GAO: Biodiesel transport faces huge investment

GAO: Biodiesel transport faces huge investment    A congressional watchdog agency report said the United States will have to spend several billion dollars to upgrade its rail, truck and barge infrastructure to handle the transport of ethanol to wholesale markets in the next 10 years.
   The Government Accountability Office, citing research by the Environmental Protection Agency, said the nation's inland transportation infrastructure should be able to handle an additional 2.4 billion gallons of ethanol to wholesale markets by 2015, enough to meet the U.S. government's Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
   To meet the estimated 9.4 billion gallons to be consumed in the United States by 2022, EPA estimated that about $1.2 billion would be needed for an additional 8,450 rail tanker cars and the construction of new train facilities.
   'EPA projected that biofuels transport will constitute approximately 0.4 percent of the total tonnage for all commodities transported by the freight rail system through 2022,' GAO said. 'Sixteen percent of the nation's freight rail system would be affected by biofuels shipments, and that portion (mostly along rail corridors radiating out of the Midwest) would see a 2.5 percent increase in traffic.'
   EPA also said about $87 million would be required for an additional 480 tanker trucks and $198 million for another 32 barges and to configure barge facilities to handle biofuels.
   'EPA stated that it does not anticipate a substantial fraction of biofuels will be transported via barge over the inland waterways system,' GAO said in its report. 'In addition, the agency projected that a total of 30 ports will receive significant quantities of imported ethanol from Brazil and Caribbean Basin Initiative countries by 2022.'