Showing posts with label horses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horses. Show all posts

Thursday, 30 January 2025

The Porcupine Saga, Part 12, The Tour: Part 1

Will Harper, late afternoon, Saturday July 21, 2040

"Well, I guess we should start this tour at the clinic," said Allan, gesturing toward the building Will thought of as the "farm house".

"Clinic...?" said Will, doubt creeping into his voice.

"Yeah. What used to be the farmhouse. It would have taken another hour or two to tell the whole story," said Allan. "So I decided it might be quicker and easier to just show you."

"Okay," replied Will. "Lead on."

They got up from the bench where they'd been sitting on the east side of the hall and headed across the yard, picking their way among the vehicles parked there. The sun was a good deal lower in the sky than when they had first come outside and its heat was a noticeably less oppressive.

"Seems like it isn't all that much hotter here than in Inverpen," said Will.

"It usually is a little hotter here in the summer, but with less humidity than you get along the lake," said Allan. "Leaving the wet bulb temperature about the same. We're lucky in the Great Lakes basin—in the heat of the summer we get some 'siesta weather', when you're wise to take it easy around midday. But we can live without air conditioning, easier actually because after a while people do get used to the heat. Not like lots of places closer to the equator where it really does get hot enough to kill. And has killed many."

"Scary to think about that," said Will.

"Hell yeah," Allan said. "Though for those of us engaged in subsistence farming, droughts are even worse than heat waves. Floods aren't great either. And we've had one or two of both."

"Same thing in and around Inverpen, of course," said Will. "Though we do have the lake to draw on for irrigation."

As they neared the farm house Will noticed a small shed on its west side. He assumed it contained the generator Allan had been talking about earlier. "That your generator shack?" Willa asked, nodding toward it.

"It is," replied Allan. "Not gasoline powered anymore, though. Late in 2030 our 'prime mover' crew put in wood gas producers to fuel all of our generators. Then a few years later, after they'd got steam power down to a science, they put in two generators to power the clinic, each driven by a small steam engine. Along with automatic feed of wood chips to the boilers. Would you like to take a quick peek inside?"

"Yes, definitely," said Will.

They walk over to the shack and Allan opened the door.

Will stepped up to the threshold and took a look at the machinery inside. "Those are slick little engines. Run pretty quiet, too. And it looks like you built the generators here?"

"We bought a bunch of generators in 2030 and we are still using them for the most part. But we've built a few like these ones," said Allan. "Mainly to prove to ourselves that we'll be able to do it when the need arises. They put out up to 12 kW, single phase 120/240 volt."

"Looks pretty impressive to me," said Will. Noting that only one of the gnerators was running, he took a little closer look at the wiring. "They're just backup for each other? You never actually run them in parallel?"

"Yeah, just backup," said Allan. "So we can work on one while the other one supplies the load."

"Right," said Will. "There was a time when you'd have needed someone with a stationary engineer's ticket to run this setup legally. I guess that isn't such a big deal anymore."

"No," replied Allan. "We've never actually had a visit from a TSSA inspector. Though I am sure for the last few years there has been no such thing. We actually do have a couple of guys who are qualified as stationary engineers, and they been big help in making sure our steam power setups are safe."

"Yeah," said Will. "You can get away from regulations, but you still want to run things as safely as possible. So, that hopper to the left of the shack is full of wood chips?"

"Yeah," said Allan. "We don't usually like to make our electrical supplies so easy to use. A little inconvenience reminds folks that electrical power is a luxury that comes with many costs. In the case of the clinic, though, a round-the-clock, on-demand supply is pretty much a necessity."

"I see," said Will, still a little puzzled. "So, I though the plan was to divide the whole of the farmhouse into bedrooms and bathrooms?"

Leading them around to the front porch, Allan said, "Yep, just the living room and the addition at first, but by fall of 2030, the dining room and kitchen too. With the addition of Jack's land, we figured we could support 60 people sustainably, and we were aiming to build accommodation for them all, here and in the second pole barn. 'Course things have changed a little in the meantime..."

They went up the front steps and through the front door. Will took in, with some surprise, what looked like a doctor's waiting room with a receptionist's desk and a row of chairs against one wall.

"I can tell from the look on your face," said Allan, "that this isn't what you expected. To make a long story short, in 2031 we were joined by a couple of nurses, and in 2032 a doctor and a dentist arrived. Shortly after that, the second bird flu hit with a vengeance, and we turned this place into a medical clinic, lab space, hospital and quarantine space for new people, and living quarters for our growing medical staff."

"That makes sense," said Will, "and given that you're talking about a quarantine, I'll bet you made it through that flu better than a lot of communities."

"We did," replied Allan. "We were close to self sufficiency by then and we just locked the place down, quit going anywhere beyond our own borders. The few refugees who made it here on their own went into quarantine upstairs here for a couple of weeks before joining the rest of us. You'll remember the first wave of that flu went on for about 7 months, and then there was a second and third wave. I understand it was pretty deadly and a lot of people didn't make it through elsewhere, but we did pretty well—no fatalities and only a few people who got sick—mostly refugees who were exposed before they arrived. We didn't even lose any of our poultry, though we did move them to a barn on one of the other farms, just to keep them completely isolated."

