Diesel Fuel
Explore the fuel price and emissions intensity of finished diesel fuels. Ultra-low-sulfur diesel and renewable diesel are the finished diesel fuels presented here. Other types of biomass can be used to make renewable diesel, but these pathways are not shown for simplicity.
See the Diesel Bio-Based Blendstock section for detailed information about blendstocks. Biodiesel can be blended at various levels, up to 20% biodiesel and 80% finished diesel fuel. It is not included on this page because it is a blendstock, not a finished diesel fuel.
For additional background, see the Alternative Fuels Data Center's renewable diesel and biodiesel webpages.
Emissions estimates use the Argonne National Laboratory's Research & Development Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies (R&D GREET) model (Wang et al., 2023). The underlying source for a value in the table can be seen by placing your mouse cursor over that value. The data sources are also cited—with linked references—in the Key Assumptions section next.
Note: These results are highly context dependent and may not represent the optimal values for each fuel pathway. We recommend caution, and review of other sources, before making comparisons between the cases reported in the table above.
Key Assumptions
The data and estimates presented here are based on the following key assumptions:
- Fuel Price: The fuel price (e.g., Lowest Cost, Lowest Emissions) is associated with a single year. Because we do not provide a time-series trajectory, here we show fuel price at a frozen level for all years so we can offer a range of fuel price values. In the levelized cost of driving (LCOD) and emissions charts, this approach clearly distinguishes effects of fuels from those of vehicle technologies because fuels remain constant whereas vehicle technologies change over time.
- Fuel Price Composition: The finished fuel price estimates represent retail equivalent prices, and they include Taxes and Distribution Cost.
- Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel Estimates: The fuel price for ultra-low-sulfur diesel is estimated from the 2020 average retail price of the diesel (on-highway) ultra-low-sulfur (15 ppm and under) category from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) (EIA, 2024). Prices are converted to dollars per gasoline gallon equivalent for light-duty vehicles and dollars per diesel gallon equivalent for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles using the Lower Heating Values from the R&D GREET model (Wang et al., 2023).
- Future Ultra-Low-Sulfur Diesel Estimates: The 2050 ultra-low-sulfur diesel estimates are from EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2023 (EIA, 2023). The 2050 estimate is from the Reference case, and the 2050 high price and low price estimates are from the High Oil Price and Low Oil Price cases, respectively.
- Current Market Renewable Diesel Estimates: For renewable diesel in the current market, the retail price is estimated from the relative price of renewable diesel compared to ultra-low-sulfur diesel in California in 2022 from the Clean Cities Alternative Fuel Price Report (DOE, 2023). High demand and high biomass feedstock prices have caused renewable diesel prices to increase since then, but for base year consistency we present this older value.
- Current and Future Pathways: The pathways for future renewable diesel are not the same as current pathways. The retail price is estimated from the diesel bio-based blendstock wholesale price with taxes and distribution cost added. Prices are converted to dollars per gasoline gallon equivalent for light-duty vehicles and dollars per diesel gallon equivalent for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles using the Lower Heating Values from the R&D GREET model.
- Biogenic Carbon: The biogenic carbon in a biofuel (e.g., renewable diesel) is considered carbon-neutral in the R&D GREET model because the biogenic carbon is assumed to be sourced from the atmosphere during biomass growth. According to the R&D GREET model convention, the biogenic carbon credit is allocated to the well-to-tank phase of the biofuel life cycle, which often results in a negative well-to-tank CO2e emissions value after considering greenhouse gas emissions associated with all upstream activities (e.g., farming, land use change, feedstock transportation, and biomass conversion to biofuel).
- Fuels References: See blendstocks pages for diesel bio-based blendstock for a full description of fuels references, which include (Dutta et al., 2021), (Tao et al., 2017), (Tan et al., 2021), (Wang et al., 2023), (Xie et al., 2011), (Xu et al., 2022), and (Zhu et al., 2020). The use of algae as a feedstock is described in (Atnoorkar et al., 2024) and a preliminary, unoptimized price estimate is included in the supplemental data.
The data downloads include additional details of assumptions and calculations for each metric.
To see additional information, place your mouse cursor over a value in the table.
Definitions
For detailed definitions, see:
References
The following references are specific to this page; for all references in this ATB, see References.