not sure where to post this question, so i'll start here.
can anyone confirm or deny industry rumore that gasoline (not deisel) prices will at least double in the next couple of years because the gas companies will be removing sulpher from the fuel?

 

No, it'll be under $1 per gallon because we'll OWN the oil from Iraq.

 

It should be under a $1 already, so I wouldn't count on the Iraq situation helping.
Although I can remember paying under $.90 about 11 years ago. We'll find out soon enough!
SADDAM

 

i expect the oil prices to drope after the war w/ iraq begins. i dont think that once we beat iraq that the oil will be the u.s.'s. although i do beleive that we should take over the oil feilds to help pay fer the war.

 

AGREED! Then we ought to get a tax refund, eh! I'm dreaming now.

 

I already anwered your question in this thread

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...threadid=98860

I guess you didn't like my answer.
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I'm not sure where you heard that rumour, but it is FALSE.

There are only trace amounts of sulfur in gasoline, due both to its molecular structure and the refining process. The technology exists to completely remove it, but at the current time it doesn't make sense economically. The price to remove the last 0.1% sulfur content IMHO, doesn't justify the cost. Even at that, it would not double the cost of gasoline.

It was a bigger deal with diesel fuel in years past, because, due to the molecular structure of diesel fuel, there was a greater percentage of sulfur atoms present. The industry moved rather quickly to elimate this sulfur and produce the current low sulfur diesel fuel.

The sulfur that is the main source of acid rain is created for the most part by the burning of coal in electricity generation, thus the move to natural gas generation (sulfur free). It is also produced by the iron smelting industry, and others.

Most urban smog is unburnt hydrocarbon and NOx molecules. A properly working catalytic converter converts most of these molecules into H20 and CO2.
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Waxy

 

clean fuel is not the issue right now.
gas is gonna hit 2 bucks at least due to industry manipulation, a la '74. remember that?
oil companies have allowed crude reserves to fall to the lowest point in 27 years, because they don't want to pay the currently high price per bbl of crude, not because of any supply issues. this is not a competitive industry. i don't have any history on the new sec chairman yet, but i'm pretty sure he is oil/energy friendly.i hate being the ball in a ping pong game, costs me $70.00 to fill up my work van................i'm starting to rant

 

Waxy is correct about sulfur in fuel. It will cost around 3 times as much to remove the last percentage point of sulfur, can you say point of diminishing return?

Although the sulfur emissions react with water to form sulfuric acid, which causes wicked acid rain, deisel engines are not even a serious slice of the pie when you look at what actually emits sulfur. Coal fired power plants are the sole inspiration for acid rain worldwide. Over half of our contry's electricity is generated by coal fired plants, which also seriously contribute to health problems in the immediate vicinity of the plants. This is going to continue until our coal reserves in the mountains of West Va. and other parts of the US become uneconomical to extract, besides, it would crush the economy of many of these coal mining towns. As soon as the world gets over it's unbalanced and unprovoked fear of nuclear energy, then we'll be able to cut our power costs down to fractions, and virtually eliminate pollution. Unfortunately, France is actually decades ahead of us in this area. California cost the country billions of dollars last summer in its energy battle, yet they would still rather be in the dark than live with nuclear energy. I will personally attest to the fascinating advances in the treatment of nuclear waste, mostly via the use of plasma torches, and once they perfect the technology, they'll not only be able to turn radiologically hazardous waste into harmless rock, they'll even be able to turn our municipal solid waste into an aggregate-like building material, instead of burning it and burying the remains in a landfill. I'm not talking about star-trec laser beams either, this technology is being put to work right now in our world today, right now only Japan has adopted these systems to date, but it's making its way to the United States. When we get tired of gasoline as our weapon of choice, the major oil companies will begin developing methanol as a direct replacement for gasoline as our primary fuel, they have known how to do this for decades, but as of now, it's still more economical to drill for petrol. Technology and science is growing every bit as fast as our economy, you just have to have a little faith in that.

 

AMEN TorqueKing

The simple fact is that vehicle emissions form a very insignificant part of the global air pollution problem.

The number one contributor to the problem is the air line industry, ever heard of emissions regulations for air planes?

Last I heard, with advances in scrubber technology, coal fired power generation had dropped to #2 overall, but is still the largest contributor to acid rain.

The third largest contributor is the military. Tanks, aircraft carriers and F-16s are far from fuel efficient, low emissions vehicles.

That's why I find things like controlling snowmobile and dirt bike emissions (especially 2 strokes) so incredibly assinine. All the snowmobiles in North America don't contribute as much to pollution annually as a days worth of flights in and out of Laguardia or JFK. They make a real easy target though.


Nuclear power is the future. Even now, with current reactor technology, nuclear energy could power the US at zero emissions, while producing an amount of radioactive waste that wouldn't even fill your living room. And as TorqueKing said, the technolgy to deal with this waste is rapidly advancing. Unfortunately the American/Canadian public has been brainwashed into viewing nuclear energy as evil and deadly. More people die every year of respiratory illnesses brought on by air pollution than have ever died in nuclear related accidents. Overall, (barring the Russian disaster) the nuclear industry has a nearly flawless safety record that far exceeds that of any other energy producing industry.

I myself don't see methanol as ever being a feasible answer. It is produced at an energy deficit. In other words, more energy is required to be put in to growing the organic base and processing it than can be derived from the final product. It is far from being the environmentally friendly alternative that it is so often touted as.

Waxy

 

man i am starting to hate gas . haha but I have to have it......I have no ideal about gas going up...But I dunno if we will get iraq's gas you never know but hell the gov won;t even use our own gas we got here in the states

 

This is a little off subject, but I agree that nuclear power is very important. I look at it this way, if they can use nuclear energy to power submarines and don't have any problems, why would a power plant be so bad. You would just have to be very careful and make sure nobody screws up. I think it is sort of funny though how the enviromentalists are pushing for electric cars and the such so much. Most of our country's electricity comes from coal burning power plants, which are a major source of pollution. Also, they are against building hydroelectric dams because we can't chance hurting something, and we can't build nuclear plants because they are just down right bad if you ask them. As for the coal plants, they are pushing now to try and build a new railroad through here so that they can haul coal from Wyoming back east to the coal plants because it is a lower sulfer coal. The way it looks, if they get it to go through it'd still be 10 years probably before it was up and going. As for the gas prices, I think they'll come back down again. The price seems to always go up around this time of the year. Keeping track of what our Fuel business has sold the last three years, last year was the lowest average price for gas since 2000 when I started keeping books on the computer. 2000 was the highest, then 2001, and 2002 was lowest. I think it was about a 6 cent drop since 2000. Ok, I might get in a little trouble here, but the price of a pick-up has doubled in 10 years, and gas is only maybe a quarter cent higher. It just gets me that people don't mind paying $30,000 plus for a vehicle then complain about having to pay to fill it with gas. The came goes with food. We're still getting about the same price for producing it as we did 30 years ago. I know, food and gas are two neccessities that we need to get by, and that's the first thing people complain about when the price goes up. I think I'd be willing to pay more for things I need than things I don't need, like a entertainment items. Just my thoughts and opinions.