Podcast Interview On Long Term Fuel Storage

Years ago Steven Harris did an audio training (podcast) on the topic of long term fuel storage.

This is the overview of that audio interview with Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast:

EVERYTHING- what containers, the easiest & best home made siphon, how to store gasoline, diesel, kerosene, how to treat gasoline and diesel for 10+ years of storage life.  What can you store gas in w/ 100% safety that you did not know about?  Using 5 Gallon cans & a with a really smart rotation method.
Steven Harris on The Survival Podcast for 11th Time!

From this page

If you are ready to get more advanced preparedness training from Harris on all things pertaining to energy, then check out his more in-depth video training courses here:

If you would prefer a raw (unedited) transcript of the above audio interview podcast, then you can get the full transcript here:

SERIES: TSP
EPISODE: 980
DATE: September 13, 2012
TITLE: STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE

SOURCE FILE:
http://www.survivalpodcast.net/audio/2012/9-12/epi-00980-steven-harris-on-fuel-storage.mp3

FILE ARCHIVE:
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/harris-on-fuel-storage

DESCRIPTION:
Steven Harris returns to TSP for his 9th visit. Today he joins to further discuss how to deal with a large scale black out like the North Eastern United States is currently dealing with. Today we continue on yesterday’s topic and focus on recharging batteries, keeping cell phones and computers running, keeping the TV set operating and more.
Steven Harris is a consultant and expert in the field of energy. He is the founder and CEO of Knowledge Publications, the largest energy only publishing company in the USA.
Mr. Harris came to his current position to do full time work on the development and implementation of hydrogen, biomass and solar related energy systems after spending 10 years in the Aero-Thermal Dynamics department of the Scientific Labs of Chrysler Corporation.
Steve is always full of great ideas, knowledge and projects we can use to improve our personal energy independence and today is no exception. Today he covers proper storage of fuel including gasoline, diesel and kerosene for long term and rotational usage.
Additional Resources for Today’s Show

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Be Part of Episode 1000
Meet Jack at the Hickory, NC Self Reliance Expo
Facebook Event Page for the Early Meet and Greet in NC
Full Details on the Hickory Early Meet and Greet

Steven’s Websites
Solar1234.com – Get info on all Steven’s Sites
IMakeMyGas.com – This is for the small still, currently sold out.
Steve on Facebook

<3:12>

Jack Spirko: Hey Steve, welcome back to The Survival Podcast.

Steven Harris: Jack I am thrilled to be back. This is such fun, I love it.

Jack Spirko: Last time you were on, we had a kick ass show on backup power and getting by with backup power using things that you can make part of your everyday life. I’ll tell you a quick story right after that show, maybe 3 or 4 weeks I went to Arlington to do the “Self Reliance Expo”. Which is kind of like the one I am going to be doing this weekend. I had a huge advice of people out there that were mostly TSP people because they all showed up early to get in early. When I got to the part on backup power I said, “How many people out there already own a generator”? Like 95% of their hands went up. “Everybody that knows the answer is yes because of Steven Harris put your hands down” and there was only 5 hands left up after that. Of course we were talking about there car.

Steven Harris:

<4:10>

Jack Spirko: I thought that was really cool. That was a great show. I think it really taught people a lot of things, and they can get that show and all your other shows at Solar1234.com.

Steven Harris: All my previous shows are at Solar1234.com. One of the things people loved off of the last show , which was show number 940. I put a list of stuff that I put up on Solar1234.com and it list all of the Harris approved stuff. This is stuff I have had for years, beat up, thrown at the wall, and it just works and works and works and works. I have put links up to Amazon. You can either go see it, and I say if it is available at Walmart you can go buy it at Walmart. You can go buy it here or if you want you can get it from Amazon. That list has expanded because you guys just wrote me, “I need D cell batteries. I really need D cell nickel–metal hydrides (NiMH)”. So I said, “These are my favorite D cell nickel–metal hydrides”. “How do I measure the power from my refrigeration“? Well you need a kilowatt meter. I listed the kilowatt meter up there, so you can go see what it looks like. That list has expanded and that list has expanded for this show as well. Everything I talk about here will be up there. I like to not just tell you things. I want to enable you. I want you to learn it and then I want you to be able to know where to get it, see what it looks like, and that is what I am about.

<5:32>

Jack Spirko: The show spawned a whole bunch of questions and we are going to have you come back at a later date to talk about expanding your power capabilities, beyond an inverted and a rechargeable batteries with generator systems. It also lead us down another path, that we wisely decided to cover first. As you put it, a generator without fuel is like gun without bullets. It doesn’t do shit. It is a heavy weight. Today we are going to be talking about storing fuels.

Steven Harris: We are going to be talking about storing fuels this time. This show was supposed to about storing fuels and generators, but storing fuels took up so much space it ran an hour. The show after this one will be on big generators, small generators, gasoline, diesel , natural gas generators, P.C.O. generators, 2-cycle generators, whole house generators, and regular generators that is the next show. Look forward to it. Since you guys have written to me about generators for the last month, I got a show lined up that is going to be Rock’em Sock’em

<6:36>

Jack Spirko: Awesome, but today we are going to talk about fuel storage. Specifically we are going to talk about what? Kerosene, diesel and gasoline.

Steven Harris: Yes. We can start right into it. This is directly from you guys. You guys asked me all those questions. Today’s show is all about the best and easiest ways to store gasoline or diesel or even kerosene, and all the fuels. How to treat them. How to use them. When they get too old. What nasty things can happen to them. How should they be stored. A generator is useless without fuel, like Jack said and I say. A generator without fuel is like a gun without bullets. During the blackout of 2003, I got pictures of people wheeling an $800 generator around. All they had was a 5 gallon gas can on the thing. How to properly store fuel and keep it good has always been a big mystery for most people. There is lots of myths out there, like it is going to turn varnish and all this stuff. We are going to get rid of those myths right now. We need to get subject of how to store fuel and keep your fuel quality, before we can get into the generators. Your traditional 5 gallon red gasoline container that you buy in Walmart or any auto supply store is made from HDPE. That is a common industry term, HDPE. It stands for High-density polyethylene. Anything made from HDPE will store gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and alcohol as good as any 5 gallon gas can will. Same material, different shape, it doesn’t matter, it is the material. The item that I have used the most for storing my gasoline, my diesel, and my kerosene that I have used since year 2000 is a regular 15 gallon plastic drum. This is the same blue plastic drum you buy for water storage a water drum will hold gasoline just perfect. These 15 gallon drums come in either blue which you are used to seeing, you know the food grade blue. If it is food grade you can put gasoline in it, you just can’t use it for water afterwards. Or it comes in a translucent white, and you can kind of see the fuel level through the translucent white. both are HDPE and both will work perfect. The one I choose to drive around with in my pickup truck when I am doing long drives is the blue one, because it looks like a water drum. I was driving over the Hoover Dam with my truck and trailer. The guy looked into the back of my pickup truck . He said, “Whats in those 15 drums”? I said, “Water, I am going to the desert”. I didn’t tell him it was gasoline.

<9:22>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2012, 08:59:25 AM »
<9:22>

Jack Spirko: That is a good point. Another thing I like about the size of that storage container, it is significant at 15 gallons. It is still something that 2 guys can pick up and move around. You are looking at 120lbs – 130lbs roughly I would guess. For a 55 gallon drum full of fuel isn’t moving with out a piece of equipment.

Steven Harris: That is right. Gasoline is about 6.2lbs per gallon.

