Posted by Matthew J.A. Nousak Most gasoline is stored by refiners in above-ground storage tanks - tanks that are subject to greater variation in temperature due to direct exposure to the elements. Thus, oil companies compensate at the wholesale level where those effects are the greatest. Gasoline stored at your local gas station or convenience store, however, is stored underground - usually at a depth where the influence of the elements is significantly mitigated. The average mean soil temperature at a depth of 1.6 meters (= 63 inches) is a bit below 60 Fahrenheit and that depth is at about the top of most underground storage tanks. (Source: my own experience in designing underground storage tanks, although the American Petroleum Institute Web site is also instructive, as would be a review of Underwriter's Laboratory Standard UL 58 for Underground Storage Tanks.) While the temperature of the soil varies throughout the year, at the depth that most gas tanks are embedded in the earth, the fluid temperature is relatively constant - and certainly does not approach 90 degrees. Kucinich is grandstanding on this one, and appealing to the worst instincts and suspicions of a frustrated gas-buying public. As a commuter who gets hammered by this issue more so than most (I commute 100 miles round trip a day), I'd love to rage, rage, rage at the profiteering, scum-sucking oil industry elite, too. But in this case, the oil industry already has it substantially correct. Mr. Kucinich is simply blowing more hot air at the issue - and ignoring the science that doesn't support his position.
on June 17, 2007, 4:19 pm
24.165.167.105
While the basic physics of fluids U.S. Rep. Den nis Kucinich cites concerning the volume of gasoline purchased by consumers is correct, his argument ignores the physics of soil that also influence that volume ("Kucinich is hot over loss at pump," June 9)
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