Oil jumps above $100 on refinery outage

[Undertoad]

How much fuel is burned idling? The only job it has to do is provide heat and probably, what, 500 watts of electricity. Traditionally if you want that much electricity someplace... you use a portable generator. If B goes to a hotel they have to heat an entire room and use much more energy up to get that room booked... which is in turn one reason it's more expensive there.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

How much fuel is burned idling? The only job it has to do is provide heat and probably, what, 500 watts of electricity.

The numbers: 12 gallons of diesel burned overnight would be about 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity. IOW same energy would costs about $70 to heat a room electrically. How much does it cost to heat a whole house electrically only at night? $2200 per month? Of course not. Maybe one tenth that amount. But that is how much energy would be wasted idling overnight to keep warm.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

How much fuel is burned idling? The only job it has to do is provide heat and probably, what, 500 watts of electricity. Traditionally if you want that much electricity someplace... you use a portable generator. If B goes to a hotel they have to heat an entire room and use much more energy up to get that room booked... which is in turn one reason it's more expensive there.

There are a number of places that have started a system of climate control truck stop hook ups. Problem is there is not enough of them.

http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=12760

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0424180213.htm

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/ma...g-gets-pricey/