Lou Schneider

There are approx. 160 grades of crude oil ranging from light and sweet (thin and low sulfur) to heavy and sour (thick with high sulfur). Changing the type of crude going into a distilling tower means shutting down the tower and re-calibrating it to process the different grade of oil. While I strongly disagree with the decision to draw down the Strategic Reserve, that's a seperate issue. The fact remains that every barrel of crude oil we export sells at the same price as the rest of the world market. So in many cases we're simply exchanging one grade of crude oil for another that our refineries can more easily process. Transporting crude oil makes up a very small percentage of the overall cost of obtaining and processing it (my dad spent his career routing tankers for Chevron). It's often more economical to get the right grade of crude from afar instead of constantly shutting down and re-calibrating refineries. Especially since most tankers would otherwise make the return trip empty after offloading their cargo at US ports.

October stockpiles of diesel fuel and home heating oil in the US are 30% below normal, levels not seen since Harry S Truman was president. Normally levels are built up during the warmer months for use in the winter when demand for home heating oil spikes. This also affects the availability and cost of diesel fuel as it's almost identical to home heating oil. The problem is refinery capacity, not crude prices or availability although prices are rising sharply. It looks like Europe may not be the only place facing an energy crisis if this turns out to be a cold winter in the Northeast.Ignore the partisan headline, this article has good info inside.https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...df4926-4ee9-11ed-ada8-04e6e6bf8b19_story.html

The basic problem is the weight of the RV means you have to run 100 PSI in the tires on terrain where much lower pressure would let the tires float on top of the ground instead of digging in. If you have 30 PSI in a car tire it will press down on the ground with 30 lbs on every square inch of the tire's contact area. If your tire is inflated to 100 PSI it means the ground has to support 100 lbs per square inch. Vehicles driven in mud or sand often run less than 10 PSI of pressure in their tires. If you weigh 200 lbs, put your weight on a cane or crutch with 2 square inches of contact area and see what happens. You'll be fine on hard surfaces but you'll sink into softer ground. Same thing happens with an RV.

When I bought my solar panels it was from a source in Las Vegas that had stacks and stacks of them, salvaged from a solar project that upgraded their panels. 200 watts for $40 each, cash and carry. I just drove there and stacked them in the bed of my pickup, with ratchet straps holding the stack together.

Not too surprising. 5G Ultra Wideband uses Extremely High Frequencies (EHF) aka millimeter wavelengths, between 30 and 300 gigahertz. Lots of bandwidth but very short ranges when frequencies get up that high so the area each cell covers is in the range of a few tens or hundreds of feet rather than miles. It's really only practical in areas with high population densities that can justify putting an antenna on every light pole.

You don't get the "Premium Network Experience" unless you go with the $45 Visible+ plan. $45/mo Visible+: "Get 50GB of premium data every month on 5G Nationwide & 4G LTE. After 50GB, when the network is experiencing heavy traffic, your smartphone and hotspot data may be temporarily slowed. 5G Ultra Wideband data is always unlimited premium data." Except for the 5G Ultra Wideband, this language is the same as what is in the present plan after 21GB. $30/mo Visible: "When the 5G Nationwide or 4G LTE network is experiencing heavy traffic, your data may be temporarily slowed." i.e. you're always subject to deprioritization (no 21GB exemption) and you don't get 5G Ultra Wideband (short range, mostly in larger cities).

Same here. The phone service is fine, I use the hotspot as a backup due to the variability of it's data having lower priority than other Verizon traffic. Though this is supposed to be eliminated with the $45 Visible+ plan.

So they also have sufficient battery storage to carry them through the night? Surprise, high voltage batteries submerged in conductive salt water don't do well. It takes several thousand gallons of water and hours to extinguish a burning Tesla. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/battling-fires-water-damaged-evs-ties-resources-hurricane-ian-recovery-florida-fire-dept-says

Nomadic Fanatic is a prolific YouTuber who's a fulltimer RVer. He usually boondocks while on his tours and about a month ago he posted about how a bunch of rowdies pulled in next to him while he was boondocking on the Oregon coast, drinking and playing loud music. One guy had a dirt bike and started tearing up the area. Rather than confront them, Eric packed up and left. A couple of days later he learned the guy with the dirt bike was killed when the bike left the trail at high speed and collided with a tree.