Jack Spirko: Water would be about 100lbs

Steven Harris: Water would be almost exactly 100 lbs. Water is 8.35lbs per gallon. I am a big 6.2 guy. I can grunt and pick it up and put it into the pickup truck. I can roll the barrel around. I can drop it off the pickup truck, and it will just laugh at me, it is so durable. I have put my water into 15 gallon drums just so if I need to move them here to here or here to there and everything else. That is my personal preference. I am telling you why it is my personal preference. If you got a 55 gallon drum. You know what is worse than not having a 55 gallon drum. Is not having a 55 gallon drum full of water. Use what you got, people. This is my favorite, but what you can get and what you got is what you should be using. Now if you want to see what a 15 gallon HDPE blue drum looks like, for some reason. I got the link over to amazon, at Solar1234. You can actually buy it over at amazon, if you want. It is $50 plus mail order. The way to get these things locally is you go to maps.google.com or just go to google.com and type in maps. Google maps will be the first link that shows up. Here is the key words, type in “Drums and barrels “. You will find all of your local drum and barrel suppliers. These are people who deal in nothing but drums, surplus drums, used drums, and new drums. You can get these 15 gallon for between $20 and $35 locally. Depending if they are new or they might had some sweet syrup in them. They might be white or blue, but they are still food grade and the drum company would have washed out the syrup and then dried them. They are selling them to you as used drums. These are perfectly good for storing your diesel fuel, gasoline, or kerosene. Jack, what do you have around you for drums and barrels?

<11:39>

Jack Spirko: If you mean your map trick, the trick you just did? “Dewey Cook Scrap Metal and Iron” and “Gibbs Brothers Cooperage” are the 2 that show up in Hot Springs. If you get answers in Hot Springs, you’re probably going to get answers anywhere.

Steven Harris: Cooperage is good that is an old term for barrels.

Jack Spirko: Yep. That is a wine barrel makers term.

Steven Harris: Do you have any barrels in your personal storage?

Jack Spirko: I actually use barrels very similar to what you are talking about. I also do use 55 gallon drums for fuel storage. Specifically for diesel, because I have 2 diesel vehicles and i have a generator that runs on diesel. I store a lot of diesel that I am not looking to make mobile, but I use the exactly same barrels for mobile fuel usage. The other thing that I use is NATO Jerry Cans for smaller amounts because they are so damn durable and proven. I really like those 2. Those are kinda my big 3 right there. I do have a few of the red cans too, but that is just because they are cheap. I won’t buy one of those at a store, because there are better products. Some time you are at a swap meet and somebody is selling them for $2 a can or something. I’ll pick them up.

<13:04>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2012, 03:47:54 PM »
<13:04>

Steven Harris: Also with the NATO Cans, be careful. There is a difference between the welded seam and the the pressed seam.

Jack Spirko: Ok.

Steven Harris: There are the cheaper ones that are pressed seams, the better ones are welded seams. Those can get pretty pricey. Those can be $30 a piece for a 5 gallon can.

Jack Spirko: They’re expensive, but they are the best thing I have found for mobility. One of the things that I have never really thought of, was the fact that…. Let’s say I have 20 gallons of that strapped to the back of my truck anyone looking at it, know what it is.

Steven Harris: Yep

Jack Spirko: Anybody. Not just about crossing the Hoover Dam, but just theft. Like you said, people are less likely to steal water than gasoline.

Steven Harris:

Jack Spirko: That is a great point, I never really thought of that.

Steven Harris: Unless it is the day after a hurricane. Then you are in trouble.

Jack Spirko: Yeah. Of Course they might be in trouble if they go to drink it.

Steven Harris: One of the secrets of storing fuel, especially gasoline in these 15 gallon drums or 30 or 55 gallon drums, is having a very good bung wrench. The one I have is cast from solid aluminum. It is indestructible it lets me tighten down drum opening with all my force. I get a prefect 100% seal. Most drums you got a big opening and a small opening. The small one is for the air hole, if you are pouring out. You basically leave that one closed all the time. Your tightening down the big one. There is a little o-ring gasket in there. Make sure the o-ring gasket doesn’t jump out, if you turn it down too hard. Getting that good tight drum seal is the most important thing. You can usually get a bung wrench where you buy the drums and barrels. At the cooperage place or the scrap and salvage place, that jack had is excellent. If you can’t get one there, or if you just want to see what a bung wrench looks like I got 3 of them listed on Solar1234.com right now. You can go see what they look like. I got a light weight aluminum bung wrench, which is ok. If you can afford the $33 I got a wrench, thats the one that I have. It is on amazon, you can get it. It is all one piece. It is solid cast aluminum, with all of the sized tools on it. It has 4 ends on it. It is like a double end wrench, with 4 ends on it. then it has two other little wrench built into it. The thing is so solid, it is a weapon. You can use it with any barrel or drum that you get. Go take a look at it. Buy it locally. Buy it through there, I don’t care. I just want you guys to be able to go see it. This lets you get an incredible tight seal on the drum because the number 1 enemy of the storage of gasoline is it being exposed to air, or it evaporating out. Gasoline is a mixture of sometime nearly 1000 different chemicals. The major chemical in gasoline is benzene, which is a carcinogen. People, don’t drink it. Don’t suck it. Try not to get it on your hands. It is not really good stuff, in the long term. Especially if you get exposed to a lot of it. There is something called the heavier ends and the lighter ends. When the lighter ends evaporate off, and the lighter ends is what you normally smell when you smell gasoline. Then you are left with heavier lower vapor pressure hydrocarbons some of these are called olefins. They are what make things gummy. The end result is that you get a fuel that does not what to evaporate every well. That is the end thing. You got a leaky container, it just doesn’t want to evaporate. Well when gasoline doesn’t want to evaporate very well, then it makes it harder for the engine to start. Remember the old saying, “It is gasoline vapors that burn not the gasoline itself that burns”. No vapors, no ignition, no engine running.

<16:59>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2012, 09:48:05 PM »
<16:59>

Jack Spirko: I have got a question for you. Other than the fact that they are lighter and easier to move. My 55 gallon drums of diesel fuel aren’t going any where, without a fork lift. Is there any other reason you settled on 15 gallon drums, from a size footprint standpoint?

Steven Harris: No, it was the weight. Keep in mind you can stack them on top of each other. They can stack just find, at least 2 high. They are an incredibly durable. If you drop a 55 gallon drum off the back of your truck, the amount of weight in it might make the thing burst, it would probably survive quite a few drops. You have got the same wall thickness in a 15 gallon. You got a smaller diameter, so it is much more tight. I have skidded these things off the back of my pick up and down the highway. Gone and picked them up and put them back into my truck. They are just really indestructible. Like you said, the reason I put stuff in it is so I can lift them and so I can move them.

<18:04>

Jack Spirko: I think that maybe it makes rotating your fuel a little bit easier too, because you have smaller quantities to work with.

Steven Harris: Yes. Rotating your fuel in a 15 gallon drum is definitely a lot easier than it is in a 55 gallon drum.

Jack Spirko: I can do that every other day, if i really want to. I it depends on how far the F-350 is going. You don’t go that far on 15 gallons with an F-350.

Steven Harris: That’s right. Think about it. It is a 5000 to 6000 pound truck. Moving 5000 to 6000 pound with 2000 pounds in the bed 12 miles on 1 gallon of anything, isn’t that a kind of like a little modern miracle.

Jack Spirko: I think it is so under appropriated by modern society. If you figured out what a gallon diesel fuel could do in human labor it equates to about 8 months of work. The level of freedom that gives society is so underappreciated. I digress, but it is amazing. I have told you that they are durable as hell.

Steven Harris: I have told you that they are durable as hell. I have dropped them off the back of my pickup truck. If you fill one of these drums full with gasoline and it gets to be summer time, it is going to heat up. It is going to bulge out. It is going to look fat. It is going to look bloated. almost big enough to make you scared a little bit. Don’t be. Don’t let it scare you. It can take it. In the winter time it is going to get sucked in and have a great big dent in it, big enough for a cat to walk through between it and the wall. It is going to look very funny. Again don’t worry about it. It can take it.

<19:44>

Jack Spirko: On that note, would you recommend that when I look it and I see one of my barrels all bloated out that I go ahead and crack it and let it vent off.

Steven Harris: Nope.

