Special gas blends are mandated in California. And it is not just blend because different cities have different rules.
No refinery outside of California makes those blends.
Phillips 66 is closing their California refinery.
On October 16, 2024, the refiner Phillips 66 announced that it will cease operations at its Los Angeles-area refinery in the fourth quarter of 2025. This announcement came a few days after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new law placing additional regulations on refineries.
Indeed making fossil fuels more costly is one way to encourage use of green alternatives. Raising standards for fuels is one way. Another is making refineries more costly to operate. Requiring major new investment to meet requirements.
Imagine the day when you may have to drive 50 miles to find a gas station with $15/gal gasoline. Green gasoline, anyone?
It’ll be like ethanol today … waste 10% of the energy producing it AND it provides 10% less energy when burned. Driving around to find the right gasoline will burn some percentage of the gasoline you get … each time!
Yet another reason why electricity is the better choice of fuel for most transportation applications. I don’t have to drive anywhere to fill up, I just plug it in while parked in my driveway. Heck, today I was at the hospital for an appointment and I plugged in over there in the parking lot. After all, I had to park anyway so may as well charge while the car is just sitting there. They have a total of 48 chargers at this point, seems like every year they add a few more.
I think we recognize that in the future everyone who can will use battery electrics (after hybrids). The question is what do you do when battery electrics don’t fit your situation. Cellulosic ethanol is likely more economical than hydrogen and relatively easy to handle. Hydrogen has quite a few distribution and storage issues yet to be resolved. Whole new infrastructure in every aspect.
Meanwhile the leading temp supplier of hydrogen, Air Products is now being challenged by a leading stock holder to discontinue its green hydrogen program.
California instituted different refining techniques because of the “car culture” and smog and other toxic pollutants that resulted from it. Presumably if enough automobiles stop using gasoline altogether they could retrench to a less costly level of regulation and gas prices could drop somewhat.
Of course it’s possible they will go the other way and make it even more difficult to use gas, once “electricity” and the ability to charge becomes ubiquitous.
I charge in the garage, and no, no dangers there. Less than happens with people succumbing to carbon monoxide because they “warm up” their ICE cars in the garage, or a small house fire getting out of control because of the gas tank in the garage, or 100 other things.
And there are already cities putting charging at the sidewalk, coming up into posts not unlike parking meters with low-voltage (110v) or street lights charging for overnight. Not really hard to do, you can even charge for it, just as they do for parking, if you really want to. This already exists in LA, Kansas City, Charlotte, NYC, Detroit, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Miami, Jacksonville, Denver, Austin, Fresno, San Diego, Washington DC, Baltimore, Honolulu, and elsewhere.
There are two reasons that this is very unlikely to happen. One, because regulation, once in place, is rarely ever removed. And two, because it is politically impossible. Any politician that attempts to remove these regulations will be tarred and feathered as “supporting the destruction of earth” and will find themselves out of CA office in short order.
I don’t know. Persistent $10 per gallon gas prices (to pick a number) would have a tendency to concentrate the mind of a lot of voters. CA gas has been more expensive than the national average for a long time…but only to a point. If something like the scenario describe upthread caused CA gas prices to increase dramatically compared to the national average? That’s going to change the politics of the issue.
Huh? I charge in my home garage. In the garage. So do MANY people in my neighborhood. And those I know at work. I’m not sure what scare tactic misinformation you are getting.
I can guess what will happen in that scenario. First, they will NOT rescind the regulations. Second, they will add “temporary” measures to allow the importing of some unclean gasoline into CA. Third, the way those permits will be distributed will, as usual, depend on contributions (all sorts of “contributions”, campaign contributions, promises of board seats after retiring from politics, cushy jobs after leaving office, etc). Fourth, just for show, anyone who imports the dirty gasoline will contribute to some sort of clean air fund that won’t really clan the air but will instead provide nice patronage jobs for “friends” in the business.
I don’t think that would work. As I noted upthread, if people in California are paying $10 per gallon for gas, while people in the rest of the country are paying $3, a lot of voters in California are going to be really angry. And they’re going to stay angry as long as their gas prices are 3x everyone else’s.
Temporary imports of different formulated gasoline, limited as perks to only a handful of political patrons who have to compensate for the privilege, subject to extra charges to a clean air fund, doesn’t sound like it would actually bring down the price of gas. Either the volume of imports have to be large enough and permanent enough (and subject to small enough ‘extra’ charges) to get the price back down to a modest difference - which is a de facto repeal of the regulations - or the voters will remain angry.
That’s not what I meant! I meant that the guy that owns 400 stations across CA makes a contribution of some sort and then gets a permit to import 30 million gallons a month of dirty gasoline. The issue is that supply of specially formulated gasoline may go down by 8%, that will reduce supply, and that causes prices to increase. Then when they allow the 30 million gallons to enter each month, it will increase the supply and the prices will return to normal (there will still be the usual higher CA taxes, and the usual special regulations regarding transporting liquid fuels, etc that also cause higher prices).
But…isn’t that the same as de facto repealing the regulations?
IOW, the regulations require all (or nearly all) the gasoline sold in CA to be “clean.” Which causes the price of gasoline to rise very much higher than the rest of the country (like, much much more than it is today). Which makes a lot of the voters very angry. Which leads the regulators to allow enough “dirty” gasoline to be sold in the state to bring the prices back down to just modestly above the rest of the country. Which in essence undoes the regulations that required that gasoline sold in the state be clean.
Kind of. But it leaves vast power in the politicians hands. They can squeeze the importer, they can lower the amount to 15 million gallons, they can pause imports for some sort of “study”, they can do all sorts of things once the regulation is on the books.
What might be more likely to happen is that some enterprising business outside the USA will formulate CA-style gasoline and ship it over for a tidy profit. It likely won’t be other US states (but it could potentially be) because the regulation on refineries make it pretty much infeasible.
IICR, what makes it infeasible is the lack of pipelines to California. The state already imports oil by ship (60% foreign) and then refines it; when refineries are down for maintenance (or have left the state) gasoline is imported, which is more expensive.