Diesel Fuel

[jrd22]

Ultra low sulphur is all that is sold in the US now, whether it's mixed with bio or dyed or not. Ultra low has less lubricity and older engines will benefit from using an additive such as Stanadyne (injector tips will last almost twice as long).

[H and E]

I am not sure what the difference is but a friend that has some diesel equipment that gets used very little uses JP4 in them. His thought is that it is more stable and does not require an additive. I plan to remove the existing diesel from the sailboat and refill with JP4. A tank of diesel in the boat last all year.

[smurphny]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

I don't think low-sulphur diesel is less refined. There's an extra process to remove the sulphur. It's the same process that produces jet fuel.

Then it comes down to supply and demand. The prices of the two fuels are set mostly on a global basis, ignoring tax. Diesel is in a lot of demand worldwide, as more and more cars use it. So is jet fuel, and heating oil, and they all start with the same fraction.

Finally diesel is denser and contains more energy - so you're getting more fuel for your money, if you measure by weight or by energy.

By what measure is it overpriced? It's cheaper than bottled water. It's a limited resource. It's in great demand all around the world. You might want to pay less for it, that's not the same as it being overpriced.

It's overpriced relative to gasoline which requires more cracking process and more expensive handling due to its much lower flash point. I don't see how it can be justified selling it for > gas. I can understand the price of Kerosene being relatively high because it is in less demand and therefore has a smaller market. Usually, as something increases in demand, the price eventually comes down. It seems it should be easier with diesel to supply more to meet increasing demand because it is less costly to produce and transport. If you have some figures, would like to see them because I've never been able to understand why diesel is more expensive. As far as petro prods being expensive, they have been the best deal around and have only recently caught up with inflation over the last 50 years. If you use the 10X rule whereby everything costs 10X what it did in 1960 (House 1960=20K, now 200k i.e). As I remember, gas was around .35/gal so should be $3.50 now.

[dabnis]

It appears that the road tax on diesel is quite a bit more than gas:

http://www.api.org/statistics/fuelta...Tax_Update.pdf

Dabnis