Jack Spirko: Let it alone. OK.

Steven Harris: Just leave it alone. You’re losing the stuff that you want to keep. You’re losing the light ends. They can take it. I have been out there in my garage seen them cycle every year, for 10 years. They get bloated and big and small. When I was going on a trip in the desert, they would be bloated. I would go up in the mountains, they would be sucked in. They can do it almost infinitely, they can go in and out. When you see them bloated or sucked in, that means your seals are good. That is a good thing. If you don’t see them being bloated or sucked in as the heat is changing, get you bung wrench and go check check your seal. Put your nose up to it and do you smell gasoline? If you smell gasoline, it is probably not sealed good. You should be sealed so good that you will not smell the gasoline coming out of the thing at all.

<20:44>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2012, 08:12:41 PM »
<20:44>

Jack Spirko: That means I am doing it right, because when I walk in shed I don’t smell diesel fuel.

Steven Harris: Exactly. Diesel fuel is harder to smell then gasoline. I have been using these drums till about the year 2000, and all of mine are just fine. I do this every year nothing is wrong. In fact I think so much of these drums, here is a good thing for you and I to talk about Jack. If I lived in an apartment and I had a balcony and I was 50 stories up in the air. A 50 story apartment building and I was concerned about preparedness and my safety. I personally would think nothing of having a 15 gallon can, 15 gallon HDPE drum like I just described, in my closet full of gasoline year around in my apartment on the 50 floor.That is how safe I think these drums are. The drum is just so darn tight. You tighten it up with a good bung wrench. I would use something like a Honda EUi 1000 or Honda EUi 2000 generator on my balcony. If you got a balcony on your 50th floor, and you are not too scared to walk out on it. I would store the generator in the apartment with no fuel in it because a generator is leaky when it comes to fuel. You are going to smell it. No fuel in the generator, get rid of the fuel, run it dry. Let it air out for a day or 2. Then put the generator in your apartment and the barrel of fuel. Then with the big disaster going on. Put the generator on balcony. Put the fuel drum on balcony. Use my siphon, that i am going tell you about, to transfer the fuel to the generator. Then seal the drum back up. Run the generator and leave them both on the balcony. This would be of the very few ways that I could think of to provide electricity to a person on the 50th floor of an apartment building. The drum is so well sealed that it is not a fire hazard. What is going to ignite it. I mean don’t set a candle on the thing, but other than that what is going to ignite. Even though there is no vapor, no smell, it is not going to blow up. It is not going to burn. I wouldn’t want the landlord to see it. He would have a conniption fit, but is because he doesn’t understand.

<23:03>

Jack Spirko: Sure. I think I would personally had a lot of apartments, have storage building out on there patio. If I had the option I would prefer it there. From what you are telling me, I wouldn’t let the absence of that prevent me from having fuel available. 15 gallons and a little 1K or 2K Genset, those things a sippers. You are not going to be running the whole doggone show, but you are not going to be doing that in an apartment anyway. That will give you some power for a long doggone time, on of of those 1K or 2K generators sets.

Steven Harris: Especially if you use what we talk about on the show 940 with recharging AA batteries. We are going to talk about in the future about charging up marine batteries in your house and your apartment. I always talk about, “You run like a submarine”. You start with a generator, and like a submarine on the surface, your run full speed, you run your microwave, you run your TV you run everything you need in your house, you recharge your batteries when you are on the surface. Then you turn off the main engine and go below the surface and you “run silent, run deep” and sip the energy off your batteries. I have talked about that. We will talk about that in detail in the future. Other than a lot of batteries, or this 15 gallon trick with a small Honda EU 1000i kind of generator… Imagine being on the 50th floor. Jack, the walk up and down would be killer. You are almost marooned. I know so many people have written me around the world. I know there is people… In fact write me and tell me what your apartment story is. My email is on Solar1234.com. I want you to write me and say, “Steve, I am on 60th floor. Steve, I am on the 80th floor.” In fact I want to start talking to some apartment people because maybe we can have a show just for people in apartments.

<24:58>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2012, 06:19:05 PM »
<24:58>

Jack Spirko: I think that would be great. I get apartment questions all of the time. This is one of the more profound things. One of the things I think about. It is one of the few times there might actually be somewhat of an advantage. If you fire up your generator in the suburbs it makes noise. Then people know it is there. During these times it is very likely that somebody is going to steal it. Unless Spider-Man is around, even 3rd or 4th floor… a lot of people have apartment that have a stair way up, if it is not a high rise. There patio is still not accessible by stairs. That little generator sitting out there is not going to get stolen.

Steven Harris: On the 50th floor you are not even going to hear it from the ground.

Jack Spirko: That is true. Even from a 3rd floor, if somebody wants to steal my generator I think I can tumble them over the banister before they get it done.

Steven Harris: I went on a trip around the USA 3 times, because I had a meeting that I would go to in Arizona. I had a pickup truck and a little 14 foot hard shell camper. I would drive a long way to it and a long way back. I would get to go around the United States, and see some of my friend. I would do some consulting. I was on a tight budget. I bought food from grocery stores. I fill my pickup truck up. I had 4 15 gallon drums, blue, in the back of the pickup truck. I would fill up the pickup truck with the drums in the states where the gasoline was cheap, like Indiana. Drive through Illinois. Fill up again in Missouri and drive though the other states. I drove almost all the way through California from Oregon without filling up. This was when gasoline was a $1.35 a gallon and in California it was a $1.50. I thought that was expensive at the time.

<26:55>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2012, 07:16:29 PM »
<26:55>

Jack Spirko:

Steven Harris: I had to do some demonstrations for someone, for some group of people. I went to give a class to them in Virginia. I drove from Michigan to Virginia and partway back. I drove 1400 miles. With truck and trailer without refueling. I refueled while i was driving, from the drums.

Jack Spirko: How did you pull that off. That is one of the things I have been thinking about adding to my truck. I might as well add this component if I am going to add the toolbox. The toolbox with the 65 gallon reservoirs. You did it with a plastic drums. With those you just flip a switch and you start drawing fuel out of the tank. How did you do it with a plastic drum?

Steven Harris: My fuel tank is on the left hand side of the pickup truck, the driver side. I would put the 4 drums lined up from the front of the pickup truck to about the wheel well. I had a great big tie down strap, or 2 or 3 of them. I ran one tie down strap though all the handles, and cranked them down. I ran another tie strap though the drums, and cranked them down. Get the picture? The drums are not moving and the drums are sealed. So what is dangerous there? Well, nothing. I open up one of the drums with a bung wrench. I have fuel almost to the top. I put my siphon into the drum and put my siphon into the fuel tank. I start it and wait a minute and wait for it to go down a level and I start driving. Where is the danger? I have an open drum with some vapor coming out of it and being siphoned into my truck, but where is the danger? There is no source of ignition. That is what I want you guys to understand. It it the vapors and a source of ignition that makes this dangerous, it is not the fuel itself. Here is one of the secrets of why this works so good. My siphon, which i what you guys to use, it is one of those black fuel bulbs like the ones you put on an outboard motor in a boat. It is about the size of a pear, and has a 3/8 inch in barbed end on it and a 3/8 inch out barbed end on it. Usually it is a black bulb with white barbed ends on it. You see them on little boats with outboards. It is for priming the fuel line. You squeeze the bulb and prime the fuel lines, so the fuel goes to the outboard motor. You don’t have to sit there and pull forever, so it start right away. If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can see a photo at Solar1234.com. You can get it from amazon. You can buy it from Walmart. It is all of $12 on Amazon. I think it is $6 at Walmart. You can go to the marine section of any place selling anything for boats and they will have them, so you can see what I have talking about and get one. I would by my fuel bulb at Walmart Then I would go to the auto supply store which for me is AutoZone, but you can go to Action Auto Parts or Pep Boys. You go to the counter and say “I need a 4 foot section of 3/8 inch fuel line and I need a 6 foot section of 3/8 inch fuel line.” They’ll know exactly what you are talking about and they will go get it. I put the 4 foot piece of fuel line on the suction side, which is the “in” side. I put the 6 foot section on the “out” side, where the fuel is going to come out. I put the 4 foot section into the drum and the 6 foot section into the tank. The bulb is right near the top of the drum. The drum is right near the fuel tank. What do is put them in, they will stay in on there own. I squeeze the ball about 6 times and get the fuel flowing. I wait for the fuel to go down about a couple inches and I would take off and drive. I would take off and drive for 2 hours. It only takes about 15 to 20 minutes for 15 gallons to drain from the drum into the pickup truck. It doesn’t matter if it is empty or full, I just kept on driving. I just waited for my fuel take to get down to a quarter, because I had at the time a 24 gallon fuel tank in my Dodge Dakota. I would then put 15 gallons in. You just need to make sure your fuel tank is low enough, before you put the 15 gallons in otherwise…

<31:16>

Jack Spirko: That is what I wanted to know. This is a continuous fueling thing here. We are going to get near E. Then we are going to go ahead and start this. We can cruise down the road. When we need more, we can just go to the next barrel.

