Prepping for an electric outage in rural areas would be a heckuva lot easier if the EPA hadn’t banned the importation of Lister slow speed diesel clones. They’re an almost perfect prime mover for a generator - long lasting, easy to maintain, quiet, fuel-versatile. Used to be able to get them cheap from a variety of sources until the feds shut everyone down about 10+ years ago.
What was the reason the EPA gave for banning these?
We imported a 2 cyl diesel from China a while back. Customs would not allow it into the country. They told us to send it back to China or destroy it.
I asked what would it take to destroy it? A. Drill holes in the crankcase. I chose that option and they released it. I was happy.
Sorry, that was a mostly dead link
https://www.mikebrownsolutions.com/steam-engines/
This steam engine is capable of putting out enough power to drive a 500-watt generator, depending on the pressure from your boiler. When the neighbors run out of gasoline and diesel fuel you will still have power from wood, trash, coal or whatever else is available.
The exhaust of this engine will also provide 40,000 BTUs of heat, ideal for steam heating your cabin, providing a heat source for the alcohol still described in our junkyard still book, heating hot water for cooking and other uses.
Our 2-cylinder 3 horsepower steam engine will provide 1500 watts of electrical power and over 100,000 BTUs of exhaust heat.
The 2-cylinder steam engine has an advantage over the 1-cylinder steam engine in that it is “self-starting.” If the piston is at top or bottom dead center on the 1-cylinder steam engine, the engine will not rotate until the flywheel is turned by hand. The 2-cylinder steam engine never has both pistons at top or bottom dead center and will always rotate when steam is applied.
Sounds like something we could get a petition going on the whitehouse site.
Damn the EPA, disband it now.