norseman
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Post by norseman on Oct 1, 2022 5:00:45 GMT 10
Is that Bravo guy thick? He bangs on about paper 20 and 50 pound notes no longer able to be used. But the news article in his video states they are being replaced by polymer notes. Much better from a preppers perspective, as the polymer notes will be more durable when stashed. Polymer notes are better for burying! Those paper fifties were hopeless if the Milo tin leaked, took weeks to dry and you couldn't get the musty smell off them! The teller wasn't amused when she had to do a ten grand one for one swap on the counter, the bank stunk like a fresh dug grave before she finished!
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Oct 1, 2022 8:55:01 GMT 10
All hype, you can swap the paper notes for the polymer ones, even after the cutoff point at any bank. Media hype, true, they can't be used as legal tender, but they can be redeemed at face value at any time.
Energy, in turn, can be used to create fuels and fertilizer, two inputs necessary for affordable food. In addition, the universe provides the sun which brings us heat, energy and photosynthesis, all for free.
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bug
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Post by bug on Oct 1, 2022 15:56:58 GMT 10
Even out of circulation coins (1 & 2c for example) can still be redeemed at a bank at face value.
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Tim Horton
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Post by Tim Horton on Oct 25, 2022 10:52:44 GMT 10
Polymer notes are better for burying! Those paper fifties were hopeless if the Milo tin leaked, you can swap the paper notes for the polymer ones, even after the cutoff point at any bank. --- In one of the 57,000 books Sweetie has registered and re shelved, she found 2 paper Canadian $20 bills.. This along with a note saying something like ...Hope you enjoy this book as much as I did, love Grandma... Obviously someone didn't think much of the book.. The bills exchanged for polymer easily.. Going directly to our coffee drive through stash... --- Even out of circulation coins (1 & 2c for example) can still be redeemed at a bank at face value. --- For cash sales we do not use the penny ($.01 cent coin) --- This has always been my theory.... When it comes to barter, if a couple Lonnie ($1) or Toonies ($2) coins is all it takes to make the barter go your way they are priceless.. Even if they have seemingly little value on a stand alone purchase..
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moopere
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Post by moopere on Nov 4, 2022 12:43:47 GMT 10
I've been having some thoughts recently that are strongly informed by our recent experience - that being the coof. Growing up as a young boy in the 70's as with most of us from that time we were exposed to the whole nuclear armageddon thing. There were books and TV shows about what we thought that would look like before during and after - this left me with the impression that you'd know when the day came, obviously, because there would have been a nuclear exchange and civilians would be in no doubt, on that day, that things had changed forever.
That scenario still exists today, but its not explored much in the popular media any more and, tbh, I think it isn't and was never really the threat we built it up to be in our collective minds.
More likely in my view is a slow descent into madness taking weeks, months or even years. You won't get that wake up call on a certain day ... unless on that day its the authorities breaking down your door ala Stalinist gulag police coming to drag you away for wrongthink. If thats how its going to go for us then we've already left it too late if we wait until that day to react.
I wonder about the ultimate utility of storing fuel and particularly the value of storing fiat currency for any scenarios that go on longer than a few days or weeks. Even storing gold, as the old saying goes, 'you can't eat gold'. If we're in a situation where fiat currency has no value, supply chains and production are completely broken and the SHTF truly, it will be years, maybe even decades, before precious metals have any real world value again.
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bug
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Post by bug on Nov 4, 2022 13:35:33 GMT 10
Gold always has value. You can't eat gold, but you can store it forever and trade with it when needed. Still not as good as a chicken shed and vege garden though.
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Nov 4, 2022 15:50:49 GMT 10
Welcome moopere, lots of info here, just look back through the posts.
I too am re evaluating the storage of food, fuel and so on. Eventually, no matter how much you have stashed away, it will run out. Thats why a resupply plan is so important. Resupply for food, fuel, electricity (solar etc) and water.
Most preppers have the food and water worked out, but as for fuel......
I am building a gasifier to make synthetic gas from wood, which can power a standard 4 stroke engine.
It is on a standard pallet, with a 5 kva 240 v Subaru generator on the same pallet. This enables the vibrations from the engine to keep the grate clear of coking. Also, being on a pallet means it can be put onto a trailer and connected to the ride on lawnmower, to keep the grass down and snake hazard under control.
I have the hearth, draft tube, retort itself, cooling radiator and several other bits. Still to find are the cyclone filter, fan unit and air mixture valve arrangement, but, if it all goes tits up now, we could survive.
Im not building it for use now, as petrol is easy to get and relatively cheap. The unit is for when petrol isn't available, or is 100's dollar a liter.
Cartoon law no 7: certain bodies can pass through solid walls painted to resemble tunnel entrances:others cannot.