Steven Harris: Exactly. Then I would pull the siphon out, throw it in the back of the truck, put the bung back on the empty tank, and close it down. There might be a little bit of gasoline washing around in the bottom. I would just pour that into another barrel with a funnel. Having a couple good funnels will help you a lot. I even use this siphon on 5 gallon fuel tanks. I don’t know about you but I hate holding the 5 gallon fuel tank with a short nozzle. That is too short to fit into fuel filter up to my truck or car. It is a pain. It comes out so slow your holding 30 to 40 pounds of fuel up against the truck. If you don’t hold it right, it spills. It is a mess. I put the 5 gallon tank on the roof of my truck or roof of my car. I put the siphon into it, as I just described. I squeeze the bulb a few times. I’ll have it siphon out of the 5 gallon tank, into the tank of the car. it is done in 5 to 10 minutes.

<32:33>

Jack Spirko: That is a great tip. One of my frustrations with the “new fuel” cans, that have the new environmental safe freak’n nozzles. One: the nozzles is not long enough. Unless you have some kind of a weird shaped car that makes the perfect for the little 3 inch piece of crap to go in there, it is hard to get the fuel in. I have old school ones that I keep for those types of cans. The other thing is that they have these safety freak’n contraptions on them. You got to push the button, and squeeze them. With you using this very simple, duh i should have thought of it, contraption. You can fuel any of your vehicular with out sitting there holding the cans. That is probably worth the entire episode. That is awesome Steve.

Steven Harris: The fuel line is about a $1 a foot or a $1.35 a foot. You are talking about $10 for the bulb, it is not that expensive. You can take on of these hoses and you can torture someone with it, you can beat them with it. It is incredibly durable.

<33:41>

Jack Spirko: I think they used to do that, like in interrogation. Beat the guy with a rubber hose.

Steven Harris: Beat the guy with the rubber hose. That is exactly the type of the rubber hose we are talking about right here. It is fuel line, It is durable as heck. I don’t even use screw clamps. I don’t even screw cap them down. They go on and off so tight. Say I want a longer piece of hose. If you want to see what the hose looks like, go to Action Auto Parts, Pep Boys, or AutoZone. I also have the fuel line on Solar1234, on Amazon. You can go see it. You can go buy 25 feet of it. It is about $25, it is a good deal. Get it locally. It is just heavy duty stuff. It is not going to wimp out on you. These little fuel siphons that you find in the store. The ones with the small red squeeze ball and the little clear fuel line, there like 1/4 inch fuel line. They are junk. You can’t depend on those. They transfer fuel too slow. They degrade. They get crushed. They get stepped on. You can run your car over the one I just talked about, it will be fine. This one you can depend upon forever. The bulb is hefty the fuel line is hefty. If you can’t get fuel line locally, you can go see it on the website. While you are at it, make 2 of them. If you are going to make 1, you might as well make 2. We are only talking about $10 or $20 bucks. Like the old saying goes, “2 is 1 and 1 is none”. If you got 2, you are going to end up with 1. If you got 1, you will end up with none.

<35:11>

Jack Spirko: What about people that only have 5 gallon containers. One of the reasons people do this is, if you wanted to do is store is 60 gallons. You had 12 containers, one for each month. You can write can Jan, Feb, March on each one. Once a month you dump a container into your vehicle, take it with you to the store and fill it back up and put it at the end of the line. That is one of the reasons people have done this. What about people who are sitting on tons of 5 gallon containers and don’t have any of these larger things. Would you say step up and get some or what?

Steven Harris: I would say step up and get some. If I had 60 gallons. I would have 45 of it in 15 gallon HDPE drums. I would have the other 3 in 5 gallon containers. Don’t forget a 5 gallon container of gas is a pretty quick barter item. If you kid is sick. You need to get to the doctor. You need to get past a line. You can go “Here buddy, here is a 5 gallon can of gas”. That will buy you a lot.

<36:15>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2012, 01:42:58 PM »
<36:15>

Jack Spirko: The 2 biggest barter implements are Budweiser and 89 octane, especially a short term situation crisis. If you have Budweiser and 89 octane you can get a lot done.

Steven Harris: Ok… You are going to make me mention it. I have an alcohol/moonshine still that makes fuel alcohol. It makes moonshine too. It is at iMakeMyGas.com. You can ferment sugar and water and distill alcohol, which can be a fuel or can be a barter item. But I didn’t tell you that, so you made me do a plug. Again let me reiterate. You got 60 gallons of fuel 3 15 gallon drums, 3 times 15 is 45. The other 15, I would have 5, 5, and 5 in 5 gallon cans. You need some fuel right now you can pick it up. You can put it in, your wife can pick up the 5 gallon can and put it in, your kids can do it. It might be only you that is going to grunt and lift a 100 pound, 15 gallon drums. That is the way, I personally, would configure 60 gallons of fuel. If you want to do the thing Jack said and have 12 cans. One is labeled January, February, March, April, I am going to talk about rotation fuel in a few minutes, I think that is a great thing. There is one thing worse than doing fuel like that, and that is having no fuel. That is better than nothing, in fact that is pretty good. I said the 15 gallon drums are my preferred method. I have used 2 year old gasoline out of them with no problems. There wasn’t even any pretreatment in there, I’ll get to treatment in a little bit. You might be stuck in a place with regular off the shelf 5 gallon plastic red gasoline containers. A lot has changed in the last few years of these containers. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and the California Air Resource Board (CARB) mandated that vapor not be able to escape from new gasoline containers. The gasoline vapors are considered something or other to the environment, for whatever reason. Having these new containers that are completely sealed makes them better for storage for us. We don’t want to be venting gasoline because there goes our light ends. We don’t want that to happen. There were child safety concerns and there is spillage concerns. The EPA and CARB don’t want to make an air tight gas container, only for it to be so clumsy to use that you spill gasoline out of the thing that will evaporate into the atmosphere. Now you got this overly complex fuel jugs, that you have to push this thing in and hold this thing down and they are cheap.

<39:09>

Jack Spirko: I am all about not letting the vapors out. You think that is going to save polar bears, fine. I am all about it because it is better for me. But they are all different. One is a lever that you pull back and push. Another one got a spring loaded…. I don’t even know how you are supposed to use it with any confidence. If you put it into a lawn mower it is fine. I guess that is what most people are doing. If you are going into a vehicle, it is not good.

Steven Harris: The one that my wife has for the lawn mower, you have to turn the can down and use the weight of the can. It push back a spring opening.

Jack Spirko: That is the one I am talking about. That one is just the stupidest thing I have ever seen.

Steven Harris: The spring is so tight you can’t pull back your fingers and just pour. Let alone the time for the gasoline. Then they took out the air holes in the back.

Jack Spirko: Yeah, that was brilliant.

