I've just about ready to post my next image but thought I should provide the backstory-to-the-backstory first ...
Cascadia - Life Out on the Edge
After 'The Great Fall', no-one really questioned the independence of Cascadia. Nor that this entity was more a loose affiliation of Cascadian regions and locales. But that independence was de facto rather than de jure. Some would argue that the Pacific Northwest had always been distinct ... separate even when not yet de facto independent.
Since the end of the last Ice Age, the Cascadian region had always been replete with natural resources. A notable exception was in access to fossil fuels. During 'The Transition', conventional oil refining would all but cease. USOR in Tacoma was the first refinery to shut down. Tesoro in Vancouver, WA, to the south followed. Across the Columbia in Oregon, the refinery network also began to collapse when both Kinder Morgan and NuStar Energy failed. Oregon Veggie Fuel in Beaverton was small enough to survive and even started to diversify its product line. Columbia Pacific Bio Refinery in Clatskanie shifted its focus exclusively to ethanol production.
Needs Must - New Fuels for New Times
In the Puget Sound area, both the Anacortes Refinery and Cherry Point facility near Bellingham created plastic pyrolysis plants - turning waste plastics, tires, etc., into refinable biocrude feedstocks. This propped up 'conventional' fuel supplies in the region temporarily. However, as the money economy withered, the raison d'ętre for these refineries went with it. Pyrolysis of plastic waste into diesel increasingly became a more local, DIY activity within the new barter economy. Eventually, for quality oil-based fuels, there were no real alternatives. But these local purveyors of diesel had lower-priced competition.
Almost everywhere you look in Cascadia, you see wood. If not surrounded by forest, you'll be standing in wood waste. In the immediate aftermath of 'The Great Fall', previously out-of-date wood-fired kitchen cook stoves were suddenly worth their weight in, well, wood. Air quality suffered but, where ever 'air-tight' heater stoves could be installed, people found ways of staying warm. It was only a matter of time before more folks re-discovered wood gasification to produce syngas fuel. Even more than DIY pyrolysis plants, wood gas generators encouraged decentralization. Large operators had difficulty securing sufficient woody raw materials through the unfamiliar barter system. DIY wood gas producers often exploited their own woodlots, recovered woody debris off beaches, or found other local sources of feedstock. [1] This provided a perfect fit with growing social mobility. A people migrated away from failed cities and suburbs into the backcountry, they found a network of fuel suppliers already in place.
"Dying embers of a campfire ..."
Syngas from wood had obvious disadvantages. The stored energy in wood-based syngas was must lower than in refined petroleum products. Producing the wood gas was also a smelly, smoky, sooty affair. The upside was that wood or wood wastes were everywhere. Where once there were fears of being swamped with plastic garbage, landfills were now being mined for plastic detritus. Old tires had become the closest thing to a currency - worn tires being suitable for all sorts of repurposing beyond simple pyrolysis.
Other than availability, there were other benefits of using wood-based syngas in a vehicle. [2] First, compressed wood gas could be burned in almost any vehicle previously set up to run on CNG or propane. Secondly, the exhaust plume from such a vehicle smelled just like a campfire. In the backwoods of Cascadia, a well-hidden vehicle made no emissions which could readily be distinguished from any close-by campfire or wood stove. By nature, a well-camouflaged campervan was 'stealthy' since trying to track a campfire smell in post-Fall Cascadia was to chase a will-o'-wisp. [3]
By contrast, even very remote wood gas producers could be easily traced by following their plumes of smoke. Most wood gas producers mark their property line access points with syngas symbols to exhibit their willingness to trade. The well-recognized death's head symbol was a clear sign to travellers that they should look elsewhere for their next refuelling opportunity ...
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[1] A byproduct of wood gasification is biochar - a form of charcoal produced in a low-oxygen environment. In the acidic soil of Cascadia, biochar is an essential ingredient in 'slash-and-char' agriculture - the biochar providing soil amendment with its high carbon content, increased pH, water-retaining porosity, etc.
[2] Syngas, as with plastic pyrolysis, was also widely used to power local, small-scale electric power generating stations.
[3] Indeed, it has been argued that the independence ensured by wood gasification hastened outside acceptance of Cascadia's separateness. It wasn't that syngas was in any way distinct to the region. Rather the ubiquitousness of wood gas helped to make moot the demise of the former central authorities. (Ironically, most of the DIY wood gasification plants were based upon a detailed how-to manual on at-home syngas production which had been made available by FEMA - an agency of one of those former central authorities.)