cooking with gasoline

COOKING WITH GASOLINE


Usually it’s pretty hard to find new and exciting Happy Financial News. It is just the same old crap everyday. The bankers whore’s such as National Pravda Radio keep churning out the lies, damn lies and statistics. “On news today that the jobless rate increase was less than expected the Dow went up fifty points”. Look, boys and girls, instead of losing a half a million jobs last month we only lost fifty thousand!! Weee! Remember that pesky little detail where if we don’t create two hundred thousand jobs a month we don’t even keep up with population increase? How many people are actually using their cranium for something other than a hat rack? Anyway, now that I’ve said my weekly snide remark about the liberal ass pumping pukes at NPR we can get back to business. Elko county’s unemployment rate went from 6.8% three months ago to 8% currently. The last all time high was 8.5, and that was with the mines going bust. The mines are doing splendidly right now and gold is holding at the eleven hundred mark, and we are still seeing unemployment going up at a brisk clip. Green shoots my liver spotted pasty white dimpled ass.

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This article is not about using a duel fuel stove, the Coleman job where you can use Coleman fuel or unleaded gasoline. I have one, just in case, but they are a bit on the pricey side and I’ve seen mixed reviews on them. And no, I haven’t tried mine out. If I ever find abandoned gas to use it, fine. If it doesn’t work, who cares? It is for a Black Swan event like a pandemic, where people would actually die off and leave supplies. I give the odds of it happening at less than one percent. I bought the thing for Y2K, stored it and forgot it ( I had planned on using it with a gallon of Coleman fuel, which I still have, and that goes to show you how far my time scale has broadened for after the Apocalypse ). It is a “just in case” item, not something I’m staking my life on. Today, let’s talk about a generator and a microwave for post-collapse cooking. Yes, I know I’m always blowing raspberries at the ownership of generators. What blows my mind is people think they need them for air conditioners, freezers, etc., rather than using them sparingly. So, I am only recommending a generator with you keeping two things in mind. First, this is a luxury like silver. It is nice to have but not necessary. Second, this is not to waste. It isn’t keeping the sirloin frozen, twenty lights on and the X-Box playing. It is to keep an easy modern way of cooking going as long as possible.

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It won’t take long to go back to cooking with wood. Even a huge propane tank will only last so long. Wood won’t either, so no matter how you work things you need those solar cookers and thermoses. Even with a generator you will need to supplement as much as possible with the sun and slow cooking. The generator is a transition method only. It is meant to ease you into post-petroleum cooking. If you lease a hundred gallon propane tank for fifty bucks a year, plus the fifty dollar set up fee, you’ve spent four hundred bucks. With a generator and gasoline, you spend two hundred. You are a bit more restricted with the generator, only being able to run it once a day. If finances are tight and you feel you need this cooking method, go with the generator. If you already have the propane, I wouldn’t bother ( as long as you have it full- I would switch back over to small tanks and leave the big one topped off-but that is just me being paranoid ). Again, this isn’t right for everyone. If you have another cooking method, wonderful. But if you feel that cooking fuel is a big hole in your preps, this might work for you.

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You should be able to find a cheap generator for about a hundred bucks. You need enough watts that when your small 800 watt microwave kicks on you have enough to handle the surge. But you also need to beware of its fuel use. I would try for a ten hour per gallon run time if possible, but if you find one rated at seven that should still blow up your skirt. Of course, I believe that is running at half load so my math here is laboratory best case and should be taken with a grain of salt. Let’s say you got a 1500 watt unit for $100 that runs seven hours on a gallon of gas. If 700 watts is half power, then an 800 watt microwave should be pretty close to the seven hour run time. You need two gallons a month running thirty minutes a day ( I said you needed to supplement with a thermos and a solar cooker/water pre-heater ). So you need five, five gallon gas cans and the fuel and stabilizer for that. That might run you a bit over two hundred, but close enough for government work.

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Those cheapo made in China generators are pretty much crap. I would be surprised if they lasted much over five hundred to a thousand hours. But you are only running it at less than half that pessimistic amount. Your generator should outlast your fuel supply. Again, this is a luxury unless you live in a cloudy, barren land like at the top of the Andes. Which, if you did, I can’t imagine you reading this. But most of us believe we are entitled to such things. As long as you realize the limitations of a cheap generator and a limited fuel supply.

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