An amazing article about the future of our diesel fuel, as soon as 2011 diesel will be made from natural gas in a plant that cost 20 billion dollars.........................worth the read

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/11656954.htm

Someone was talking on here a while back about Germany using some method to refine Naty Gas in Diesel. I can't remember what the topic was, but they were saying that it had been experimented with during WWII.

Sounds Expensive.

Originally posted by killfast1
Sounds Expensive.
Dealing with OPEC is going to get even more expensive.
Soy Bio-Diesel.... Use it!

Soo..... someone explain to me how it is that you can determine that "sulphur causes 10,000 deaths per year in the United States". Moreover, how can you determine that THIS sulphur is from diesel emissions????

Maybe someone is just lighting too many matches?

jlh

Hohn the logic there is that higher sulfur diesel has much higher smoke and particulate emissions, so therefore proportionately they are claiming that a lot of respiratory ailments are exacerbated or caused by sulfur. The whole push is based on their assertion that lowering sulfur in diesel fuel will directly lower the number of respiratory sufferers.

killfast1,
In one of the articles I read, ExxonMobile or Shell or whomever could still turn a profit with oil at $20.00 a barrel.

XP8103: They all managed to turn a profit when oil sank to $10 barrel, not that long ago. I heard, the other day, that Valero Oil was buying domestic sour crude, turning it into gasoline and making huge profits. That's good news for us in the Western USA, which is a major source of sour crude.

Valero is getting HUGE, not only in reifining but in Retail. Every third station out my way is Valero, they sem to have bought out the "Shore Stop" brand stations or something. Maybe they'll shock the industry?

Yeah, they'll shock you when you go to fill up next week! Despite dropping an average four cents last week, the dealers here raised the price another two. Ah, tourist season....ya gotta love it for ninety days!

Originally posted by induchman
XP8103: They all managed to turn a profit when oil sank to $10 barrel, not that long ago. I heard, the other day, that Valero Oil was buying domestic sour crude, turning it into gasoline and making huge profits. That's good news for us in the Western USA, which is a major source of sour crude.
That has been the case for some time now.. The big Valero refinery here in Corpus Christi, TX buys the cheapest, nastiest, heaviest, most gosh-awful crude oil vacuum-bottoms that can still be heated and pumped. They have a really good process that cracks that sticky "liquid coal" and turns it into some fine gasoline. They're running flat-out all the time too.
I just wished the #2 diesel would get down to the $ level that Reg UL is right now.. $1.91/gal!!!
#2D= $2.09/gal:(

BTW, VALERO is Venezuelan owned.. That Socialist presidente down there doesn't want much to do with the USA anymore except take our money. So, there is serious talk about selling off the US Valero refineries.. China? who knows!

K.

Originally posted by Lightman
Hohn the logic there is that higher sulfur diesel has much higher smoke and particulate emissions, so therefore proportionately they are claiming that a lot of respiratory ailments are exacerbated or caused by sulfur. The whole push is based on their assertion that lowering sulfur in diesel fuel will directly lower the number of respiratory sufferers.

Logical, yes. Scientific? Hardly. You simply can't establish causality, and it's pretty ridiculous that they try.

jmho

Originally posted by HOHN
Logical, yes. Scientific? Hardly. You simply can't establish causality, and it's pretty ridiculous that they try.

jmho

You think that's bad, you should see what gets "proven" in court during cases against the oil companies.

I think the point is being missed here, the fact remains that right now as we speak the USA and the world are burning all the diesel that we make, this keeps the market always on edge of running out of fuel, I read somewhere recently that there is only like a 5 to 8 day supply of fuel if we were to stop all the refineries production.last winter when it got cold in the north east where they burn mostly heating fuel in their homes thats when diesel took the big price increase, heating oil and diesel come from the same base stock..........so if the world were to get the supply of this new clean fuel made from natural gas then there would be more supply and prices would come down, ever heard of creating a shortage to cause a demand? thats kinda why the fuel prices are so high. I remember about 20 years ago when the famous Paul Harvey finished up with one of his BS stories and he ended with "whats next a toilet paper shortage" well alot of folks took that statement to heart and went out and bought cases and caases of toilet paper, this created a shortage as the other folks couldnt find any TP and when they did they also bought a case or two..............see where I am going here? I say bring on all the fuel ya can and flood the market with it.

