What's your motivation to drive on wood?

General Discussion
#102

My motivation is FEAR. I mentioned that I have been writing on the coming economic collapse since 2007.
I read everybody and settled in with those who have a long track history of being correct. I have been writing diligently to try to warn people. I would be remiss in my responsibilities to my fellow Earthmen if I didn’t warn them. I have 2900 posts at the Energetic forum and a few hundred previous posts at Burning Man.
You can imagine that with 3,000 posts on the economy, I could get carried away with long, drawn out details.
i’ll try to keep it brief. If anyone wants any references, I’ll be happy to oblige.
The story starts with King Hubbert. He projected Hubbert’s Peak long before fracking and deep-well drilling. Some years ago, the price of oil peaked up over $100 a Bbl. The high-yield bond market (junk bonds) was drawn into financing facking.
Things were OK as long as the price of oil stayed high. Automation and outsourcing took away most of the discretionary spending of the middle class. We cut way back on energy consumption. The oil producers lost margin and tried to make up for it with volume. We keep setting new records of oil-in-storage. As they all pump, the price stays disasterously low. Most oil producers have huge social costs attached to the FORMER high price of oil.
The IMF says that Saudi Arabia will be completely broke in 3 years. Venezuela is already completely broke. Venezuela has the largest reserves.
Oil is currently about $ 43 for a 42 gallon barrel.
6/14 Oil at 7-month low of $44.73 on spike in US gasoline stockpiles – CNBC The consumer is busted.
102 million working age Americans do not currently have a job. This
includes the 95 million Americans not counted by the Bureau of Labor
because they assume these people have been unemployed so long they “do
not want to work"
As if falling demand and consumption isn’t bad enough, there are other huge problems,
6/17 Forget coal, solar will soon be cheaper than natural gas power – Think Progress

6/15 Wind, solar surpass 10 percent of power production – Chron
6/20 Oil tanker storage hits a 2017 record despite OPEC’s cuts – Bloomberg

6/20 Oil slips to seven-month low on signs global glut will persist – Bloomberg
6/22 Oil drops to 10-month low; biggest first-half slide in 20 years – Reuters

BUT, don’t forget, the drilling was financed by the junk-bond market.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-21/warning-oil-crash-just-days-away-triggering-debt-crisis
The oil majors are no longer profitable. They spend too much for debt service. EXXON earns 5.5 cents per gallon for finished product. The State grabs about 70 cents on average for each gallon. California grabs much more because it is more broke.
Nuke power has to be heavily subsidised in New York. Coal is going bust. If wind and solar can beat even natural gas, the whole carbon industry will have to cut way back.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-23/gartman-oil-heading-egregiously-lower-saudi-oil-reserves-will-be-worthless
The futures markets say that oil isn’t going up for years. The oil industry will have to go through bankruptcy. I don’t really expect this bankruptcy to be orderly. This isn’t something new.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/16/investing/oil-price-fall-banks-hurt/index.html
“Hundreds of banks were forced to shut down in Texas when the state fell
into a recession in 1986 during a steep decline in oil prices.”
The oil majors will have to default and be reorganized. The fallout on the banks will be huge.
Here is the break-even oil price for 14 countries. https://knoema.com/vyronoe/cost-of-oil-production-by-country
So, it won’t be just Western banks and Western oil companies.
I don’t have great faith in the legislature to manage these problems.

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#103

I would make one point solar and wind already employees about 5 times the number of people that coal employees and coal is a little over 30% of USA electricity while wind and solar combined is a little under 10%. So transitioning to wind and solar doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Alot of the rest of the world has already made much more progress then we have here in the usa.
In that respect I think we will see some real interesting changes over the next decade. The Tesla model 3 will start production any day now which will be the real launch for a somewhat affordable electric car with a 200 plus mile range and reasonably large production runs. If tesla can turn it’s half million reservations into sales that will mark a new trend in car sales not only because they are ev but because people agreed to put money down almost 2 years before the car went into production. That is unheard of here in the usa people just don’t even consider a car they haven’t driven.
My point is simply that I think remaking the energy sector into wind and solar which have no fuel costs will create more jobs and help the economy. All that money spent of fuel now becomes available to pay people. That to me is a good thing.
Sorry about ranting off topic but I wanted to maybe provide some hope for the future.

