thb wrote:It is ridiculous that diesel cost 30 cents a gallon more than gasoline since a lot less refining is required to make diesel. Also try to find low sulphur 15 ppm fuel everywhere is not real easy.
Regards
Tom in Steinhatchee
Tom, this information is not accurate any longer now that the EPA is requiring the use of ULSD on all on-road vehicles. I work in the refining industry and the shift to diesel production in our country (as well as world wide) is dramatic. The diesel sent to the pump today is as refined as a lot of gasolines.
Prior to 2007, on-road diesel was considered low sulfur diesel. This was less than 500 ppm. Most of the diesel boiling range streams that come off the various refining processes used to meet this spec. Now that the EPA is requiring ULSD, which is less than 15 ppm of sulfur, the refineries typically have to produce less than 5 ppm diesel to combat pipeline contamination. The sulfur molecules are very slippery and provided great lubricity to the low sulfur diesel. Now that there is essentially no sulfur left in the ULSD these fuels are very hard on engines. That is another reason that the price has increased, more additives are required to meet the the lubricity specifications.
There are many other reasons, but the fact is that today's diesel is no longer a "by product" of gasoline production in refineries.
I don't have a specific link to the kit I put in, but if you go search at
http://www.thedieselstop.com you should be able to find some more info on it. If not, let me know and I may be able to dig something up.
Tim