"Sounds like a much more intelligent response than most places," said Will.

"I think it proved to be just that," said Allan. "Of course we didn't have to worry about the detrimental effects of lockdown on businesses."

"No, I guess not," said Will. "That concern led to all kinds of bad policy, and a lot more grief than was really necessary."

"Which we, fortunately, were spared," said Allan. "Anyway, by the time we'd set up this little medical clinic, provincial support for the health care had disappeared and most of the system along with it, so we've ended up welcoming in unemployed medical staff and providing basic health care to most of this township. Not that that amounts to a whole lot of people."

"There's nothing left in Inverpen but a few alternative practitioners," said Will. "'Wackadoodle' folks, as Sue calls them."

"Yeah, the trouble is that 99% of those alternatives just don't work, " said Allan. "There are a few other communes in Ontario working on pharmaceuticals, low tech medical equipment, and training medical staff to cope with today's conditions. They are just getting started, but I think they have a lot of potential. We may never get back to level of medical services we used to have, but we can still do a hell of a lot better than nothing. And with proper science based medicine at that."

"Right," said Will. "I remember Tom being pretty keen on that, but he also worried that we expect way too much of our medical people. Have you been able to do anything about that?"

Allan sat down on the edge of the desk. "Yeah, Dad felt that there were a lot of unrealistic expectations of health care professionals, both by the professionals themselves and by their patients. He was keen on setting up a health care system that didn't require doctors and nurses to be super human. And that wouldn't constantly be failing because of their failure to live up to those expectations."

Will took a seat on one of the chairs. "And have you managed to do that?"

"To some extent, yes," said Allan. "As has so often been the case, by eliminating capitalism, we've been able to easily overcome problems that were largely a consequence of it.

"Okay, but how does that apply to health care?" asked Will.

"Under capitalism, the profit motive was always getting in the way of health care," said Allan."

"Even when the health care system was socialized like here in Ontario?" Said Will.

"You wouldn't think so, would you?" said Allan. "But right wing governments always wanted to cut budgets and taxes, and so things like health care and education were underfunded, especially under Ford's Conservatives. They wanted to privatize as much health care as possible, so their supporters could turn it into profit centers. Leaving public hospitals understaffed and under resourced. Health care professionals already had a long history of overdoing ableism and the system encouraged a total disrespect for the value of rest."

"At Hydro One there were limits to the hours you could work in a day and a week, for safety reasons," said Will. "But there was no such thing in the healthcare system?"

"Not that was seriously enforced, anyway," said Allan. "We encourage a healthy respect for rest among everyone here. We also take a science based approach to just about everything and with that comes more realistic expectations of our medical people. Plus, they all escaped a system that wasn't working for them or their patients, and they have a strong commitment to stop that from happening again here. So things are working much better."

"Right," said Will. "Meanwhile Dougie Ford is alive and well, presiding over the Golden Horseshoe like a clown at a three ring circus. At least the rest of the province is free to try different and hopefully better ways."

"It doesn't take much to improve on the Conservative's approach, that's for sure," said Allan. "I'm not really the guy to show you around the clinic, so maybe we should move on."

"Sure. I'm curious what the bedrooms you created look like," said Will. Is it possible to have a look here, or have they all been turned into something else?"

"Nope, most of our medical personnel live right here, in the addition," said Allan. "As do Erika and I, since she has spent a lot of time using her biotech and lab skills working on medical issues. Let's have a look."

Allan led the way, opening the door to the addition and closing it behind him after they went through. "Separate ventilation system in here, with positive pressure that keeps us from getting exposed to sick people coming to the clinic."

Allan went to the first door on the right and opened it. "Home sweet home, such as it is" he said and gestured for Will to go in.

Will did so, and took in a room about nine feet wide and twelve feet deep, with a window in the outside wall and a closet in the wall on the left. It's furnishings included a bed, a chest of drawers, a bookshelf, a small desk, a couple of chairs, and in the corner to the right of the door, a composting toilet and a small table with a large pitcher and a basin, both in what appeared to be locally made pottery. Folded towels and face cloths on that table looked to be made locally made as well, not terrycloth but nicely thick and absorbent.

"I see you went ahead with the composting toilets," said Will.

"Oh yeah. It didn't take long for Erika to talk people around," said Allan. "Looking back, I wonder what the big deal was."

"Just a change from what people were used to, I'd guess," said Will. "Most people in Inverpen have a composting toilet now, what with the municipality giving up on infrastructure maintenance a few years ago. And with needing good rich compost for our gardens, without which most of us wouldn't eat nearly as well."

"Do you find it's enough private space for the two of you?" said Will.

"It's not much, but it's enough," said Allan. "Our lives are centered on the common spaces. All we do here is sleep and have occasional private discussions."

"Right," said Will. "and, ahem, bed sports."

Allan raised an eyebrow at this and blushed a little. "I don't think I've ever heard it called that. But yes."

Sensing the need for a change of subject, Will pointed to a violin case sitting on top of one of the dressers. "I see you still have your fiddle."

Looking relieved, Allan said, "Sure do. I am part of a pretty good bluegrass group and second violin in several different chamber music groups. Unfortunately, the best chamber music is pretty hard and we're just sort of hacking our way through it as yet."

"I take it recorded music isn't readily available?" said Will.

