Ever wonder why Diesel, a lower distillate than gasoline, cost more than gasoline? Gasoline is about $3.99 and Diesel is $4.85 in the NYC area? It used to be the other way around. Why has this happened? The New York Times Automobiles section, which is distributed in the NY area and probably not part of the national editions, explains that the reason why Diesel is so costly is because Bill Clinton mandated through Executive Order that the sulfur content in Diesel fuel be removed. The sulfur went down and the price went up. Ah, clean air! The same is true for gasoline which through Executive or EPA orders have been formulated to cost more. All Bush has to do, if he has the onions, is order that the fuels be delivered unformulated until the war is over...remember we are at war???
P.S. Suburban’s can easily be converted to run compresed natural gas in additon to or as alternative to gasoline. GM has conversion kits available through certain vendors. Do an internet search on CNG for more details. CNG is available at about $2.75 a gallon her in NYC. With a “mileagemaker”, a small pump that can be installed on a home’s natural gas line to compress the gas into your CNG tanks overnight. This is SOP in Canada and Brazil. Also compressed gas burns cleaner than gasoline. Also propane, a derivative of the petroleum refining process and found at any garden center or Home Depot can be added to Diesel engines to make them burn cleaner, get more hp, and better mpg. Both gases do so without effecting the world’s food supply. Of course, this is too rational for Peliossi and the Democrats.
Now that we have low-sulfur diesel, fleets of clean-diesel automobiles (which would be ruined by high-sulfur diesel) that have been available in Europe for years are going to become available here in the US.
My current Acura TL gets about 25 mpg combined, or around 30 highway-only. The new Honda Accord 2.2 iCTDI diesel gets about 65mpg combined.
So by replacing my Acura with a Honda diesel of the same chassis and interior size, I'll get the same number of miles that a gallon of $3.99 gasoline provides with only $1.87 worth of diesel, a $2.12 savings every 25 miles, about $1,275 in an average 15,000-mile year.