Imagine The Walking Dead started in 50 years from now. The way things are going now, picture this scenario:

>A survivor is walking down a lonesome road.
>They arive at a small resort and there’s a car covered in dust and dirt in the parking lot.
>They approach the car and check whether it still has some bio fuel left in the tank.
>Still plenty.
>They look around spotting a decayed body close by.
>They search the body and are lucky to find a ‘keyless’ key belonging to the car.
>There are no door handles and the battery inside the key corroded away.
>They break the glass and open the door from the inside.
>Finally inside, there’s still no way to start the engine without the key.
>They have an idea.
>The digital wrist watch on the body should have the same battery as the key.
>After a bit of tinkering with some tools they get the key working again.
>They press the ignition button.
>The displays light up but the engine remains quiet.
>The displays show error messages:

ERROR CODE: ND47089
Tire pressure sensor subscription expired
Please schuedule service or enter payment information
Engine start failed

>MFW

  • Raltoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    21 hours ago

    But the biggest deal is that compression ignition engines can basically run on literally any vaguely flammable liquid substance. You can make biodiesel from a ton of stuff ranging from oil bearing crops to animal fat

    I’m always annoyed that you don’t see more wood spirit(aka methanol) in the post-apocalypse. They’ll make en ethanol still and then complain about a lack of fuel for their diesel generator as they’re standing next to a forest.

    • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
      1·
      20 hours ago

      Wait, you can’t make ethanol from wood? I guess that would make sense, because otherwise you’d see a lot more wood liqueurs, I’ve only ever heard of alcohol made from maple syrup, birch, and pine (but that last one was from a rural Austrian town and they aren’t allowed to sell it elsewhere, so it might be a little more poisonous than the others). This is going to be a rabbit hole.

      Edit: you can, but it’s not the traditional way of turning wood into alcohol, and an efficient method has only recently been developed.

        • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
          3·
          13 hours ago

          That’s why I was initially surprised, but the og method involved high heat to break down the woodiness of the fibers, and that leads to methanol, not ethanol. You do need sugars for either though, afaik, because the yeast has to eat something either way.