Shtf fuel choice's

So scouring the net far, and wide I have done a tad bit of research on fuel. The major consensus is gas, and diesel doesn't store for very long, while others tout fuel stabilizers can, and do extend fuel life.

Then there is the crowd of propane that most say stores indefinately. So this thread is created to separate fact from fiction.

Some observations I have is along with green legislation fuel shelf life has decreased so is that an accurate comment?

Diesel has been the preferred choice on government installations for decades, and JP8 since most military generators are multi fuel capable.

They say Diesel stores considerably longer than gas, and easily can be made locally, of course that is if the generators have refitted seals.

Seen a lot of military gensets for sale by government liquidation, and civilian buyers everywhere. I'd like to get a military genset or 2. Like what I have seen with the Mep 003a,Mep701a,Mep831a's but am hesitant to go out there, and buy one.

Are military gensets a better purchase than a honda Eu2000,3000,6500 ?

Those all use gas that have a short shelf life from 60 days to a year depending on who you ask. Then there is that favorite of survivalists, and off grider's alike propane.

Anywhere you,buy gas you can buy propane as most people know who use grills, then of course there is that modification kits they sell with the honda that can use either gas or propane.

So people in your opinion pick your poison and explain why.

Ideally a hybrid system would be the preferred choice a combination of alternative with generator back up.

But for the sake of argument what type of generator do you choose?

Yes I am aware that people should ween them off power all together in a shtf, but there are levels of shtf most people will experience some type of event in their lives be it tornados,hurricanes,etc all the way up to the end of the world as we know it.

My personal preference would be ethanol. It can be "home brewed", used as currency... or if things get really bad you have something to toast with at the end

In all seriousness, it doesn't take that much to get a gasoline engine to run on straight ethanol. It burns very clean making it useful for cooking and heating, and it is easily produced.

Great idea for a thread! I'm wondering if anyone has any knowledge of hooking a generator up to a wood gasification unit like the did in The Colony season 1. Would that work for a long time? Other than that, my vote is for propane. I read that the cylindar will rust out before the propane goes bad.

reply to post by neo96


I don't think that is a shtf situation...thats more like the power went out for three days type of scenario.

In a real situation....wood is your fuel.
Why??
Its the only thing that is actually plentiful and replaceable.

Relying on things that might not be there is hopeful at best.

Sorry if I just rained on your thread but i am a realist.

When you run out of whatever you have...go natural.

reply to post by DrumsRfun


Actually wood is not easily available in cities altho it is great for rural areas, but for those folks who don't live in rural areas.

Then most people don't know about "curing" wood or how dangerous it is for burning treated wood etc.

reply to post by neo96


Maybe i should be thankful for the city I live in....people are dumb here and there are alot of trees.

Originally posted by DrumsRfun
reply to post by neo96

 

Maybe i should be thankful for the city I live in....people are dumb here and there are alot of trees.

How big of a city?

Few thousand,hundred thousand? Millions?

reply to post by neo96


Canada's capital...i think we are at a million now.
In my area I am 20 minutes from a large forest.
Fortunate i am and will admit it.

To try to make my point a bit more,it is my opinion that gas,propane and things like that in a shtf scenario are useless unless you have a large stock of it.....yet you will still run out eventually.
Stock the stuff as a perk,not as a primary plan.

Its nice to have it,but it sucks when it runs out.

I tend to go the route of learn and forget gear....the gear will run out and all you are left with is your wits and what you know.

reply to post by DrumsRfun


So we have a vote for wood.

Yeah wood runs out too and unless you have a huge stockpile of it, on property owned by the individual, that requires hours to cut,split, and stack and do it all over again.

Yeah there's a forrest with a lot of people with the same idea.

As Superman2012 suggested wood gasification is the way to go. Also called a biomass generator it uses a simple process of smoldering leaves, pine needles, wood pellets, etc. and collecting the released gases from them. The gas then has to be filtered and cooled down. Afterwards it can be pumped into a generator or even gas vehicles.

I vote for wood too, don't like the idea of storing fuel and the generators are pretty loud, might attract unfriendly guests who want some electricity.

reply to post by TheLieWeLive


Go do that in the woods and tell me how you make out.

reply to post by neo96


www.japanfs.org...

Bio-Methane from Sewage Sludge to Be Used as Bus Fuel
Kobe City in western Japan has decided during fiscal 2006 to prepare for the practical use of bio-methane gas as a fuel for natural gas vehicles. The gas is produced by purifying the gases generated from sewage sludge. This is the first attempt of its kind in Japan.

