RV Fuel Issues & Prices - Post 'Em Here!

[Dick_A]

All other fuel threads will be automatically deleted. 🙂

[eltejano1]

content deleted

[H_1]

Of course it's possible to cut back. It just isn't always convenient, and it may take some creative thinking.

I've always made an effort to be where I could walk or bike to work. It hasn't always been convenient, and I've turned down some opportunities, but I never felt comfortable having to depend on a car. If my job went away and the next best one I could find was 50 miles away, if I had to, I'd rent a room until we could sort things out. Not convenient, but possible.

I kind of like the idea of looking at how people live where dino has always been pricey. They don't seem to have collapsed.

One of the things I've noticed over the years of riding to work is that many people look sour while driving around town - this is especially true for luxury and near-luxury marques for some reason. Maybe there's a better way.

[eltejano1]

I read all that, Steven. Thanks.

Despite the high capital investment, it still remains, though, the only really viable option. I didn't know that uranium deposits are in danger of depletion. And I didn't know there were that many negatives. I thought it was just fear generated by Chernoble(sp?) and 3 Mile Island.

What worries me most, here in the US, is that we'll get caught with our pants down if the oil supply suddenly becomes unavailable or too pricey to buy. If we wait for nuclear to be more competitive before we even start to build more plants - which your source says takes at least 8 years - we could get into a real bind - an economic and humanitarian disaster!

Do you think that, if our supplies were suddenly cut-off in several regions all at once - say Venezuela, the Middle East and Nigeria - do you think we would use our military to seize their oilfields? I wonder. We DO have the muscle to do it, but I doubt if we have the stomach for it.

I suppose a serious enough oil crisis could trigger WWIII. Guess we better keep our powder dry!

Jack

[TroyD]

TroyD wrote:

About 30 square miles of 50 foot tall tankage, burned every YEAR for the ENTIRE USA.

Pretty microscopic when you compare it to the entire size of the earth.

30 square miles is about 5 1/2 miles on each side in a square.

Like I said, pretty small when you take the entire size of the earth into account.

[stevenicoldeact]

eltejano1 wrote:
Steven in OR

I disagree. I think that nuclear power is he only viable way to produce enough energy to replace carbon fuels to any meaningful extent...
Jack

Okay then, given one of my information resources, in our good ol' American way, we've figured-out how to make an efficient thing a cumbersome energy pig. If we could do nuclear fission power right like France, then it would be an obvious best-bet solution. My only contention against nuclear power is how long it takes for a plant to come on-line in the stuffy regulatory mess we have in the US.

I don't know, maybe an energy crunch will get us to speed things up?

[TroyD]

nickthehunter wrote:

TroyD wrote:

wing_zealot wrote:
Speculation - lots of speculation but very little hard evidence. Prices are high because Big Oil companies are closing refineries to lower the supply and drive up demand Prices are high because Oil Speculators are jacking up the price. Prices are high because Bush is in office and he is an oil man. WE got enough oil for the next 60 years, its ________ fault. yadda yadda yadda.

Folks, in the United States alone we burn through 20.7 Million barrels of oil each and every day. You have any concept on how huge a pile that many barrels of oil is? Every day - being pumped out of the earth. And all that oil for just one little corner of the world? Now add in China, Canada, Japan, etc. etc. etc. How long do you think we can sustain that thirst? And you speculate about what is driving up the price of oil. It's hard to put the blame squarely on our own shoulders, it's easier just to blame someone else. Seems pretty clear to me. But hey, what do I know.

Yes, I do know how big that is, its a cube of oil about 475 feet square. A little more than 2 square acres.

Do you know how small 2 square acres is when you compare it with the enormity of the entire earth???

Running out of oil my foot.

Imagine, the entire USA uses a pool of oil every YEAR only 1.25 square miles by about 5 stories tall.

You would have to use the entire continent of the unites states to grow enough corn or soybeans and then you wouldnt have anywhere to grow food if you wanted to replace petroleum oil with biofuels.

You forgot to mention that that pile of oil would be 1,332 feet high on that two acres. Every day, two acres, 1,332 feet high. And your "about" five stories high, really works out to be 1,520 feet high per square mile every year. How does that look to you now?

Now I understand you used terms that kind of muddied the waters a bit shall we say (a cube on two square acres, and 1.25 sq miles, etc). And you can argue that point. But rather than mud, lets just spell it out in plain english, with units that everyone can understand, like two acres and a square mile.

That is also, if a barrel of oil is 42 gallons. Actually I'm not sure, it could be 55 gallons and I have even heard oil is 80 gallons of oil per barrel so you can see I may be off by as much as a factor of "about" 2, which would make that five stories "about" 3,000 feet high per sq mile.

Ok, when I posted that, it was a real rough calculation off the top of my head, I wasnt seriously into calculating it.

I went back now and did some calculations and its actually a pool of oil or a tank about 50 acres and five stories (or 50 feet) tall.

Thats what 20.7 million barrels of oil comsumed by the USA in one day looks like.

About 30 square miles of 50 foot tall tankage, burned every YEAR for the ENTIRE USA.

Pretty microscopic when you compare it to the entire size of the earth.

[mrjimboalaska]

stevenicol wrote:

mrjimboalaska wrote:
We need Nuclear Plants, WIND, Solar, Hydrogen, Bio Fuels(not food based) and continue our development of other forms of energy.