Steven Harris: One: for the regulations of evaporations. Two: people would leave the rear end open all the time and it would evaporate.

<40:11>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #8 on: October 20, 2012, 08:45:17 AM »
<40:11>

Jack Spirko: I think that is the reason we did the whole thing. Even the old style cans, where you pulled the nozzle out flipped it around, stuck it through the thing. What would happen is that people would leave that nozzle on, and stick the little cap top things on it. That is when you go into someone’s shed and it smelled like a gas station.

Steven Harris: So if you are stuck with 5 gallon gas cans. Go get 5 gallon gas cans, and ignore the entire damn siphon nozzle junk. Just screw the thing on as tight as possible. When you want to use your gas, unscrew the whole thing off. You can pour it into a big funnel that goes into your tank or use the siphon arrangement that I just talked about that is the best way to use the 5 gallon cans. If you are stuck with 5 cans, that is the way I would use them. I think Jack agrees with me.

Jack Spirko: Definitely.

Steven Harris: You got any refueling stories you can tell us Jack?

Jack Spirko: I got one from a long time ago. I was just out of the army. I was 21 years old. I bought this car a 70 something Mustang II. It has about 3/4 of a tank in it. Me and a buddy, right after we bought it we were going fishing. We were cruising down highway 81 out toward Susquehanna River. Well, I learned something I already knew. Just because gas level gauge says you have fuel doesn’t necessarily mean you have fuel. The gauge was broken. We were in the middle of nowhere and the car just died. No gas. Even though said 3/4 of a tank, so it should have used something by now it is out of gas. Me and a buddy go walking down. We had to walk about a mile down to a gas station, off the highway. On the way down, we found an old antifreeze jug. That is what we filled the gas with. We are walking back. We had already walk about a mile and a half. People are driving past. You see two guys walking carrying a jug toward the highway you know what they are doing. Nobody wants to stop and let us ride. Some guy finally stops and gives us a ride not really big to the story, except it is just funny how certain people will do things you wouldn’t expect. Guy stops and gives us a ride. Turns out he was guy, last name Guers. There was a big Guers Dairy (www.guersdairy.com) he was the owner. This guy was worth about $60 million. Out of all the people that went by, he was the one that stopped and gave us a ride back to our vehicle. We get back and we looking at an antifreeze jug and a gas tank. We are going, “We can probably get enough in there to get the car to run to the exit and get down, but we are going to spill a lot of it. What we ended up doing was finding a pop bottle, cutting the bottom off it and making a funnel out of it. One of us held of a pop bottle and the other one dumped it in. That was the most jacked up way we ever had to get fuel into a vehicle, but it worked.

<42:56>
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Re: EPISODE-980- STEVEN HARRIS ON LONG TERM FUEL STORAGE
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2012, 09:37:50 PM »
<42:56>

Steven Harris: That is why you said on ‘The Glenn Beck Show’ that the most important thing is the preparedness mindset. You are going to do what you can with what you got and what you find. It is good to have a sharp knife on you.

Jack Spirko: Yeah, you need to have a sharp knife. You can improvise just about anything. You can make a knife, but it takes a lot of skill and a lot of time.

Steven Harris: Yeah, busting a sharp rock. The thing with the 5 gallon cans, really for any gasoline storage is that you should put in an additive to make it more stable. This gives it a better shelf life. Most of us have heard of the products called ‘Sta-Bil’. You can find it at Walmart or any auto supply store it is a good product. It extends the life of your gasoline. You should be adding some additive to your 15 gallon drums as well as your 5 gallon tanks. I keep about 45 gallons of gasoline in storage for my own needs. That would be gas for my wife’s car, for our generators, and i have extra diesel for my truck. As I have mentioned, I have a 2 year old gasoline that I have used in my generator out of a 15 gallon barrel that was just fine. I had zero issues it, because I had it sealed good. However, I have started to use a new product over the last year that will allow me to store gasoline, I am told, for up to 12 years. I will get to that. It is called ‘PRI’. There is ‘PRI-G’ for gasoline and ‘PRI-D’ for diesel. This company started making these additives for emergency services market. Places that have 500 or a 1000 gallon tanks of gasoline or diesel to run their backup generators. Indeed they have customers with 40,000 gallon tanks of fuel. You use 1 oz of PRI per 16 gallons per year. It puts what we call the light ends back in. It puts back in the stuff that evaporation out. It also has a chemical in there that keeps the fuel from breaking down, because it will depolymerize a little bit. it does this in exposure to air and to light. $30 of this stuff will treat up to 250 gallons of fuel. I think that is pretty reasonable. I have the links to where you can get it, again on Amazon at Solar1234.com. You will have to buy this from Amazon or you will have to buy it from some other survival or preparedness place. Emergency Essentials or Nitro-Pak or all the big ones have it. It is cheaper on Amazon. You have to by it on the internet because the only chain store that carries it is Camping World. I am using this in all my fuels. I call the company and said, “I need to know where my people can go buy it.” Sorry guys camping world and the internet was the only place to get it. I wish i could tell you AutoZone had it, but they don’t. I called PRI and talked to one of there head chemist, he was happy to give me details. I told him i was doing it for the show and he just spilled his guts and everything i wanted to be able to tell you. They have one customer that has 12 year old gasoline. In a regular giant 500 gallon tank and it is 12 years old. They have been adding PRI-G for the last 12 year. One treatment a year and the gasoline is fine. The generator starts up and runs and works perfect. Most places with backup generators, they test them every month and usually test them for 30mins. If there was any problems with the fuel it would show up. I don’t believe them. I don’t trust them. I am going to do it my self. I go fuel from 2010 and 2011. I used blue 3M tape and a sharpy marker. I always write on everthing when and where i got it. I am going to take them up on there challenge and see how long I can keep gasoline for. Hopefully Jack you are around in 10 years and I am coming to say remember show 980, I got 10 year old gasoline.

<47:24>

Jack Spirko: That would be cool. I look at it this way. If you are not EMS storing 40,000 gallons, it will get you 5 years you should be able to rotate your fuel anyways in 5 years.

Steven Harris: You should be rotating.

Jack Spirko: If it will last that long, that is awesome. Especially for people that maybe have remote locations and have fuel sitting out there. It is a little more difficult to keep up with rotation. Maybe there are only getting out there once a quarter or something. If they can treat it once a year and they can extend it that help that remote location sustainability a lot as well. We have a lot of people like that. One of the things I get from people, Steven, is “I got this gas and it is old. I don’t know if it is good or not. I really want to get rid of it but I don’t know what to do with it.” I understand because it is like I had an old can for a weed whacker that got left in the back of the shed. That I forgot about it. I could be a year old, it could be 5 years old. For me, if it was a little bit then that become my fire starting can. Because you just can’t get rid of it. When you talked to this guy did he say anything about reviving old gas or anything?

<48:39>

Steven Harris: Yes he did. In Fact he says if you… Well… I am not trying to make this a pitch for him.

Jack Spirko: More importantly do you believe him?

Steven Harris: Yes. And I want to do it myself. I am not to make this a pitch for PRI. Again, it is just good crap that I have been using. It has been working good. I get no BS from these people. They said if you put 2 ounces per 16 gallons, instead of 1 ounce, you will be able to use the gasoline as if it were brand new. I got 2 15 gallon barrels of 4 year old gasoline, that I will be trying this experiment on and I will report back to you. I believe them. Let’s say we don’t believe them. I will tell you what I have done to get rid of old fuel and it works great. I got 45 to 60 gallons of fuel in my engineering shop. Where I ship books out and everything else. Normally I get rid of old fuel because I give it to my employees. Boy, do they love it. I say, “Here you want 10 gallons of $3.50 a gallon fuel?” They are like “Yeah! Sure!” What I do is I mixed the old fuel 50/50 with gasoline. No one has any problem with it in any of there cars. Now, I am not sitting out there with a beaker of old fuel and new fuel and mixing it. What I do is I have them let me know when they have half a tank of fuel left in there car. Then I pour in 5 or ten gallons of old fuel and they drive away. “Thanks Steve for the fuel.” This is how I rotate my fuel and keep it fresh. I drive a diesel all day long and my wife’s car is at the house. Which is not where the fuel is. Until recently she was in a tight garage, so there was no easy way for me to do it. And I don’t want to transfer my 5 gallon cans into her car. I would just give it to my employees. Let me tell you, mixing it 50/50 with new fuel, 4 year old gasoline or 2 year old gasoline. I have mixed it 50/50 with new gasoline I have put it into all of my employees car’s. No one has called me yet, cursing my out saying they are stuck on the side of the road. It works just perfect, people. You can depend upon this, you can do it yourself. that is what I want you to know.

