lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) said: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......
The funniest thing about that movie is that the "free" place they were trying to get to that still had fuel powered vehicles was... California. 
frenchyd said:In reply to tomtomgt356 (FS) :
Any really long stoke motors that we can convert to steam? The longest stroke I can think of is a Pre 1987 Jaguar with a 4.17 stroke.
Raid a Summit or Jegs warehouse for a Chevy 572 crate. 4.375" stroke.
In reply to rslifkin :
There has to be some really long stroke Diesel engines to convert into steam. In fact much of a Diesel engine could be used with the sole exception of pistons.
I wonder what sort of compression is used for steam. Guess I'll have to do some research
frenchyd said:In reply to tomtomgt356 (FS) :
Any really long stoke motors that we can convert to steam? The longest stroke I can think of is a Pre 1987 Jaguar with a 4.17 stroke.
Well, I for one am shocked that that's the engine you came up with.
The early 30's Chrysler flathead straight six (310 ci) and straight eight (385 ci) apparently had a 5" stroke. Dunno what might be longer.
EDIT: The Ford GAA V8 in the Sherman tank had a 6.0" stroke. A steam-powered tank would be a very stylish way to survive the apocalypse.
In reply to psteav (Forum Supporter) :
And then you're using up pure water in your steam system, unless you're steam engine-powered tank is also you're water purifier somehow. Better to use the old flatheads for converting them to natural gas or propane, since old infrastructure fuels would likely be easier to source and find than handmade gasoline or diesel derivatives and kits and writeups for those already exist.
Didn't some variant of the Soviet T-34 tank use a charcoal system for fuel?
In reply to stroker :
Don't know. I DO know that they had problems choosing between gasoline and diesel for the longest time- I think the T34 was one of the last gasoline-powered tanks.
On the old flathead thing, some of the early, very low compression, very low power engines will run on some pretty terrible excuses for gasoline.
My first girlfriend's father used to rebuild old farm power engines--they had enormous flywheels and would fire once every X revolutions to keep the flywheel rotating. He claimed they'd run on damn near anything, vinegar, vegetable oil, diesel, gas, kerosene, whatever.
Think something would be seen like an old Traction engine? Something that could literally run off of anything burnable?
psteav (Forum Supporter) said:frenchyd said:In reply to tomtomgt356 (FS) :
Any really long stoke motors that we can convert to steam? The longest stroke I can think of is a Pre 1987 Jaguar with a 4.17 stroke.
Well, I for one am shocked that that's the engine you came up with.
The early 30's Chrysler flathead straight six (310 ci) and straight eight (385 ci) apparently had a 5" stroke. Dunno what might be longer.
EDIT: The Ford GAA V8 in the Sherman tank had a 6.0" stroke. A steam-powered tank would be a very stylish way to survive the apocalypse.
The Buick straight 8 of 1937-38 had a 5 inch stroke. But I doubt there are many around. Same with Tank engines.
I do know there are a fair number of Jaguar engines. Annual production was around 10,000 with 50% of production coming here to America. until 1987 and many of them became collector cars. But I'm sure some Diesel engines have to be longer stroke. Well except for the whole weight thing. Kind of limit what they can be used for.
The vehicle that I regret selling the most, was my '86 F250 XLT with the 6.0 idi. Those will run on almost any oil. I never filled it at a pump. Usually used waste jet fuel mixed with whatever else was handy; ATF, waste oil from my last change, filtered cooking oil.... The biggest problem I had was people (Mrs AAZCD) complaining about the fumes when I left it idling.
I'm still looking into fermenting iso-butanol, which has a close air/fuel ratio to gasoline, and unlike ethanol, does not absorb water. Unfortunately, this is still an area of research, so the information I am seeking is closely guarded.
I'm slightly less worried about all this since I read about the Swiss (!) scientists who have managed to produce kerosene using concentrated sunlight and CO2 from the air. Apparently this process has been demonstrated to work and is scalable.
Stealthtercel said:I'm slightly less worried about all this since I read about the Swiss (!) scientists who have managed to produce kerosene using concentrated sunlight and CO2 from the air. Apparently this process has been demonstrated to work and is scalable.
Heard about a study done on the energy requirements of electrofuels, I think it came out earlier this year or last year. They found that to replace all fossil fuels in the world with electrofuels at the time that the study was done, world electricity generation would need to be tripled or quadroupled...and then keep in mind that all that increased electricity generation would be spent on creating a fuel that would then have 2/3rds to 1/2 turned into waste heat when used. Essentially that would mean turning at least all of the world's current grid generation capacity indirectly into waste heat. So unfortunately electrofuels aren't that practical as a mainstream solution.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
Wrong ! Unlike oil which is found further and further away from civilization. Deeper in the ocean. In colder and more remote places.
