Long time lurker unlurking because unlike usual I think I can add some intelligent comment to this question.
Mike is right on the money with emphasis on refining capacity in the medium to long term. Given the relatively wide geographical distribution and distribution of crude oil production in the US I think crude won't be as rare as the books make out. If you google oil and gas divestiture there will be no end of opportunities to spend anything from a few thousand to a few billion dollars to own anything from a prospect through small producing assets to large development projects.
How readily a refinery can be modified to produce more diesel (and jet fuel which are relatively similar) will depend on the crude that feeds it and how complex the refinery is to start with. An oil refinery will generally produce from gaseous hydrocarbons through gasolene (which is relatively light) then diesel/jet/kerosene (heavier) fuel oil (very heavy) to coke/bitumen (solid hydrocarbons). I would suggest that altering the configuration post TDM might be biting off more than is worth chewing.
It's also interesting that given low gas prices in the US some companies are looking at reconfiguring large long range trucks to run on gas (westport innovations for example). Whether this technology would have existed in t2k I'm not sure but it shows that all the refinery's products could find a use.
I've also been really surprised at the availability of small scale oil refineries on ali baba. I suspect they are probably quite inefficient and not so great environmentally but I think in a t2k type scenario that these sorts of facilities could either be fabricated or alternatively built using salvage from damaged refineries. There are a number of references to illegal refineries in chechnya which are probably the sorts of things that would pop up post tdm.
I know its going to rub some folks the wrong way but I don't think GDW got the fuel thing quite right. The constraints are at the refinery (especially in CONUS) and I suspect that improvisation and desperation would lead to local solutions. There would be folks all over texas, louisiana, oklahoma, california etc who I reckon could knock up a little refinery to get feed from a few local wells and I think there would be national guard or local law enforcement (or even regulars) who would prioritise this for resources, personnel and security
Last point -shale is obviously a huge thing in the real world but probably would have been quite an experimental technology 20 years ago.
Cheers,
Nick
|