Nevada committee looking at solutions to lower gas prices

Gas prices continue to rise due to the war with Iran.

There doesn’t seem to be any solutions that Nevadans could see immediately to deal with the geopolitical issues with crude oil prices spiking from the conflict.

2 News Nevada covered the gas spikes and ways you can save on gas a few weeks ago.

Nevada’s supply is reliant on other states, 88 percent just from California.

California just saw a refinery close in October, and another Bay Area refinery is set to close in April, and the Golden State is setting its sights on zero carbon emissions by 2045.

"California is very ambitious in its climate change goals. Certainly, dealing with climate change is meritorious where it gets into trouble when aspirational goals ignore technical realities," said Catherine Reheis-Boyd, Vice Chair, Nevada Fuel Resiliency Committee.

The committee was started late last year by Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo under the Department of Homeland Security. They’re currently studying solutions that are set to be presented in September, both short-term and long-term.

They’ve met twice in January and in March.

Some of the short-term ideas include trucking in fuel from other parts of the United States and increasing fuel storage with tanks and salt caverns.

Salt caverns are already built, one is in Utah, called the Sawtooth Caverns.

“Caverns are better storage opportunities because you can keep gasoline, diesel, jet fuel for years without it impacting the quality of the fuel tanks,” Reheis-Boyd said.

The vice chair says tanks are still good to use, but the life span of fuel is not as long, due to how much oxygen gets into a tank.

Increasing capacity also helps the state in moments of disaster.

"Not only gas prices but in an emergency, regardless of what we're doing in the long term to protect Nevadans in an emergency, are we going to be ready," Reheis Boyd said.

Some of the long-term solutions are building more pipelines, one proposal would be a HF Sinclair Inc. pipeline from Salt Lake City, Utah into Reno.

However, the soonest those pipelines would be done is 2028, 2029.

The committee is also toying with the idea of Nevada getting its own refinery, but costs would be expensive and the state lacks the infrastructure.

"It still could happen if you were able to get crude oil here by some efficient manner, it wouldn't be simply trucking it here,” Reheis-Boyd said. “It would have to be a manner that we could have enough crude oil on site to actually make gasoline, diesel and jet fuel and then get to where it needs to go in an infrastructure that doesn't necessarily exist."

The committee is looking everywhere and anywhere for solutions.

“We will be looking at what other diversification of our of our fuel sources can we have, whether that's renewable diesel, renewable natural gas, whether it's sustainable aviation fuel, whether it's electric vehicle infrastructure," Reheis-Boyd said.

With the upcoming election, there’s a chance Lombardo is not the Governor when 2027 rolls through, which doesn’t guarantee what will happen to this committee if it does.

"I don't know about what that means if he is not governor,” Reheis-Boyd said. “And I like I said, I don't want to even think about that possibility."

The committee says more details on its study will be available at future meetings.