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In the past several years the price of gas, be it diesel or gasoline, has climbed so high it has us spinning. We empty our pockets weekly, or more often, at the pumps. We dish out 40.00 or 50.00, and even more to fill up our gas tanks. It's a killer.
The cost has not only sky rocketed, the demand for gasoline has grown as well. There are just more cars and vehicles on the road. Where every family used to have a car, now every person in each family has one.
Vehicles have just plain gotten bigger. When you drive to work, look around you, there are more mini-vans, and SUV's, than there are cars. No wonder the demand for gasoline has grown, not only do we drive more, we have more gas guzzling vehicles on the road.
Right now, in New Jersey, diesel prices are as high as 2.52, while regular gas runs about 2.11, and premium at 2.35, not too bad considering about a month ago regular gas was going for 3.18. In August the diesel was 2.97.
Now, I don't understand how diesel can be higher than unleaded gas? I don't get what's going on here.
I have heard that the hurricane Katrina is some to blame, the refineries in the area were damaged. There were delays in operations and when they were finally put back in operation they concentrated on gasoline instead of diesel.
Another reason is winter is around the corner, and we will want oil to heat our homes. So the law of supply and demand is beating us up again. I can't remember diesel ever costing more than regular gasoline, not before a year or so ago.
The EPA, not too long, ago established low sulfur requirements in diesel fuel beginning in 2006. The refineries will have to be changed to accommodate this new fuel production coming into the scenario, so there is another reason for the higher cost. So it looks like diesel users have a least three strikes against them right now.
The better news, maybe not good, but better is that diesel is a more dense product than regular gasoline and because of this you get better mileage with diesel, so it may cost more per gallon, but you are going to get more miles out of a gas tank. Still, the economical pull of the diesel engine is being yanked out of the car buying equation.
You would think that since the diesel products come from the States, and are not brought in from the Middle East,
they would cost less than imported gasoline.
What we need our there is a car that would run regular and diesel, that we could alternate according to the price of gas, with the flip of a switch on the dashboard. Maybe there is a challenge we should put out to the scientific and automotive community.
Or maybe the guy next door with the bio-diesel still will figure it out.