And so please if you see the ninja turtles down there for gas feel free to help yourself as with the data shared...

NAMASTE*******

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13


Yes I know about biogas did a thread about it, that a generator fitted to run propane can also run on it.

Thanks.

reply to post by neo96


saying if in need to take cover for long periods look within sewers re manage the current tech existing and make fuel from waste /sludge

amazing the reads... but LOVE is seeing so its ok

Kudzu is plentiful, grows about a foot a day and can be used to make fuel. You can't kill the stuff. Here is a link about someone making fuel from it. This grows mostly in the southeast.

By Randall Higgins Cleveland Bureau CLEVELAND, Tenn. -- "The vine that ate the South" might some day fuel the Dynamo of Dixie. Doug Mizell thinks so. Using "Moonshine 101," he turned a pile of smashed kudzu into a batch of ethanol. He calls it "kudzunol." Mr. Mizell has a long and turbulent history with kudzu. Since 1999 he has battled it on Lake Enid, Miss., vacation property. Like any Southerner who took on that fight in the past hundred years, he lost. The Kudzu vine, which was introduced into this country in 1876, can grow up to 60 feet a year, smothers other plants, and has claimed an estimated 7 million acres of land in the southeastern United States, according to www.kudzufree.org. Mr. Mizell, a locksmith who has spent most of his 54 years tinkering, was not about to throw in the towel in his fight, not into a patch of weeds anyway. Kudzu is a plant. It's full of natural sugars just like corn. It thrives in the South. So, what if you distilled the stuff? On a Cleveland hillside, Mr. Mizell and wife, Sue, harvested lots of kudzu. "Oh, yes, we got some strange looks," his wife admitted. The vines went into a chipper and then home and into a food processor. Then "Moonshine 101" came in. Mr. Mizell rigged a still on his mother's patio. The resulting 80-proof liquid, he said, smells like rum. Five gallons of kudzu mash equals a half gallon of ethanol. But Mr. Mizell thinks he can improve the yield with some better equipment. "That thing over there," he pointed to the still, "is much like the African Queen, leaking and belching steam." While kudzunol might be a green fuel for internal combustion engines, foresters view green kudzu as an indicator of insufficient fuel for wildfires. "When the kudzu gets green, that's the end of fire season," said Steve Blackwell, chief ranger of Dade and Walker counties for the Georgia Forestry Commission. Mr. Blackwell said that when the frost kills the kudzu in the winter, fire season starts. Just as computer chips made Silicon Valley in California, Mr. Mizell figures the smothering vine can turn East Tennessee into Cellulose Valley and help keep corn in the food chain. He and business partner Tom Monahan attended the state's first BioTenn Conference earlier this year. Now that he has proven kudzu can become ethanol, Mr. Mizell is looking for a grant, or an investor, to build a more sophisticated distillery. "With a brush cutter, a wood chipper and a homemade still I can produce a barrel of fuel for under $80." Mr. Mizell said it seems to him that a "state-of-the-art industry of American ethanol refineries" ought to be able to out-produce the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries "in no time at all." On Friday, Mr. Mizell poured kudzunol into a lawnmower gas tank, along with a few drops of gasoline to prime the engine, and pulled the starter cord. It purred right away. Now he would like to put a "test vehicle" on the streets, he said. In the long battle of the Mississippi kudzu, Mr. Mizell came to the conclusion that "the only people who seemed to like it is goats." Chattanooga, after all, made news by turning goats loose to clean out a kudzu patch. If Tennessee Agro*Gas Industries (the company Mr. Mizell and Mr. Monahan have started for their kudzunol) has any say about it, kudzu is not just for goats anymore. Mr. Mizell already is thinking beyond kudzu. What about those watermelon vines?

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13


From ethanol, biodiesel, to biogas to wood energy sources are plenty seems to me those tho think a shtf means living in the 1800s is not necessary when alternatives exist.

reply to post by neo96


Show me the alternatives and how to make them in a shtf scenario.

That would help me alot more then replying to this thread with my same old rhetoric of relying on my wits and what is "out there"

reply to post by DrumsRfun


A moonshine "still" makes ethanol which is nothing more than a pot heated to a certain temperature where the "ethanol" evaporates then goes through a condenser to be cooled from vapor in to liquid.

A pot with Heet from a autopart store or local walmart and some drain cleaner from a hardware store (or make lye from wood) and some vegetable oil makes biodiesel.

Of course there is youtube that has thousands of videos on how to make those things.