"No it isn't. We do have a few computers still operating, but we reserve them for only the most critical tasks," said Allan. "Some of us have collections of vinyl and CD's, but equipment to play them is getting pretty thin on the ground. So we've come to prefer live entertainment. It helps to fill in the slow times, especially in the winter."

"I hope we'll get to hear some of that blue grass tonight," said Will.

"You know, I think you just might," said Allan.

Looking again at the wash stand in the corner, another question occurred to Will. "Uh... I see you don't have running water in your room?"

Allan sat down on the edge of the bed and gestured for Will to take one of the chairs. "One thing that really surprised me about this place is that the whole 'needs and wants' thing has turned out to be a false distinction."

"You'll have to explain what you mean by that," said Will. "And how it relates to running water."

Allan chuckled. "Okay. What we have here is a co-production system—the consumers and the producers are the same people and they also get to decide what is or isn't produced. This means that if there is a consensus about producing something then we can just do that. Whether something is a want or a need really doesn't come into it. Instead it is a matter of having the desire to make it happen, and seeing if we have the tools, materials, skills and labour time left over from all the other things we are already doing, or if we'd like to stop making something else in order to make this.

"We have a well defined process for getting on top of all this information, so people don't have to guess as to what the facts of the matter are. People do guard their spare time jealously, though, so that's often the critical factor. That and getting enough people behind an idea. Which is the shape that politics takes here at Porcupine."

"So you decided that making the pipe and plumbing fittings and fixtures just wasn't worth the effort?" said Will.

"Not in the quantities that would be needed to put them in every room. Especially since there is a sink and hot and cold running water only a few steps down the hall," said Allan. "And making that work took a lot less effort. There are a lot of mass produced materials that we used to take for granted—plywood, pipe, wire and various sorts of hardware—that would require a level of industrialization that we simply aren't up for. Our industrial setup is the next item but one on this tour, so..."

"So we should get moving," said Will. "Your dad always used to say that accepting a minor loss of convenience and comfort could drastically reduce the burden we place on the planet."

"Yep," said Allan. "He had that right for sure. What few of us understood was how easy it was to give up such things, especially in return for the pluses of living here, which are pretty major."

They both stood and walked out of the room and down the hallway.

"This addition is more than twice the size it was ten years ago. We added the new section in 2034, making more room for our medical staff and their families. By then the local building inspector had joined us, and left the municipality to shut down its building department, so we were free to build as we liked. Though we take building safety pretty seriously ourselves, especially with the former inspector here giving us advice. But that's a story for another time. You'll probably meet Pete at supper though, and he'll want to talk your ear off."

They went out back door of the addition and paused on the porch at the top of the steps. "That field ahead and on the right is our visiting horse paddock," said Allan, "and that shed is where the visiting horses can get out of the weather."

"Everybody out here has switched over to horses then?" asked Will.

"Hmmp, what most people have switched to is shank's mare," said Allan.

"My mother—your grandmother—used to use that term," said Will. "Fancy way of saying 'walking'."

"Yep," said Allan, "and walking is what we do for the most part. Breeding up a population of horses is a slow process, and we've concentrated mainly on draft horses. They are in one of the fields behind the barn—we'll have a look on our way by. The riding horses you see here are from elsewhere. There are a few people in the area who have made breeding them up a higher priority. I guess they want to get around more than we do. Or maybe they just like riding."

"You Porcupiners are more self contained?" asked Will.

"That's part of it," said Allan, "but mainly we've chosen to focus on other areas. The riding horse nuts for the most part don't have electricity, for instance."

"A matter of different priorities then?" said Will,

"Exactly," replied Allan, leading the way along the fence toward the shed. "And many of those folks already had horses before things fell apart, so they had a head start."

"Sure," said Will, stopping to lean against the fence."By the way, these are nice board fences."

"Not by choice—nobody is making page wire anymore," said Allan. "This is the best we can do with local materials. As I was saying, it turns out that large quantities of galvanized steel wire would be pretty challenging to produce—same kind of thing as copper pipe. White paint is a challenge too, and it is traditional on board fences like this. We just give them a coat linseed oil every so often to protect them from the weather. That's something we have lots of—the oil, I mean."

"I prefer the look of natural wood, anyway," said Will.

All this made Will think of his father. Charlie had truly loved horses, farming with them for a couple of decades before he got his first tractor in the early 1950s. He still kept draft horses for ten years after that, claiming they were better for many jobs around the farm. Will had missed all that, not being born until 1965. But Charlie had found he just missed horses too much and got a couple of riding horses when Will was about 5. Will had learned to ride and take care of horses and though he had little to do with them after leaving the farm, he still had a keen appreciation for the animals. Here he noticed mainly bay quarter horses and a couple of pintos with some Appaloosa blood in them. All fine looking animals that were obviously well cared for.

"Nice bunch of horses, not suffering a bit," he said.

"I guess so, though I'm no expert" said Allan. "The water trough's full. They've got shade from the maples along the fence by the road and lots of nice green grass. And they seem to be getting along, even though I'm sure some of them are strangers to each other. I wasn't in favour of setting up this pasture. But there are quite a few more horses here today than usual, and this field gets to collect some horseshit it wouldn't otherwise. Maybe not such a bad idea after all."

