That's why I greatly admire the Wankle Rotary Engine. It has so few moving parts.
I have a Mazda 13b; 3 primary moving parts in the power section (then the oil pump and pressure regulators, I suppose you could count the thermostat and water pump).
Before WWII sleeve valve engines were all the rage (right Guy?) I had a small glow engine with a rotary sleeve valve in the head. I had to get it 'just because'.
mm, there were a whole series of them, from aspin, rochester, lanchester, corliss, everything from half crankshaft speed to a sixth, but ultimately they all had the same problems, gas sealing and oil consumption, which is the wankels big weakness too, when those vane tips wear you're screwed....
the poppet valve still survives because it has the least gas sealing and oil consumption problems, except for the turbine, which is the best of all worlds, if fuel is unlimited and cheap.
commercial fusion power at unlimited (effectively) capacity used to make hydrogen used to run turbines would be the best of all worlds.
we have other problems first though.
in the 1920's western farmers used to produce about 2000 calories worth of food for every calorie from "industrialisation" used, whether that be tractor fuel, electricity, fertiliser or simply pumped water.
in the 1970's that ratio had dropped to parity, one calorie input for every calorie produced
now in the 2000's we are inputting around 2000 calories per calorie of food produced.
these are facts people, ask any of the farmers on here why it is hard to make a living, it ain't cos of the wage bill.
sure, if you own land that is fertile you can go off grid with your lister, grow canola to get diesel to run the lister and tractor, then you'll have to forego those fertilisers that come in bags and re-learn the old ways and crop rotation, learn food storage and preservation, accept that all foods are now seasonal, and take a massive drop in yield per acre, including your canola crop.
solyent green is people
I think anyone who thinks owning a lister is going to save them from anything other than a temporary outage of a few days, or offers them anything other than a way to cut an existing energy bill by a given percentage, is deluding themselves.
when things get in short supply the best place to be is not sat on top of whatever is in short supply, ask the iraquis today, ask the black slaves of the past (short supply was cheap unskilled labour) ask the native american aboriginals, short supply was land for ranching and railroads and so on.
the only things that can't be taken from you if there is a shortage is some sort of specialist skill, I can trace every single generation of my family history for 1000 years, name every last one of them, we as a family have been everywhere, where the action was, up until the industrial revolution we were hard rock miners (some still were afterwards too, but many took to the new trades that were created)
what owning a lister WILL give you is a set of skills that are as rare as rocking horse shit nowadays.
sure it's no mistake there is a HUGELY disproportionate number or marine engineers on here (eg any forum with more than zero of em) because after all a ship is a self contained civilisation, the only thing they don't do is make their own fuel, literally every last other trade or skill can be found afloat (yeah, even farming, hydrponic style on nuke subs) but the increasing specialisation means there are ever more main propulsion engineers who never touched the HVAC systems, or the potable and waste water systems, or the bunkering systems, or the generator rooms, etc etc etc.
lister gives you all that, and more.
it doesn't have to be economically, financially or energy budget viable, it is teach-yourself-shit-you-cannot-learn-anywhere-else
how many of you have though about going to
www.sherline.com and buying a small cnc mill and lathe?
you know what I want to do?
get an old milk float, mount the lister on it, self propelled semi mobile bloody everything.
http://www.milkfloats.org.uk/
