Alcohol

[Fusilier]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

Moreover, in these regions other food products can be grown within your vineyards and, as a result, you can keep the vines and use the land for something else. That is a practice banned today in most countries.

Why is that?

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by Fusilier

Why is that?

As a rule to preserve wine qualities and culture efficiency (often rules nobody truly understand). We are now living in countries full of rules that nobody truly understand and most if not all would be dropped after a Twilight War.

In addition, most of us think in term of monoculture and that will be very unlikely in a T2K world. Everywhere, people will revert to polyculture, growing several crops/vegetables in small reduced areas (or so I think).

In Portugal (Porto Region) people were cultivating vines and olive trees altogether. In the mid-1990s that was forbidden and olive trees were taken out.

[Mohoender]

This is very short and probably full of mistakes but they are only ideas after all.

Fuels:
Fuel shortages quickly became a problem and regular fuels have become very rare. They are essentially used by the militaries and, often, their use by civilians has been forbidden by the law. Even military units are in very short supply of it. When they have it, it has been reserved for tanks and the most important military operations. Daily, operations are carried out by vehicles using other types of fuels.
Alcohol (ethanol) is now more commonly used with regular gas engines. However, mass production of alcohol is often a problem and performances are slightly reduced. In addition, corrosion is a major problem and many engines break down.
Another solution has been widely adopted for former gasoline engines and that is the gasogenes. As during WW2, these devices are increasingly fitted on vehicles that, as a result, run on methanol. The transformation is more important (but rather simple) than with the direct use of ethanol and corrosion has proved to be less of a problem. Performances are also reduced and the device is highly vulnerable if fitted on combat vehicles. However, several trucks and light vehicles not seeing direct combat are fitted with one. The main advantage is that you can burn wood or wastes in the gasogene and run your vehicle.
Crude Vegetal Oil is also used extensively in place of Diesel. That proved to be a very good solution on many occasion and performance are often maintained. However, due to the higher viscosity, regular extended maintenance is needed. In addition, this can’t be used during winter as it freezes between -5°C and -15°C. Another point is important: pre-heating device must be fitted for optimal use. Another advantage with this is that it can be produce from regular mechanical or non-mechanical press.
Lubricants:
Not as obvious as the fuel shortage, the lubricant shortage quickly became a problem and engines were breaking down everywhere. Again crude vegetable oil was used to help and proved to be efficient on many occasions. However, it is not that good for an engine because of the high temperature involved. Nevertheless, most engines after the Twilight War use a mix of mineral and vegetable oil.

Fuel Productions:
Oil remains in small production worldwide and it is still around. It became extremely expensive and reserves are often under a strict control by the local authorities.
Ethanol is widely produced but is seldom found in large quantities. Many communities are producing ethanol but in quantities that are barely enough for local movements. The region where it can be found in the largest quantities is the South American continent.
Methanol is also widely used and produced from gasogenes. These are mostly fitted on trucks and larger vehicles as they are somewhat imposing. Several lighter vehicles are using them as well but at the expanse of internal room. The main advantage of this system is that it runs on wood or wastes.
Crude Vegetable Oil is the most largely used as it is the most easily produced. However, it can be used on diesel engines only and freeze easily. As a result, its rare in the USA and vehicle running on it can seldom be used during winter (As temperatures have dropped after the nuclear exchange…).

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Mohoender

We are now living in countries full of rules that nobody truly understand and most if not all would be dropped after a Twilight War.

There are laws like that all over the world; you don't know who wrote them, why they wrote them, and in some cases, how the circumstances came about for writing them!

Two from Texas that jump into my mind are: in the State of Texas, you cannot hunt with a sword (a sword being defined by Texas law as as having a total length of 24 inches or more, with a blade of at least 16 inches).

Down south in Corpus Christi, it is illegal to walk your alligator on city sidewalks. I have no idea what the circumstances behind that law were.

