Rising Fuel Prices

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

This is all econ101 stuff, but people who believe in such things as gouging don't live in reality.

....where the stores won't take it back when the bottom drops out of the resale market.

JSH -- I started shopping at a Grocery Outlet just after Y2K, and they had food packed in Nitrogen. By the time I figured out how stuff sells through it was gone.

How is the water stored? I'd be faced with a monotonous diet of Chicken and Dumpling soup instead of beans.

[redpoint5]

We've got about a year of food and infinite water since it rains so much. Perhaps a year of fuel/electricity if rationed. Dad's gone a bit prep crazy, expanding the number of ways we can generate electricity. When we get a different solar inverter capable of running from batteries or a generator, we'll essentially be infinitely set for electricity, except that winter months only generate 1/5th as much as summer.

If we had to, we could probably can all the fruit produced and plant a garden for infinite food supply.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Had I lived in a house instead of apartment, maybe instead of stockpiling any random canned food and other supplies I would try something similar to the so-called Victory Gardens of WWII-era.

Originally Posted by JSH

The fix for NOx is pretty easy - inject more and more DEF.

Just look at this beauty. One of the first retail-oriented vehicles in Brazil fitted with SCR for its Diesel versions, yet the one in the pictures is a spark-ignited flexfuel.



Even though some folks see adding DEF as too much of an inconvenience for the sake of driving a Diesel-powered SUV, I relate it to the inconveniences of some motorcycles and even cars with a 2-stroke engine, requiring either the mixture of oil directly to the fuel or filling an automatic lube reservoir.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by freebeard

....where the stores won't take it back when the bottom drops out of the resale market.

JSH -- I started shopping at a Grocery Outlet just after Y2K, and they had food packed in Nitrogen. By the time I figured out how stuff sells through it was gone.

How is the water stored? I'd be faced with a monotonous diet of Chicken and Dumpling soup instead of beans.

The water is stored in a combination of ways. I have 48 liters of bottled water. (That was the first water purchased when I first heard Oregon has earthquakes and we should have a minimum of 3 days water). Then I added some 8 gallon stackable jugs. Then a 55 gallon drum. The jugs and drums I filled from the hose, added some chlorine bleach, and sealed up. Once a year I empty and refill. So far it has done fine but we have bleach to treat water, backpacking filters, and the 55 gallon drum came with a big pump filter that screws into the bung. In the rainy season we would be fine just collecting water off the roof. In the dry season we have a river about a mile away.

For food we just have regular everyday staples that we eat all the time: Rice, dried beans, pasta, flour, oil, quinoa, canned tomatoes and tomato paste to make pasta sauce, canned meat, etc. I do a first in / first out and rotate stock. Store to shed, shed to pantry, pantry to table.

This is all stored in a 20x10 foot shed that will double as emergency shelter if the house burns from severed gas lines. It will also be much easier to heat a 200 sq ft shed than a 1000 sq ft house with no windows. The shed has solar for lights and we have solar on the campervan as well so power won't be an issue and we have a fridge / freezer in the van as well.


I store my inflatable kayak at work under my desk so I have a way to cross the Willamette River and I also keep my folding bicycle there. I take my inReach satellite messenger hooked to my work back so I have communication when the cell phone towers go down.

Very little was actually purchased just in case, it is just staging what I already have strategically.

[freebeard]

I tried water cooler carboys with drops of beach but they should have been sterilised or something.

I have a 275 gallon caged tote (forkliftable tank). My goal is 2-3ft of cribbing with an irrigation pump under it feeding a RainBird sprinkler head on a utility pole.

[Hersbird]

Originally Posted by JSH

That was then - Euro 6 is now. Today the EU only allows 0.08 g/km NOx

The fix for NOx is pretty easy - inject more and more DEF. VW was the only manufacturer not using SCR on their diesel vehicles in the US - which should have been a red flag for regulators. VW didn't add SCR to their 2.0 TDI until 2015.

Mercedes and BMW were using SCR on all of their US diesels from 2009.

But now diesels are dead in the USA because of previous rules that IMO were there to purposely kill them. Plus all these new rules make the latest diesels crap in comparison to the 2000s versions. What is the best EPA rating for a new diesel sold in 2021 compared to say 2006? I'll give you a hint, terrible because the only new diesels today are in pickups and SUVs. Even considering the last of the cars around 2019 they were worse and worse every year while their gas counterparts were better economy wise year after year. US emission laws as pointed out in that article weren't about conserving resources and making less co2 it was about local smog which in 98% of the country isn't a problem. Just ban them in LA and let the test of the country enjoy the durability and economy of a modern, non-choked to death diesel.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

But now diesels are dead in the USA because of previous rules that IMO were there to purposely kill them. Plus all these new rules make the latest diesels crap in comparison to the 2000s versions. What is the best EPA rating for a new diesel sold in 2021 compared to say 2006? I'll give you a hint, terrible because the only new diesels today are in pickups and SUVs. Even considering the last of the cars around 2019 they were worse and worse every year while their gas counterparts were better economy wise year after year. US emission laws as pointed out in that article weren't about conserving resources and making less co2 it was about local smog which in 98% of the country isn't a problem. Just ban them in LA and let the test of the country enjoy the durability and economy of a modern, non-choked to death diesel.

Diesels are dead in the USA because the EPA and CARB no longer make special exceptions for them. Diesels and Gasoline cars have to meet the same emission standards. Odd that some see no longer getting special treatment some sort of conspiracy against diesels.

Diesels had to start adding emission equipment - which made them more expensive. At the same time gasoline engines adopted a lot of the tech from diesels: Direct Injection, variable turbos, higher compression - and now get fuel economy very close to a diesel. Add in the rapidly improving hybrid tech that is getting cheaper and cheaper and there really is no reason for someone to buy a diesel. A hybrid is cheaper to buy and cheaper to run. (I had a 2003 Jetta Wagon TDI and a 2005 Toyota Prius) VW's cheating scandal just accelerated what was inevitable.

Diesel's aren't just dying in the US they are RAPIDLY falling out of favor in the EU as well. 10 years ago diesels had a 55% market share. This year they are down to 18%.

As to smog not effecting 98% of the population and just being a California issue - not the case. Birmingham Alabama had the worst air quality of any place I've lived and large cities all over the country are in violation of federal clean air standards. The USA is an urban country. 67% of the population lives in metros greater than 500K people and 56% in metros greater than 1 million people.

[Isaac Zachary]

I do wonder though, what if Gasoline engines weren't the golden standard and were instead held accountable for not getting the better CO, HC and CO2 emissions of a diesel the same way diesels are being held accountalbe for not easily achieving the better NOx and PM emissions of a gasoline engine.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Odd enough, the way some gasser disadvantages are fixed bringing to them some solutions which made their way into Diesels much earlier, such as direct injection and turbocharging. Well, even a sequential port-injection decreases the HC emissions considerably, while the more accurate fuel delivery than a continuous-flow injection or a carburettor also decreases CO emissions.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary

I do wonder though, what if Gasoline engines weren't the golden standard and were instead held accountable for not getting the better CO, HC and CO2 emissions of a diesel the same way diesels are being held accountalbe for not easily achieving the better NOx and PM emissions of a gasoline engine.

Gasoline and Diesel vehicles have been held to identical emission standards since 2010. HC and NOx are now bundled together so that doesn't give either fuel an advantage. CO2 standards are also identical.