Axios: Can’t quit diesel

🚛 Can’t quit diesel
 
Illustration of a tractor and a field of crops from above in the form of an upward trending line chart
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images
 
The quickest and cheapest response to historically high diesel prices is also the simplest: Use less of it.

Why it matters: That’s easier said than done. Diesel is so entrenched in farming, trucking and other industries that even soaring prices aren’t enough — at least not yet — to prompt a wholesale shift to alternatives like electric semi-trucks and manure-powered tractors, Axios’ national energy correspondent Amy Harder reports.

🛢️ Catch up quick: Diesel averages $6.32 a gallon today, up 74% from a year ago, according to AAA.

Regular gasoline averages $4.29, up 39%.

The big picture: Gasoline gets the attention, but diesel is the workhorse of the American economy.

It powers grocery trucks, tractors, freight trains, construction equipment, hospital backup generators and even school buses

🍎 The price spike is hitting farmers during the fall harvest.

“Farmers buy diesel by the truckload,” says Curt Blades, senior vice president at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. “So we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in diesel, and when it goes up the way it has spiked, that’s the difference between profit and loss in a year.

“President Trump announced $8 billion in one-time aid for farmers at a campaign rally in Kansas on Monday, where Republicans face a competitive Senate race.

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About michelleclarke2015

Life event that changes all: Horse riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993, a fractured skull et al including bipolar anxiety, chronic fatigue …. co-morbidities (Nietzche 'He who has the reason why can deal with any how' details my health history from 1993 to date). 17th 2017 August operation for breast cancer (no indications just an appointment came from BreastCheck through the Post). Trinity College Dublin Business Economics and Social Studies (but no degree) 1997-2003; UCD 1997/1998 night classes) essays, projects, writings. Trinity Horizon Programme 1997/98 (Centre for Women Studies Trinity College Dublin/St. Patrick's Foundation (Professor McKeon) EU Horizon funded: research study of 15 women (I was one of this group and it became the cornerstone of my journey to now 2017) over 9 mth period diagnosed with depression and their reintegration into society, with special emphasis on work, arts, further education; Notes from time at Trinity Horizon Project 1997/98; Articles written for Irishhealth.com 2003/2004; St Patricks Foundation monthly lecture notes for a specific period in time; Selection of Poetry including poems written by people I know; Quotations 1998-2017; other writings mainly with theme of social justice under the heading Citizen Journalism Ireland. Letters written to friends about life in Zimbabwe; Family history including Michael Comyn KC, my grandfather, my grandmother's family, the O'Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forsters; Moral wrong: An acrimonious divorce but the real injustice was the Catholic Church granting an annulment – you can read it and make your own judgment, I have mine. Topics I have written about include annual Brain Awareness week, Mashonaland Irish Associataion in Zimbabwe, Suicide (a life sentence to those left behind); Nostalgia: Tara Hill, Co. Meath.
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