So you’re in a post apocalyptic environment and you really want some diesel fuel for your souped up pursuit car. Well, the easiest thing would be to modify the motor to run off of SVO (straight vegetable oil), but if you really want to stick to the diesel toolchain, here’s some useful tidbits.

First and foremost, you will need a source of wood, seashells or limestone, water and salt (NaCl). You will also need a pure alcohol (produced easily from many sugar sources and yeast, with a distillation step) and of course vegetable oil (olive, corn, or my favorite Jatropha curcas).

Now produce a strong base (Potassium Hydroxide). First produce potash (potassium carbonate) by baking wood ashes in a kiln. Next, produce calcium hydroxide by heating limestone or seashells in excess of 825 °C until the calcium oxide is liberated and mixing with water. KOH is then produced by mixing the two above reagents in water and boiling until calcium carbonate (a useful byproduct) precipitates. You now have a solution of KOH which needs to be evaporated and dried thoroughly.

With KOH in hand, you have everything you need to produce biodiesel. The KOH and alcohol are mixed, then added to the vegetable oil and heated. After a while all of the lipids are transesterificated, and you have some dirty, wet and soapy biodiesel with glycerin (another useful byproduct) precipitating out of it and settling to the bottom of the reaction vessel. At this point it is generally recommened that the product be reacted with an acid (bonus reagent, see below for production) to remove any excess base (I believe this helps remove any soaponified fats also). The extra alcohol is removed by distillation. The soap and other impurities can be washed out with water (diesel is lighter than water, so the water will dissolve the soap, and sink to the bottom).

Bonus reagent! To produce a strong acid from nothing, you will need a source of salty water and a source of electricity (solar, wind, thermoelectric or biodiesel generator).  Electrolizing the salty water gives you access to hydrogen and chlorine gas (and sodium hydroxide), which will form hydrogen chloride when combined in an exothermic reaction. The NaOH byproduct could be used instead of the KOH above.

All of the above is based on a shallow research. There may be easier/more sustainable (we’re talking a process in which access to very limited technology isn’t a huge issue) processes for many parts of this (for example, I know that potassium carbonate is alcohol insoluable so it can’t be used for the biodiesel transensterfication, but what about calcium hydroxide? would save some steps).  I’ve only limited chemistry experience but I find it terribly interesting. If you have any corrections or suggestions for the racecar-driving desert dweller with a lot of glassware and kilns feel free to comment. This post was inspired by the Universal Nut Sheller which was partially designed to shell the Jatropha curcas nut for oil production and got me thinking about how you could give them full biodiesel production with very little equipment and resources. It was also inspired by the awesome book Caveman Chemistry. Incidentally I’m to believe that the production of polyester is similar to that of biodiesel, and the above could be adapted to produce plastics in a dissopunk way too.

sky and ground the same dark, pale and dreary light cast silent, the winter morn.

Only a few things worked out the way we expected, but in the end it was delicious enough to overcome any true disappointment. The life of a gourmand demands that one enjoy what is offered despite expectations!

First and foremost, we actually watched the movie ThanksKilling, which was a success. This little gem has ONE STAR on Netflix to my astonishment: even the most horribly boring home movie-esque bullshit movies have at least two, generally; what is even more astonishing is that it’s actually pretty good. It’s one of those bad movies that knows its bad and doesn’t make an effort to appear to be serious or good, kind of like if Hobgoblins had been actually funny. Also unnecessary nudity, unnecessary turkey sex, and while the one-liners were super cheesy, they were milieu-appropriate.

Next failure started with the ritual poultry killing. For some reason I decided that Cornish hens would be the way to go, so we brined them and roasted them in accordance with what little discussion we could find on this technique (and based on a perfect,-absolutely-perfect chicken roast earlier in the week). When they were done they looked delicious and the potatoes were perfect. Initial tastes were positive, but as we ate them we relized that they were WAY overbrined, and super salty. Still edible and good, but too salty.

The stuffing posed another layer of failure, as we had not made the particular brand that we made this time. Expecting a stuffing that did not require actually being stuffed, we made it in a pan, and added extra water so it would be the right texture. Unfortunately, but somewhat predictably, it tasted like wet bread. Fortunately, and unpredictably, slathering it with pan drippings and eating it with onions and bird meat made it taste almost exactly correct. Who’da thought it.

The dessert was a new and interesting experience. We decided that povitica would be a good dessert to make as I had strong associations with it and family situations on my much-estranged dad’s side. Bonnie decided that a cinemon roll dough would be easier than an egg (something we’ve failed in the past) or yeast (time consuming) dough. Seemed reasonable. The filling was made with hazel nuts and tasted perfect, dough rolled, barely fit in pan, no problem: except that dough rises, cooking things expand and escape, and the oven is very hot around the elements, sugary syrups burn with black choking smoke. It was right before nap time too, but thankfully the monsters survived just fine. We eventually cleaned out the oven, recooked the povitica in separate containers, and it came out without further incident. The dough isn’t right though, it tastes jus like biscuits, when really it’s supposed to be almost a smooth bready cake. Tastes really good though. A worthy cooking experiment.

In the end we all passed out various times, slept for most of the day and night after wards, punctated by activity. Most things seemed to have gotten put away, the kids seemed to have gotten put to bed, everybody seems OK now. Success.

So I started reading The Forgotten Genius about one of my heroes, Robert Hooke, a rather amazing polymathic scientist from the 17th century (look him up!). The book is excellently written, and only $4 in the nook store! (My other heroes include Richard P. Feynman, Greg Graffin and Adam Savage [totally not a nerd]).