Cheers, Kevin

Kev, this is done to keep the fuel fresh:rolleyes:

Never heard of that before. (A fact which I am slightly ashamed of...)

Of course, considering how much natural gas you have to use to make Diesel fuel, (which has to be a very endothermic, energy-intensive reaction) natural gas reserves wouldn't be an indefinite solution. It would be a helpful process to help us with the transition to renewable fuels, though...


The world has enough agricultural capacity to grow more Diesel fuel than we will ever use, provided the land was cultivated properly and efficiently as it is in the US. Biomass is the solution, at least I'll place my investments there before that solar-hydrogen bull...

Although we kind of had a falling out over the past few months, the guys at CE-CERT (http://www.cert.ucr.edu/research/) are doing very promising research on the conversion of biomass into biodiesel...

Biomass and coal gasification, and then an energy-independent U.S. for hundreds of years - long enough to develop the next great energy paradigm, cold fusion or whatever. ;)

I went to the site, no article

I went to the site, no article
Probably because you're 8 months late :)

Here's another vision for the future that is well on it's way
http://governor.mt.gov/hottopics/faqsynthetic.asp

Here's what I'd do. First, make it incredibly attractive ot build nuke plants.
then i'd start investing heavily in ethanol. Look at what Brazil has done. Here's a country that has it's own renewable energy source. We could put farming back on the map in this country again.

Guys, Diesel from natural gas is just a stop gap measure...BioDiesel is the only real source of future diesel. The U.S. uses 1/4 of the oil produced in the world yet only produces 1/20 of its needs. That's the problem. Heating oil is #2 with dye in it....and pure #2 is available all year round. ks

Probably because you're 8 months late :)

Here's another vision for the future that is well on it's way
http://governor.mt.gov/hottopics/faqsynthetic.asp

this part of that article is enough to <edit> me off;


Why haven't synfuels been pursued in America before?
They have. In fact, the U.S. government was seriously exploring synfuel as early as 1925. In the 1940s, a Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act passed by Congress even appropriated over $80 million for research and production. By the 1950s, America was producing thousands of gallons of synthetic gasoline a day at a test plant in Missouri. But the discovery of cheap oil, combined with a lobbying effort by the oil industry, caused the government to abandon its synfuel research. During the oil crisis in the late 1970s, the federal government briefly discussed synfuel production, but abandoned the idea when the price of oil receded.

just goes to show again how the govt. is in bed with the oil industry, should never have stopped with the research & development. could have held the prices down permanatly, not to mention extending crude supply for years & years [verymad] [verymad] [verymad]

...and if they HAD gone to Bio-fuels, the cost per gallon would have been higher to the consumer, and they'd be whining "Why are we paying so much for Bio when oil is cheaper?"
It's a NO-Win situation either way.

...and if they HAD gone to Bio-fuels, the cost per gallon would have been higher to the consumer, and they'd be whining "Why are we paying so much for Bio when oil is cheaper?"
It's a NO-Win situation either way.

yes, maybe it WOULD have been at the time, but if they had kept up with the research & development they started in the 40's or even the 70's, it would have kept prices down in the long run. competition always = lower prices.

....except when it come to commodities in limited supply. (like fuel)

From what I understand the Alaskan pipeline actually burns off LP because it would be too costly to transport. If this is the case then it would make sense to build a plant there and convert it so we're not wasting perfectly good fuel.

From what I understand the Alaskan pipeline actually burns off LP because it would be too costly to transport. If this is the case then it would make sense to build a plant there and convert it so we're not wasting perfectly good fuel.Much of the Alaskan LP is used to make nitrogen fertilizer.

....except when it come to commodities in limited supply. (like fuel)

yea, I know, we were running out in the 70's [eyecrazy] [eyecrazy] [whistle] [whistle]