Diesel in America - a grim viewpoint...

[dd74]

Publishers of magazines and consumer experts have been saying on the side that diesel really won't take off here in the U.S. One reason is obvious: the price of diesel and the inability for more to be made available. And that price, like all fuel, is due to increase very soon (no, the drop won't be permanent), as availability has more-or-less plateaued.

2) the communication of diesel has been piss-poor to American consumers. Only Audi has gone on a nationwide tour to tout the benefits of diesel over gasoline, such as in the efficiency to burn rate, clean-air technology through the urea system, massive amounts of available power, and overall fuel efficiency.

3) American car companies feel it's just simpler to build more efficient gasoline engines. Like Ford's Ecoboost engine which is really just a VW-like direct-injected turbo four, but that nonetheless produces upwards of 300 hp, small, very powerful four and six-cylinder engines are the new powerplants for American manufacturers. It's great stuff, but none of these motors produce diesel-type torque, which is needed in day-to-day driving.

4) Because of the price of diesel fuel, the poor communication of diesels' advantageousness toward every form of driving - including race driving - as well as America's preconceived notion that the only source of fuel for automobiles is gasoline, some European and Asian manufacturers are beginning to shy away from the idea to import their diesels into this country. Even more stunning is Cadillac's hesitation to sell its diesel CTS, which is more powerful in torque than its Corvette-powered CTS-V, here in The States. So, in a sense, those manufacturers who have already committed - Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Subaru, and a few others, may be the only choice we have in the diesel arena. Others - and there are many others - may not come to our shores with their product.

Here's my thought on this: we need to subsidize diesel in this country, just as they do in Europe. In short, in most European countries, they tax diesel fuel less than gasoline, which is the impetus for the 70-30 new car buying ratio diesel enjoys over gasoline-powered cars. In other cases, we could also introduce tax breaks for diesel ownership. If we were to do that here, we could mitigate fuel consumption, have immediately better environmental conditions, and more operating power per owner than can be imagined with standard sedans, SUVs and sports cars.

This is just an observation after some lengthy conversations I've had with a few "experts" in the diesel field. I'd love to hear (read) whatever anyone on PPOT has to say about this. Personally, I think it's sad that some regard diesel in America as dead before it has even had a chance to surface to the consumer.

[Rikao4]

add to your list of reason
not to long ago..
finding a station that had diesel was 'interesting'
once diesel cost exceeded gas..it was over. So unless they subsidize, they will contiue to struggle or fail. Europe is diesel friendly due too the cost of gas.
Rika

[slakjaw]

I met this one tree hugger that said diesel is worse

"because its uglier"

whatever the fuch that means.

[Dottore]

Interestingly you can buy many US cars with diesel engine options in Europe. The Chrysler 300C, all Jeeps, etc etc.

So why is diesel so much higher in price in the US than gasoline?

[tobster1911]

The other thing killing diesel in the US is emissions. Why do we have diesel emission standards that not even the EU production diesels can meet? If people are serious about fuel economy and not waiting for "alternative" sources to be developed, DIESEL is here right now.

It pisses me off that the US is not leading the development of diesel. We could.....

http://world.honda.com/news/2004/4040506.html

[Gogar]

+1 to Dottore's question.

Why is diesel more expensive? Isn't it easier to make? I have no idea.

Oh, wait: Its more expensive because we can't do without it.

[NICKG]

that is becasue americans in general can't see the forrest from the trees...seriously that cannot do the simple math where diesel is 25% more but gives 35% better mileage..and much higher resale and reliability.
It boils down to stupidity(ignorance)

[dd74]

Originally Posted by Dottore

Interestingly you can buy many US cars with diesel engine options in Europe. The Chrysler 300C, all Jeeps, etc etc.

So why is diesel so much higher in price in the US than gasoline?

My thoughts are:

1) diesel production has plateaued if not in the world, definitely in the U.S.

2) worldwide demand from emerging countries. China and India for example.

3) Europe's tax incentives/subsidizing of diesel over gasoline.

When I was in Dubrovnik, Croatia, I didn't see a single gasoline powered car. It pays to believe after being torn to bits by war, the country, in its rebuild, took advantage of every opportunity to right itself. Diesel seems to be one of those opportunities.

[3.2 CAB]

I would love to get my hands on one of the new BMW diesels that are just hitting the market!!

[notfarnow]

I'd trade my Nanny for a Honda Accord 2.2 CTDi

[sammyg2]

This is a non-issue in the long term and will soon correct itself and I'll explain why:
We currently do not have the capability of making enough diesel to meet our demands and importing diesel is getting more expensive, but that will soon change.

