[jspthrowaway]

Diesel, on-highway in New England, is averaging $4.205/gal[1] (probably more in the city, especially more in a disaster situation). Applying your information to the above question and assuming they can get just shy of five gallons per bucket, it's probably a fair estimate that each bucket carries more than $20 of diesel fuel and accounts for seven minutes of generator time. So, about $3 per minute or 5.1 cents every second.

Really puts things in perspective.

[1]: http://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/

[lmm]

I got a similar feeling at my last^2 job when we had a client run a superbowl ad, for which they were paying a million dollars. That works out as something like $30/millisecond.

[lsllc]

FYI: #2 heating oil and diesel are pretty much the same thing, the only differences being dyes in the heating oil (since it's often taxed differently) and additives in diesel (for example in the winter to stop it waxing up in the cold). Not sure about sulfur content differences when comparing #2 to the low sulfur diesels you see, but I doubt a few hours of burning higher sulfur fuel will do anything.

Also, #2 heating oil is cheaper than diesel in New England, it's about $3.70/gal.