Diesel "shortage" : Fact or Fiction??

there's so much negative hype in the media these days, i don't bother paying attention unless there is something i can do about it

 

It's pretty much the same factors in effect as has lead to increased fuel prices in general; old refineries have been shut down, others are doing maintenance, world events, heating season starting, etc. The reserve stock pile volume is below average, but it is being replenished.

Diesel is running about $2 more a gallon than regular gasoline here. I don't think the general efficiency advantage is going to make that up.

It is going to hurt those using it for heating.

 

To what.....coal maybe ??

IF heating oil prices have gone up in step with diesel fuel, then propane might be more competitive now.
But switching to propane might involve an entire new furnace.

AND....heating oil can be stored in an INSIDE tank and that should NEVER be done with propane.

 

There are homes that still do use coal. Once worked with a guy whose house did so.

With an inside tank, it doesn't take much to switch biodiesel; think it just needs a different nozzle to address viscosity differences. Though that doesn't necessarily address the fuel cost issue.

Heat pumps are another choice, but the regions mostly using heating oil without natural gas as an option, seem to also have high electric rates.

 

everything is going up here. i doubt switching fuels will help anyone.

we have oil, propane, electricity. all are spiking, and so is ng. even cord wood has sky rocketed.
one of the ng suppiers said they are worried about shortages if it is a cold winter

2879390

 

If biodiesel is available in our area, I would have changed to it long time ago. In a mean time, the heating oil prices is back up again. It is getting close to the record high $6/gal.


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Luckily we prebought our heating oil (900 gallons) this Summer while the price was a bit lower.

JeffD

 

The lowest spot rate price we got in our state was ~$4.50/gal at the beginning of September. Our oil company had prebuy price ~10% higher than the spot rate, so even if it was pre-bought around the lowest point, it would have been ~$4.95/gal, and I had to make a 100% payment upfront. I filled our tank about a month later at a $4.888/gal spot rate. With your purchase amount, it would be over $4,000 payment. Luckily, with our usage, I only need to buy another full tank sometime in the middle of winter before the end of the heating season. We use ~400 gals for 6 mo heating season and another 200 gals in 6 mo non-heating season for hot water.

 

Many/most of the areas using heating oil are too far north for a heat pump to be a viable choice for heat.
And the electric infrastructure might not be capable of supporting a mass change to resistive electric heat.
Making a change likely is not as easy as one might think.

 

Propane .... It ain't cheap any more either ..... it's gone up in lockstep like other fossil fuels - based off our multiple 100Lb tanks that we use for emergency purposes.
.

 

Thank the moronic oil investors.
Diesel “days on hand” isn’t much different than it has been for the last 1.5 years.

The difference yet again is that nobody wants to repair or build new refineries so anytime one is down or under repair the entire world ends.

Plenty of oil compared to Trump 2020 when we had 124 active rigs and now have over 700 but we have been loosing refineries for 25 years with a large number shuttering permanently during p45

 

There is still some risk with ventless gas heaters.
Before you buy anything, I suggest that you check the building codes in your area.

 

My prebuy price was $4.59 per gal (including a small charge for downside protection which seems unlikely to be useful this season) near the end of the Summer. Today the spot price is just below $6 per gal

JeffD

 

Cold climate air-source heat pumps can now cover the vast majority of the heating season, much farther north than skeptics will give them credit for. Just be sure to keep some backup heat source for the really cold days, sub-zero to under -15F, depending on how much heat pump capacity one wishes to pay for.

Ground-source heat pumps can go even farther north.

Are any places where electricity is primarily non-fossil sourced, having electric price spikes? I haven't heard anything here.

 

Spoken like a true anarchist.

You are NOT free to do things that have a high likelihood of having an adverse impact on others.......no matter how much you wish that was the case.