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#104

This would easily slide off-topic, but I think this is pertinent to the thread. The information above seems to indicate a relatively low efficiency. I love solar and renewables, but our economic model is predicated on practically free energy. Look at what happened in 2007 - 08 when we hit the first oil peak. All our transportation infra structure etc has been built in the time of $20 unlimited oil. Yes, there’s energy available, but beyond an economic and social cost sufficient to crater the system as built.

Regarding lithium batteries, last year’s global production would be sufficient to address the personal transportation needs of a small Canadian province. Automobiles will become a bespoke item for the elite.

Obviously the system as we have enjoyed it is going to radically and permanently change. I doubt we are ready organizationally, structurally, or socially.

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#105

Thanks for contributing that information William. I have to confess that I don’t fully understand the charts provided, but in general you can see the storm clouds gathering. In light of the 2008 “too big to fail” experience, and the subsequent blanket immunity from prosecution for the gigantic fraud and malfeasance, couldnt we be about to see another round of fantasy book keeping, a transfer of x number of trillions into public debt, to allow the failed system to keep lumbering on? After all, this all amount to a huge transfer of wealth to a private elite. As long as there’s energy to maintain the system, regardless the cost, it can be made to operate. If the accountants are all corrupt.

What worries me most is the day when the tank begins to run right dry. You can’t bribe the accountants to cover that.

What you lay out seems to apply directly at present to Saudi Arabia, which is alarming. This helps to explain the incredible level of military aggression they are engaging in regionally, putting Quatar under seige, and utterly destroying Yemen, now with a death toll probably nearing a half a million. So indirectly if Saudi Arabia physically fails, it will have a severe impact on world energy supplies. My cynical view is that their regional aggression is as part of a contract with neighbours and allies to maintain their failing state, a situation which could keep them afloat for some time.

Tank going dry. I noticed the fuel outages last summer which reached as far as Ontario. There was a risk of a tri state area running out of fuel, apparently narrowly averted. The standard story now is pipeline problems, but to pull out emergency stops, and ship fuel around the coast and ration supplies through a broad region sounds more extreme than bridging a half mile of pipe would require. It sounds like gulf coast refineries might have run out of offshore supplies to refine and distribute. No wonder if they were going more broke with every barrel shipped. That’s problematic for the largest conusmer of oil in the world, far beyond oil self sufficiency.

Regarding economic impacts, Canada avoided the disastrous housing bubble and associated impacts, because by luck our banking industry was more regulated. The Canadian economy is very heavily dependent on oil, exporting more to the US than Saudi Arabia, I understand. The low price has severely impacted fracking, and obviously tar sands production is far below economic recovery.

Sadly, Canada has very lax financial oversight, and the country has become a huge money laundering destination for Chinese funds, focusing on real estate. And without the 2008 correction, the prices of real estate have continually inflated. Credit has reached and probably passed the critical limit. Recently it has come to light that a Canadian sub prime mortgage provider was falsifying information, paying sales people on commission, all the standard stuff. They are now effectively insolvent, being heroically propped up by other players in the industry hoping to avoid contagion. And interest rates are about to begin to hike upwards.

So it could get interesting here. The European situation isnt looking very promising either.

I think that these system failures clearly relate to the failure of give away energy that so much of our system is based on.

Where it goes, could be various scenarios, I think the more likely is the lifeboat scenario, where we take from others so that we can carry on longer, but regional instability in have not regions could rear up to throw those plans off the rails suddenly.

All of which makes self sufficiency and internal combustion engines, particularly tractors, powered on biomass incredibly attractive. To paraphrase Steve U, the best time to develop skills and knowledge and equipment is well before you need them. This business is complex enough that the come as you are, come late just wont cut it.

#106

Garry at the risk of getting off in the weeds. (Heck it is where I spent my entire week trying to brush hog out a field that hasn’t been cleaned in about a decade.)lol
Anyway spend some time at this site

I have been reading a lot of their articles for the last few months. I will just say that for the record most jobs in solar are install jobs there are some mantance but not alot. Wind has more mantance jobs. In the usa coal mining employees something on the order of 50 000 people so it isn’t alot of jobs now.
But the solar industry alone employees about 250 000 I don’t know what the wind industry in the usa employees. But even creating all these jobs wind and solar are both below the cost of new coal genoration plants and getting close to the cost of natural gas in the usa. Off shore wind in Europe has come down enough to be cost competitive without subsidies with other energy sources.
As to your battery comment yes there is alot of work to be done on that front. Tesla has started it and I hope china will bring back the aquion salt water batteries as they just bought the company in the public auction. I forget the company in China but it was a company that has done research into the same salt water battery technology. I still think that battery technology has the chance to change stationary energy systems. But that is enough ranting I just wanted to say checkout that other websites I have been amazed at how far bother wind and solar have come.