"This is part of that politics you were talking about?" asked Will.

"You're asking because the commune went ahead and did something I disagreed with?" said Allan.

"Well, yeah," said Will. "I thought everything was supposed to be done by consensus...."

"Oh, I could have blocked the idea," said Allan. Takes three of us to block, and I wasn't alone in having doubts. Or 10 percent of those present abstaining has the same result, and in this case that was a closer thing. But people get tired of having their ideas stomped on, and if you're the one always doing the stomping, then when you're trying to get something approved, it doesn't go as smoothly as it might otherwise. So... you have to ask yourself how important it really is, and if it's not very, you don't make a big deal of it. I've had lots of support over the years, so I don't make much of a fuss unless I think something is a really bad idea.

"All in all I find this system works pretty well. Better than the alternatives, for sure. Many brains together work better than one. When an idea doesn't get approved, it's rarely because it's been blocked or a lot of people have abstained. More likely it gets sent back to be reworked by the crew or individual who brought it up. Sent back with a bunch of good, helpful ideas for how it could be improved. People also ask around and get others' opinions before bringing up an idea to the group as a whole. So the really lame brained stuff gets filtered out."

"But surely you get the odd person who just doesn't want to get along," said Will. "Seems to me, if they didn't care about consequences, they could make things pretty miserable for everyone here."

"Yep, could happen," said Allan. "Has happened occasionally. But we follow the principle of voluntary association—no one has to join our group, or stay a part of it, if they don't want to. And if, as you say, they don't want to get along, pretty soon they won't want to hang around either. Living this close together, conflict is pretty miserable, even if you start out thinking that a little conflict might be fun. Once a week we take a vehicle into Inverpen, and there's always a seat for anyone who wants to leave.

"Plus, we have a long tradition, started by Dad during our first Tuesday night meeting, of people taking a long walk to decompress. Many have found that it helps. And once or twice a long walk has turned into never coming back."

"But after ten years, you are still a going concern," said Will, "so you can't have too many problems."

"Seems not," said Allan. "We make every effort to mediate and resolve interpersonal conflicts, of course. We've all had training on participatory democracy, mediation and things like developing emotional intelligence. It all helps. And it does work, except when it doesn't, people being what they are."

"No doubt," said Will. "What's next on this tour?"

Allan stepped back from the fence they'd been leaning on and turn around, pointing north. "Well, that row of buildings is our industrial heartland, so to speak."

"Really?" said Will in a doubtful tone.

"I'm not entirely serious," said Allan with a grin. "We don't have anything on the scale of chemical valley in Sarnia, or the steel mills in Hamilton. But what little we have of that sort is concentrated here. Given your background, I think you'll find this quite interesting."

"Great," said Will. "Let's have a look."

Coming soon, Porcupine Saga Part 13, The Tour: Part 2


Links to the rest of this series of posts:
The Porcupine Saga

Maintaining the lists of links that I've been putting at the end of these posts in getting cumbersome, so I have decided to just include a link to the Porcupine section of the Site Map, which features links to all the episodes I've published thus far.

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Saturday, 21 December 2019

Responding to Collapse, Part 15—Addendum

At the end of my last post I said something to the effect that while I had just said pretty much all I had to say on the subject of diesel fuel, comments from my readers might spark something further. Indeed they have, and at least two of those ideas from the comments section are worth sharing here with the rest of my readers.

Battery Powered Tractor Trailers (EV Semis)

There has been a lot in the news lately about battery powered electric trucks suitable for long distance hauling of heavy loads, following the release of Tesla's prototypes of such a vehicle.

One reader on Facebook was outraged that I wasn't sufficiently impressed by Tesla's "achievement", but in the context of this blog whether disruptions in cargo transport are caused by problems with the supply of diesel fuel or problems with the supply of electricity (needed to charge batteries for electric trucks) is of little importance. We are going to experience both those problems, in any case, as collapse progresses.

Concerns about climate change, more than shortages of diesel fuel, are probably the driving force behind the interest in battery powered transport technology. In order to do something about climate change we do need to stop burning fossil fuels. The alternatives to fossil fuels—nuclear, wind, solar, etc.—all produce energy in the form of electricity, but electricity only accounts for about 20% of the energy we use. We need to find ways to use electricity where we now use coal, oil or natural gas. In the U.S., the trucking industry alone contributes about 23% of total greenhouse gas emissions, so it would seem that switching to electric trucks would make a big difference.

I am not at all convinced that this is even possible, or that it is such a good idea in any case. But I must admit that I just can't resist talking a little more about whether or not battery powered semi trucks are feasible and/or economically viable. Specifically, can Tesla battery powered truck do what they claims, or are they just more of the sort of marketing hype we've grown used to seeing from Elon Musk.

In an effort to become more informed on this subject, I did some googling and read a few articles, which I've listed below, along with the size of battery that each is guessing at for the Tesla trucks:

There certainly isn't a lot of agreement among these people. A lot of that has to do with the fact that they are all talking about slightly different things and making somewhat different assumptions. Picking and choosing what seems to make sense from among these different analyses, here's what seems reasonable to me:

The kind of truck we're talking about is a "semi truck", "eighteen wheeler" or where I grew up a "tractor-trailer". Regulation wise this is a class 8 truck, and it can have a maximum weight, including payload, of up to 80,000 lbs.

