Diesel less than gasoline

[Bob Nodine]

I pasted by a convenient store near our house yesterday and the price for regular gasoline was $1.859 but the price for diesel was $1.759. It has been over 15 years since I saw diesel selling for less than gasoline. Used to be the norm until I purchased a diesel truck to tow our 5th wheel then the price of diesel shot up. In 2007 we purchased our first motorhome when the market was at an all time high and then the bottom fell out of the RV market. Maybe I should warn the group before I make any purchasing decisions.🙂

 

[Pampero]

Surprisingly I have seen prices as low as $1.569

I don't remember ever seen this low.

Just think that we are the only country that still using big gas engines.

Most of European countries are banning gas and diesel engine.

Oil producers keep lowering their prices because they can't sell.

Others may disagree but no one can't take credit for low prices, but we, the people can.

Tesla has changed the mentality of the automobile industry; if they wouldn't come along, GM and FORD never had changed their ways about producing electric cars. 

The same way that Honda changed the American menhow build cars. build cars.

Solar and wind power is the way to go. 

[rpasetto]

This is typical here in TX.  Prices for Diesel usually runs less than Premium, sometimes as low as Regular gas.  Diesel ranges between $70's to $2.10s depending on location.  This picture taken in Spring Branch TX, between San Antonio and Austin.  I think prices are low because we are importing less oil, producing more domestically.

Electric vehicles are still dependent on Natural Gas, Coal and Nuclear today.  We have a long way to go before the manufacturers of Teslas and other electric vehicles can claim they are running on electricity produced using renewable sources.

(source of the above:  US EIA, https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/electricity.php)

[Pampero]

Yes, still a way to go, we need more wind turbines and solar.
USA has a steady growth in oil production since 2008, but we are still importing almost 50% of our consumption.
Like I said, we needed someone that think outside the box to change the minds on the big car producers.

[rpasetto]

1 hour ago, Pampero said:

Yes, still a way to go, we need more wind turbines and solar.
USA has a steady growth in oil production since 2008, but we are still importing almost 50% of our consumption.
Like I said, we needed someone that think outside the box to change the minds on the big car producers.

Since 2018 the US has hit the top of the import/export curve.  It's been a long time since we were importing 50% of our production; it's maybe a decade. 

Source: (US Energy Information Administration  https://www.eia.gov/)

 

Unfortunately those wind turbines and solar panels need to have materials mined, refined, metal alloys smelted, forged and machined to manufacture those solar and wind systems.  All that manufacturing uses energy too, as does the manufacture of the silicon for solar panels and the electrolysis of bauxite for all that aluminum needed to make solar panels, batteries and the like.  There's the explanation for why wind and solar represent such a small share of the energy production today. 

If a solar-electric powered motorhome comes out I'll be rushing to see and test drive it for sure; however it is just out of the range of practicality for the forseeable future.  Maybe our great-great grandkids will enjoy power from more efficient systems, but up to now motor vehicles rely substantially on oil... except for those all electric vehicles which get their energy predominantly from Natural gas, Coal and Nuclear sources.

 

[Pampero]

I agreed, but once those turbines are working, then you have free energy for a long time. Agreed that you have to make materials to make the wind turbines, but an electric generator like they using around me, either uses diesel fuel or natural gas. So it never ends, Once that blade is turning...

90% of electricity generated in France is Nuclear

[rpasetto]

19 minutes ago, Pampero said:

I agreed, but once those turbines are working, then you have free energy for a long time. Agreed that you have to make materials to make the wind turbines, but an electric generator like they using around me, either uses diesel fuel or natural gas. So it never ends, Once that blade is turning...

90% of electricity generated in France is Nuclear

The OP was about diesel fuel prices.  I thought my first post was relevant, that is, about what the diesel prices are and how it relates to the energy picture in the US.  I apologize to Bob If I went off-topic there in that first post.  I fueled up today in that same station and the prices were still substantially the same, there and in the surrounding area.

@Pampero.  If you want to start a thread about electric vehicles and solar and wind power I suggest: (1) you start a new thread, (2) provide substantiation for your claims, (3)leave out sweeping statements like "still importing almost 50% of our consumption" and "you have free energy for a long time" unless you can substantiate them.

 

 

[96 EVO]

Diesel is always lower priced than reg gasoline up here in Canada.

Expensive as hell, but cheaper than gasoline.