The sun shines and wind blows in everybodies back yard. No transmission losses. Like coal and oil fired electric plants.
Economics of scale will work to lower costs to make it affordable for everyone. A tiny little bit of foresight will show that just like a Ford from the 1920's could make 20 hp. And todays Fords are able to make 800 hp. Cleaner and more efficiently. 100 years from now solar panels will make 40 times the power they do today. Wind generators will be similar. Yes they will cost $100,000 but so will a bicycle. ( inflation never stops ) .
AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:The vehicle that I regret selling the most, was my '86 F250 XLT with the 6.0 idi. Those will run on almost any oil. I never filled it at a pump. Usually used waste jet fuel mixed with whatever else was handy; ATF, waste oil from my last change, filtered cooking oil.... The biggest problem I had was people (Mrs AAZCD) complaining about the fumes when I left it idling.
Those diesels loved to burn old cooking oil. Same with tractors from that era.
I Friend from the Navy bought an old abandoned farm for peanuts and powered everything with old cooking oil.
The profits from farming like that allowed him to grow bigger and bigger . His 3 boys and a daughter all wound up attending Ivy League schools with his income.
He still goes out 5 nights a week harvesting cooking oil. Last I heard he has 7000 gallons in one tank and 5000 in another. The waste food filtered out is fed to his hogs. His farming operation provides a decent income to 4 other families. With full benefits.
frenchyd said:In reply to GameboyRMH :
Wrong ! Unlike oil which is found further and further away from civilization. Deeper in the ocean. In colder and more remote places.
The sun shines and wind blows in everybodies back yard. No transmission losses. Like coal and oil fired electric plants.
Economics of scale will work to lower costs to make it affordable for everyone. A tiny little bit of foresight will show that just like a Ford from the 1920's could make 20 hp. And todays Fords are able to make 800 hp. Cleaner and more efficiently. 100 years from now solar panels will make 40 times the power they do today. Wind generators will be similar. Yes they will cost $100,000 but so will a bicycle. ( inflation never stops ) .
Costs can come down but there's not that much room for efficiency increases. There's only room to make solar panels 3~6x more efficient before they reach 100% efficiency, the generators in wind turbines are already over 95% efficient.
Theoretically it could be possible to triple or quadrouple world electricity production and switch everything to eletrofuels rather than swapping ICEs for electric motors, but practically I don't think that would happen. Switching to electric motors will be needed just for efficiency reasons, being roughly 3x as efficient as an ordinary ICE.
In reply to GameboyRMH :
You are right. I was thinking about the cost rather than actual efficency.
If I remember correctly the total electrical energy generated is about 50% lost to transmission. While generation at your residence loses it would be trivial.
We'd still need an electrical grid to transfer unused power to locations not generating enough at the moment required. But efficiency would increase.
I'm not one of those "purists" I accept that safely operated nuclear power plants will be a partial solution to clean global energy requirements.
As for nuclear waste, nuclear energy has to be refined from what is extracted from the ground. Why can't the waste be "refined" to usable form thus eliminating lower and lower levels of radiation until it's down to background levels? Recycling nuclear waste as it were?
In reply to frenchyd :
Refining nuclear waste is politically problematic because it's a lot like making weapons materials, by recollection.
No I don't know the exact details anymore. They do it in France but they also have a lot of oversight.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Right now America has about the right degree of oversight. But I wouldn't object to more.
If refining the waste gets used radiation someplace safer and turned into more usable energy I'd understand heavier supervision. Done properly everyone goes home safely and receives a good paycheck for the added danger.
Any trace amounts of waste could be buried underground where it originally came from maybe with explosions to bury it so it can't be retrieved?
Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said: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.
There are low tech ways on the internet. The problem is getting that crude out of the ground. Wells will produce long after they are economically viable.
But you could put wind generators and solar panels up to pull oil from the ground then refine it. Probably cheaper and easier to create methanol from coal, wood waste, and garbage.
Yes ethanol can be extracted from corn, wheat, oats, barley, Sugar , or switch grass. Except it requires a much more complex still then creating booze. 100 proof booze is only 50% ethanol.
The final way would be the most simple to convert to steam burning wood, grass, or even coal.
Lubrication oil would be the hardest to create. Vegetable oil would be easier and higher grade but not without its own issues.
In reply to Sidewayze :
indeed!
Switching to my MD hat, there will be many acute infectious disease problems to circumvent. Look at Carribean islands post hurricane without power...E36 M3 in the streets, no clean water...not pretty!
You'll need to log in to post.
