In the Far North - Alaska - in my experience - and this may be so
elsewhere Canada maybe - the aviation industry used diesel for the
turbine type aircraft. It is the base fuel, particularly for turboprops.
I used to work the North Slope pre-pipeline days when the oil
explorations was going on. We would fly barrels of "Arctic Diesel" to
the North Slope. There, in the oil exploration camps, the diesel was
used in the diesel catapillar tractors, the diesel generators, heating
fuel, and I can't tell you how many times I have climbed up on top of a
Skyvan (a short field, high performance freight aircraft built by Short
Brothers out of Belfast Ireland - they were all over Alaska at one
time,) and use an  old diaphragm  hand pump to pump Arctic Diesel into
the tanks to fly home on. In the summertime, even in Alaska,  the blends
would change and we would fuel up with regular jet fuel when we were in
town leaving the diesel for other uses, Biggest problem we had with
using the diesel was foaming. but it worked. There were agents to add to
reduce the foaming.

With most fuels in Alaska coming from the Tesoro cracking plant down on
the Kenai Peninsula next to the Cook Inlet oil fields, I expect it put a
lot of pressure on the cracking plant for the diesel.

Regards,

John Rodgers
88 GL Driver.

Jim Felder wrote:

> Don't forget that China is getting big into agribusiness and is an
> exporter of farm goods now. Of course all that runs on diesel, as it
> does in India, to name two growing, diesel-based economies. And with
> snow just off the ground in parts of the US, a cold spring also pits
> heating oil against diesel supplies.
>
> Jim
>
> On Apr 28, 2005, at 9:48 AM, Brent Berisford wrote:
>
>> The bottom line.
>>    Diesel in the past has always been the better value. Trucking firms
>> and train better bang for the buck. The largest problem with diesel
>> and cost at the moment is that the war machine runs on diesel not
>> gasoline.We have created a demand by supporting the war in the middle
>> east. Just my 2 cents. The demand for diesel high mileage cars also
>> proves that diesel is the smarter choice at least in my local commuter
>> market.
>> Brent
>>
>
>