[Pampero]

14 minutes ago, rpasetto said:

The OP was about diesel fuel prices.  I thought my first post was relevant, that is, about what the diesel prices are and how it relates to the energy picture in the US.  I apologize to Bob If I went off-topic there in that first post.  I fueled up today in that same station and the prices were still substantially the same, there and in the surrounding area.

@Pampero.  If you want to start a thread about electric vehicles and solar and wind power I suggest: (1) you start a new thread, (2) provide substantiation for your claims, (3)leave out sweeping statements like "still importing almost 50% of our consumption" and "you have free energy for a long time" unless you can substantiate them.

 

 

US was importing about 9.5 million barrels per day in 2019 and producing 12.5 million barrels per day in 2019 (about numbers. So it is not "almost" 50%? I am sorry I was not as accurate as you want me to be. I am trying to say is that the prices are based on supply and demand plus taxes.
New York was always higher in fuel than NJ. I always filled in NJ as soon I got out of NY and I always filled in NJ before I got back. Now is the opposite. Why? The crude oil price is the same, but taxes are different. You can add 100% taxes on a $1.5 gallon of Diesel fuel or you can add 50%, but the base crude oil price is the same. Yes I know, there is some adds on, like each company will add additives and transportation, but the crude being low is supply and demand, and the demand is shrinking.
But everything I just said is fake news.

 

[Ivylog]

I’ve bought a lot of Diesel over the years... bought off road Diesel for 12 cents (gas was $0.26) and never in the winter when the price goes up...home heating oil demand. The jet engine balanced out the gas-diesel imbalance plus diesel has 15% more btus than gasoline...don’t mind paying a little more.

With the slowdown in travel... thousands of jet airplanes parked, there is a glut of jet A/diesel fuel. Bought off road recently for $1.29.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Ivylog

[Ivan K]

1 hour ago, Pampero said:

US was importing about 9.5 million barrels per day in 2019 and producing 12.5 million barrels per day in 2019 (about numbers. So it is not "almost" 50%? 

Off subject but could not help it...

What is missing here is a statistic that almost 9 mil barrels were also exported per day. That's a wash and knowing this totally changes the picture. Some sources prefere to not report it. Importing cheap, exporting for profit is the oil companies numbers game.

[rpasetto]

Back in the "olden days"  Diesel was produced with sulfur content in the 5,000ppm range.  The EPA began regulating sulfur content in 1993.  By the late 1990s thru the early 2000's when many of our engines were built, the standard was Low Sulfur Diesel.  LSD had a requirement of 300ppm (or less).   The requirement for Ultra Low Sulfur diesel is 15ppm.  ULSD was "phased in" between 2006 and 2010.  (https://www.epa.gov/diesel-fuel-standards/diesel-fuel-standards-and-rulemakings#:~:text=EPA began regulating diesel fuel,low sulfur diesel (ULSD).)  Although I've heard claims that ULSD improves performance, efficiency or emissions of the earlier non-DEF engines, which were designed to run on LSD I have not seen any substantiation of this.

I am sure many of us recall the days when Diesel was less than Regular gasoline, the refining cost for diesel at that time was lower.  My recollection is as these regulations were imposed it increasingly raised the costs of diesel fuel, evidently due to refining cost.  In the years when both LSD and ULSD was available, the market prices for the former were lower, when you could find it.  When ULSD became the only diesel fuel diesel prices seemed to run higher than premium gasoline and both have been pretty high ... until after 2018 when US net import of crude hit zero.   

[dl_racing427]

15 hours ago, Pampero said:

Surprisingly I have seen prices as low as $1.569

I don't remember ever seen this low.

Just think that we are the only country that still using big gas engines.

Most of European countries are banning gas and diesel engine.

Oil producers keep lowering their prices because they can't sell.

Others may disagree but no one can't take credit for low prices, but we, the people can.

Tesla has changed the mentality of the automobile industry; if they wouldn't come along, GM and FORD never had changed their ways about producing electric cars. 

The same way that Honda changed the American menhow build cars. build cars.

Solar and wind power is the way to go. 

Solar and wind will NEVER meet more than a tiny fraction of energy needs.
The sun sets and the wind calms down, but we'll still need electricity during those periods.
The ONLY real solution for 24/7/365 baseload energy is nuclear power.  The energy density in nuclear fuel is thousands, if not millions of orders of magnitude higher than any other energy source, and if the politicians and protesters would get out of the way, most used fuel would be reprocessed to be used again.

