Diesel Fuel

Farm & Home Oil received a $5.1-million Defense Logistics Agency contract for gasoline diesel fuel and burner oils.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration moved to control the injection of millions of gallons of diesel deep underground during hydraulic fracturing, the controversial oil and gas development technique that avoided oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency because of a loophole created under President George W. Bush. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, hydraulic fracturing got an exemption from EPA regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act because of what many have called the Halliburton Loophole.

In a step toward eliminating smoke-belching trucks and transit buses from the road, Detroit Diesel Corp. has built the first methanol-powered engine for heavy duty vehicles that meet new, tougher California emission standards, the company said Friday.

The pain at the pump can be felt in China too. The government on Tuesday raised retail prices for gasoline and diesel fuel for the second time in less than six weeks in an attempt to keep pace with soaring crude oil prices. Chinese motorists are now paying $4.43 a gallon for 90-octane fuel — nearly equal to the $4.45-a-gallon average for mid-grade fuel in California, according to AAA. In contrast with the U.S., retail pump prices in China are set by central authorities, in part to maintain social stability.

Six weeks ahead of the rest of the nation, California will roll out a new kind of diesel fuel today that promises to be easier on the environment but may be harder on trucking company profits. Those higher costs could end up squeezing consumers who buy the products carried by truck or drive diesel-powered cars. The cleaner fuel, called ultra-low sulfur diesel, is nearly free of sulfur, a substance that corrodes an engine's pollution-control equipment.

Cleanup crews are working to keep a diesel spill from seeping into a pristine Northern California waterway about 10 miles south of the Oregon border. Officials with the Department of Fish and Game said Sunday that workers mopping up about 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel that spilled from a tanker truck last week had found fuel in a trench about 50 feet from the Smith River. The Smith is the last major undammed river in California and a favorite of anglers for its stocks of salmon and steelhead.

A train derailed in Cypress on Friday evening, causing a potential fire hazard, Orange County Fire authorities said. Shortly before 5 p.m., the four-car Union Pacific train carrying asphalt derailed near Orange and Juanita avenues. More than 200 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from its tanks, Orange County Fire Capt. Scott Brown said. The cause of the incident, which injured no one, is under investigation, Brown said.

A tractor-trailer rig overturned on the Hollywood Freeway just east of downtown Los Angeles early Friday, spilling 150 gallons of diesel fuel and forcing the closure of northbound lanes. Traffic in the area was still being detoured off the freeway at Macy Street more than eight hours after the accident, frustrating commuters heading into downtown via the Santa Ana, Pomona and Long Beach freeways.

Diesel fuel leaking from a truck forced the closure of a 10-mile stretch of the Golden State Freeway in Los Angeles and Burbank for more than three hours Sunday, authorities said. The double-tanker truck was headed south on the freeway near Hollywood Way in Burbank about 4:30 a.m. when the vehicle struck an unknown object, CHP Officer Andy Gutierrez said. The object apparently punctured a tank supplying fuel to the truck.

Two freight trains collided Sunday at an intersection, dumping thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and causing $1 million in damage, authorities said. Two crew members suffered minor injuries. Both were treated at a hospital and released. The wreck dumped 8,000 gallons of fuel in this small town about 70 miles south of Indianapolis. Cleanup was expected to be completed Monday morning, CSX spokesman Robert Gold said. The collision also ignited a fire in one of the train's engines.

There was a time when people only said "fracking" to avoid using a more objectionable word. Now it can be found in national headlines, and if it's no longer a curse word, it is proving to be a serious new environmental curse. Fracking is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a rapidly growing method for extracting oil and natural gas that may (or may not) have deadly consequences. Energy companies inject a mixture of water, sand and assorted chemicals — often including diesel fuel — at high pressure into underground wells, cracking open rock formations that would otherwise trap the valuable fossil fuels.

Commercial Harbor Craft Regulation What harbor craft owners need to do to comply: • Commercial harbor craft must have a non-resettable hour meter on each engine. • Diesel engines on commercial harbor craft must be fueled with California Air Resource Board-approved diesel fuel with a sulfur content less than or equal to 15 parts per million or an alternative diesel fuel such as biodiesel. • Engines on new commercial harbor craft vessels must meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's marine engine emission standards.

Imagine trying to market a product that most Americans regard as old and obsolete, that is remembered -- if at all -- as low-class and low-tech, noisy and noisome, and whose most notable advocates are truck drivers with prominent trouser cleavage. CB radio? An excellent guess, but no. Diesel, the oilier cousin of gasoline, dominates the European auto market, where fuel prices hover around $7 a gallon. Diesel is about 25% to 40% more fuel-efficient than gasoline, with commensurate per-mile reductions in carbon.

Eight major airlines have agreed to use renewable synthetic diesel fuel for their ground service equipment at Los Angeles International Airport starting in 2012. Rentech Inc. of Los Angeles will sell as much as 1.5 million gallons each year of its RenDiesel fuel to Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, UPS Airlines and US Airways. The airlines are all members of the Air Transport Assn. of America Inc., which announced the deal Tuesday along with Rentech.

As gasoline prices drift and oil falters, the diesel fuel that dominates agriculture, rail transport, heavy construction and road hauling is cheaper than it has been in more than four years, the Energy Department said Monday. Though that sounds like good news, diesel's decline is another sign of the depths of the global economy's funk.

Two decades ago, Rosa Vielmas, young and hopeful, moved to Riverside County for cleaner air. Goodbye to smoggy East Los Angeles. Hello to Mira Loma, an unincorporated speck of a village, and a one-story stucco bungalow with a yard. "We could see the stars," she recalled. But that was before Mira Loma became one of Southern California's "diesel death zones," as activists call the truck-choked freeways and distribution hubs that fan out from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Diesel fuel from a dredge that sank in the St. Marys River channel on the Florida-Georgia border is threatening sensitive marshes and disrupting Navy traffic, federal officials said. The channel remained closed, blocking both commercial traffic from the Port of Fernandina in Florida and military traffic from Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, said Coast Guard Cmdr. Henry Rohrs in Jacksonville, Fla.

Despite solid opposition from oil companies, truckers and agricultural interests, the state Air Resources Board late Thursday directed California refineries to produce cleaner-burning diesel fuel for sale throughout California by Oct. 1, 1993.

Two decades ago, Rosa Vielmas, young and hopeful, moved to Riverside County for cleaner air. Goodbye to smoggy East Los Angeles. Hello to Mira Loma, an unincorporated speck of a village, and a one-story stucco bungalow with a yard. "We could see the stars," she recalled. But that was before Mira Loma became one of Southern California's "diesel death zones," as activists call the truck-choked freeways and distribution hubs that fan out from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Re "Big Oil isn't the big problem," Opinion, June 24 Jacob Heilbrunn correctly points out that the very simple answer is to become less dependent on oil, period. We had an opportunity in the 1970s but blew it. At that time, we set a national speed limit of 55 miles per hour, an idea about which I have heard nothing this time. I experimented recently by, whenever possible, maintaining the speed limit in driving my minivan and avoiding fast starts and stops. Lo and behold, I increased my average from 16 to more than 19 mpg, which is significant and translates to substantial savings.