RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

So you are OK with the unsubsidised ROI of the numerous wind and solar plants we have built?

The KXL is very political because it's a matter of policy. That's what politics is about: determining the best policy for the Citizenry to pursue, through their voting and advocating.

KXL will COST the USA a lot of money through immediate and long term losses, but the RETURNS will be very small, if there are any at all. The ROI will be very small, or non existent, or even negative. I'm against KXL because the ROI is so very bad.

Some of the COSTS are:

(1) loss of valuable croplands to oil use. In the longterm croplands are worth far more than oil lands: we will never have less demand for crops, but we will have diminishing demand for petrol (which is even evident in the USA in recent years).

(2) loss of valuable freshwater resources in our acquifers, rivers and lakes. Partly due to direct loss in fracking (which requires about 4 gallons of fresh water for every gallon of tarsands oil produced), and partly due to 'accidental' pollution from burst pipelines and burst 'holding' ponds. In fact, such pollution is not accidental at all: the pipeline operators know that because they even plan for such 'accidents' and set aside either money or insurance according to the private knowledge they have of their (poor) past performance and 'accident' rates.

There are over 200 chemicals added to freshwater used in fracking to deal with: facilitating lubrication, increasing pumping rates thru pipes, viscosity control, fungus control, etc.. When government agencies, reporters, and private citizens ask or demand an accounting of what those chemicals and dosages, they claim 'proprietary' privilege over their "Intellectual Property": that revealing that would give their competitors an economic advantage.

All the additives we know of (through independent chemical assay) are volitale petroleum products and cancer causing. The 'produce' water that comes out of fracking is unuseable and poisonous. Every bit of it, and it cannot be fixed or pureified. Usually it is pumped into an empty well deep underground with the hope that it never is seen again. Hope. No assurance.

That water is gone: lost to humanity. Previously, water was a remarkable illustration of the use of a resource in a closed recycle system, as it flowed between uses for nourishment and transportation, never becoming permanently polluted or destroyed because of the mild nature of the pollution. But KXL and fracking change that and result in a permanent loss of useful water every year.

(3) loss of jobs and job income in the general economy. Losses will be forced on the citizenry as those subsidies to preferred industries shift employment subsidies from new, sunrise industries, to old sunset industries that are already operating past the point of diminishing returns.

The Cornell University report on job increases for KXL show just a few hundred to a couple thousand jobs benefit to KXL (using a conventional transparent method, whereas the KXL estimate uses an estimate of several thousand from a mercenary consultant who uses a secret method that they refuse to disclose, claiming it's 'proprietary'.

None of the oil will benefit the USA because it will be too expensive to refine to gasoline standards. None. All the benefits of KXL will go to China and others.

KXL is a bad deal for the USA.

SRT we do NOT get any benefit from this pipeline the oil will go elsewhere, period.

That oil is being brought here by rail car and refined in the US now.

Try this one SRT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORni8uiuslI&feature=youtu.be/?source=socnet_fb_CC_20140509_bo_watch?v=ORni8uiuslI&feature=youtu.be_bo_1&utm_medium=socnet&utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=CC&utm_content=20140509_bo_watch?v=ORni8uiuslI&feature=youtu.be_bo_1

the world evolves

SRT wrote:

tomman58 wrote:
interesting interactive discussion of the Keystone pipeline and it history and effects. The lies and the real reasons.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/04/need-to-know-about-keystone-xl-pipeline/

Keystone Pipeline story

Interesting article. But it has become very politically charged (IMPO). Canada will sell this oil sands product either to us with the pipeline or they will sell it to whoever pays the going price.

SRT we do NOT get any benefit from this pipeline the oil will go elsewhere, period.

tomman58 wrote:
interesting interactive discussion of the Keystone pipeline and it history and effects. The lies and the real reasons.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/04/need-to-know-about-keystone-xl-pipeline/

Keystone Pipeline story

Interesting article. But it has become very politically charged (IMPO). Canada will sell this oil sands product either to us with the pipeline or they will sell it to whoever pays the going price.

interesting interactive discussion of the Keystone pipeline and it history and effects. The lies and the real reasons.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/04/need-to-know-about-keystone-xl-pipeline/

OK, back to the real topic. :B

Our local gasoline prices seem to have "stabilized" at $3.49 or a few cents lower. Diesel prices are still at $3.99. Waiting for the next thing to happen to raise prices. Maybe summer will finally arrive, ya think?

OK folks, back to the topic of RV'ing fuel costs. :)

SRT wrote:

tomman58 wrote:
Dick A. "We are still paying inflated electrical rates due to that fiasco. What it boils down to is all these projects are incentivized by politics, big money, and politically connected financiers. The average consumer is left to pay for the boondoggles of others."

Don't you see the irony of the current drive for alternatives that has the same stumbling blocks of the past? As alternative energy gets its legs (thanks to the correct political climate) and the climate change begins in earnest to affect the farm lands and other climate disasters (thinking of the lack of water here) the need for that nuclear energy is going to be needed just to provide the power needed to convert sea water to fresh for the west.
Sounds far fetched but the actions needed must be today and not when the monster is upon us. Water is becoming more and more a factor and the need to product it greater then ever.
We'll never see the answer but we can begin to realize the problem.

These people touting alternative energy obviously haven't checked other countries that have tried this path. What do you when the wind doesn't blow, or is cloudy for many days? So far it has been an expensive boondoggle for the taxpayers.

I would respectfully disagree. Yes there have been some disappointments and a learning curve but more than a few European countries are well on their way to producing 100 percent of their power from renewable resources by 2050 and a few others by 2060. Not too far away. Energy production and high speed transit are definitely not our fortées.