7 hours ago, rpasetto said:

Since 2018 the US has hit the top of the import/export curve.  It's been a long time since we were importing 50% of our production; it's maybe a decade. 

Source: (US Energy Information Administration  https://www.eia.gov/)

 

Unfortunately those wind turbines and solar panels need to have materials mined, refined, metal alloys smelted, forged and machined to manufacture those solar and wind systems.  All that manufacturing uses energy too, as does the manufacture of the silicon for solar panels and the electrolysis of bauxite for all that aluminum needed to make solar panels, batteries and the like.  There's the explanation for why wind and solar represent such a small share of the energy production today. 

If a solar-electric powered motorhome comes out I'll be rushing to see and test drive it for sure; however it is just out of the range of practicality for the forseeable future.  Maybe our great-great grandkids will enjoy power from more efficient systems, but up to now motor vehicles rely substantially on oil... except for those all electric vehicles which get their energy predominantly from Natural gas, Coal and Nuclear sources.

 

Well said.  I agree completely.

If and when solar and wind can compete in the free market, without subsidies, with nuclear, gas and coal, then they should be explored.  Until then, it's just an experiment.

[dl_racing427]

4 hours ago, rpasetto said:

Back in the "olden days"  Diesel was produced with sulfur content in the 5,000ppm range.  The EPA began regulating sulfur content in 1993.  By the late 1990s thru the early 2000's when many of our engines were built, the standard was Low Sulfur Diesel.  LSD had a requirement of 300ppm (or less).   The requirement for Ultra Low Sulfur diesel is 15ppm.  ULSD was "phased in" between 2006 and 2010.  (https://www.epa.gov/diesel-fuel-standards/diesel-fuel-standards-and-rulemakings#:~:text=EPA began regulating diesel fuel,low sulfur diesel (ULSD).)  Although I've heard claims that ULSD improves performance, efficiency or emissions of the earlier non-DEF engines, which were designed to run on LSD I have not seen any substantiation of this.

I am sure many of us recall the days when Diesel was less than Regular gasoline, the refining cost for diesel at that time was lower.  My recollection is as these regulations were imposed it increasingly raised the costs of diesel fuel, evidently due to refining cost.  In the years when both LSD and ULSD was available, the market prices for the former were lower, when you could find it.  When ULSD became the only diesel fuel diesel prices seemed to run higher than premium gasoline and both have been pretty high ... until after 2018 when US net import of crude hit zero.   

Back when the Gulf war drove up prices, gasoline and diesel both hit $4 a gallon.
Many people curbed unnecessary driving, and gasoline demand dropped significantly, but trucking HAD to continue, regardless of fuel prices.

The oil companies saw this trend, and when prices subsided, they maintained the artificially high diesel prices just to maximize profits, knowing that the trucking industry would keep buying regardless of how badly they were gouged.

That was the point that diesel prices exceeded gasoline, and it's remained so ever since.

With the political lockdowns, and the associated business closures, I suspect trucking has taken a big hit as well, lowering the demand for diesel, hence we see the lower diesel prices.

6 hours ago, Ivylog said:

I’ve bought a lot of Diesel over the years... bought off road Diesel for 12 cents (gas was $0.26) and never in the winter when the price goes up...home heating oil demand. The jet engine balanced out the gas-diesel imbalance plus diesel has 15% more btus than gasoline...don’t mind paying a little more.

With the slowdown in travel... thousands of jet airplanes parked, there is a glut of jet A/diesel fuel. Bought off road recently for $1.29.

Wow. I need to check local offroad diesel prices again.
I keep a large quantity of offroad diesel for my home standby genset, as well as my lawn mower and tractor, and the heat in my garage and shop.
Most of my storage tanks are full, just in case SHTF, but I can always pick up more drums when prices are low. 😁

[Bob Nodine]

Dang guys and gals, I did not mean to hit a nerve but guess I did. With the pandemic and the election all going at the same time there seems to be a lot of spent up frustration out there.