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#107

I just bought 900 watts of solar, that will be about as far as I need to go for the rest of my life for basic domestic power. But it was a relatively extravagant expense for a man in a rich country. Fortunately I also have access to at least a few hundred watts of fairly reliable hydro potential.

What I am tryng to say, which I believe is what Steve U and Koen L etc are saying, look how to do with less, possibly much less. Sit back and think about what is the triage list of a good life, the indispensables. The old paradigm was based on throw away, “found” energy. Very precarious to think that we can reconstitute that at least with forseable technology and infrastructure, technical skills.

I very much doubt the personal aoutomobile has much of a role in the future, except as a conveyance of the rich. Our culture will be shaken to the foundations at least.

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#108

When you consider the “efficiencies” don’t forget that the solar and wind industry is building their grid while the coal grid is simply keeping theirs going. The real numbers would require you to compare two established grids. I’m biased I work in solar now. You can see it it’s building out there. I still don’t know if it’s enough to overcome the inertial out there but it’s good to try.

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#109

Too give this we-will-be-a-changing some hope . . .
one of the most eye opening experiences I’ve seen about real-use transportation’s in-a-we-all-fall-down was in the 90’s Yugosalvian melt-down.
Lots and lots of folks being moved around on trailers behind agricultural tractors.
Either conflict side going for confiscating the moving enclosed cab cars, trucks, utility vehicles.
And these tractor towed moving trailer “trains” were aircraft ignored.

Woodgassed tractors are the ticket. Go near anywhere. Using picked up fuel.
Beats horsing around.
Bandits . . be sure and holler out loudly . . . “You gonna need me to operate this thing!”
J-I-C Steve Unruh

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#110

I saw the crash coming 11 years ago. I ran a LOT of scenarios through my head. The prblem comes down to; what if you are the only one with a car,a tractor, food, etc? Confiscation becomes a big problem. Local GOV will be the first in line, naturally for the good of the people. If you have a truck that goes 400 miles on a charge, the sheriff will gladly take it off your hands. if you have a wood-gas truck, simply point out all the gauges and valves. Explain each and every one.
Explain about puff-backs. Mention that you got in a hurry and, lost all your facial hair.:slight_smile:
Make a long explanation about the importance of very dry wood.
The sheriff will go look for somebody with a good horse.

The bean-counters say that there are 4.8 million tractors in America. Think it through. Find a small community and try to get everybody to work together. I bought roto-tillers. Everything from a Troy-Bilt to a big one for the Farmall 560, and also for the JD 400. IF I can get fuel, i’ll roto-til for the old farts who know how to garden but, can’t break up the soil. You certainly don’t want to be the only person who has a garden.
I’m not talking about a permanent crash. I’m talking about an interruption. Getting through the interruption is best done with the whole community.
A guy on the “E-Playa” said that he had 4 rifles and 4,000 rds of ammo.
I told him; imagine that you hear somebody breaking in to your food stash. You run down there with guns drawn, you see the neighbor lady with her 3 kids. What are you going to do?
Sadly, if you can’t feed em all and you can’t kill em all, you have to run away.

i have 10 acres on the Coquille river. I also have a VERY good spring up on the hill that puts out 7,000 good-tasting gallons of water every day. I’m surrounded by hills. I’ve planted potatoes and other things up in the hills that will take off by themselves, The hills are full of (mean) feral cattle. I have a BIG undeground pit BBQ.
Hopefully, I can get the community to pull together.

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#111

William, you made a exelent point there. I think in s apocalipse situation, our biggest “enemy” is cityfolks. Hey, we all need to eat, but we know how to grow food. They do not.
Like you sayd, you cant kill them and you cant feed them. What do you do?