Including well respected manufacturer Northwood Industries, at least in past years. My 1999 Arctic Fox trailer came without an RVIA sticker. I met company founder Ron Nash at a California RV show a few years later and asked him about it, he said he couldn't see paying a royalty to RVIA when his company was already making products that exceeded their standards. As far as I know not having that sticker didn't hurt their sales.

In simplest terms, in parallel solar panels act as zener diodes, clamping the voltage of all other parallel connected panels to the maximum voltage of the lowest one. Put an 18 volt panel in parallel with one or more 36 volt panels and the output voltage of all will be clamped at 18 volts. Since solar panel currents don't vary significantly between 0 volts and their MPPT voltage this will effectively cut the output of the 36 volt panels in half. In series, the current of the lowest rated panel will determine the current of the entire series string unless that panel has bypass diodes which will let excess current bypass the panel. This effectively takes that panel out of the circuit so you won't get any voltage contribution from it.

I had a similar RV some years back, a Travelcraft Class C about the same size as that Tigoa. The second battery under the hood was installed by the factory as the generator starting and house battery. A previous owner added additional house batteries in a different location wiring them across the factory installed battery so they also started the generator and supplied the house lights. A solenoid cross-connected the main engine starting battery and the house batteries whenever the ignition switch was on so the engine alternator could charge all of them. You could also energize the cross-connect solenoid via a dash switch so the main engine battery could boost start the generator. Once the generator was running it would charge the house batteries by supplying 120 VAC to the converter.

A 1000 watt solar system will produce, at most, 1000 watts of power. That's 1000 watt-hours each hour it receives full sun which is pretty short in the winter. A typical plug in electric heater will draw that much power or up to 50% more while it's running. They all produce the same amount of heat, 1 Kilowatt-hour equals 3,412 BTUs of heat energy. You may be able to use an electric space heater for a few minutes on your solar and battery power to take the chill off in the morning if you have a power surplus but in general you should plan on using your propane furnace for heat. The furnace only uses a few amps to run it's fan motor, so it's draw isn't a significant amount of the battery storage you have available. Also figure on it using about 1/4 - 1/3 gallon of propane each hour the flame is on. If your solar system is meeting your power needs it's best and cheapest to use propane for heat. Running your generator to power one or two electric heaters uses more fuel than just making heat directly in the furnace. And gas or diesel is usually costs significantly more per gallon than propane. If you're going to boondock, the best investment you could make to keep track of your battery power is a battery monitor. These have a shunt that is installed in line with the batteries and keeps track of the current going in and out of them. It displays how much power you have in the batteries like a fuel gauge shows how much fuel is in your tank. There are several available ranging from $50 to $300. Here's one example. https://www.renogy.com/500a-battery-monitor-with-shunt/

So take another look at Mark & Teri's excellent answer directly above yours and multiply the numbers by 1.75. It's still a ridiculously small amount of the total power consumed by the 40 stall charging station, i.e. little more than an advertising gimmick.

Nope, Escapees welcomes anyone with an interest in RVing. You're also welcome to take advantage of Escapees events like RV Boot Camp and Escapade by staying in a local hotel while attending the event. Note that joining Escapees doesn't establish residency. Severing ties with your existing state can be confusing if you're becoming a nomad and there are additional steps you need to take. These articles on the Escapees website are a good starting point. https://escapees.com/education/domicile/

So do I! I paid $200 for it last year and it provides lots of fun tooling around the RV park.

You'll need an awful lot of slow periods under full sun (15 full solar hours or more than 2 solar days) to recharge a 3 megawatt-hour Megapack from a 1/5 acre, 200 Kw solar array (thanks Mark!). That's assuming there aren't any cars also sucking power from the array. The fact remains that amount of solar will only produce enough energy to support a single Supercharger. Or two assuming each only has a 50% duty cycle and is not used at night. Certainly not 40 Superchargers having any reasonable percentage of utilization. Thus the on-site solar is mostly a PR gimmick with the real power coming from the utility grid.

