Thats all well and good IF the refineries weren't working at max capacity already.
In about one month at least one refinery will have to shut down for several weeks to a month so they can do maintenance [cleanup, etc] so they can begin producing FUEL OIL for those schmucks who still heats their homes and businesses with fuel oil.
In the mid-1950s the backward state [to those ENLIGHTED folks on the east coast who look down upon those who grow their food] of north Dakota weened itself from using heating oil and converted to natural gas and propane. My dad worked in that growing industry in north Dakota and was involved in installing conversion kits on farm tractors to change them gas power to propane power.
Maybe those ENLIGHTED folks on the east coast ought to get off their ivory tower and join the 21st century and ween themselves off fuel oil.
maybe you can enlighten us here... i heard earlier this week that some of our refineries in the US are *not* working at capacity. i cant remember which two they mentioned, but one was a red state which was suprising to me...
Refineries never run at 100 percent capacity for safety reasons. If they did and something went wrong I'd sure hate to see the consequences of an over-pressure situation in one of the pipes -- can you say catastrophic explosion, an explosion which could lead to losing the entire refinery?
An example of not running full out is the M-1 Abrams. They installed a govener on the engine because if they ran the engine at true 100 percent they would tear the transmission and driverain apart because the engine puts out far more torque than the transmission could handle. Before installing the govener, they found that the M-1 could run right around 60 mph but they quickly discovered the reason for multiple transmission failures, so they governed the engine to a max speed for the vehicle at 45 mph.
Its mind boggling to even think of a 60 ton vehicle traveling down the road at 60 mph.