Since I started this thread I guess it is ok for me to comment off topic. In my opinion, and with that and $2 you might be able to buy a cup of coffee - but no guarantees, I believe the future is nuclear power (fusion and fission). There is a place for all sources of energy but the only thing that comes close to replacing fossil fuel is nuclear power. I have worked in the industry since February 1977 and know the big road block to nuclear power is the public's fear. I started working in Oak Ridge, TN on the centrifuge uranium enrichment project and things were going like gang busters and the money was flowing like a river and then in March of 1979 the Three Mile Island accident happened. The US nuclear power industry had just about recovered from that when 32 years later in March 2011 Fukushima happened. We still have not come back from that. I am sad to say that currently there is no domestic uranium enrichment capability in the United States. We as a nation never seem to complete our goals in this area. The new modular generation of nuclear reactors require uranium enriched to almost 20 % called HALEU (High Assay Low Enriched Uranium) and currently the only source for fuel is to blend down uranium enriched for weapons. Most logically thinking folks know that solar and wind will never provide enough energy to replace fossil fuels but they help and provide a lot of good high tech jobs. The Lord knows we need more good paying jobs that can provide careers. It will be difficult and take a long time to wean us as a nation from fossil fuels. What worries me is that we will continue our consumption until the supply of crude oil is almost gone and that is a problem because there are many things we need and produce from crude oil beside gasoline and diesel fuel.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Bob Nodine

[rpasetto]

+1 to what David L. and Bob N. said.  Nuclear is a realistic source of  energy, compared to solar and wind.   Sadly politics and "crony capitalism" has continually maligned Nuclear while inaccurately lauding wind and solar.

For example: Solar energy density at the surface of the earth is 1kW/square meter.  Solar panel technology is at best 20% at the panel and use of storage batteries, inverters and cabling to deliver electricity brings that number down significantly.  Let's call it 10% to be generous.  Based on this, at noon on a sunny day, 10 sq meters of solar panel surface produce a kilowatt of electricity.  When sun is not directly overhead, results are somewhat less (one can figure that out using trig).  To get 100kW at the noon hour, you'd need 1000 sq meters of solar panel,  about a quarter acre.  

Rather than go more off topic, here's something which definitely relates to Diesel fuel cost.  There has been substantial research on production of clean diesel fuel from coal.  This is conceptually related to the Fischer-Tropf process but is significantly different.  Profs. Alan S. Goldman, Rutgers and  Maurice Brookhart, UNC, have received a patent for this over a decade ago.  (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7902417B2/en).  The theoretical and lab science has been done, but a lot of R&D remains.  Due to the catalytic process they designed, the process is capable of producing clean fuel, unlike Fischer-Tropf, to which it has been incorrectly compared. 

https://chemistry.illinois.edu/system/files/inline-files/CHEM535Spring2011_WangAbstract.pdf

 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/312/5771/257/tab-article-info

[throgmartin]

Once upon a time, in my younger years I worked in operations for a power company. From stoker boilers to cyclones and then super critical boilers we provided power to Lansing, Mi via these coal fired power plants. Ask any power plant operator and they will recount spending every day ramping up power in the morning and then dropping power at night as the load's on the grids changed.

Power grids are in a constant state of flux. They rise and fall with the demands placed on it. It changes by the outside temperature, by the hour of the day and by the day of the week. On hot weekdays we ran full tilt and on weekends we ramped down. While not environmentally friendly, coal and gas has the ability to ramp up and down at a moments notice to keep the grid stable and satisfy the power requirements of a community.

While solar and wind are nice warm fuzzy feeling energy alternatives they should be viewed as nothing more then supplements to the grid. They are unreliable and cannot be ramped up or down and are completely dependent on mother nature and we all know how fickle she is. Going to all wind and solar to supply the numerous power grids is a recipe for disaster. If our country ever went zero emissions on our power grid you can look for rolling black and brown outs just like CA is experiencing. While battery storage could offer a life line to green power, the costs are out of this world expensive when you consider the amount of battery storage you would need for even a small city.

I see no way of ever eliminating coal and gas from our energy needs to fuel our power grids. I also agree with Bob Nodine, nuclear is the best way to go. Despite what many say, it is safe due to the fact that nuke plants are under some of the toughest requirements known to power companies. Going forward I think a new direction needs to be taken in regards to green power and that includes the fact that green power should be considered nothing more then a supplement.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/aug/18/california-rolling-blackouts-caused-green-energy-p/

[Pampero]

1 hour ago, Bob Nodine said:

Dang guys and gals, I did not mean to hit a nerve but guess I did. With the pandemic and the election all going at the same time there seems to be a lot of spent up frustration out there.