Diesel trucks have an empty weight of 31,000 to 37,000 lbs, including the tractor with engine and fuel, and the trailer, leaving a payload weight of 43,000 lbs to 49,000 lbs. These trucks carry as much as 300 gallons of fuel, for a range of over 2000 miles. Regulations limit how long truck drivers can work in one stretch, so the argument is made that an electric truck with a range of 500 miles and a quick charge capability could compete with diesel trucks. I don't know about that—many of the truck drivers I know work in teams and have a sleeper cab so they can cover a lot more than 500 miles without making lengthy stops.

Diesel trucks consume 3.5 to 5.3 kWh per mile, while Tesla claims their semi will consume under 2 kWh per mile. While some of this phenomenal performance can be chalked up to reductions in drag, I suspect some of it may also be attributed to optimism and marketing hype.

That's about all Tesla is saying. They aren't telling us what the truck weights empty or what the battery weighs. We can make some intelligent guesses, though.

Using Tesla's optimistic numbers, and accepting that a 500 miles range is sufficient, at 2 kWh per mile, you need a 1000 kWh battery. Lithium ion batteries have an energy density from 100 to 265 Wh/kg. I think it's fair to assume that Tesla is using a battery at the upper end of that range. So a 1000 kWh battery would weight at least 8300 lbs.

What might their empty truck weigh? Take the lower end of the weight range for diesel powered semis (31,000 lbs.), subtract 4000 lbs for the engine and 2000 lb. for the diesel fuel, and you get 25,000 lbs. Add in the 8300 lb battery, and this gives them a total empty weight of 33,3000 lbs and a payload of 46,700 lbs.

Using a more healthy skepticism, we can estimate a 30,000 lb. battery and 30,000 lb. for the truck and trailer. That leaves us with only 20,000 lbs of payload. I expect the truth will turn out to be somewhere between those extremes.

In and of itself the Tesla truck appears to be technically feasible for runs of 500 miles or less. But just because something is technologically feasible doesn't mean it's economically practical, or even a good idea in any number of other ways.

All these calculations are based on trucks running on level roads. Hilly roads can use up quite a bit more power, even using regenerative braking when going downhill. The same can be said of stop and go traffic in cities. And these are conditions that real trucks have to cope with.

If we widen our horizon on the technical front just a bit, we can see another problem. Tesla says they'll be setting up a network of "super" charging stations which can charge a flat battery up to 80% charge in 30 minutes. It's pretty easy to see that there is a problem with this. It takes over two megawatts of power to charge a battery at that rate and a truck stop would probably need several such chargers. Current truck stops aren't equipped with anything like that heavy duty a power supply, and the power company would have to install new lines and substations to supply this load. While that is technically possible (though expensive) it would certainly add an additional source of stress to an already shaky power grid.

It's also important to remember that electric vehicles only reduce greenhouse gas emissions if the power used to charge those batteries is in itself "green". Currently, in many areas where power is generated using fossil fuels, this is just not the case. And as things stand at the moment we are adding renewables to the generation mix at a very low rate.

What about the economic outlook?

A new diesel tractor usually ranges from $130,000 to $180,000. New trailers usually range from $30,000 to $80,000. Tesla quotes a base price $180,000 and a "Founders Series price" of $200,000. It is unclear if they are talking about just the tractor, or the combined unit of tractor and trailer. If it is the former, then they are well beyond the upper end of the cost range for a diesel truck. If it's the latter, then their price is more competitive. But batteries aren't cheap even if, like Tesla, you make your own. I can't help wondering what their profit (or perhaps loss) margin really is. At some point Tesla is going to have to start making money, or go out of business.

They also claim payback in two years based on the diesel fuel you wouldn't be buying, and a price for electricity at their charging stations of 7 cents per kWh. That's less than power costs in most areas, so once again I am left wondering how this can be a viable business proposition for Tesla.

Battery longevity is always a concern for electric vehicles. As batteries age, they can store less power, shortening the range of the vehicle. And if you have to replace the battery before the truck is worn out, it would add significantly to the lifetime cost.

All this analysis leaves me uncertain about the viability of battery powered trucks, and that takes me back to my original observation: it doesn't really matter much whether shipping is interrupted by shortages in diesel fuel or by interruptions to the power grid. In either case, the results will be similar. And it's those results that we need to be prepared for.

Horses vs Bio-Diesel

I put a link on the Collapse sub-Reddit to my recent blog post "Responding to Collapse Part 15: shortages of diesel fuel". This sparked a discussion on the merits of bio-diesel, and a much higher quality discussion than I have come to expect on Reddit.

I have no doubt that powering the currently existing fleet of diesel trucks, locomotives and ships with biodiesel in order to continue on with BAU (business as usual) would not be feasible. It would take up so much of the available agricultural land to produce the vegetable oil to be converted to bio-diesel that while the vehicles might be happy, the human race would be left starving. The EROEI of bio-diesel is, after all, only around 5.