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frostbite
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Post by frostbite on Nov 4, 2022 16:46:43 GMT 10
Isn't there a battery (and hence solar) powered equivalent of whatever motor you want to run with the gasifier?
Like a battery powered lawnmower for the lawn?
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Nov 4, 2022 16:57:41 GMT 10
Yes, but I want to run a generator to charge the main house battery's when TSHTF.
I do have 2 off 240 v electric chainsaws, and an electric sawmill (3 phase) that runs from the solar, but a battery powered lawnmower isn't really successful here as we have a fair bit of yards to mow around all the dwellings.
Cartoon law no 8: Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
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bushdoc2
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Post by bushdoc2 on Nov 5, 2022 5:52:42 GMT 10
Gold always has value. You can't eat gold, but you can store it forever and trade with it when needed. Still not as good as a chicken shed and vege garden though. True. Gold is portable and infinitely storable. Diversify your preps: food storage short term. Food production long term. Barter/trade items such as precious metals which can be carted off if you have to leave home in a hurry. The chook shed is too heavy to carry.
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moopere
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Post by moopere on Nov 5, 2022 13:54:04 GMT 10
Gold always has value. You can't eat gold, but you can store it forever and trade with it when needed. Still not as good as a chicken shed and vege garden though. True. Gold is portable and infinitely storable. Diversify your preps: food storage short term. Food production long term. Barter/trade items such as precious metals which can be carted off if you have to leave home in a hurry. The chook shed is too heavy to carry.
I used to think pretty much along these lines - but I've had a real change of heart recently. I think gold has global value if the problem you're facing is a localised one. So, your own country is falling into civil war for example but the rest of the world is more or less fine. Fiat currency suddenly has zero value and you want to leave ... but the ferryman laughs at you when you offer a stack of AUD$ ... pull out your bar of gold and you're good. Gold would have been a better choice to store value than confederate dollars at the end of the US civil war. On a local level though assuming that escape to the safety of another country is not a viable option - in the middle of the SHTF would I trade anything of actual practical value for a lump of gold? Probably not. There are real practical problems with bartering items that don't have any practical value aside from scarcity and tradition. To give an example of what I mean, think being marooned on a tropical island in a situation where you will never be picked up ... ever ... having a mountain of gold bars beside you is of absolutely no value whatsoever. So what is it worth? So say someone trots off to the local barter town 6 months into a very serious situation with 200g of gold looking to barter for 1000 rounds of 9mm ammo. If I had that ammo at home and more, would I trade it, or some of it, for the gold? Nope. What about if it was 2KG of gold? Still nope. My concerns after 6 months of big trouble would be much more short term. Maybe in a few years or more that trade would make me an extremely rich man, but I've got to survive the current trouble in order to capitalise on that stored value. To say nothing of potentially finding myself getting a visit in the middle of the night from the guy who I just sold the 9mm ammo to looking for more and his gold back (smile). I'll probably start another thread about storing barterable value as this thread is for about what to do on the first day. Its an interesting problem and folds into another issue I'm mentally struggling with which is stored value, actual practical stores and mobility.
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Nov 5, 2022 14:14:44 GMT 10
Very well put, and mirrors my thoughts as well. WTSHTF, "stuff", and the knowledge to repair and make "stuff", will also be a tradable commodity. And to some extent, we operate like that now out here, for instance. The other day, I spun out 20 odd kg honey from some bee hives on a property down the road. It was for the owner of the farm, and in exchange, he gave me 20 odd kg homemade sausages (hes a retired butcher). Alls well, an agreed value was struck and the transaction took place. Barter town is probably not far away from the start of the collapse. Share certificates will make good TP, or firelighters and not much else, be they worth millions before the collapse. 22 ammo, and 12 g shotty shells will be worth their weight in gold, as will petrol, for a while at least. Cash will of course, still be king, at least for a while. Such a economic system wont happen after the first day, or even week, but after a month or so, local markets may spring up for just that, barter. And, as the effect of the collapse get worse, so then barter will take on more importance. Gold, worthless ? Probably not as some poor fools will try and horde it and starve to death, along with their now worthless share certificates. Silver, now that's a different animal. Silver is much more useful than gold, especially for sterilizing water. After 12 months, what will the world look like ? Probably a series of barter towns, with villages between them. I intend to make items needed for the survivors, such as gasifiers, and am collecting the 'stuffs' for just that purpose. Dont underestimate the value of communications, especially straight after it as people seek information, want to contact loved ones and so on.
Be that 'go to' person and your skills and knowledge will be much more tradable than gold.
Incontinence hotline, can you hold please ?
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Nov 6, 2022 12:06:59 GMT 10
From moopre, "At some point I'll reach my own line in the sand on this stuff, something will pop up that I ethically object to and that will be that - I'll drop out of the authoritarian economy and into the black economy. "
That's what we as preppers should aim for, total independence from the system, so when it falls over, we are not affected by it. Don't know how we go in relation to property rights though in that situation.
Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth.
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bug
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Post by bug on Nov 6, 2022 14:48:16 GMT 10
Some fair points there. As always, diversification. Maybe gold will be useless, maybe it will be the only thing of value. You can't know it in advance, so it's wise to keep some. By that I mean physical gold coins, not gold futures or whatever.
On MWTs point, I'd say get out of the authoritarian economy anyway. After what our governments have done in the past two years, I don't really blame anyone who does whatever they can to avoid the monitored economy. Keep using cash. Make sure your occupation is one that can operate outside of the system. Be a plumber, not a lawyer. Lie to the government whenever possible. Destroy their ability to use data by undermining its integrity wherever possible.
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moopere
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Post by moopere on Nov 7, 2022 23:49:14 GMT 10
[snip] ... I am building a gasifier to make synthetic gas from wood, which can power a standard 4 stroke engine. It is on a standard pallet, with a 5 kva 240 v Subaru generator on the same pallet. This enables the vibrations from the engine to keep the grate clear of coking. Also, being on a pallet means it can be put onto a trailer and connected to the ride on lawnmower, to keep the grass down and snake hazard under control. I have the hearth, draft tube, retort itself, cooling radiator and several other bits. Still to find are the cyclone filter, fan unit and air mixture valve arrangement, but, if it all goes tits up now, we could survive. Im not building it for use now, as petrol is easy to get and relatively cheap. The unit is for when petrol isn't available, or is 100's dollar a liter. Mmmm. I want to create a thread in a moment about vehicles and their value once petrol or diesel is unobtainable. I've always been intrigued with the gasifier concept - one I only became aware of in a superficial way when I stumbled into reports of cars driving around in WWII Germany using this tech. I need to do some research on this - I'm assuming that any modern injected car engine wouldn't be suitable for gasification, what would likely work best is a stonking big 351 or 360 V8 or even a big block v8 from the 70's with carburetion. Partly because of the carburetor but also because of the displacement - gasified fuel contains only a fraction of the energy of petrol as I understand it and reduces engine power output by what? 30% ... 50%? More? If thats right then you'd want a big donk that with Petrol would give you 200hp or more, then, gasified you might get 100+ which would be fine for a big old Ford or Chrysler thumping around at low revs. I hadn't thought about the concept of using this process to power a generator. What sort of power (W) is likely achievable from your generator and how much wood would be consumed to provide that power? Do you think it would be so low in efficiency that you'd just be better off burning the wood and taking the energy as heat? What about efficiency versus say a steam engine setup?
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bug
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Post by bug on Nov 8, 2022 8:40:26 GMT 10
The 'petrol and diesel becoming unobtainable' issue occurred in Japan. Once Russia invaded the Japanese Northern Territories (the islands to the north of Hokkaido) after the end of WWII (because apparantly attacking a nation that has already surrendered is in the communist playbook), Japan had no access to oil. Their shattered economy made imports difficult too. So they started producing EVs. They were small and had a range limited to 70km, but they worked. www.pinterest.com.au/pin/156711262018822842/
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malewithatail
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Post by malewithatail on Nov 8, 2022 10:54:39 GMT 10
OK, here we go, a mini tutorial on wood gas, also known as producer gas.
I am not building this because petrol is over $5/liter, and its not for when its $50/liter, or even $100/liter, but for when its not obtainable. We will pay $100/liter for petrol, we will complain, loudly, about it, but its still available, no, this unit is for when its not available at any price.
Our solar systems here are also big enough that even in rain, enough power comes in to fully charge the battery's every day, however, a week of bad weather would see the systems dragged down too far, hence the need for an alternate charging mechanism.
Constructing a gasifier shouldn't also stop you from storing a strategic supply of petrol/diesel and don't forget oils, gearbox etc for machinery, in a shed well away from anything, earthed walls, and with a lightning arrester attached, just in case. 2 years is what we aimed for. (My thesis was on storms and lightning protection, there's more in it than most people realize).
It certainly isn't as convenient as pouring petrol into a tank and starting the engine, and can take up to 20 - 30 minutes to get into operation, so wont be replacing petrol whilst its still easily available.
The design is based on an Imbert style, vertical downdraft gasifier unit of the type published by the FEMA organization many years ago. This will be the second one Ive built, the first being destroyed in a shed fire some years ago.
It will be mounted on a standard 6 foot pallet, with either a 3.5, KVA Honda, or 5 KVA Suberu generator, depending on which one runs the best on the gasifier. A pallet mounted unit can also be towed behind the ride on mower, enabling me to keep the grass down around the houses short to keep the snakes away.
Almost any spark ignition engine can be run on wood gas, exceptions being 2 strokes, unless they use separate oil injection a some outboards do, diesels can as well, but you still need a pilot injection of 5 % diesel to fire the gas. (Much the same as running a diesel engine on LP gas).
