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It’s the end of the world as we know it. No birthday party. No cheesecake. No jellybean. The big question: How on earth are you going to power your post-apocalyptic death machine?
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It’s the end of the world as we know it. No birthday party. No cheesecake. No jellybean. The big question: How on earth are you going to power your post-apocalyptic death machine?
I've always considered what my ride would be for the "after times," but I guess I never considered what I would put in it to keep it running.
That picture reminds me of one of the old abandoned gas stations from the movie The Last Chase. It's one that most have probably never seen. It stars Lee Majors and a Porsche 917-10 "clone". Cheesy movie from back in 1981. Go look it up all you car guys......
Colin Wood said:I've always considered what my ride would be for the "after times," but I guess I never considered what I would put in it to keep it running.
See, exactly. Sure, you have already planned out your DeathMobile, but how will you keep it running? Can't outrun the mutants if you're outta gas.
3 choices.
1. Find a producing oil well and build a refinery there. (Don't know how, but there must be a low tech way to do this. You probably won't get 100 octane race gas though)
2. Start disilling alcohol, hope you have a good field of grain and sugar cane.
3. Take over a hydroelectric dam. Lots of power for an electric car. Put additional batteries on a trailer for more range.
Steam power! As long as you have water, you can run on anything that burns!
Alcohol still or electric. Batteries are easy enough to come by that short of another ice age finding supplies would be easy, solar farms and wind farms can be taken over or even moved to better locations. Anything that grows can be convinced to ferment with fire, water, and time.
I'd be trying for electric personally, less moving parts to deal with means less drastic means of repair and replacement.
Bicycles tend to get oddly overlooked in postapocalyptic movies and literature, but they seem like they'd be very useful when fuel is hard to come by.
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
I was thinking that or a horse.
Look at what our Amish neighbors do, and copy that. I see lots of horses, walking, little scooters. If things get really desperate methanol and ethanol aren't THAT hard to make. Probably worth printing the how-to and keeping it in your safe.
MadScientistMatt said:Bicycles tend to get oddly overlooked in postapocalyptic movies and literature, but they seem like they'd be very useful when fuel is hard to come by.
I wouldn't say they are overlooked, I've read many books where bikes were used
WRT alcohol- need some special look at the remaining water. There will always be leftover water no matter how good the normal still is. So the car has to be robust to having water in it, or you have chemical means to remove the water (it's chemical but based on solids), or you make that special still that can actually produce 100% alcohol (which is not just a massive reflux still- there are some tricks to do more- one still person I know mentions a vacuum system in the process).
Add to the list: longboards and those skateboard/sail kite things.
3600 psi natural gas, or methanol produced by the water-gas reaction.
tomtomgt356 (FS) said:Steam power! As long as you have water, you can run on anything that burns!
This
Wood gas.
I already have the plans printed and filed somewhere safe.
I also have several really old engines. Think early 1900. They will burn almost anything and can be repaired with a sledge and a file.
Here's the thing guys... in a gasoline starved world, it's just like madmax. Except they can hear your ICE. And when they hear you... "They" come running... looking for that gasoline.
I'll take my solar powered, 2000w electric bike please. You'll never hear me. If "they" see me, they can't catch me.
In reply to Vajingo :
Electric bikes are quiet, but not silent. In a world without as much external noise, they would be heard.
Even bicycles are not always silent. Fixed gear bikes - very quiet. As are some bikes with silent "clutch" rear hubs (Onyx is a popular brand right now).
In such a world, I would likely spend so much of my time cultivating food (and storing for the winter) that travel would not be a top priority.
Setup carburetor to run on alcohol. Set up still to create alcohol. Ferment the bodies. Problem solved.
Just in case someone needs to print these out:
https://sciencing.com/make-wood-alcohol-through-distillation-7762993.html
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
Yep. Quiet enough to only be heard when in the vicinity. Allowing someone to get the jump on would be attackers. By the time they hear youf you've already zoomed by, and they, without enough time to react. Whereas an ICE would be heard at least a 1/4 mile away, and attract every miscreant in the 1/4 mile radius. And in order to escape, you would have to turn the car off, or spend a lot of fuel accelerating away. With an electric bike, you simply pedal down an alley way and easily stash it, and then begin walking about like an innocent bystander.
The original settlers of the North American continent used bison dung as fuel for thousands of years.
But then the Bluecoats killed almost all the bison...
Ammonia could be another idea for your Mad Max fuel; The Haber-Bosch process is complicated for what we're doing here, but Ammonia has no carbon so it cannot foul up and can also be used for cleaning and disinfecting, which will be needed with no society. Alcohol and ethanol would probably be the best tho, since you also get a medical source AND can get drunk on it too!
Otherwise, I'd be e-bike all the way, perhaps small vehicles using salvaged forklift motors. A Brushed DC motor into a bike is dead-simple and the "power" switch could be actuated via altering voltage- there's a guy from Pakistan I know who made his E-bike for free, and his "power switch" was the fan speed element ripped out of a Nissan Truck he found abandoned in a field. For higher tech, lots of forklifts are going AC for power instead of DC to get that sweet Regen, though I'm not sure how many are IPM motors for your E-wasteland rides.
That reminds me, I had an idea for an Environmentalist Mad Max spinoff...
Saltwater batteries, you can use the tears of your enemies!
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