Even using biodiesel just to power agricultural equipment in an attempt to feed 7 billion plus people wouldn't be feasible for the same reason—just too much land would have to be planted to oil seed instead of food for people. But I think there is something to be said for the idea of growing oil seed to make biodiesel to power agricultural equipment in the areas surrounding the small remote towns I have been talking about throughout this series of posts. The population density of such areas is much lower and there is more land to go around.

The real question is which is more feasible: tractors powered by bio-diesel or horses (and other draught animals) powered by hay and grain.

I did some googling and found a good article in Low tech Magazine discussing that very issue. The author reckons that on a farm worked with horses about 11 percent of the acreage would have to be used for growing the crops used to feed the horses. A farm worked with tractors burning bio-diesel would have to set aside about 26 percent of its area to grow oilseeds to be converted to bio-diesel for the tractors.

Not surprisingly, this would seem to indicate that farms powered by diesel fuel use about 2.5 times as much energy as farms powered by horses. When cheap diesel fuel refined from petroleum is available, this extra energy provides a couple of benefits. One, the land used to grow horse feed is freed up to grow other crops. Two, the powered equipment reduces the amount of human labour required. Much of the success of modern farms, be it conventional or organic, is based on this.

In a post fossil fuel, post collapse world, where the energy used to power machinery has to be produced on the farm or at least in the local area, those advantages disappear. Initially, though, I think bio-diesel does have some merit. The thing is that there aren't very many draft horses around today and it will take some years to breed up and train the population of horses that will be required. The diesel burning equipment, however, already exists and the main thing needed to keep it running is to grow the oil seed (probably canola in the area where I live) and set up the equipment required to press the oil from the oilseed and convert it to bio-diesel.

Eventually, of course, the existing diesel powered equipment will wear out beyond the ability of the local foundry/forge/machine shop to repair it, and it will have to be replaced by horses.

A breeding program for draft horses seems quite doable, as does a development program for horse drawn/powered equipment using existing equipment adapted for horses or new equipment built with village level technology using scrap metal and locally sourced wood.

The bio-diesel enthusiasts make producing bio-diesel sound fairly easy, but they are thinking in terms of ordering whatever they need from BAU supply chains. Making everything required from locally available materials using village level technology will be more of a challenge. Still, with some advance preparation while the supply chains are still running, it should be doable. Such a biodiesel program doesn't need to be long term sustainable—it only has to work for a few years until the horses are ready.

Existing diesel engines can't use straight vegetable oil (SVO), so some processing is required to turn SVO into bio-diesel. Here a rough list of what is needed:

  • seed for the first crop of oilseed
  • planting and harvesting equipment
  • mechanical presses to get the oil out of the oil seed
  • the chemicals required in the process to turn the vegetable oil into biodiesel:
    • a caustic (sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide or calcium hydroxide)
    • an alcohol (methanol or ethanol),
      (there are reasonably low tech processes to produce these from locally available materials, although it would sure help to have someone involved who has studied up on the relevant chemistry)
  • the vessels, piping, valves, pumps, instrumentation and so forth needed to do the processing

The alternative to bio-diesel would be to use a lot more human muscle power in local agriculture until it can be replaced, or at least augmented, by horses. This should provide incentive to get a bio-diesel program set up in advance.

Here are some sources of information on bio-diesel:

Addendum to the Addendum

A number of people in various forums have commented about the virtues of oxen. I can't say much about that from personal experience. There was an ox yoke hanging in a shed on the farm where I grew up—it hadn't been used in many decades. I think I asked dad about oxen at least once, and it was clear he much preferred horses. But not doubt oxen can do the job, and in the early days of a post collapse world, there will be many more cattle around than draught horses. So it would make sense to train some of them as oxen. Especially if the bio-diesel thing isn't working out too well.

Well, I think that's really it now for my discussion of diesel fuel. After the new year, my next post will finish off this series with a look at coping with shortages of money.


Links to the rest of this series of posts, Preparing for (Responding to) Collapse:

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Wednesday, 28 March 2018

Autobiographical Notes, Part 1: Childhood and Education

Dad and me, June 1958

I've been writing this blog for the last six years and for most of that time there has been nothing here about me other than my name and a photo. A couple of years ago I added an ”About Me" section that was only a few paragraphs long, and didn't go into much detail. I've long held that nurture is at least as important as nature, if not more so. I guess it stands to reason that a little more about my history might be interesting to those who may be wondering how I came to think the way I do.

So, what follows is a more complete autobiography.

My name is Irv Mills and I live in Kincardine, a small town on the eastern shore of Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada.

My parents got married late in their lives. That was in 1951 and by the time I was born in 1954, Mom was 35 and Dad was 44. I've noticed changes in my outlook as I've aged over the years since my children were born and I suspect that my folks we probably not a typical young couple when they had me, and five years later, my sister.

The story goes that they were standing together outside the nursery in the hospital, looking through the glass at me, and Dad asked, "Do you think we can raise him?" I don't recall what Mom was supposed to have said, but having been in Dad's position myself, I can certainly sympathize with him.

I was born in the hospital in Shelburne, Ontario and grew up on a farm about 15 miles north of there, half a mile south of the little hamlet of Honeywood. This is only about 70 miles north of Toronto, which is certainly a cosmopolitan city, but Honeywood was, and still is, a long way out in the boonies.

