Tag Archives: fuel

Propane and propane accessories

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So I’d like to keep a low profile in regards to..well..everything….as I develop stuff on the property. Propane tanks are, it seems, uniformly a bright white color that is going to look a tad conspicuous amongst all the greenery. My first inclination is to just grab a couple cans of olive green paint and a brush. Perusing the internet shows me that it may not be that simple.

From what I’ve read, propane tanks are the color they are in order to reflect and prevent the absorption of heat. If a tank heats up in the sun, the contents can expand and at some point vent themselves through a safety valve, thereby reducing your amount of available propane. Painting a propane tank a camo color would only increase its absorption of heat. And, although Im not clear on this, in some cases it may not be strictly legal to paint a propane tank. (Although that might only be for rented tanks. No matter, my plan is to buy.)

So, if you want a discreet propane tank, your other alternative, it seems, is to obscure it. But, propane tanks are one of those things that, as I read it, you don’t really want in an enclosed space. Personally, what I thought would be optimal would be to pour a slab to put the tank on and then build up a wall of railroad ties or similar on either side of the tank and then berm them to provide visual camo and protection from stray projectiles. Something not too dissimilar to this:

Again, this is my uninformed opinion, but it appears that enclosing/shrouding or otherwise corralling a propane tank is feasible as long as theres enough airflow so that if a tank springs a leak, the propane doesn’t all accumulate in one spot. (Being heavier than air, it will puddle out to low lying areas but I would think it’ll dissipate better in that circumstance than if it were all ‘bottled up’ in a structure of some kind.)

Whaddyou think?

Article – Refrigerator-sized machine makes gasoline out of thin air

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TL;DR company claims to have invented a machine that makes gasoline from air. Elizabeth Holmes could not be reached for comment.

Earlier this month, the company announced it had created the world’s first functional machine capable of generating real, usable car gasoline “directly from the air.” Aircela’s new device, roughly the size of a commercial refrigerator, combines direct air capture (DAC) with on-site fuel synthesis to create gasoline using just air, water, and renewable energy. No fossil fuels, they say, are required.

Ok, a couple things here. First of all, in physics, as we understand it today, there is no free energy. As I understand it the amount of energy it takes to make the gasoline-from-air cannot be less than the energy you get from the gasoline-from-the-air. In other words, youd get more miles driving the electricity it toook to make the gasoline than you would from the gasoline. But, thats probably an oversimplification.

Also, the more conspiracy minded will now comment about how the .gov will never let these guys bring such an item to market and instead will teach them the meaning of defenestration. And, don’t forget, the 70MPG carburetors that supposedly “Big Oil” has been suppressing since forever.

In one sense, there’s an even bigger question – if you have the technology to create gasoline out of the air, then you have the technology to not need the gasoline in the first place. But, as the article states, many people aren’t willing to give up their gas engines so the next best thing is to make the gas more abundant.

This reminds me of the atmospheric water generators (AWG) that are out there…with enough electricity, you can drop one of these in a desert-environment somewhere and start producing water out of the air. The lesson being that with enough electrical power you can pretty much do anything. (Which was one of the big messages of ‘Lucifers Hammer’ … electricity=civilization.)

This sort of technology is interesting, and certainly thought provoking, but for your average garden-variety survivalist it seems to be of interest mostly for the trickle-down effect of the research and technology, and the societal impact of it working on a large scale.

Ford F-150 surprise

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Someone pointed something out to me the other day that was utterly fascinating.

This person has a Ford F-150 of relatively recent vintage. Having had the needle on ‘E’, they rolled into a gas station just as the fumes finally gave out and the engine sputtered to a stop. As they were about to refill the truck they figured that this seemed like a good time to rotate the gas from the cans in the bed of the truck. So..dismount the can, put your nozzle on the can, and…..fuel up, right?

Not so fast.

Apparently the newer Ford F-150 (and other ‘capless’ gas tank vehicles) are designed in such a manner that you cannot fill them from a gas can without using a special nozzle. Or, put another way, you cannot just grab a jerry can and fill your rig without the magic nozzle. Did you know this? I didn’t. The person who told me about it didn’t. Guarantee you, though…he knows now.