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#112

Emulate the noble cockroach and RUN away. Automation is taking away a huge part of employment. If the industrail economy does not have a niche for you, you have to revert to the agrarian economy. This is true regardless of the national economic situation. You REALLY don’t want to revert to the hunter-gatherer economy.
102 million Americans of working age , not employed. 44 million on food stamps. 51% of Americans receive a check from GOV. Martin Armstrong is very clear, sovereign debt is going to collapse. You can see this in Illinois.
Here is a post that I wrote about poverty in rural areas. “Of the 250 poorest counties in America, 244 are rural.”
http://www.energeticforum.com/241618-post282.html
The rural poeple are, at least, somewhat aclimised to rural poverty. Just imagine when the FED GOV runs out of welfare money. The thundering hordes will grab their .22 and go live off the land.
1/4 of all the welfare cases in America are in California. The California municipal bond market is expected to collapse in the first quarter of 2018. (Armstrong) U.S. sovereign debt is growning faster than exponentially. About Labor day, FED GOV will run out of money. Congress is in gridlock and I don’t see them acting in time.
The markets are expected to collapse in Feb, about Valentine’s day
Plant LOTS of potatoes. When the confiscators show up, tell them that you are growing corn, come back when it is 6 ft. tall.
Maybe you can feed 1,000 people. This will just cause 5,000 to show up. You don’t want ot be within 1 gas tank driving distance of a big city. I just can’t envision a cascade of default in the credit markets AND normal petroleum deliveries.
When Rome collapsed, the populatiuon fell from 1 million to, 20,000

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#113

The idea of the masses living off the land for any significant amount of time is not realistic.
For example: In our area during the time of the Creek Indians (redsticks, horseshoe bend national park etc) the Creeks sold hundreds of millions of deer skins to British traders before they were marched off to Oklahoma by that jackass president Taylor. That means there were lots and lots of deer here at that time. Settlers hunted the deer nearly to extinction in these parts. By the time of the war between the states there were virtually no deer in this part of Alabama. Deer sightings/killings in this county during the depression era were so rare they made the news paper. Then they were reintroduced with regulated hunting sometime soon after WWII. Now they’re everywhere. But if everyone was depending on that as a primary source of food, they wouldn’t last long. Maybe we can all learn to like armadillo. haha.

I agree with Kristijan. the biggest “threat” is city folks. I think that in a full scale meltdown in the US, half of the people in cities would starve to death standing in line waiting for their government handout/check/direction to arrive. The other half will end up out here.

Call me a fool, but rather than looking at that as a threat, I tend to think of it as an outstanding opportunity for ministry. Maybe that thinking will get me killed one day. But in the meantime, I live very much at peace about the whole idea. Besides, there are a lot of worse ways to die than trying to help those in need.

That said, I think William’s pretty much right .

I don’t intentionally stock pile for such times, but we just kind of live a “prepared” life anyway. My suggestion to everyone is to become Johnny Appleseed. Find out what crops/fruit/wild things will grow in your area with little tending and plant them all over the place. Here it’s figs and wild plums, jerusalem artichokes, black berries, etc. We propagate (root) figs every year from extra branches and transplant them all over the place. I don’t really believe in putting much effort into landscapes and plants or animals that don’t produce something—kinda like Bruce and his 200-weed-variety-lawn— so we use a lot of food producing varieties for landscape plants.

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#114

I never knew this thread was here until today. SO I’ll respond to the original question.

My motivation for being involved with woodgas is actually not for travel. I am more interested in using it for power generation.

I worked in an extremely remote village in the high Andes several years ago. When I went there it was so isolated that we had to finish building the road just to get there. I think I was the 4th white face they had seen since the Spanish chased them up there 500 years ago. The other three had been there just one year prior. It was like stepping back in time. Great needs. Infant mortality before 2YO was over 7/10. Hard place. We ended up building a clinic there. Even ended up sending one of their own young ladies to med school and she went back to serve her people. But they still struggle a lot with just solar power to run the clinic/refrigeration/equipment etc.
I would like to take woodgas (biomass gasification) to places like that to produce electricity. I have a truck that I bought. Mostly I use it as a working model to teach our undergrad students and community leaders that come through for training. Fortunately, this past training we had a treat. Wayne brought his rig over and showed it off. Thanks again Wayne.

The last couple years we started a manufacturing business. Now I would also like to make a stationary power generation unit to run a shop and also serve as a teaching model. And run it as much as possible off scrap wood from the shop.

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#115

Billy, that is an amazing story. I drove L.A. to Lima many years ago so, I drove through the Andes.
RE: the question of driving on wood. I have an excellent link to CAPEX in the oil industry.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/109505/looming-energy-shock
A currency war , seen from the street level, is just a cut in wages. Oil is actually quite cheap. Our stagnant wages, denominated in a weaker dollar don’t allow us to consume oil as before. The oil majors are going broke and have stopped exploring.
We spent $13 trillion on wars and, are now flat broke (Jack Ma) While the idea of electric cars sounds great, almost all of our grid is in terrible shape. FED GOV is $20 trillion in the hole with $212 trillion of unfunded liabilities (Kotlikoff) Who will pay for rebuilding our electricity distribution grid?
We have had huge crop losses worldwide caused by weather extremes. They are getting ever-more common.
http://coolwx.com/record/globemovie.day.php
All of this is going to cost money to fix. We don’t have the money.