[pmulcahy11b]

There are also some military vehicles (mostly older ones, and particularly, it seems, French and Belgian vehicles) that can run off of paraffin. Does that also follow the multifuel rules? What kind of fuel economy are you going to get from paraffin?

[Mohoender]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

There are also some military vehicles (mostly older ones, and particularly, it seems, French and Belgian vehicles) that can run off of paraffin. Does that also follow the multifuel rules? What kind of fuel economy are you going to get from paraffin?

The main exemple was the Hispano-Suiza HS110 fitted on the AMX-30s until 1998. It is a multifuel engine. Actually it could work on more fuel types than the three rated on the publications I have seen. According to friends riding it during the late 1980's and 1990's, they had put grease and lubricant (anyway they used much more fuel types than three) to run it on occasions. The main problem was that this engine is considered unreliable to some point. I believe (really unsure) that those same friends were telling me that the engine needed extensive maintenance and used to spend quite some times out of the tank.

Saddly, I have been unable to find anything on that engine on the Web. Paul you know much more about this subject than I do and may be you can succeed where I failed.

[Littlearmies]

Originally Posted by Fusilier

Why is that?

Hi, largely because the other crops can help work providing nitrogen to the soil - best quality grapes come from vines that have been stressed - that is why it's illegal to irrigate vines in most of Europe (and hence why Central California vineyards, which depend upon irrigation, produce such godawful wines). Roses, planted at the end of vineyard rows, act like canaries in mines to give warnings of disease in the vines.

The benefits of working in the wine trade....

Malc

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Littlearmies

Hi, largely because the other crops can help work providing nitrogen to the soil - best quality grapes come from vines that have been stressed - that is why it's illegal to irrigate vines in most of Europe (and hence why Central California vineyards, which depend upon irrigation, produce such godawful wines). Roses, planted at the end of vineyard rows, act like canaries in mines to give warnings of disease in the vines.

The benefits of working in the wine trade....

Malc

You wouldn't hapen to work outside the Central Valley, would you? I believe Napa and Sonoma depend heavily on irrigation, too. Interestingly, they call it quality assurance...

Webstral

[Abbott Shaull]

I have always wonder why they would good food to make fuel. Like many things about the game original rules, that didn't make sense, but hey it was their game.

[Legbreaker]

This would be why Methanol was included at a cheaper (half) price than Ethanol.
Ethanol requires foodstuffs while methanol is made from basically anything else. (Yes, I know it's more complicated than that, but it is just a game.)

[Raellus]

I think it's pretty much accepted as a given that the game designers wanted a way to make player groups more or less self sufficient when it came to fueling up their one or two vehicles. They probably also wanted to slow vehicle movement so that a group of players couldn't drive halfway across Poland in a single afternoon. Plus, there's no doubt the nuclear exchanges described in GDW canon would pretty much end most conventional fuel production and distribution for at least a decade.

I think the idea is that methanol could be produced with the byproducts of conventional agriculture. Cornstalks, husks, and cobs could be used for fuel while the corn itself would be used as food. That kind of kills two birds with one stone. You wouldn't necessarily need to choose one over the other- you could eat and still brew up fuel meth/eth.

I know it's bad science but a suspension of disbelief is needed here.

Perhaps some sort of enzyme or something was developed to help in the alcohol field brewing process.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Raellus

I know it's bad science but a suspension of disbelief is needed here.

Perhaps some sort of enzyme or something was developed to help in the alcohol field brewing process.

Well, they did put aliens into Twilight Nightmares, so who knows?

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Perhaps some sort of enzyme or something was developed to help in the alcohol field brewing process.

In the RPG Cyberpunk 2020 the main fuel used in vehicles is a (fictitious) type of alcohol they call (IIRC) CHOO2 which provides much more energy when it is combusted than ethanol or methanol. I think maybe it contains extra oxygen molecules compared to natural forms of alcohol but I can't remember exactly (it has been more than a decade since I last played Cyberpunk 2020). In the CP 2020 universe CHOO2 largely replaced fossil fuels and was produced using some kind of genetically engineered bacteria.