[PLUG-TALK] Diesel more expensive? No, avgas -> high horsepower

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Thu Jan 22 22:15:44 UTC 2015


On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 07:46:02AM -0800, Rich Shepard wrote:
> ... I've been told the reason
> diesel fuel here is kept more expensive is to discourage use because the
> petroleum industry makes much greater profits on gasoline than on diesel.

They earn less profit on something they charge an artificially
higher price for?  Please explain the contradiction. 

A different explanation stems from World War 2.  Among Jimmy
Doolittle's many aviation accomplishments was the deployment of
high octane aviation gasoline, while Doolittle was working as an
executive for Shell Oil Company.  This required new technologies,
new engines, and new supply infrastructure, but it resulted in
lighter, higher performance aviation engines, longer mission
ranges, higher ceilings than Axis aircraft using "regular" fuels.
We developed huge refining capabilities for "super" gasoline,
and it was a big factor in winning the war.

Postwar, what to do with huge high-octane refining facilities and
no giant air force?  And all those aircraft manufacturing plants,
many built and operated by automobile companies during the war? 
Build big gas-guzzling autos to burn all that cheap fuel.  See
the USA in your Chevrolet!

Military truck diesel fuel remained also, which powered the new
road-train tractor-trailer trucks, now delivering consumer goods
rather than supplies and ammunition.  Much war materiel was
manufactured on repurposed and expanded civilian production lines.
After victory, that idle production was combined with television
(repurposed radar tech) to create the post-war consumer society.

If you want to remake society quickly, develop weapons made
in factories that can be retooled for the goods your want a
post-war society to have.  Vast swarms of robot military
vehicles can lead to the post-war self-driving electric car -
or an apocalyptic robot-ruled wasteland.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com



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