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#116

Agreed. I imagine even worse, I think unsupplied supermarkets and stores will be the last place in the world you would want to be, but a good part of city folks will congregate there, it’s where they have always hunted.

Most of the rest will hesitate too long in disbelief, or listening to reassuring messages designed mostly to maintain central control. Clearing out of large urban centers in the case of a regional system failure will quickly become impossible just on simple logistics. But most will have stayed voluntarily, I think the majority lack the imagination to do better, so the security problem could be partly “self solving”. Not that urban populations could sustain when displaced anyways. The deer hunting example is perfect, but add shelter from bad weather, sanitation, health care, most of those folks can’t even manage a fire or have the sense to drink clean water.

Being a tank of fuel distance away from the more practical minded desperate is a good idea, but almost impossible in North America, completely impossible in Europe.

If a drowning person grabs you in the water they will drown you. The only answer is to go down, they will get scared and let go. (Foolishly done that). City people don’t see farm land as a resource. But cattle or crop in the field would serve as billboards. A spinning wind turbine would bring people from miles away, lights in a window. Or bring the authorities to commandeer for good or bad.

That’s a vision of a catastrophic collapse. I am thinking judging from the way things are are going that a collapse by degrees, possibly punctuated by regional disaster is most likely. We may already be in it. Look at Katrina, or Syria, Libya, with possible contagion to Europe as oil resources run regionally low. Climate effects could be similarly destabilizing. I expect things to get gradually tougher with growing risk of disaster.

So like Billy, I aim to live a good and sustainable life, and keep a low profile, hope for the best, and like William, have a backup plan to retreat from there, if too sketchy. Hope for the best, being watchful for worse.

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#117

I never made it as far north as Lima. I think only to Cuzko, Pisaq, Titicaca in Peru. But mostly in Bolivia from the south and Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador from the north. Sometimes I miss that little village in the middle of nowhere. 500 years ago.

Now that’s a tough people. The Qechua, one tribe of the decendants of the Incan empire have a cultural philosophy that I really appreciate.
Their everyday greeting on the trail is, “Don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t be lazy.” That’s what they say to you when they pass you on the trail. Well, not to you. At you they just stare in in astonishment at the size of that fair-skinned giant. hahaha
But to each other it’s always, “don’t lie, don’t steel, don’t be lazy.” Kinda how we would say “How’s it going?”

There’s a people who won’t care a bit in the world about an energy crunch. At least as long as it doesn’t fuel another revolution in their land. Poor Bolivia, has had something like 87 revolutions in 116 years. The fascists vs the marxists mostly, but the capitalists get in the fight too on occasion. Lots of post war Nazis fighting with cold war Soviet-backed revolutionaries. Then came the idiocy of the American war on drugs being fought at the wrong end. …They’re a tough people…

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#118

I’ve pretty much decided the most likely scenario, for what’s going to happen in my lifetime, and in my home province of Ontario. Ontario has a massive debt, a dying industrial sector, high cost of living, insane home prices, insane energy costs, and one of, if not THE dumbest voting bases on the planet. It’s pretty clear over the last ten years that no one cares about the debt, deficit, insolvency, or the future in general. It’s all about “what’s in it for me, the more the better, and right now please.”

I’ve done enough research to hang my hat one one fact: that it is not the debtload that kills you, it’s being able to service that debt. Ontario’s debt service bill is essentially tied for second place with education. Only health care costs more. Interest rates look to finally be rising, and in no small part thanks to the efforts of the Trump administration, I expect the B.O.C. will keep hiking them in sync with whatever Yellen does.

Ontario has broad taxation powers. This will be point of the knife that will affect me the most as a result of living here. It’s already starting with the costs of driving a vehicle, everything from registration, licensing, certification, and sticker costs have gone up dramatically over the last 4 years.

It’s not the apocalypse, but it’s likely 99% accurate. Costs of living will be pushed to the max. Anyone who contracts, owns a small business, makes a living from Capital gains (ie. flipping houses or investing) is going to get pounded because you’re “rich”. If you do anything for a living that isn’t earning a wage/salary, consider yourself warned.

