I believe 1976 was the last new refinery in the US. There have been technical increases to help gain a bit more capacity, but that has not helped the overall situation due to the high number of 'blends' of specific gasoline being mandated by the feds, state governments and even some localities. Every time you want a 'blend' you are demanding a special run for additives, octane adjustment and other refining procedures to an extremely limited market... which expects the refiners to know just how much of that special blend for that limited population.

We would have much cheaper gasoline just by keeping the blends down to a small, fixed number. That would, however, require some cooperation amongst the states *and* the federal government and will not happen as it is a federalism issue: the Constitution gives no purview to the federal government on energy issues, that is a state concern.

So, the solution?

How about those federal 'superfund' lands designated as unsafe to live in or even toxic going up for rent to refiners willing to demonstrate an effective clean-up system either over time or in a set private fund for dealing with it after the rental time elapses? Those refiners that could utilize safer, less polluting means and offer up ways to clean up land that can't be used for anything else could do so. At the end you wind up with increased capacity and cleaner lands. The refiners would still be liable for all state laws outside of the federally mandated contaminated zone, just as past polluters are now, save for their utilization would be considered a separate issue from the original pollution allowing those impacted by that to go after the original polluters. You wouldn't need an environmental impact statement as this is considered pretty much maximally impacted environment already. Nor the other host of regulations on such things, which increase paperwork and delay start time... for over 30 years at this point.

The oil and gas industry has gotten very good at sub-surface analysis and underground water flow problems. Why not leverage that for the citizenry with an extremely cheap, verging on free land rental?

It won't be cleaned up by the feds any time soon, thats for sure. At least this way we would get some confidence that companies that knew what they were doing would by trying to fix the problem while still yielding refined fuels.

Do the same for energy companies needing land for R&D, new source analysis, storage and transportation of energy goods, and you just might be seeing a different energy outlook in 10-15 years. I can imagine that the fusion folks, once they demonstrate such plants, would love to leverage some of the sites closer to cities for low land rental cost and needing to put money into remediation - which becomes a fixed sunk cost of doing business (overhead).

Mind you, neither political party could do that as it is inventive, minimally intrusive, puts little reliance on the federal government, encourages the energy markets, and looks towards those that can develop new, low cost land remediation techniques for a host of polluted areas. Even though a bill to pass it would be very, very simple....

That is what is called 'energy policy' not 'energy plans'. Too bad we have planners running for office not those willing to set policy and let the people develop the plans.

Just a few weeks ago EPA stalled a Conoco refinery expansion in Illinois that would have been able to process 500,000 barrels per day of heavy sour Canadian crude. The story made the Wall St Journal.