<50:51>

Jack Spirko: During that, Steve, you used a term that I use all the time. I use it with ammo, I use it with food, I use it with just about every prep that we have and that is ‘rotation’. Getting the old stuff out and the new stuff in. With fuel it is relatively easy, if you remember to do it because we all use fuel just about every day of our lives. What are your thoughts on that.

Steven Harris: I love it. Rotation, if you are disciplined enough to do it. i like the idea about have 1 5 gallon can for every week or every 2 weeks or for every month and you label it. i think that is probably one of the best ways to do it. That’s a new idea to me. I fully embrace it. I think it is smart. I think that might be even slightly easier then using 15 gallon drums, for rotation purposes. Especially if you use the siphon I told you about.

Jack Spirko: The siphon makes it so much easier.

<51:45>

Steven Harris: Yeah. You don’t have to pour the thing out. I think 12 5 gallon cans out in your shed or your garage with a siphon. I think that might be one of the darndest easiest ways to do it. That is a good way to have plenty of fresh fuel in barter size containers. I like it alot. If you want to store it and put it away. I would use 15 gallon HDPE drums with the bung wrench and the PRI-G.

Jack Spirko: I think what is really cool is that the answer is as you develop your preparedness, is yes to both of those. That way you have diversity. Your backup is, 2 is 1 and 1 is none. Up till now what we have really talked about has been gasoline. Now, I am a diesel head. Can we talk a little bit more about some diesel stuff.

Steven Harris: Me too, i am a big diesel person. I drive a 2001 Dodge diesel Ram pickup truck, 4×4 2500. Please don’t think we are all rich or anything. We live just like you do. I am driving a truck that is 11 years old I do it because it works and I don’t have a reason to get rid of it.

Jack Spirko: You will probably be driving it for 10 more years. Mine is a 2005.

Steven Harris: Like jack said, this paid off guys. Stay out of debt. Diesel is an awesome fuel. It stores on its own forever. It does not evaporate like gasoline, it doesn’t evaporate quickly. If you spill it on the ocean it evaporates quicker than crude oil does, but it really just doesn’t want to evaporate. It is a heavy hydrocarbon liquid. Some places it is still called “Fuel Oil.” Diesel #2 is what people use in the north east for winter heat. Diesel #1 is what usually sold for trucks and cars. Although, diesel #2 works fine in a diesel car or truck. It a little secret there. You can put it in a 15 gallon drum and just forget about it. It is going to be fine when you go to use it. This is why diesel is the preferred fuel for long term storage for emergency power backup systems. Police stations, hospitals they are all on diesel. Plus Diesel engines are significantly more efficient than a gasoline engine for less fuel you get more electricity or for the same amount of fuel you get a lot more electricity.

<54:09>

Jack Spirko: Cool. I want to tell you a quick story about what you need to keep away from diesel. Army lieutenants.

Steven Harris:

Jack Spirko: When i was in Honduras we had a whole bunch of leftover diesel. They decided that the easiest thing to do, because none of the locals had anything other than gas vehicles and there weren’t many of those, was to just burn off the leftover fuel. We had about 10 steel fuel drums. We would put 10 gallons diesel fuel in the bottom of it and then a little bit of gas on the top and light it on fire and let it burn. Then you had guard duty. Someone had to sit there and watch the barrels burn. We were getting ready to leave so there wasn’t a lot of work to do. We figured out if you throw a pebble in there, it shot a little diesel fuel in the air. It was kinda cool

Steven Harris:

Jack Spirko: So we would sit around on guard duty guarding these things, throwing pebbles. Which was harmless. A lieutenant comes by and goes, “That’s cool. Check this out.” He picks up a freakin rock. about twice the size of a softball.

Steven Harris:

Jack Spirko: We are like, “No!” He does it anyway, because he is an officer and he can do what he wants. As soon as he lets go of the rock…. Nobody even bothered at that point try to explain anything. Everyone just halls ass. It looked like freakin napalm coming down out of the sky. That is kind of an aside. When you were talking about how awesome it is and using it by the government. That is what it reminded me of, that we do need to think about safety once in awhile too. There is my “don’t lets lieutenants near diesel” story.

Steven Harris: Diesel does have one very ugly monster, Jack. When this monster rears its head, it is a show stopper. Algae and fungus grow in diesel fuel. It uses the fuel as a food source, it literally eats the hydrocarbon. The fungus grows in the fuel. Algae will grow in any water that condenses in the air in the fuel tank. They both use the fuel as a food source and leave behind a scum that will plug up your engine. The heart of any diesel engine is the fuel injector. It is the whole reason why diesel engine operates as efficient as it does. Some high pressure direct injection diesel engines, like the VW Beetle diesel cars, have fuel line pressures over 20,000 PSI. Imagine a scum or fungus in there. As I mentioned PRI-G as a gasoline treatment. There is a PRI-D for diesel that i am useing now. It treats a diesel fuel. It has a fungicide in it that prevents the growth of any fungus, algae or bacteria. Again I have PRI-D listed on Solar1234.com so you can see what it looks like and find it where ever you so desire on the internet or Camping World. PRI actually did a whole project with Oak Ridge National Labs. Oak Ridge had a 40,000 gallon diesel fuel tank and it was old. Probably 10 years old or more. It did not have fungus issues, it was just old diesel fuel. PRI used PRI-D to bring the fuel up to new diesel standards and Oak Ridge did not have to dispose of it. How do you get rid of 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel, Jack. that is a lot of guard duty.

<57:34>

Jack Spirko: Yeah. That is something you definitely don’t want a lieutenant with a rock near.

Steven Harris: The truth is that the old diesel fuel even 10 years old would probably work perfectly in the diesel generators that they have. Unless they have a fungus in it. Or any of the employee’s diesel vehicles that work there. When you are a national security asset, Class 1A and you go to a research facility with lethal force authorized, you have a higher set of standards and everything must stand-up to. Which means the fuel is analysed in a chemistry laboratory. If it works good enough for Oak Ridge to bring their fuel back up to new standards and analysed in a chemical laboratory and they are a nuclear facility. I think it will work fine for us.

Jack Spirko: How does a person that has some diesel that has been stored for a while, and they may or may not have done it right, want to know if they have some if this stuff growing in there. How do they figure it out. You go get a glass, like you would drink out of, that you no longer care about. A clear glass and you pour some fresh diesel into it, right out of can from the gas station today. You will see that it is very clear. Take some of your stored diesel and pour it into another glass. If it is cloudy or not clear, you got critters growing in your diesel fuel. There are fungicide for diesels to kill the bacteria or algae, but that still leaves you with a bunch of dead stuff in it. That is a problem. You are going to have to get an electric fuel pump, ridge up a filter. I mean something like a 1 micro filter that you would use for filtering water and get rid of the fungous that is going to create this mess. I know a friend with a trimaran that got diesel tank infected. He had to clean the whole tank, all the lines, all the filters, the fuel injection system in the engine, and then fungicide the whole thing before putting fresh diesel fuel in. If you get something growing in your diesel fuel, the easy answer is “There is nothing you can do about it.” Other that doing the filtering thing I just mentioned, that is really more complicated than you want to get into. You will just have to get rid of the fuel. Many of your recycle centers or your cities, sometimes Sherwin-Williams will have a hazmat day. Where you can bring in any hazardous chemicals. Drain cleaners, paint thinners, old paint, oil based stains and they will take your stuff for free for you and dispose of it. Other than using a quart of it at a time on an outdoor camping fire, so you got to have a fire pit in your backyard, or you can give it away to someone you don’t like, I don’t really know if a way. You can put it on Craigslist, I guaranty you it will go away, but you don’t want that person coming back and finding you.

