. This was accomplished using relevant websites available online [3] [4] [5]. The websites provided the latitude and longitude for the given address. The location was then verified using the satellite view. This was helpful in most cases as the satellite view showed the plant at the location. In few other cases the location was offset from the original position thereby giving an incorrect latitude and longitude. This was rectified by taking the exact latitude and longitude based on the satellite view. For those locations without a proper satellite view, an approximate position was taken. The latitude and longitude for the transloading locations were also obtained the similar way in most cases, the verification of the locations and collecting data on the storage capacity at these locations are under progress. The third task began with the collection of geospatial data on biodiesel plants which is being progressed in a similar manner. The current focus is on biodiesel plants with a production capacity of more than 10mgy.This limit was set as most biodiesel plants with low production capacity were catering to a local market thus making it difficult to understand the distribution on a national level as the project is more focused on that aspect. The next immediate task is to obtain the blending locations and marketing areas for bioethanol. REFERENCE: 1. http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/locations/ 2. http://www.ethanolproducer.com/ 3. http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php 4. http://itouchmap.com/latlong.html 5. http://mapper.acme.com/ 6. http://www.biodiesel.org/ Prepared By Shani Mamunni Date: 11-16-09