Since I started this thread I guess it is ok for me to comment off topic. In my opinion, and with that and $2 you might be able to buy a cup of coffee - but no guarantees, I believe the future is nuclear power (fusion and fission). There is a place for all sources of energy but the only thing that comes close to replacing fossil fuel is nuclear power. I have worked in the industry since February 1977 and know the big road block to nuclear power is the public's fear. I started working in Oak Ridge, TN on the centrifuge uranium enrichment project and things were going like gang busters and the money was flowing like a river and then in March of 1979 the Three Mile Island accident happened. The US nuclear power industry had just about recovered from that when 32 years later in March 2011 Fukushima happened. We still have not come back from that. I am sad to say that currently there is no domestic uranium enrichment capability in the United States. We as a nation never seem to complete our goals in this area. The new modular generation of nuclear reactors require uranium enriched to almost 20 % called HALEU (High Assay Low Enriched Uranium) and currently the only source for fuel is to blend down uranium enriched for weapons. Most logically thinking folks know that solar and wind will never provide enough energy to replace fossil fuels but they help and provide a lot of good high tech jobs. The Lord knows we need more good paying jobs that can provide careers. It will be difficult and take a long time to wean us as a nation from fossil fuels. What worries me is that we will continue our consumption until the supply of crude oil is almost gone and that is a problem because there are many things we need and produce from crude oil beside gasoline and diesel fuel.

Well said. I learned a lot about all your comments and I  agreed that in this country the public perception of nuclear reactors. And I think that is based not in the hardware but on those that move the dials and push buttons.  I am not accusing, I  just saying "perception". I  remember a Nextel commercial when two operators are arguing about the name of a BLT sandwich,  that should be called BLTM because have mayonnaise on it while all alarms were going off and people were trapped on what appeared to be a  containment chamber on a nuclear plant. For me, my taught were; really.

You ever saw in a TV show doctors and nurses chatting on an operating room about trivial stuff?

That is what people (me) worries, the human factor inside a nuclear plant.

I'd

'D born in Argentina,  (third world country)we have four nuclear reactors there and never a safety issue.  The same in many countries. So we are so afraid here.

In Long Island we still paying taxes for a nuclear plant that never saw one day of operation and the project was canceled because "public" concer.

[Hotrod - R.I.P.]

Yeah Bob N. 
Not sure that you struck a nerve but maybe just noticing something is up.

Not to sound political but my sense is that Biden may take office on Jan 21 and gas will be back to 4$ a gallon in short order , or more. I have taken to hedging my bets on oil of late in case he does. My guess is that as his admin makes things hard for oil producers that we will no longer domestically produce as much and may become reliant on imported oil again. Pa will get the shaft.

I believe that there is enough solar to provide much of energy needs. Powering cars with electric is a good idea. But keeping gas at 2$ is a good idea too. Like Trump, I have no axe to grind with any form of energy. Well I wouldn’t want a nuclear reactor in my back yard that depends on control rods to throttle it. 
 

Bill G 06 Dynasty

 

[dl_racing427]

On 11/29/2020 at 3:25 PM, Hotrod said:

Yeah Bob N. 
Not sure that you struck a nerve but maybe just noticing something is up.

Not to sound political but my sense is that Biden may take office on Jan 21 and gas will be back to 4$ a gallon in short order , or more. I have taken to hedging my bets on oil of late in case he does. My guess is that as his admin makes things hard for oil producers that we will no longer domestically produce as much and may become reliant on imported oil again. Pa will get the shaft.

I believe that there is enough solar to provide much of energy needs. Powering cars with electric is a good idea. But keeping gas at 2$ is a good idea too. Like Trump, I have no axe to grind with any form of energy. Well I wouldn’t want a nuclear reactor in my back yard that depends on control rods to throttle it. 
 

Bill G 06 Dynasty

 

Bill,

Actually, when a nuclear plant is built, it often boosts property values around it drastically.
The reason being is the lake that they often build to cool it.
For example, when they built the Oconee units in NC, they also built a sizeable lake, which is now surrounded by nice homes, and is a very upscale neighborhood.
Fishing and recreation in those lakes is also very good, due to the plant's waste heat slightly increasing the water temperature above what would naturally occur.

Another area to check out is the North Anna plant on Lake Anna in VA,  The lake is actually divided with one side feeding the intakes, and the other being the discharge flow.  It's referred to as the Hot side and Cold side.
Not surprisingly, hot side property goes for substantially more than cold side.  The swimming, skiing, and fishing seasons are considerably longer on the hot side.

No one who's bought property on these lakes appears overly concerned about any safety issues.

I've been working in the nuclear industry for 17 years, and it's probably the safest heavy industrial job you can get.
Safety is top priority in everything we do.