Fuel injected engines can run on wood gas, but the injectors have to be disabled first as they rely on the fuel passing through them to keep cool and may be damaged without any.
Yes, large engines can run on it, but the size of the gasifier gets bigger in proportion to the engine size, so a 4 inch arrangement for a small generator, would need to be 10 or 12 inches in diameter for a 500 ciu in V8.
The gas is filtered first, then cooled, and fed into the carby directly, via a t piece air metering arrangement. Ive seen some that just use the starting fan to blow the gas straight into the inlet, but its wasteful and a bit dangerous as there is unburnt gas floating around.
My previous gasifier was of a size that could run my Triton carby ute (which is already petrol and lp gas), and only has an ignition module (spare wrapped in foil under the seat), making it EMP/CME proof, quite happily on the road. No computer. And besides, after TSHTF, driving on the roads would be very dangerous as it would only attract attention that you had resources.
The energy in wood is not as much as in petrol, so you can only expect 60 % or so of the power than when running on petrol hence the choices of generator. The wood has to reasonably dry, although a little moisture will enhance the gas by the production of hydrogen through disassociation of the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen with the heat.
Its called producer gas as its only produced when the engine is running. It relys on the engine vacuum sucking air through a hearth, and starving the fire of oxygen, and the resultant smoke contains a mixture of flammable gases, such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide and so on. Ive no doubt that coal could be used as well and Ive used coke. Wood chips, BBQ brickets an so on can also be burnt to obtain electricity.
The process needs to be started off, so a small 12 v car heater fan is used to suck the smoke through the unit and get the fire going from cold. It also allow the air to be purged from the system to prevent a backfire and possible damage, both to the operator and gasifier ! Once the engine is running, the fan is closed off and switched off as the engine vacuum sucks the gas through. There is a flare vent on the fan output, to show when it can sustain a flame and is purged of air and ready to run the engine.
My design will be sealed, relying on the engine vacuum sucking the gas in, making it safe as if the engine stops, gas production will also stop.
As for power production, initially, I am aiming for about 5 kva from a Subaru generator set. I do have a couple of 3.5 kva Honda's, one with a blown engine, the other with a damaged alternator, and ultimately, that's the power unit I will be constructing.
A steam engine has some appeal, but it uses steam at pressure, so there is the explosion risk, especially with a home made unit, and also its not standard, parts either will need to be made, or bought, and that's expensive. (Strath steam make a 5 hp steam engine at $5 K, just for the engine, add the boiler etc).
A gasifier is well within the reach of a reasonably competent home handyman to make without special tools, and not needing any special license or permit to operate.
Nuff for now, If enough interest is shown, I could make a separate forum covering the build.
Rules that guys wish girls knew.
3) If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect and answer you don't want to hear.
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spatial
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Post by spatial on Nov 8, 2022 11:09:16 GMT 10
[snip] ... I am building a gasifier to make synthetic gas from wood, which can power a standard 4 stroke engine. It is on a standard pallet, with a 5 kva 240 v Subaru generator on the same pallet. This enables the vibrations from the engine to keep the grate clear of coking. Also, being on a pallet means it can be put onto a trailer and connected to the ride on lawnmower, to keep the grass down and snake hazard under control. I have the hearth, draft tube, retort itself, cooling radiator and several other bits. Still to find are the cyclone filter, fan unit and air mixture valve arrangement, but, if it all goes tits up now, we could survive. Im not building it for use now, as petrol is easy to get and relatively cheap. The unit is for when petrol isn't available, or is 100's dollar a liter. Mmmm. I want to create a thread in a moment about vehicles and their value once petrol or diesel is unobtainable. I've always been intrigued with the gasifier concept - one I only became aware of in a superficial way when I stumbled into reports of cars driving around in WWII Germany using this tech. I need to do some research on this - I'm assuming that any modern injected car engine wouldn't be suitable for gasification, what would likely work best is a stonking big 351 or 360 V8 or even a big block v8 from the 70's with carburetion. Partly because of the carburetor but also because of the displacement - gasified fuel contains only a fraction of the energy of petrol as I understand it and reduces engine power output by what? 30% ... 50%? More? If thats right then you'd want a big donk that with Petrol would give you 200hp or more, then, gasified you might get 100+ which would be fine for a big old Ford or Chrysler thumping around at low revs. I hadn't thought about the concept of using this process to power a generator. What sort of power (W) is likely achievable from your generator and how much wood would be consumed to provide that power? Do you think it would be so low in efficiency that you'd just be better off burning the wood and taking the energy as heat? What about efficiency versus say a steam engine setup? In a few persons in Nat Geographic Doomsday Preppers TV show had gasifiers. One was mounted in an old school bus.
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