Insufficient Freight: An Assessment of U.S. Transportation Infrastructure and Its Effects on the Grain Industry

Waiting three minutes for 110 train cars of oil to pass a rail crossing may just seem like one of life’s inevitable little annoyances. But as these seemingly small irritations occur with ever-increasing frequency across the United States, they have become a hallmark of the strain that plagues America’s entire freight system. A host of commodities have all been crowding our freight infrastructure at a time when some shipping routes weren’t growing quickly enough to accommodate demand (railroad infrastructure), some shipping routes were held up by political uncertainty (pipelines), and some simply had limited physical capacity (barge shipping on the …

Driving Sustainable Development Through Better Infrastructure: Key Elements of a Transformation Program

The agendas of accelerating sustainable development and eradicating poverty and that of climate change are deeply intertwined. Growth strategies that fail to tackle poverty and/or climate change will prove to be unsustainable, and vice versa. A common denominator to the success of both agendas is infrastructure development. Infrastructure is an essential component of growth, development, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability.

The world is in the midst of a historic structural transformation, with developing countries becoming the major drivers of global savings, investment, and growth, and with it driving the largest wave of urbanization in world history. At the same time, …

Impacts of the Clean Power Plan on U.S. Natural Gas Markets and Pipeline Infrastructure

The AEE Institute contracted with ICF International to perform an assessment of the potential impacts of the EPA Clean Power Plan (CPP) on required gas pipeline capacity. This report responds to concerns raised by some stakeholders, including the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), that states might rely heavily on natural gas generation for compliance with the CPP, creating stress on gas pipeline capacity and ultimately impacting electric system reliability. These parties have suggested that addressing the concerns might require expensive expansion of natural gas infrastructure over a challenging timeframe.

Using assumptions provided by the AEE Institute, ICF International modeled …

E15 and Infrastructure

This paper addresses the compatibility of E15 (15% denatured ethanol, 85% gasoline blendstock) with equipment at refueling stations. Over the last decade, a tremendous amount of work by refueling equipment manufacturers, industry groups, and federal agencies has resulted in a long list of equipment that can be used with E15. This report addresses compatibility through a literature review, a summary of applicable codes and standards, review of equipment manufacturer products, and verification with manufacturers regarding which ethanol blends work with their products. Over time, the refueling equipment manufacturers have improved their sealing materials for compatibility with a wide range of …

Quadrennial Energy Review: Energy Transmission, Storage, and Distribution Infrastructure

The U.S. energy landscape is changing. The United States has become the world’s leading producer of
oil and natural gas combined. The country is less dependent on foreign oil, as a percentage of national oil consumption, than it has been since 1971. Current cars can go farther on a gallon of gas than ever before. Between 2005 and 2014, U.S. consumption of motor gasoline fell 2.6 percent despite population growth of 7.6 percent and gross domestic product growth of 13.0 percent. Additionally, as a result of changes in economic structure and conditions and policies to promote energy efficiency, U.S. electricity …

Summary Quadrennial Energy Review: Transforming U.S. Energy Infrastructures in a Time of Rapid Change: The First Installment of the QER

The U.S. energy landscape is changing. The United States has become the world’s leading producer of oil and natural gas combined. The country is less dependent on foreign oil, as a percentage of national oil consumption, than it has been since 1971. Current cars can go farther on a gallon of gas than ever before. Between 2005 and 2014, U.S. consumption of motor gasoline fell 2.6 percent despite population growth of 7.6 percent and gross domestic product growth of 13.0 percent. Additionally, as a result of changes in economic structure and conditions and policies to promote energy efficiency, U.S. electricity …

The Case for Smart Grid: Funding a New Infrastructure in an Age of Uncertainty

We are witnessing today the birth of a new mega-infrastructure. It will emerge from the convergence of energy with telecommunications, transportation, Internet, and electronic commerce. Starting with the electric grid, which underpins all of these interdependent systems, new ways are being sought to improve network efficiency and eliminate congestion problems without seriously diminishing reliability and security. But with these efforts come uncertainty – plus a general disruption to industry and commerce that may well prove greater than any transition yet seen.

Of course, the job of controlling a heterogeneous, widely dispersed, yet globally interconnected system like the electric grid poses …

Delivering the Goods: Making the Most of North America’s Evolving Oil Infrastructure

In recent years, the changing oil production and consumption landscape in North America has led to new developments in the infrastructure that brings oil to market—the pipelines, gathering systems, storage facilities, rail networks, and marine-based transport networks that comprise what is referred to as the industry’s midstream. Realizing the full benefits of the continent’s vast oil resources requires developing and maintaining safe, efficient, and cost-effective midstream infrastructure. These new market conditions and changes in infrastructure raise a host of important policy considerations that may ultimately influence the ability to optimize the benefits of increased North American oil production within the …

Natural Gas Infrastructure Implications of Increased Demand from the Electric Power Sector

Over the past decade, natural gas production in the United States has undergone a revolution. The combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technology has allowed economic access to enormous quantities of natural gas from shale formations. As a result, in 2013, the United States became the world’s largest producer of hydrocarbons.2 This development has had and will likely continue to have significant consequences for the broader economy. The impact of abundant, low-cost natural gas is particularly important in the electric power sector. During the month of April 2012, electricity generation from natural gas-fired plants virtually matched generation from coal-fired …

The Business Council for Sustainable Energy Comments for the First Phase of the Quadrennial Energy Review: Electric Transmission and Distribution Infrastructure and Storage

The Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) is a trade group representing companies and trade associations in the energy efficiency, natural gas and renewable energy sectors. The Council’s comments offer perspectives and recommendations in several areas that will provide for the long-term strength, flexibility and resilience of the US electric transmission, distribution and storage systems.…