I read that in either Car and Driver or Road and Track magazine when I was at the doctors office one day a year or two ago. The article was talking about the law passed to get mileage up. It talked about Germany's diesel push. Right now, so much gasoline, diesel, kerosene, fuel oil, and other oils are refined out of a barrel. Diesel, kerosene, and fuel oil are almost the same. Diesel is considered K2 while kerosene and fuel oil are K1 oils. Gasoline is broken down further than the heavier oils. They said by not breaking it down as far they can make more diesel per gallon of crude than gasoline.
However because of the recent law to get mileage up, even kerosene has to be 10% vegetable oil like gasoline has to be 10% ethynol. Both are making our food cost rise. Only 10% of corn is used for human consumption, while 90% is used as feed stock for cattle, hogs, and chickens. By diverting corn to make ethynol, it directly causes the animals we eat to go up in price, also affects eggs, milk, cheese costs. Soybean oil is used to blend with diesel (10%) right now. Of course soy is used in a lot of things, like oils, margerine, soy protein, dog and cat food, etc.
Like I said, we do not need to be burning our food for fuel. We have an 800 year supply of coal and we could make synthetic diesel fuel from coal. We have a 200 year supply of oil that is on government lands that are off limits to drilling. We have stopped drilling offshore since the BP spill. We have oil and natural gas in Alaska that we aren't allowed to get to. We can't even install a natural gas pipeline parallel to the Alaska highway. After installation the animals aren't going to know there is a gas pipeline under them, the highway is more dangerous to them.
Alternative fuels are ok IF we had more farmland available to make it. Then there is the issue of droughts, floods, bad weather. Hydrogen is made from natural gas, not water, since it is much cheaper to make it from natural gas. So why not just used the natural gas? Electric vehiles are just not there yet, expensive batteries, excessive charge time. If all vehicles were electric, we would need about 20% more electrical production capacity. Flywheel hybrids can be made for less than the lithium batteries, but only increase mileage about 20% vs 30% for battery hybrids. However it is a cheaper incremental start. Diesels are also a cheaper step up in mileage.
Imported oil is half our trade deficit. If we can produce our own fuel, by more drilling, pipeline construction, or making synthetic diesel from coal we could cut half that trade deficit and put between 1-2 million people to work. By streamlining government regulations on small business, and reducing their taxes we can put between 2-4 million back to work. Same with large manufacturers, another several million. Believe me, regulations have doubled in the gas industry in the last 4 years. I have to spend 20-30% of my time just doing government required paperwork. That is stupid. That is what lawsuits were for, if someone screwed up doing their business. Regulations weren't required, just common sense.
