I bet they don’t even have a wife

One of the big determining factors right now in fuel pricing, at least in the US, is the capacity and operating costs of refineries.

Apparently there’s not likely to be any more refineries built in the US due to the belief that demand will fall with electrification and because of environmental and biofuel policies. So we’re stuck with a couple new ones and a bunch that are 50+ years old.

So what’s likely to happen is, if demand falls the price of gas/diesel will initially fall. If it falls too much it will become unprofitable for the remaining refineries to stay in business. They’ll start shutting down, which will limit production capacity, causing the price of fuel to spike back up.

At that point it’s basically a race to the bottom. As it becomes unprofitable more and more companies pull out of the refining industry until you’re basically left with a few boutique refiners.

Somewhere in the middle of that the government could remove oil subsidies, adding an estimated dollar per gallon onto the price of fuel in the US. Refineries could also fail due to age, again causing a spike in prices.

So, basically short term we can see prices drop. Long term they’re likely to keep rising.

Now this assumes the trend of electrification and current policies. If the states and federal government suddenly said, “no more electrification, no more emissions regulations, and no more restrictions on refineries,” it could change the dynamic.

I keep a hot plate and a pot in my Lightning. I’ve heated up water and soup and such many times.

Lightning is only rated to 150kw charging and the most I’ve ever seen mine take is 180kw for a brief second, so you’re fine at a 150kw.

Now if it was only a 50kw open I might be a bit more annoyed but hey…first come, first served.

Natural gas is relatively clean burning, as compared to coal and oil, but it still outputs greater co2 than other sources like solar, wind, nuclear, etc. If we’re going to spend the money to clean up our grid and meet future power demands, it’s better to start now at the source than try to bandaid it with generators.

That being said, there are companies that are doing generator based Level 3 chargers. There’s even self-contained units you can drop right in remote areas. Right now they go for around $250,000 for a 2-port 62 kw output setup, so it’s still not cheap.