So anything a guy like me, who lives in a jurisdiction that thinks and votes like mine does, can do to avoid or offset taxes will be a worthwhile pursuit. If your state/province is essentially borrowing from the tenants to pay the rent, and has little to no legislation on the books to limit its debt levels or taxation powers, you can bet the first few steps towards a Greece like experience will be getting multiple pounds of flesh carved. They will hammer the things you can’t say no to the hardest (property tax, gasoline, electricity, income taxes, heating fuel etc…)

The public servants and those having a tough go at life are now the majority of those who actually show up to vote, and they definitely prefer the kind of politician who will pursue taxation as the answer to most, if not all problems. They also love to borrow huge as well.

I may not live to see the borrowing party end, the day when the bond market drives up interest rates on Ontario Provincial bonds to intolerable levels, and our Premiere has to call Ottawa with a big problem to discuss. That day is a long way off looking at interest rates as they currently are. But I will see a couple hunded billion more in Provincial debt piled on, I will see interest costs exceed the annual budget for education, and I sure as heck will see the costs rise huge as a result of living under a broke government.

I don’t see the apocalypse, but there is big trouble ahead no question. Someday, a bailout will be required, and the terms of that deal will dictate the quality of life for a generation - and it will 100% be a downgrade for everyone living here.

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#119

Bill, I’ll try not to stray too far from the topic of this thread. Here are a couple of links that are relevant for the future.

So, while driving on wood sounds great, it would be smart to have some power gneration capability.
The number one problem is, the legislative system and the financial system are completely unprepared for widespread automation. The Central bank pumps money into the upper loop of the economy. This supports armies of bankers and speculators. The transmission mechanism from the upper loop to the lower loop is WAGES. Automation has broken the transmission. 102 million Americans of working age are, unemployed.
Aggregate purchasing power of the lower loop is crashing. The upper loop is trying to stay shielded from this crash by printing ever-more debt money. The banking sector has had NO earnings for the previous year.
7/03 Dow hits all-time high, jumps 187 points, as bank stocks climb higher – CNBC

Gravity will take over. :slight_smile: I watch all the capital flows worldwide. When the default cascade hits around February, there will be a mad scramble for the exits. The Bots can do 20 trades a second and they will stampede.
What happens to group of people who make no considerations or preparations for the continued survival? Nobody in the West saves for a rainy day anymore. .Americans spend about 105% of their income.
What I’m leading to is; you don’t have to be the super-prepper. All you have to do is to be slightly more prepared than the average guy. Mental preparation is vitally important.
Think about what the average unprepared person will do when the banks close. Don’t prep for what you want. Prep for what they are going to do. Let them assault the battlements.

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#120

Some good points, but I guess I’m luke warm on most of the more extreme collapse theories circulating the web. To me, the Western world will have its day of reckoning, but it will be decades down the road, and I’m not yet convinced it’ll be anything like an Apocalypse. Eventually we will get to see a major economy in the EU hit the fan, we’ll get to see how it unfolds, and then we’ll have a good idea what waits for us over here someday.

As for me, woodgas will hopefully be on call to fuel the vehicle if gas goes past 1.50/l again, or there to provide supplemental electricity if warranted, or even heat my house if desired. Woodgas provides options that support my independence from some of the stupidity that surrounds me. It’s a back door 99% of folks never knew was there. I want that door to be in good working condition when the time comes :slightly_smiling_face:!

FWIW, when it comes to being prepared, I’ve been a natural “prepper” for a long time. Woodgas is only a more recent evolution along the same path. I have no consumer debt, no mortgage debt, I drive old paid for (crap) vehicles, I shop used and avoid retail spending like the plague, I have been saving and investing for almost 20 years straight - every single week. I maintain and repair the house and vehicles myself. I have fully exploited all tax shelters provided. I consider myself an expert in delaying self gratification for the purposes of achieving the goal! I’m a bit of a freak, as I’ve never met anyone in person who is nearly as concerned with doing these things as I am.

The goal has always been to be free, and be independent. I don’t want to worry about losing my job, paying big mortgages or other debts. I want to be able to offset some of the burden placed on my shoulders by government. I want options, not enslavement. I want the ability to make straight paths for myself when I find I’m travelling on someone elses twisty highway. I want the ability to just exit the status quo at any time. Some folks bug out to their off-grid cabin in the woods to escape. Others become homesteaders and live off the land, thereby defying the standard blue print for current day life. I’m doing the same basic thing a little differently.

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#121

Will, we ought to meet sometime. That sounds a lot like me.

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