Steven Harris: You got to have an anonymous Starbucks parking lot meeting to give away diesel fuel like that. because you don’t want them coming back asking you about it. A fire pit and using it as a fire starter is probably the easiest way to get ride of that. A lieutenant with a rock could maybe burn down a Honduran village for you. I really don’t know what you do with it once you end up with that much diesel fuel. if it is a little bit you can burn it off some where. What would you say to do with it, Steve?

<1:01:05>

Steven Harris: I don’t know I got 2 15 gallon drums of diesel fuel right now, that a foggy. Guilty. The reason i am telling you this stuff about what works and doesn’t work, I have done it. I have done it, I can tell you that that is what happens to it if you don’t treat it and I am guilty of it. I am not getting this out of a book or just talking to companies. This is coming from hard experiences guys.

Jack Spirko: Yeah, there is a reason I can tell you how to get a truck out of a ditch.

Steven Harris:

Jack Spirko: Its good. We are all trying to do the best we can with what we have. We all have lives. It also goes back to the mechanic is always the guy that needs a tuneup on his car and an oil change, because he is doing it for everybody else. I think the only way to get rid of it is to burn it.

Steven Harris: I do to.

Jack Spirko: You can’t dump it somewhere. I mean people think i hate the planet because i don’t buy into environmental wacko stuff. No I don’t, you got to be responsible with something like that. It is a toxic substance. If you dump it somewhere, nothing is going to grow for a 100 years where you dumped it. Burning is the only thing I can come up with.

Steven Harris: I just thought of another one. You could go get a bunch of it and make letters on laws of people you hate, like FU.

Jack Spirko: I got a way to do that, that is more environmentally friendly. It is positive letters instead of negative letters. You know that really cheap winter rye grass seed? That grows super fast and dark green?

Steven Harris: Yeah

Jack Spirko: If you were to format that into a word into somebody’s lawn in the fall. Just saying…

Steven Harris: We better get back on subject or we are not going to finish. We got to talk about kerosene, Jack.

Jack Spirko: So what about kerosene?

<1:02:57>

Steven Harris: Kerosene was the bedrock of my energy for my preparedness all through the 1990s and early 2000s. I had a kerosene burner, it is like a kerosene heater with a round wick, but there is nothing above the wick so you just get the straight blue flame that comes up that you can raise and lower, make hotter of cooler. It puts out a tall blue flame that you can cook on. Lehman’s and other amish supply places sold these. If you don’t know what Lehman’s it is L E H M A N S. Go google Lehman’s, I think you’ll really love them. They are a good supplier.

Jack Spirko: We’ll just say that it is not Lehman’s Brothers.

Steven Harris: It is not Lehman’s Brothers, that’s right. It is an old country store online. I had an oven that I could put on top and bake bread. I had exactly a years worth of floor, for making bread for two people every day. I knew exactly how much fuel it would take to make how many pounds of bread, because I made bread and measured the fuel and everything else. So i had a good 60 gallons of kerosene, stored in 5 gallon metal cans for a years worth of bread making. I still got it to this day in storage. I got it back when it was a $1.35 a gallon, being in Michigan at the time kerosene was available at a good selections of gas stations. With kerosene now more expensive then diesel fuel, costing $4 a gallon. This is September 12 of 2012 that we are recording this, just incase someone is listening to this 10 years from now going, “Oh my god, $4 diesel…” Kerosene is not really use that much in preparedness as it used to be.

Jack Spirko: I remember when i was living in Pennsylvania, we used kerosene space heaters to supplement heat because we had baseboard electric and it is so expensive. We had a vent in the floor and downstairs in the basement you could set one little kerosene heater down there and turn that on and it would reduce how much electricity you need to use by way more than the cost of the kerosene. But kerosene a $1.10 or a $1.210 a gallon. What happen man?

Steven Harris: Well that is a whole different show.

Jack Spirko: Ok

<1:05:07>

Steven Harris: Now the thing is you need to know how kerosene goes bad.

Jack Spirko: So how does kerosene go bad as compared to diesel fuel>

Steven Harris: It oxidizes with the air. It goes from being clear to being yellow. That is why want to keep your kerosene sealed really tight. Like in a 15 gallon HDPE drum. Clear kerosene is fine. Kerosene with straw yellow color, we call it straw yellow because it is light yellow, that is fine. A darker yellow, like a urine or a piss yellow is pretty oxidized kerosene. So what happens when it turns yellow? It burns with more of a kerosene odor to it. It will smell more. It will burn with a sootier flame, that might reduce the life of your wick. Which is an issue in a round burner or an Aladdin lamp, if you know what one of those are. Lehman’s has Aladdin’s lamps. Once you see one you’ll never go back. Would not be much of an issue in a standard flat wick kerosene lamp. That is what it does. The same will be true of using yellow kerosene in a kerosene lantern. It will have more of a smell than a clear kerosene, let alone the ultra clear paraffin or kerosene that is sold in stores to go with lanterns, like $20 a gallon. Like I said, I stored my kerosene from the 1990’s in 5 gallon metal cans with a tight screw lid on it. These are the shiny metal cans you you might have had in the military, Jack. The weren’t colored. They might have looked like smaller versions of the world trade center.

<<1:06:35>

Jack Spirko: Yep, I know exactly what you are talking about.

Steven Harris: These were the traditional metal gas cans or NATO cans. Today if I was storing kerosene I would use the same HDPE 15 gallon drums that I use for diesel or gasoline or water. However today where I live, I wouldn’t have kerosene. I wouldn’t store it. I would be storing gasoline or diesel to run my vehicle or my generator and use that to recharge AA batteries and use those to run LED lights. Which I went over in exhausting detail on my show #10, which was TSP #940. I would use these to run my LED lights. All my past shows are on Solar1234.com, you can see them all there. You can get links to Jack’s show where he has a list of all of my shows too. This is by far more multi purpose and flexible using gasoline and diesel in your car or in a generator and using that energy to recharge AA batteries to run LED lights then it is to store kerosene and put it into a kerosene lantern, in my humble opinion. I think that is a better way to do it in the year 2012.

<1:07:48>

Jack Spirko: Ok.

Steven Harris: Plus now where I live in the USA have an infinite source of fuel for my generator. I can have all the electricity I need to charge C or D cell batteries, my large battery bank, I even have enough electricity to use a bread maker to make bread. That is a whole other story, but I think the 1 hour bread maker are the best ways of making bread. It is like doing laundry. You put it on, push a button you come back in an hour and it is done. Who wants nothing more than fresh bread in an emergency. This fuel I am using doesn’t spoil, doesn’t go bad, it take up zero storage space in my shop.

Jack Spirko: Bread is one thing, but infinite fuel is more interesting to me what is this infinite fuel.

