[quote=@Jotunn Draugr] Well ethanol is one thing. So what's the rule on proper oil? Alberta is one of the richest oil reserves in North America. It's literally mixed in with the dirt. You can just filter the crude out of the ground. [/quote] The problem with things like tar-sands is they're not a straight-forward process and have more resource intensive methods than simply pumping them up out of the ground and shipping it off to be refined. You have to separate the viable petroleum from the base contaminates and then separate what you used on the sands from the oil. To do so you're going to need to throw in a lot of additives. Before you can even think of processing the resulting crude into viable gasoline or oil, most of which last I checked isn't onsite in Alberta but goes abroad. Just because they sit on it doesn't mean oil isn't usable right away and it may be more intensive than the population can handle. And when a lot of major infrastructure would be in the cross hairs of an atomic attack we can safely say the process to turn crude to a refined product is shut down. And what wasn't nuked probably got caught in the crossfire of feuding factions because these sites would be seen as so lucrative, then they'd get ruined in the process. So in the end: probably not. [quote]As for parts, are there no machines anywhere in America anymore? Surely it could be traded for.[/quote] While they would, their value within a community would skyrocket when nothing new is being manufactured. Neighboring or rival communities could just hold onto parts from their ruined machines to keep up operating machines until the fuel runs dry. [quote]And as for being a pain in the ass, these are religious zealots who are banned from enjoying any type of entertainment. All they do all day is work. Fixing a broken engine would almost be a relief, because it would be a break from doing the same thing every day of their bland lives. I think it could hypothetically work, but it's up to you guys. If not, can you tell me if horses exist in this world? [/quote] I'll give you that, but simply wanting or knowing is different from doing. Like I could build a nuclear bomb. The process is publicly available online. For free. But I can't; because I don't have the materials nor may I be able to.