Battery/electric locomotives are nothing new. The Western Railway Museum in Rio Vista, CA (south of Sacramento) has a large 1926 Kennecott Copper 75 ton steeplecab locomotive with 26,000 lbs of Edison nickel-iron batteries. Nominally powered from a 750 volt DC overhead line the engine could operate for several hours on it's 255 volt, 680 amp-hour batteries. It was used to haul ore cars out of an open pit copper mine until 1984 when the mine converted to conveyor belts to carry the ore out of the mine. https://www.wrm.org/visit/car-roster/locomotives/electric/item/60-kennecott-copper-corporation-700 Even today, electric locomotives are only good for short distance yard switching. A battery large enough to give the same range as an over the road diesel locomotive's 4000 gallon tank would up fill several boxcars behind the engine. Diesel electric locomotives are remarkably fuel efficient. Union Pacific's experimental gas turbine locomotives back in the 1950s were discontinued because they needed a seperate tender car or even a tank car behind the engine to carry enough fuel to get the same over the road range as a contemporary diesel locomotive.

If 1 acre = 42560 sq ft, 1/20th of an acre (9000 sq ft) should produce about 1/20th of a megawatt, or about 50 Kw. About 1/5th of the power consumed by a single 250Kw Supercharger. The remaining power has to come from the grid.

We believe in individual freedoms and responsibilities here in Pahrump. The town has two public marijuana dispensaries along with 4 large fireworks shops, two legal brothels and several gun dealers. Nevada still prohibits marijuana use outside of a private residence so you can't partake in a public place. However, the state has just approved regulations governing bar-like cannabis consumption lounges. So no, you can't use pot out in the open in our co-op park and I doubt we'll be applying for such a license. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/nevada-poised-to-ok-cannabis-lounge-regulations-opening-door-to-public-marijuana-useefbfbc There is precedence for selling things that can only be legally used in specified places, for example you can legally buy alcohol but you can't drink and drive or be intoxicated in public. Accepting money for sex is legal in the brothels but not on the streets, and although fireworks can be freely purchased year round at any of the firework shops they can only be legally used at the town's Fireworks Safety Range. Make sense?

Not stated is the area needed for a 5-10 megawatt solar array (hint - about a megawatt per acre). That's what it takes to supply (40) 250kw V3 charge stations at an average 50% occupancy. Having a handfull of solar panels shading each stall won't cut it.

When Verizon stopped maintaining their wired network infrastructure shortly before Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast and destroyed the wired infrastructure they came out with a small base station to let hardwired phones use a cellular connection. Rather than repair the damaged landlines they just gave these to their residential customers. It sat on the counter like an old Hayes Smartmodem, had an RJ-11 jack you plugged your phone into and provided a user experience just like being connected to a landline. You got a dial tone when you lifted the receiver and used the normal touchtone keypad on the phone. It ran off of a wall wart and you could install a regular 9 volt battery for backup if the power grid went down. Since it pre-dated VOIP it used the analog cell network just like any other cell phone. In California Walmart sold them for $40 and I bought a half dozen to use with the dialup security and backup remote control systems at our mountaintop transmitter sites.

Where are they putting Dishy? When I was a broadcast tech I once got an off the record tour of one of the FCC radio detection "vans". It was actually a mid-sized SUV and the only thing that distinguished it on the outside was about a 3" higher than normal roofline - it hid a pod cocealing the antennas that fed the detection and direction finding equipment in the center console. The agent also showed me the half dozen different state license plates they had in the trunk so they could blend in regardless of where they were operating. Unregistered and untraceable in any database.

I have to disagree, Kirk. Most motorhomes I've seen have the generator connected to the house batteries with the jump switch available to boost from the chassis battery if it's needed to start the generator. The reason is most generators don't produce 12 volts, only 120 VAC so it relies on the converter to recharge the battery and replace the 12 volts used by the generator's ignition system. The converter only charges the house batteries, if the generator was on the starting battery it would slowly drain it.

I've had the Blade A7 as my only phone for 2 years. It and it's hotspot work fine. Be aware Visible restricts the hotspot to one device at a time unless you get an iPhone because Apple doesn't allow this restriction.