Will gasoline prices affect your Outage travel?

[NuclearBob]

I'm curious to know how the higher gas prices will impact your Outage travel plans.  Do prices affect your decision to work outages at the more remote plants like Diablo Canyon, Columbia or San Onofre?  Thanks in advance!

[LaFeet]

Heck,

it has already affected my daily driving.... looks like Ill be asking for an increase in travel allowances from now on.

That and I think Ill go diesel and bring along some home grown bioD from home

[nukewood]

I live in Oregon and have been flying to outages and renting a car for the past two years. It has worked out very nicely. I would , however, rent from Enterprise at  the next Ginna outage. The Rent A Wreck in Rochester was just that.

[remowil55]

It already has, i have decided to stay close to home as possible. These Nuke plants are going to have to come up off this 21 to 23 cent's a mile with caps at 200 to 300 dollars. I just worked Wolf Creek and they pay 49.5 cent's a mile. That is by far the best i have been paid. With shorter outages the money has got to start going up and going up quick. Southern Company is one of the worst when it comes to travel and Diem. This is by far the worst i have seen in the 17 plus years i been a Road Whore.

[Camella Black]

It has affected us as well. Henry changed hotels to be closer to the plant and we are cutting back on trips home.

Seems to me that the per diem rate should be rising as our costs are, but I doubt that will happen.

[vikingfan]

won't affect me as my company pays for the rental car, gas , etc... but i know it most likely will affect other ppl

[Brett LaVigne]

I live in Michigan and like to work out west. The gas prices won't have any impact on where I work, travel usually covers my gas even at $4+/gal when I travel alone. It has never been able to cover hotel stays unless working plants with no cap like San Onofre and Diablo Canyon so that will be nothing new.

The increasing cost of gas does continue to push the thorn in my side a little deeper when I think of actual wages throughout the industry for us travelers. The cost of just living is growing by leaps and bounds (especially fuel and how it impacts the cost of everything else) and the pay remains the same.

So does the cost of gas impact the travel to and from a plant? Yes, but more than that it makes me look harder at whether or not all of the extra expense involved with being a rent-a-tech is really worth the net financial results. More and more this job is becoming a very modest living compared with the extraordinary efforts and resposibility required to make a living swinging a meter.

[snowman]

These Nuke plants are going to have to come up off this 21 to 23 cent's a mile with caps at 200 to 300 dollars. This is by far the worst i have seen in the 17 plus years i been a Road Whore.

The rent-a-tech companies 25 years ago paid more than this! Hard to believe people are accepting this kind of money. But I guess a tech has to do what you got to do. Glad I don't have to make these kinds of decisions now. I think it'd be time to find something else to do. $300 bucks wouldn't get the RV out of town!

[SloGlo]

driv a gas miser 'n stay in motels.  spend da cash on da bed, 'n save it in fuel.

[vikingfan]

 if i want to drive my company pays the fed rate. or i get the fed rate for the wife to drive me to the airport so what is the mileage rate that most ppl are recieving from bartlett,atlantic etc etc

[RAD-GHOST]

I've seen some pretty strange results to several national polls, addressing the rising price of gasoline and other associated fuels.  Apparently a percentage of the polled population doesn't consider the increasing costs as much of an influence in their daily life.  Obviously some people don't get out much!  If accepting an assignment translates to reconfiguring my finances, purchasing a new vehicle and searching for a down hill route to an assignment, I'll pass! 

Tiss the Season.......Not even close!  There's still a few of months for the majority of the technician opportunities.  I've already had a couple of calls, offering the same stagnet wages of 18 months ago, but a slight increase of Per Diem and once again....CRAPPED travel!  It's probably just my pesimistic side, but I figure we're about one natural disaster from $7.00 per gallon!  Parts of the NE and California are currently closing in on $5.00 per gallon!  I'm sure that once you commit in June, the companies will be more then willing to adjust the compensation in September!

RG

[retired nuke]

I commute 95 miles r/t 4 days a week. I'm riding a motorcycle now, 2.1 gals / day.
I regularly commute in a car - 4 gals / day.
I thought about going out and getting a hybrid / corrola or something else, but those little cars beat you up on a long drive (I know - used to have a little Hyundai). I can buy a lot of gas before I could offset a new car payment.

16 gals / wk x 4.3 wks / mo = 68.8 gals = $285 / mo for gas with my comfy Sable......

A new hybrid costs ~$30k, call it $500/mo... ..cheaper to keep driving my paid for beater, and relace it with another in a couple of years, than to go out and buy anything new......I buy whatever is available for $3-4k, and drive it till it's dead.

Yeah, the rising price of gas pinches my a$$, but I like where I live, it's good for my kids, and I make a good living. There are lots of folks around me that are struggling. So we try and donate a bit extra to the local charities, and skip going out as much.

I feel for you travelers, it is hard to pinch the ends together when the utilities cap travel, and limit PD. Shorter outages, etc means less money to operate with. Heck, our outage is scheduled for <20 days......

[Nuclear Renaissance]

Hyundai probably isn't a good basis for comparison.

My 2007 Civic Hybrid is a pretty cushy ride, gets 43 mpg driving pretty aggressively (as aggressively as you can get with a Civic; my wife gets 47 mpg), and with the couple grand back as a tax rebate it was only $19,500. It has great crash ratings even compared to larger cars (airbags all around), and the resale values on Honda Civics are very high.

Plus, it pretty much looks like a regular Civic instead of those goofy Priuses.

[Old HP]

Remember when we used to have rental cars and the the companies paid for the fuel as well. Of course gas was 65 cents per gallon.
Back on topic; there will probably be even more people leaving the business now as wages have stalled and expenses have risen rapidly (fuel, health insurance, taxes etc.) It is ironic that at a time when the demand for qualified techs is increasing that the financial reward for those willing to work is actually decreasing.

[vikingfan]

there are still companies that supply rental cars and fuel old hp. but those days are mostly gone for the decon/hp techs except for the rare situation