Steven Harris: It is one that many people have completely ignored because they think it is part of grid it is natural gas. It is the same natural gas that that probably runs to your furnace in the winter. It heats your hot water all year round. When I worked for the CERT team Michigan we had people come in from the power company and teach us how to handle natural gas leaks and how to handle down power lines. One of the natural gas guys that came to us had been at Consumers Power. Which is the natural gas supplier in Michigan for over 35 years and he was an engineer. He knew the system completely inside and out, from end to end. I got a chance to talk to him, one on one for a while. i put the idea to him, let’s say there is a massive world wide plage hundreds of millions of people in the USA die. No one is going to work, no one to maintain a natural gas system. How long would it last for? That got a big whooh whistle from him and he said “a long time.” The natural gas system is powered by itself. Some natural gas wells are nationally pressurized to 5,000 PSI. The natural gas well at my gun range is pressurized 80 PSI. I can walk right up to a well and look at the gage and it says 80 PSI. This is coming right out of the ground. It is naturally pressurized. The pressure of natural gas going to your furnace in your house is 0.1 PSI. Natural gas is like water flowing down hill, it is going to go through the system. Everything that runs the natural gas system and keeps it powered and keeps it going is powered off natural gas. It is a self maintaining system. Some of the natural gas system lines in Detroit are made from hollowed out tree trunks 110 years old. You would think that would be a bad thing, but think about it. If a tree trunk holding natural gas has lasted 110 years, you think it is going to last a year you need it. The answer is yes. Even hurricane Katrina did not knock out the natural gas system. There is only one time that the natural gas lines are turned off instantly and automatically and that is in areas that have earth quacks, like California, Oregon, and Washington. That would not be a good source of backup power because the natural gas lines break and cause fire so they turn them off automatically when the ground start quaking.

<1:11:01>

Jack Spirko: I can tell one other time that i know that they might go off and guilty of causing it to happen. But not my fault, the fault of the facility locators and that is with the use of something like a rock trencher or a back hoe. You might have a line here or there. We used to have directional boring we hit a 4 inch gas main, with a directional boring rig. That wasn’t marked I didn’t do it on purpose. When the gas company came out and exposed it, even though it was venting pressure off. It scared the crap out of us. The guy on the drill was 200 ft away horizontal drilling. I saw him fly off that machine. I just keyed over the mic and said “it is gas get off the machine and shut it off.” He was like a popcorn kernel going.

Steven Harris:

Jack Spirko: The service was not out even with a hole in the side of main. because it was still pushing pressure though. The guys came out and they exposed the line. They put a bypass line on it. They cut and pinched it off. Then they cut out the damaged portion. They welded in a new piece and then removed the bypass line. They did that in about 2.5 hours.

<1:12:14>

Steven Harris: These are guys that know what they are doing and they know how safe natural gas can be.

Jack Spirko: It will scare you when it blows. I was standing on the ground teaching him how to locate. It lifted us about 2 feet before it vented out the sides.

Steven Harris: Oh wow.

Jack Spirko: You hear this hum and you hear and you know what it is. It is the only thing underground that does that. Water is very different. We are digressing again. It is a testament of how resilient it is.

Steven Harris: It is an infinite source of fuel. I have several generators that run off of natural gas. I have a video on YouTube and I have already put the video on Solar1234.com, so you can go see the video. It is embedded on the page. You don’t have to go though my YouTube pages. It is of a weather balloon, 300 gram weather balloon, full of natural gas floating over my Honda EU2000i generator. It is running a kilowatt of lights for a load. Imagine Jack, if a weather balloon floating over the generator in free space. I show you everything around the setup so you know it not a camera trick or me doing some trickery. Natural gas is lighter than air, fill a ballon up with it and it will float away. As I am going to discuss and show you and tell you what and where to get everything for generators. Generators run great off of natural gas. In fact you can go by a tri fuel or a natural gas / propane / generator right now. What I do now is I run off of natural gas for my generator and I will have 45 gallons of fuel in reserve for the generator that is just incase the natural gas line goes down or something. Think about it, you are just sitting there on a hose of infinite fuel really cheap. It burns better in your generator it doesn’t hurt the oil as much. You don’t have to worry about it. You don’t have to go out and spill fuel and fill it up every 8 hours ever 12 hours. It is absolutely great. I am going to cover this in explicit detail in the generator show coming up. Same goes for propane if you live in the country, you have a 500 gallon propane pig. This is a lot of energy sitting there. Call up the propane company say, “I’m putting up a garage and I am putting in propane heaters I need another pig. They will bring you out a 1000 gallon pig. Now you got a 1000 gallons of propane fuel for your generator for your furnace and everything else.

<1:14:47>

Jack Spirko: We hear from people in the audience, by the way Steve, that in most location you can store up to about 2000 gallon propane in tanks before you have to get any special permission from big brother. That is a lot. That is literally a ton.

Steven Harris: Your furnace uses more fuel then your generator does. A typical furnace is 60,000 to 100,000 BTUs per hour. Gallon of gasoline is 120,000 BTUs. If your generator used one gallon of gas every 4 hours and that is a pretty heavy load, that is only 30,000 BTUs per hour. that is 1/3 of what your furnace is using. There is plenty of natural gas for your generator and for your furnace. Jack that about eats up the hour. We went a little long I thought I was going to do a show on fuel storage and generators, but the show just turned out to be fuel storage. My entire next show is going to be generators gasoline, diesel, gas, natural gas, propane generators, big generators, ones that are traditional generators. I am going to talk about the inverter generators. I am going to talk about 2-cycle generators, generators on trailers, whole house generators. Generators that weight as 18 pounds. I am going to tell you how to hook them up to your house. I am going to tell you how to run them off of natural gas. Get the natural gas off of your hot water heater. I am going to tell them how to hook them up with a transfer switch to your house to feed your whole house how to back feed your house with out a transfer switch, by throwing the brakers. I am going to tell you every darn little possible secret I possibly can about running a generator and powering your house. Again all the links to all of my previous shows and everything I talked about on this show, you can go see it and see what it looks like, buy it on Amazon or buy it locally, it is all on www.Solar1234.com. That is S O L A R 1 2 3 4 dot C O M. You got the photos you got the previous shows I just don’t want to talk to you and say “Hey I use this and use this.” I want to enable you. I want you to go get the stuff I talked about and know it is going to work as good for you and it worked for me and it worked for Jack. We share stuff. As always you guy are great. Great audience. I have learned so much from you guys. I just want to give you guys as much as I know about. Feel free to email me with questions. My email is on Solar1234.com. Do call in to Jack’s expert panel of questions. Those are fabulous, because we get to share them all through Jack’s normal shows. Especially if it about something about the show I didn’t answer for you. Put it in the expert panel for give me a call or give me an email and we’ll give it taken care of you.

<1:17:41>

Jack Spirko: Let me just say one quick thing about the expert panel thing. If you want to submit a question to Steve or any of the expert of panel do it by calling into the Think Line. 866-65-THINK. Then email me as soon as you do I just call for Steve or Tim or Joe Nobody or who ever you call for from number and give me your number. Don’t worry about giving me your number once you called the Think Line. I already have your number. You can trust me. I have never called anyone back or harassed anyone unless they asked me too. That is how you submit to the expert console. If you send me an email for Steve, I might forward it to him. The expert consoles are answered on the call in shows on friday. They are not done by emails. Please, I know some of you are shy but call in your expert panel questions.

Steven Harris: I have people email me with other off topic questions, as well. Two things. If you live in an apartment building. I want you to email me and tell me how high up you are and what your concerns are about preparedness. If you got a questions on generators. Yes I am going to cover PTO generators, I forgot to mention that. Any question you have on generators or anything. Go to Solar1234.com put up my email it is on the right hand side email me with generators because I am still writing the generator show. I want it to be as diverse, as full, as jam packed as possible. There are things that you guys write me about and I go “Oh, I forgot all about it.”

Jack Spirko: Cool. Thanks for being on the show again. There is a reason you have been on probably more this year than anyone been on sum total. It is because of all the great information you always bring. Steve thanks for being with us again. The generator show that is going to air October 18th because I see Dorothy already has him on the calendar for the 17th of October. That is already booked and ready to happen. Again thanks Steve for being on with us on the show again.

Steven Harris: Jack you are wonderful, the audience is wonderful. Can’t say it enough I love you guy all.

Jack Spirko: Alright with that this has been Jack Spirko today along with Steven Harris. Helping you to figure out that better life, if times get tough or even it they don’t.

http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/harris-on-fuel-storage