Refineries are run by smart people who need to keep the place profitable or they will be out of work. the profit on refining gasoline is almost non-existent right now, but diesel is very profitable. Guess what? we're working our tails off to try and increase diesel capacity.

This morning I submitted a recommendation and engineering package to get an additional 15,840 gallons per day of diesel production from our diesel hydrotreater, for almost free! The billable cost for this modification will be under $2000. If I don't get a serious atta-boy out of this I'll be ticked.

I figure in 6 months to a year the refining industry in the US be able to produce enough to supply almost all our diesel demands and nearly eliminate the need for imports. I think we're importing about 1.4 mil gallons a day or something like that now.

So ... pretty soon there will be plenty of diesel and the price will again fall below the price of regular unleaded. The only thing that would prevent that from happening is if the price over-seas remains high enough for it to be more profitable to export the finished diesel.
I figure the two markets should just about balance out.

[304065]

Diesel has more BTU per gallon and requires more crude to make a gallon. Hence the parity or higher price.

In Europe you can buy a 318d that gets really good mileage. Look below.





Open Google, type in "n liters per 100 km to mpg" where n is the mileage spec

you will be pleasantly surprised, even though it's not EPA

[dd74]

Originally Posted by NICKG

that is becasue americans in general can't see the forrest from the trees...seriously that cannot do the simple math where diesel is 25% more but gives 35% better mileage..and much higher resale and reliability.
It boils down to stupidity(ignorance)

Exactly! Man, you hit it on the head. Even with the higher cost of diesel, the benefits are three-fold.
1) Still better mileage than equivalent sized gasoline engines.
2) Still more power than equivalent sized gasoline engines.
3) Less emissions because of the efficiency of diesels. And, with the urea ammonia-spray system in place on larger diesel engines (little four cylinders don't require it), the diesels RIGHT NOW PRODUCE ZERO EMISSIONS.

As for resale value - two year old Mercedes ML 320 CDIs are selling for the same price as brand new models. I checked Autotrader.com on that one.

Chevy Duramax pickups, only a year old, have been going for roughly the same price as the Mercedes.

There's definitely some value in these vehicles.

[Jim727]

Originally Posted by slakjaw

I met this one tree hugger that said diesel is worse

"because its uglier"

whatever the fuch that means.

As an ardent tree-hugger I can assure you that neither side has a corner on irrationality in these matters.

I'd love a diesel - keep looking for that awd 4-cyl turbo diesel to get here and keep getting disappointed. I hear Honda is bringing in a diesel in 2010 and maybe ditto Audi.

There is a diesel engine for light aircraft that reduces fuel consumption from about 9gph to about 3gph (from memory, sorry) and burns Jet-A. Can all diesel engines burn Jet fuel? With that kind of efficiency increase there's a lot of room in the cost per gallon vs cost per mile equation.

The fuel flexibility of diesel has to be a headache for taxing authorities; diesel is the same stuff as #2 heating oil with the exception of taxes. If I could burn soybean oil - or kerosene, for that matter - in a diesel it would be great for me, but take a bite out of the tax man's purse.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Gogar

+1 to Dottore's question.

Why is diesel more expensive? Isn't it easier to make? I have no idea.

Oh, wait: Its more expensive because we can't do without it.

Diesel does not require quite as much refining complexity, but it uses the same raw materials and the conversion rate favors gasoline, so no, diesel is not really cheaper to make. That's an urban myth. Trying to exceed capacity can be very expensive.

Diesel is more expensive now because the demand for it overseas has increased drammatically and it's much more expensive to import than it used to be. We currently can't make enough to supply our own demands.
Supply and demand.
Refineries were designed to take a barrel of oil and convert about 50% of it to gasiline and about 15% of it to diesel and about 10% of it to jet fuel. The rest is less valuable by-products like propane, hydrogen, sulfur, asphalt, petroleum coke, etc.

Demand for diesel is surpassing the original design capacity of refineries, especially the ones originally built during WWII. We're changing that but it takes a little time.

[dd74]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

This is a non-issue in the long term and will soon correct itself and I'll explain why:
We currently do not have the capability of making enough diesel to meet our demands and importing diesel is getting more expensive, but that will soon change.

Refineries are run by smart people who need to keep the place profitable or they will be out of work. the profit on refining gasoline is almost non-existent right now, but diesel is very profitable. Guess what? we're working our tails off to try and increase diesel capacity.

