According to the Oil & Gas Journal, PBF (owner of Torrance Refinery and another HF unit near New Orleans) is collaborating with Honeywell Spending $650 million plus updating a refinery in Louisiana that also has an alkylation unit using HF.
It looks like they don’t have any problem spending money (twice the estimated costs of converting an alkylation unit from HF) and looks like they have no problem using technologies by Honeywell UPO (The manufacturer of the leading alternative to HF).
So the arguments that there are no alternatives or that they are “prohibitively expensive” Seem not to hold water.
Torrance Refinery Action Alliance 