Rural electrification, which the company I used to work for (Ontario Hydro) was justifiably proud of, didn't happen on the township road where I grew up until the mid 1940s, only about 10 years before I was born. Dad had always farmed with horses, one of his great loves. After they were married Mom insisted (to hear her tell it, anyway) that he get a tractor. But don't be mistaken, Dad was all for progress and made it clear to me that the "good old days" were anything but. Powered machinery and electricity made farming not just easier, but safer in many ways.

One of the benefits of growing up on the farm was that I got to go to work with my Dad quite often, especially before I started school. Part of that was to give Mom a break and let her get something done other than taking care of me.

I suspect I was about 15 months old when she asked Dad to take me with him one day. He was in the middle of the spring planting, driving our seed drill up and down a field planting grain. This machine was still horse drawn and it took three horses, our two and one borrowed from one of my uncles. There was a board along the back of the seed drill, a few inches above ground level that you stood on with the lines from the team of horses in your hands to steer them. I was too small to stand beside him on the board, so Dad set me on top of the machine, on the lid of one of the bins full of seed grain and steadied me with one hand while driving the horses with the other.

For some reason this became a ritual that I took part in every spring-- even when I was a teenager and we weren't getting along too well. After I finished school and left home to go to work, if Dad was planting and I was home, I'd go for a ride with him. I have a memory (probably from when I was a year or two older than 15 months) of sitting on the seed drill worrying about what would happen if I fell forward under the machine. But I didn't, and soon I was old enough to stand beside Dad, which was safer and more fun. There are people these days who would like to stop kids from working with their parents on farms, but I don't agree. I'd say this is a privilege that farm kids enjoy and city kids miss out on. When my own children came along, I let them ride on their grandfather's knee on the tractor and in front of him on the back of a horse.

The old farm house wasn't in the best of shape and while it did have electricity, it didn't have indoor plumbing. So in the summer of 1956 we built a new house, and the following year Dad and his brothers tore down the old farm house which had been there since sometime in the latter half of the 1800s. I was there "helping" them and learned some new and very expressive words of which Mom did not approve. The lumber from the old house was stored away in a vacant building that Dad called the "sheep pen". Over the next thirty years this was used for various projects around the farm, and was available when I needed wood for whatever I was working on as well.

Possibly from watching all this activity with people using tools, I developed a love of tools very early in my life and by the time I was eight had a hammer, hand saw, axe, shovel and wheelbarrow of my own. Later I got an electric drill, a soldering gun, a multimeter and an assortment of pliers and screw drivers.

We were not rich by any means--barely middle class, I would say--but there was always food on the table, and I had enough clothes to wear. And there were always presents for my birthday and Christmas. In addition to tools, I liked sets of building blocks and science related stuff. When I was somewhat older I was given a chemistry set, a microscope and an electric motor kit.

Mom's mom lived with us when she wasn't staying with Mom's older brother in Alberta, and full time from the early 1960s on. When I was about 5 years old, she bought us a TV so that she could watch hockey on Saturday nights. We had a 50 foot antenna tower and, at the start, got just one channel, the CBC station in Barrie, about 35 miles to the east of us. I remember watching the Walt Disney show every Sunday night and being especially impressed with Davey Crockett.

There was also a science show on CBC called "The Nature of Things". According to Wikipedia, the first host was Donald Ivey, with Patterson Hume co-hosting many episodes. All I can remember is there were two guys talking about science, which I found extremely interesting. And they explained it well enough that it was not hard to follow.

Although she was 75 years old in 1960, Grandma took charge of our half acre garden. She also looked after me so Mom could help Dad with the farm work, and told me about her life and how things were done in the old days. But, like Dad, she never called them the good old days.

Mom read to me at bedtime when I was little, until I started reading to myself. One time she went on a bus trip with the local Women's Institute and came back with a copy of "Swiss Family Robinson", which she read to me. This book was full of people making things for themselves and very much caught my imagination.

Living where we did, there weren't a lot of other kids around to play with. The nearest, my friend Brian Baker, lived about three quarters of a mile down the road from us. We got together for play dates occassionally before starting school and were friends until he dropped out of school and went to work after grade 11. I have always pretty good at amusing myself and prefer having a few close friends to having a larger circle of more casual acquaintances.

Where I grew up little kids wandered around on their own whenever we felt like it and weren't seen as being in any sort of danger. Mom would send me outside and say down come back until suppertime. I had the whole farm to play in and sometimes went farther afield.

I started elementary school in the fall of 1960, at the school in Honeywood, a half mile walk from home (and not uphill in both directions). That was Grade One--there was no kindergarten. Most schools in the area were still of the one room type, but ours had a total of 4 rooms and included both elementary and high school. By the time I was in grade 4, the high school part was shut down and the older kids bussed to the high school in Shelburne.

When I was in Grade One I was in a room with Grades One to Four, and a total of 13 children. I always found these multi-grade rooms good, as you could listen when the teacher was instructing the older grades rather than being bored with whatever your where supposed to be doing at your own grade level.

At some point during my first week or two of school I was given a sheet of colouring to do. Now I had never had a colouring book before and staying inside the lines was a new concept for me. The teacher was less than impressed. I had encounter a blank sheet of paper before, though, and when given one I was able to draw quite well. I eventually got better at colouring, but throughout my life I've done better when winging it than when required to stay inside the lines--just no respect at all for arbitrary rules.