Please stop on the Nuclear power plant stuff; it takes too much time and energy for them to come on-line. Nuclear power is neat for big ships and stuff, but for that national power grid, we have much better, safer and cheaper choices. Like you say, the rest of it: wind, solar, hydrogen, bio fuels, and the development of alternate forms of energy needs more money and attention.

YO STEVEN...
Name ONE source of electricity that is CHEAPER than Nuclear. By the way, Nuclear Power is also safe, despite what the "Greenies" have been preaching for years. Nuclear needs to be part of our solution...
and a new plant could come online as quick as 2 1/2 years if court battles by NIMBYS and GREENIES are laughed at by the Judges.
Don't expect in in OR though, THAT'S 9th Circuit Country.....

[mrjimboalaska]

Skid Row Joe wrote:

mrjimboalaska wrote:
I also believe that our supply system in the US is about to be crippled due to diesel cost.....wake up folks, YES, the cost will be past on, and some of it will not hurt.
Think about Los Angeles with food shortages........bad news.

When do you think this will happen? Next week, next month, next year.:H

hopefully NEVER, but if we do not get a handle on the fuel cost, next year could be a BAD YEAR....

[crudeman]

nickthehunter wrote:

AO_hitech wrote:

mrjimboalaska wrote:
.....that is 85% in 10 months...

But, you are not being taken advantage of. Their costs have gone up by that much. Somehow, it now costs almost twice as much to mine oil and produce fuel with it. :R

I really need to start selling that beach front property in AZ...

WE get it !! Actually, we got it 100 posts ago. You believe in the Big Oil Conspiracy Theory. Now show us something to back it up ?

Pleeeeezzzzzz, dont ask that it will be the bakersfield story all over again and again... its the same old message and the same old theory!

[jdewellz]

"what a revolting development they've gotten us into". fuel almost high enough to start camping in your driveway.

[Sea_Dog]

"First of all, the long haul trucker referenced probably needs to hang it up. Second of all diesel is already six bucks a gallon in Canada. Third of all, trucking firms have been surcharging for over a year now. And fourth of all making-up stuff about how food will be rotting and people starving in the streets is bunk and hysteria."

First of all, the trucker referenced hauls exclusively in the US.
I doubt if he has bought a gallon of Canadian diesel in ten years.

Secondly, he says that the fuel price has outstripped the surcharge and they are eating the difference.

Thirdly, if the trucker is using moneys to buy fuel that should go for payments, living expenses and upkeep, how long will they continue to operate at a loss?

Everyone seems to think that this little fuel crisis will soon go away and we will return to a couple of dollars a gallon.
I do not think so.

I honestly think that most of us are going to see a rapid reversal in fortunes unless we are among the few wealthy enough to be insulated from the troubles of the working stiff and the little guy.

[eltejano1]

Steven in OR

I disagree. I think that nuclear power is he only viable way to produce enough energy to replace carbon fuels to any meaningful extent. I think the future of the planet may hang on whether we can develop and deploy fusion reactors - a clean and unlimited source of cheap power. Physicist working on the project have now actually created, in a lab environment, a brief fusion reaction - ref: Science Channel documentary this afternoon. But they emphasize that we're probably fifty years from getting it on-line, which will just about coincide with the final extraction of the last few drops of oil.

In the meantime, we should once again build conventional fission plants. All that other technology - wind, biofuel, tidal currents - seems mickey mouse to me. We're talking bigtime energy here - how many BTU's in 20 million barrels of oil?

Jack

[Skid_Row_Joe]

stevenicol wrote:
Please stop on the Nuclear power plant stuff; it takes too much time and energy for them to come on-line. Nuclear power is neat for big ships and stuff, but for that national power grid, we have much better, safer and cheaper choices. Like you say, the rest of it: wind, solar, hydrogen, bio fuels, and the development of alternate forms of energy needs more money and attention.

When should more nuclear power plant "stuff" be brought on-line, in 50 or 100 years.:H

There are no "better or cheaper choices," that will work......if there were, that stuff would already be working enmass, which it isn't.

Indian tribe members were protesting our meeting earlier this month to our proposed damming of a river in the northwest for more hydroelectric power generation. Until the crazed-loons are ignored by lawmakers, there will be more suffering, and no more nuclear power generation plants built. France is 85% nuclear electric.......they get it!

Nuclear power is cheap, clean, and most importantly, safe.

[AO_hitech]

nickthehunter wrote:
WE get it !! Actually, we got it 100 posts ago. You believe in the Big Oil Conspiracy Theory. Now show us something to back it up ?

The price has gone up almost 100%, what more do you need?

Besides, I have, numerous times. But, I shouldn't have to with numbers like that.

Now, where did I put the deed for that beach front property...

[stevenicoldeact]

mrjimboalaska wrote:
We need Nuclear Plants, WIND, Solar, Hydrogen, Bio Fuels(not food based) and continue our development of other forms of energy.

Please stop on the Nuclear power plant stuff; it takes too much time and energy for them to come on-line. Nuclear power is neat for big ships and stuff, but for that national power grid, we have much better, safer and cheaper choices. Like you say, the rest of it: wind, solar, hydrogen, bio fuels, and the development of alternate forms of energy needs more money and attention.