I am amazed at this. I understand that the folks who design vehicles are, perhaps, not thinking about the times where you’re next fuel fillup is coming from a 5-gallon can someone carried to your base location on a cargo-shelf’ed ALICE pack. But…as survivalists, it would be nice to know that we need a special geegaw to fill the bloody truck from a gas can.

Apparently the vehicle comes with one of these magic funnels but, as you know, one is none and, really, for something as critical as filling your escape vehicle, why wouldn’t you have three or four? Or one paracorded to every other gas can. Fortunately, extras are available.

Moral of the story – if you think the vehicle you currently drive may someday need to be filled from a man-portable gas container of some kind…..actually try doing it. This way you know for sure that it’ll work. The las thing you want is that nasty surprise when you’re by the side of the highway at 2am and you’ve got plenty of extra fuel and no way to get it into your rig.

Wanna see something cool?

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You guys remember that a few weeks back I bought a like-new Aladdin kero lamp for $25? Well,check this baby out…it is literally new-in-box from about 40+ years ago:

How cool is that? Absolutely brand new and left over from the Reagan years.

And, heres the sad thing: from a pragmatic, practical, and logistical standpoint this is a silly purchase. It’ll run eight hours on one quart of fuel. Thats four nights on a gallon, which means I have about 400 days worth of kero for this thing. Thats 20 5-gallon cans. Those take up a lot of space. And this thing generates heat, which isnt always welcome. And a degree of indoor pollutants. And a fire risk. And some delicate spare parts (mantle, chimney). Whereas a good 12v. LED light will, as I’ve proven, run 21 nights (at least) on one charge, poses no fire risk, generates several times the light, no heat, can be recharged from multiple sources (generator, car, solar, bike generator, etc.) and doesn’t require delicate spare parts. From a practical standpoint, this item makes absolutely no sense in my preparedness TOE. Except…I like them. I like their charm, warmth, good looks, and general homey-ness. But, make no mistake, the primary emergency lighting ain’t these. But…on a cold winter night, when youre sitting by the window watching the wind howl and blow the snow around, its a good deal more comforting than the harsh LED lamps.

Oh…price? $89 plus shipping. Couldn’t resist.

Kerosene

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A few weeks ago, I replaced my oldest kerosene heater with a brand new one. This was a good thing. But…that meant that I had two kerosene heaters that were not, for logistics sake, identical. This was a bad thing. So, in the name of logistics, I picked up another identical heater to the new one. So, I have two new identical heaters and an older one which is now being relegated to tertiary or loaner status.

But, the amusing thing at Lowe’s was this obscenity:

Do the  math…thats $14 a gallon for kerosene. Inconceivable!

Now, if you’re a savvy survivalist, you wouuldn’t be buying the stuff in 2.5-gallon quantity anyway, right? No, you’d be heading over to Cenex and pumping it yourself into your 5- or 55-gallon drums for a heck of a lot less than $14 a gallon.

Heck, I bought some off Craigslist a few years back and I was annoyed it was $2.86/gallon. But, thats because my great $1/gallon purchase twenty years ago spoiled me.

But it was interesting to see that someone, somewhere, thinks this stuff is worth $14/gallon.

Fortunately, I’ve got about a hundred gallons sitting back so….I’ll pass on $14, TYVM.

Why all those gas cans?

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So I ordered up a goodly amount of new NATO-style gas cans the other day. A reasonable person might ask, “Why do you need so many?”

Like it or not, the world runs on gas and oil. Most of us get our gas the same way – we trundle down to the gas station and fill our cars and gas cans. What can prevent that? Tons of things, man. What shuts down a gas station? Lack of product, outrageous demand,  lack of electricity for pumps, curfews, riots, government mandate, etc, etc.

It’s not unreasonable to think that, in even a moderate crisis such as a blizzard or hurricane, your local gas station is going to either have sold out of all their gas, or their pumps aren’t working, or they haven’t been able to get restocked. And that’s assuming that .gov doesnt shut them down to begin with or restrict their sales to .gov organizations only.

