(Judging from the comments below I should have chosen a different name for this post. Consider the title to be "The world ended and I've had to run away from my preps and/or BOL, now what?")
If you've been following my posts you'll notice that I have covered several topics these past few months.
These include making medicine, paper, batteries, gasoline, wood gas, building a tribal society with goodwill and living with diabetes (making insulin and monitoring blood sugar levels) as well as a few other things.
A few days ago I was out and about and I had the sudden realization that my own preps which include substantial food storage as well as a small urban farming operation and a BOL, may one day prove insufficient.
The question boiled down to what if there was a situation where we had to run and keep running to stay alive. Maybe not continuously, but what if for a time we had to go hunter gatherer style and basically move camp every few weeks. Say for instance yellowstone erupted, or there was a significant natural disaster, or long term supply disruption that resulted in frequent issues with raiders?
So I broke down the needs of my family into 4 items that we would need if we needed to run and keep running for awhile.
These items, are food, shelter, water and gas.
Water can generally be solved with a large drum or barrel left open to catch the rain, or failing that a stream or other source of ready water. However we are desert creatures here and having lived in the desert our whole lives, our water needs are pretty minimal compared to others, so I assume that sufficient water can be readily found.
I also found a diesel truck that a neighbor is getting rid of to use as a bug out vehicle and I've got a line on a small trailer with propane stoves and a gasoline generator for heat etc.
At this point in my life I know how to make fire and cook with it, so the propane for the stove is irrelevant, but what is relevant is gasoline for the generator and diesel fuel to keep on trucking.
Obviously there is only so much food, gas & diesel that can be packed into a trailer and hauled around with you, so this limits the amount of travel possible by simply stocking up and having these things at the ready.
With this in mind I started doing serious research into nutritious food items that can be easily grown even on the road and that are readily converted into fuel.
In the case of diesel there are about 10,000 different food items that can be turned into fuel. but only a handful of those are readily grown and one of them (hemp) is illegal to possess.
In the case of gasoline just about anything with sugar in it can be converted into ethanol, but ethanol isn't a long term substitute for gas. In many cases you have to retool things like the carburetor and fuel system to get it to burn properly and the water content can still damage things so you have to be very careful. IMHO a better solution would be butanol which is more like gas than alcohol.
Fortunately I did stumble on a possible answer to all three problems simultaneously.
The solution is algae, but not just any algae. The particular algae is called Spirulina and it's a "super food'. While not the tastiest food in the world it's incredibly nutritionally dense and possesses all of the nutrients needed to sustain life (with the notable exception of B12).
It's also dead simple to cultivate, very high yielding and can be used as fuel with very little modification, here's how.
First off you need to grow it. I'm not going to go into excessive detail on this because there is information literally everywhere. The recent Make Magazine issue #26 has a great setup for doing it in home, however my setup is completely different and uses several seal-able 5 gallon buckets which I have modified with lighting in the lids to provide light for growth and cheap aquarium pumps to provide for aeration. Specifically these Amazon.com: Elite A790 Battery Operated Air Pump: Kitchen & Dining
This seems to be adequate and moderately spill proof. You need 10 gallons for each adult and 5 gallons for each child, this will produce enough to keep you alive and nourished. I have a total of 10 of these 5 gallon buckets or 50 gallons. I'm guessing a 50 gallon drum would do basically the same thing. Also I use wood ash as the nutrient base for the algae.
Once you have your spirulina growing and have harvested it, you need to first dry it and weigh it. According to my math you need to consume about 10g (roughly a tablespoon) per day at a minimum if this is your primary source of nutrition. That's not very much but I've found that just a few grams signals my body that it's full, so no worries about going hungry.
I've seen recommendations as high as 30g. I'm still working it out on my end, but you are likely to be better off with a higher amount than a lower amount, so figure 10g per serving with 3 servings per day or 30g per person per day.
Since it takes 2 weeks to fully develop a harvest that means 420g or in round figures 500g per person per harvest should be set aside for food.
Post harvest, make sure to fill the tank back up with water and add 1/2 cup of wood ash to replenish the nutrient base. This step will also keep the pH in check.
The rest needs to be processed into fuel.
Spirulina is really high in oils.
If you heat it up a little and roll it with a roller you will express lots and lots of oil. In my experiment I took 10g of sundried spirulina and got 5g of oil. I'm sure you could do better especially if you have an oil press like this one http://goo.gl/xYdA8.