This morning I submitted a recommendation and engineering package to get an additional 15,840 gallons per day of diesel production from our diesel hydrotreater, for almost free! The billable cost for this modification will be under $2000. If I don't get a serious atta-boy out of this I'll be ticked.

I figure in 6 months to a year the refining industry in the US be able to produce enough to supply almost all our diesel demands and nearly eliminate the need for imports. I think we're importing about 1.4 mil gallons a day or something like that now.

So ... pretty soon there will be plenty of diesel and the price will again fall below the price of regular unleaded. The only thing that would prevent that from happening is if the price over-seas remains high enough for it to be more profitable to export the finished diesel.
I figure the two markets should just about balance out.

I won't dispute that, Sammy, as you're in the industry. But this morning on 89.3 KPCC, two experts in the field said for refineries to make a noticeable decrease in the price of fuel while also increasing supply, will take roughly ten years from now. That all fuel refining plateaued in 2004, and has never increased since then.

[Dottore]

Originally Posted by john_cramer

Diesel has more BTU per gallon and requires more crude to make a gallon. Hence the parity or higher price.

Is this really correct? I have always heard just the opposite i.e., that gasoline is more highly refined than diesel.

PS: Sent before I saw Sammy's post above.

[304065]

Originally Posted by Dottore

Is this really correct? I have always heard just the opposite i.e., that gasoline is more highly refined than diesel.

PS: Sent before I saw Sammy's post above.

The density of petroleum diesel is about 0.85 kg/l (7.09 lbs/gallon) whereas petrol (gasoline) has a density of about 0.72 kg/l (6.01 lbs/gallon), about 15% less. When burnt, diesel typically releases about 38.6 MJ/l (138,700 Btu per US gallon), whereas gasoline releases 34.9 MJ/l (125,000 Btu per US gallon), about 11% less. source: Wikipedia

[dd74]

Diesel burns 12% more efficiently than gasoline.

Check out this NYT article on it. It's the best mass news story yet on diesel that I've seen in the U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/automobiles/18DIESEL.html

[speeder]

The real story is how did the price of diesel quadruple, (or more), in 3 or 4 years? It's truly insane and unprecedented in modern times. The basic demand went up a few percent in that time. It has and will lead to the worst economic times in decades. Here is the real story of current inflation as a result, which will get worse:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080814/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

The question I've had for the last few years is how much diesel and jet fuel has been wasted, (and paid for at outrageous rates by U.S. taxpayers), in Iraq? It has to be a huge amount for a military presence that size 8k miles away for 5+ years, but is it significant in terms of world consumption? Is it more than a blip? The reason I wonder, besides being enraged at the waste and stupidity, is that a war is one of the few scenarios where a significant amount of EXTRA fuel would be burned in the world, aside from the usual # of planes/trains/trucks/cars/ships that operate every day across the globe.

The true cost of the bungled invasion of Iraq based on false information may never be fully assessed, but if you add the additional cost of a barrel of oil for the last 5 years, (experts for years have put it at ~$20/barrel), due to the "fear of interruption of supply", (not to be confused with ACTUAL interruption of supply), the weakening of the U.S. dollar due to record-smashing deficits to finance Iraq causing oil prices to skyrocket and commodities in general to spike like crazy, (food prices through the roof), the amount of $$ that has been funneled from consumers' wallets into the coffers of big oil and U.S. govt. war contractors like Halliburton and KBR is mind-boggling. All in a few short years. Did Bush plan it like this? No, he's too stupid. His ineptitude turned what was supposed to be a little corporatist beer-bash worth a few 100 billion into the wrecking of the world economy.

It's sometimes hard for me to remember the good old days, no, I'm not talking about the 1950s or '60s. I'm talking about the late 1990s when the U.S. and world economy was the best it had ever been in history, peace was breaking-out as a result world-wide and absolutely anything seemed possible. The overall mood was extremely optimistic and buying race cars and ski boats made sense for the average American. Jobs were actually being created in the U.S., and not just in the repo/foreclosure business. Everything from energy to housing seemed cheap, and a trip to Europe next week was a big, "why not?" for most people I know. Every day had a new story in the news about American's exploding wealth and the disposable income of baby-boomers.

And as a ready-made response to the asshats who will accuse me of "being negative", I'm over it. History has happened. I've just switched to survival-mode like most Americans, canceled travel plans and down-sized vehicles and other planned purchases. It is what it is, but let's call a ball a ball and a strike a strike. The bartender at any pub in the land can tell you which way the wind blows. It's been a tragedy.