But, since I’m sitting in a well-fortified and well-stocked house, why would I need so much gasoline? I’m not going anywhere, right? Well, not if I can help it. But….sometimes things don’t go as planned, for whatever reason, and I might need to be somewhere else. In that case, the last thing I want is to be standing in a crowded line of frightened, panicked, angry people.

But…there’s other reasons to keep a goodly amount of fuel handy. Even if I don’t go anywhere, I’m still going to need gas for the generator. And, depending on the situation and the nature of the relationship with my neighbors, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to be in a position to help them out..if I choose to.

I mean, even if you think that your particular situation is so well squared away that gasoline isn’t a priority for you, for whatever reason…it’s still probably a good idea to have some on hand. Generators, chainsaws, snow blowers, lanterns, four wheelers, water pumps, etc, etc, all need gas. It’d be a little short sighted to think that just because you don’t foresee needing it for a vehicle or a generator you can ignore keeping some around.

Heck, you get a hurricane and your vehicle is outta commission, you gotta have something to offer someone to take you and your gear outta harms way. Being able to gas up someone elses vehicle can go a long way towards getting them to make room in the back for you. Same for generators. Maybe yours craps out or is in the shop. Offer to fuel up the neighbor’s genny and I’ve no doubt he’d let you run an extension cord to your place for your freezer.

So, thats why, for me, buying that many gas cans isn’t a bad idea. The more fuel I have the further I increase my ‘range of safety’ to get away from trouble, the longer I run my generator to keep my freezer going, the more help I can offer to people I deem worthy of helping, etc.

For my needs, those NATO cans are perfect. They seal up tight, don’t ‘breathe’ like plastic cans do, are easier to handle, and take abuse exceptionally well. And, this is important ,guys – these things are only going to be more expensive later, assuming you can find them at all. Two AM by the side of the road in a downpour during a crisis because you thought “I’ll just swing by the Conoco and gas up…I’m sure they still have gas” is a situation easily avoided.

And, of course, if youre going to store gas, do it safely. Store it outside your home in a shed, barn, garage, or under a tarp along the side of your shed. Use a gas stabilizer to keep it from ‘going bad’ (I use PRI-G), and make a note on the can of when you filled it up and make sure to rotate it every year or so.

If you like your gas can spout, you can keep your gas can spout. Unfortunately, .gov had to dick around with things and now the only spouts easily found for gas cans are these insanely stupid non-spill spouts. Screw ’em. I lanyard a funnel to every other can, but it’s easy enough to find the matching spouts for these cans that don’t use those ridiculous shut-off mechanisms that California wound up mandating.

So there you go. Why so many gas cans? Thats why.

Propane

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For those of you who are local, or semi local, the place to get propane at the moment seems to be Bretzz RV on Reserve St by the interstate. If you’re a ‘member’ of their ‘propane fillup club’ or whatever the heck they call it you wind up at $0.99/gal. Which means you can fill your average barbecue bomb (which is about $30 new at CostCo just down the street) for $5.

I’d been there the last two weekends but for various reasons their filling station was closed. Not today, though. Five bucks and I’ve enough propane to keep me heated, fed, and illuminated for a few days worth of power outage. I’ve got about four or five of these tanks at the monet, I’ll probably make it an even six. I had refrained from getting anything larger because I didn’t want to incur the penalty to mobility. A 20# barbecue bomb is easy for anyone to handle…when they get bigger, not so much.

By the by, signing up at Bretz’ is free, and they don’t ask for ID, so just go down there, sign up as Heywood Jablowme, and save a few bucks on getting your tank filled.

And, just because if I don’t make a reference to ‘King Of The Hill’ in a propane post someone will feel obligated to do so in comments:

Up, up, and away

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Between lunch and getting off work, the local gas station raised it’s price another ten cents. Thats almost a fifty cent increase from this time last week.

And when fuel prices go up, the cost of everything delivered by fuel-consuming vehicles goes up. And electric vehicles are not the answer that the lefties would have you think it is. After all, where is that electricity coming from? Why, fossil-fuel power plants in most places. Either in your tank or in a generating station somewhere, you’re still burning hydrocarbons.

For those of you on fixed incomes…..ouch.