There was an arena with a skating rink in Honeywood, and every Friday afternoon we walked there from the school and had an hour or so of skating. I enjoyed skating, though I had, very little interest in hockey.

When the high school moved out of the school in Honeywood, the room I'd been in during the first three grades was converted into a library. There was even one or two science fiction books in it. I remember reading Les del Rey's Step to the Stars, about the building of the first space station, by lantern light during the big blackout in 1965.

Once a month, a trunk full of books would arrive at the school and I remember finding more science fiction in it on a couple of occasions, such as Del Rey's Outpost of Jupiter and Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky.

In Grade 2 we actually had science as a subject, with a science textbook that made a big impression on me.

During my first few years in school, the space race was heating up, culminating with the first moon landing the summer of 1969, when I was between grades 9 and 10. This made the science fiction I was reading seem pretty plausible and further stoked my interest in science and technology.

For the first few grades my teacher was dear old Mrs. MacLean who was very nice and especially good with the younger children. But then we switched over to Mrs. Rutledge who was anything but nice. I have since realized, though, that it was under her ungentle tutelage that I was forced to master spelling and arithmetic, skills that have surely come in handy since then.

Mom's brother was in the Signals Corps during WW II and Mom had help him study electricity and electronics. She got me interested in those subjects, which involved much experimentation and lots of blown fuses. To reduce the amount of smoke Mom got me subscriptions to Elementary Electronics and Popular Electronics.

Mom was also interested in history and geography and I picked up on that. She had a globe and one Christmas when I was pretty young I asked for and received an atlas. I still love maps and when I was in high school I did pretty well at orienteering even though I wasn't a great runner--just really good at finding my way around.

There were a number of historical fiction books in the public school library written to appeal to boys, usually involving some young fellow caught up in famous historical events. There were also some non-fiction book that I really enjoyed. I brought Thor Heyerdahl's Kontiki Expedition home when I was in grade 5 or 6, and stayed up half the night reading it.

Politics was a popular topic of discussion in my family and we were a fairly left wing bunch. Mom had grown up in a coal mining town in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta and her father had been a miner. Both she and her mother were very much in favour of unions and not frightened by the ideas of communism. She had a couple of books which she read to me: Peoples of the USSR, a kind of propaganda-ish look at the native peoples of each of the Soviet Republics, and "Behind the Urals", a story about a welder from the USA who went to Russia in the 1930s and worked in Magnitigorsk, where Russia was struggling to set up its iron and steel industry.

Many farmers in Ontario are quite conservative and support the Conservative party, but not Dad. His political opinions fit in pretty well with Mom's.

My Dad's family were Anglicans. Mom had gone to the United Church of Canada before moving to Ontario but switched to the Anglican Church after getting married. Grandma's Dad had been a Mormon and that had somewhat turned her away from religion. But none of us were seriously religious and we rarely went to church. I was sent to Sunday school but by the time I was 9 declared myself officially an atheist.

I think it was in 1965 (Grade 6) that several of the one room schools in our township where closed and their students started to be bused to our school in Honeywood. That was when I met my friend Johnny Power.

I started high school in the fall of 1968, at Center Dufferin District High School in Shelburne. This gave me access to a larger library, more advanced science classes and shop class. Skills I picked up in shop class made a big difference when I later became an apprentice electrician.

For the first couple of years that I was in high school, a semi-trailer full of books for sale would show up every so often. I remember picking up books like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Frank Herbert's Dune and Samuel R. Delany's Nova. There was some science fiction in the high school library as well. I particularly remembers Asimov's Foundation series and I, Robot, Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy, Arthur Clarke's Childhood's End, and John Wyndham's Day of the Triffyds.

I had subscriptions to several science fiction magazines, including Fantastic Stories and Amazing Stories, which later change its name to Analog Scienice Ficiton/Science Fact.

I also read quite a few science books including, Asimov's New Intelligent Man's Guide to Science and Arthur Clarke's Promise of Space. I developed a real love for reading about science, the kind of stuff that I imagine many people find pretty dry.

This was long before the internet or even personal computers, and the only way to study up on a subject was books and magazines. Living where I did, a chance to go to a book store or a news stand was a rare treat. Being interested in the latest technological developments could be quite frustrating because it was so hard to find up to date reading material.

Part way through high school I became friends with Owen Atkinson, who lived on a farm just a few miles west of Honeywood. In the spring of 1972 he introduced me to the Baha'i Faith and I shortly became a member of that religion.

In the summer of 1972, my friend Johnnie Power was killed in a car accident. An event that left a lasting mark on me.

In Ontario at that time high school went all the way up to Grade 13 instead of just Grade 12 which is common most everywhere else. That extra year was necessary if you planned to go to university, which I did. I graduated from Grade 13 in 1973 and was accepted into the Engineering Science program at the University of Toronto. I had done very well in our small high school, but after 2 weeks I dropped out of university and came home. I could say it was the culture shock of moving from the farm to downtown Toronto. But it would be closer to the truth to say that the first year programs at U of T were intended to weed out the weaker students, and that worked quite effectively on me.

Well, this seems like a good point to stop for now. Next time, I'll cover another chunk of my life.


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