At the rate I was able to get, the yield for 8kg of material would get you 4000g of oil or just over a gallon. Obviously if you have a 50 gallon gas tank then you will need to harvest 400kg dry weight to fill the tank, that's about 880 lbs.
Clearly not realistic from a single harvest. But a single harvest might be enough to get you a few more miles down the road or you could use the technique to store up extra fuel and help make the fuel you do have last a bit longer.
If you have a diesel engine modified for SVO that's all you have to do. However if you don't, then you are going to need to make your own biodiesel, using one of the many, many processes for SVO to biodiesel conversion. http://www.biodieselmake.com/
In my opinion it might be better to just convert the vehicle to SVO ahead of time since complete kits only run about $1500 and you don't want to be bouncing around in the woods with biodiesel making supplies which contain several dangerous chemicals.
The next process would be to convert the remaining biomass, the stuff you just pressed the oil out of, into gasoline. Turns out that's actually the easiest part. You see butanol is made from butyric acid (the stuff that gives vomit it's lovely smell) by bacteria that occur pretty much everywhere in nature.
Butyric Acid can be made by acid digestion of the algae, but unlike my earlier post about butanol from cellolosic sources, this doesn't need the long digestion times required to break down cellulose since of course it's algae and doesn't have any cellulose.
If you want to be fancy you can order a supply of Clostridium Acetobutylicum from a supplier such as Carolina.com. I'm still using my first batch of bacteria after having made about 40 batches or so of ABE fuels, but I'm running a culture and have experience keeping cultures alive so YMMV.
(I no longer recommend dirt or rusty wire as a source for the bacteria, unless you have no other options, however it is ubiquitous in dirt).
After 7 to 10 days you will have something that no longer smells like vomit or death, but instead smells a bit like nail polish remover and whiskey. This is Acetone, Butanol, Ethanol, or ABE fuel.
Pass the ABE fuel through some zeolite (found at your local petshop) to remove the water content and then distill off the acetone. You now have a suitable gasoline replacement.
As a final note, butanol isn't the only thing you can do here.
For those who insist on running their engines on EverClear or 190+ proof ethanol, instead of trying to use the butanol, just stick the yeast in the can with the biomass and add water in a few weeks you will have ethanol same as if you had used ground corn flour or starch.
That's about it, I hope you find this information useful.
If you've been following my posts you'll notice that I have covered several topics these past few months.
These include making medicine, paper, batteries, gasoline, wood gas, building a tribal society with goodwill and living with diabetes (making insulin and monitoring blood sugar levels) as well as a few other things.
A few days ago I was out and about and I had the sudden realization that my own preps which include substantial food storage as well as a small urban farming operation and a BOL, may one day prove insufficient.
The question boiled down to what if there was a situation where we had to run and keep running to stay alive. Maybe not continuously, but what if for a time we had to go hunter gatherer style and basically move camp every few weeks. Say for instance yellowstone erupted, or there was a significant natural disaster, or long term supply disruption that resulted in frequent issues with raiders?
So I broke down the needs of my family into 4 items that we would need if we needed to run and keep running for awhile.
These items, are food, shelter, water and gas.
Water can generally be solved with a large drum or barrel left open to catch the rain, or failing that a stream or other source of ready water. However we are desert creatures here and having lived in the desert our whole lives, our water needs are pretty minimal compared to others, so I assume that sufficient water can be readily found.
I also found a diesel truck that a neighbor is getting rid of to use as a bug out vehicle and I've got a line on a small trailer with propane stoves and a gasoline generator for heat etc.
At this point in my life I know how to make fire and cook with it, so the propane for the stove is irrelevant, but what is relevant is gasoline for the generator and diesel fuel to keep on trucking.
Obviously there is only so much food, gas & diesel that can be packed into a trailer and hauled around with you, so this limits the amount of travel possible by simply stocking up and having these things at the ready.
With this in mind I started doing serious research into nutritious food items that can be easily grown even on the road and that are readily converted into fuel.
In the case of diesel there are about 10,000 different food items that can be turned into fuel. but only a handful of those are readily grown and one of them (hemp) is illegal to possess.
In the case of gasoline just about anything with sugar in it can be converted into ethanol, but ethanol isn't a long term substitute for gas. In many cases you have to retool things like the carburetor and fuel system to get it to burn properly and the water content can still damage things so you have to be very careful. IMHO a better solution would be butanol which is more like gas than alcohol.
Fortunately I did stumble on a possible answer to all three problems simultaneously.
