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From: BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Five SF Novels About Rediscovering Ancient Tech
Date: Wed, 15 May 2024 15:15:01 -0700
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On 5/15/24 13:22, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> BCFD 36 <bcfd36@cruzio.com> writes:
>> On 5/14/24 10:59, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
>>> On 2024-05-09, James Nicoll <jdnicoll@panix.com> wrote:
>>>
>>
>> [stuff deleted]
>>
>>>
>>> I was already intrigued by the British TV mini-series _The Last Train_
>>> (1999), where fifty years after the apocalypse our cryo-preserved
>>> protagonists can just start up cars still sitting around in garages.
>>> No flat batteries there.
>>>
>>
>> Not only flat batteries, but flat gasoline. For those of us who have
>> gasoline powered power tools (in my case, weed whacker, lawn mower,
>> chainsaw), we have to add Stabil or some other gas preservative if the
>> gas is going to sit in a can more than a month or so. Otherwise the gas
>> goes "bad". If my chainsaw gas is more than a month or two old and has
>> not been treated, it will not start the saw.
>>
>> I have no idea how 10 year old gas would run in a car.
> 
> Well, I can vouch for 4 year old gas - we just started the
> '74 450SL in the barn which hadn't been started since
> March 2020 - all it took was a new battery and it purred
> like a 70's kitten.

Interesting. Was this a gasoline or diesel Mercedes? I think diesel 
lasts longer.

> 
> I've heard anecdotally that modern gas doesn't deterioriate
> as quickly as it used to.

This does not surprise me at all.

> 
> 
>> Would water have
>> somehow collected in the gas tank under the gasoline? Would the gas be
>> so "flat" that it would not run?
> 
> It likely depends on how full the tank is/was
> and how much headspace there is to produce condensation
> and whether it is vented.

My thinking too.


-- 
----------------

Dave Scruggs
Senior Software Engineer - Lockheed Martin, et. al (mostly Retired)
Captain - Boulder Creek Fire (Retired)
Board of Directors - Boulder Creek Fire Protection District (What was I 
thinking?)