The solution is algae, but not just any algae. The particular algae is called Spirulina and it's a "super food'. While not the tastiest food in the world it's incredibly nutritionally dense and possesses all of the nutrients needed to sustain life (with the notable exception of B12).
It's also dead simple to cultivate, very high yielding and can be used as fuel with very little modification, here's how.
First off you need to grow it. I'm not going to go into excessive detail on this because there is information literally everywhere. The recent Make Magazine issue #26 has a great setup for doing it in home, however my setup is completely different and uses several seal-able 5 gallon buckets which I have modified with lighting in the lids to provide light for growth and cheap aquarium pumps to provide for aeration. Specifically these Amazon.com: Elite A790 Battery Operated Air Pump: Kitchen & Dining
This seems to be adequate and moderately spill proof. You need 10 gallons for each adult and 5 gallons for each child, this will produce enough to keep you alive and nourished. I have a total of 10 of these 5 gallon buckets or 50 gallons. I'm guessing a 50 gallon drum would do basically the same thing. Also I use wood ash as the nutrient base for the algae.
Once you have your spirulina growing and have harvested it, you need to first dry it and weigh it. According to my math you need to consume about 10g (roughly a tablespoon) per day at a minimum if this is your primary source of nutrition. That's not very much but I've found that just a few grams signals my body that it's full, so no worries about going hungry.
I've seen recommendations as high as 30g. I'm still working it out on my end, but you are likely to be better off with a higher amount than a lower amount, so figure 10g per serving with 3 servings per day or 30g per person per day.
Since it takes 2 weeks to fully develop a harvest that means 420g or in round figures 500g per person per harvest should be set aside for food.
Post harvest, make sure to fill the tank back up with water and add 1/2 cup of wood ash to replenish the nutrient base. This step will also keep the pH in check.
The rest needs to be processed into fuel.
Spirulina is really high in oils.
If you heat it up a little and roll it with a roller you will express lots and lots of oil. In my experiment I took 10g of sundried spirulina and got 5g of oil. I'm sure you could do better especially if you have an oil press like this one http://goo.gl/xYdA8.
At the rate I was able to get, the yield for 8kg of material would get you 4000g of oil or just over a gallon. Obviously if you have a 50 gallon gas tank then you will need to harvest 400kg dry weight to fill the tank, that's about 880 lbs.
Clearly not realistic from a single harvest. But a single harvest might be enough to get you a few more miles down the road or you could use the technique to store up extra fuel and help make the fuel you do have last a bit longer.
If you have a diesel engine modified for SVO that's all you have to do. However if you don't, then you are going to need to make your own biodiesel, using one of the many, many processes for SVO to biodiesel conversion. http://www.biodieselmake.com/
In my opinion it might be better to just convert the vehicle to SVO ahead of time since complete kits only run about $1500 and you don't want to be bouncing around in the woods with biodiesel making supplies which contain several dangerous chemicals.
The next process would be to convert the remaining biomass, the stuff you just pressed the oil out of, into gasoline. Turns out that's actually the easiest part. You see butanol is made from butyric acid (the stuff that gives vomit it's lovely smell) by bacteria that occur pretty much everywhere in nature.
Butyric Acid can be made by acid digestion of the algae, but unlike my earlier post about butanol from cellolosic sources, this doesn't need the long digestion times required to break down cellulose since of course it's algae and doesn't have any cellulose.
If you want to be fancy you can order a supply of Clostridium Acetobutylicum from a supplier such as Carolina.com. I'm still using my first batch of bacteria after having made about 40 batches or so of ABE fuels, but I'm running a culture and have experience keeping cultures alive so YMMV.
(I no longer recommend dirt or rusty wire as a source for the bacteria, unless you have no other options, however it is ubiquitous in dirt).
After 7 to 10 days you will have something that no longer smells like vomit or death, but instead smells a bit like nail polish remover and whiskey. This is Acetone, Butanol, Ethanol, or ABE fuel.
Pass the ABE fuel through some zeolite (found at your local petshop) to remove the water content and then distill off the acetone. You now have a suitable gasoline replacement.
As a final note, butanol isn't the only thing you can do here.
For those who insist on running their engines on EverClear or 190+ proof ethanol, instead of trying to use the butanol, just stick the yeast in the can with the biomass and add water in a few weeks you will have ethanol same as if you had used ground corn flour or starch.
That's about it, I hope you find this information useful.
Im going with death.......The odds are against me.............. goodby cold cruel world.
