Fwd: Cellulosic Ethanol
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Appal Energy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 Forestry, flax seen as ethanol options Karen Briere, The Western Producer People may argue about whether Saskatchewan ethanol plants will use local wheat or imported corn, but one expert says neither feedstock is the best option. Keith Hutchence, senior research scientist at the Saskatchewan Research Council's petroleum branch, says he'd like to see ethanol plants that use cellulose feedstock. There's lots of cellulosic waste around, Hutchence said. That includes about one million tonnes of flax straw that is burned every year, and several million tonnes of sawdust, bark and branches that are produced by the forestry industry and are becoming an environmental problem. Hemp is a good multipurpose crop that would provide another source of feedstock from the cellulose fibre in the stalks. The industry is a few years away from using more of these types of plants, but Hutchence said it is the way of the future. We're limited to how much we can produce from grain without starting to disturb the grain market, he said. As a scientist, Hutchence likes the idea of more ethanol production, but as a farmer, he is concerned that proponents will get carried away thinking a larger cattle industry, spurred by ethanol, will save the rural economy. Two Manitoba agricultural economists have written that the ethanol industry in that province would rely on cheaper imported corn because there isn't enough feed in the Prairies to supply the growing livestock industry and ethanol plants. However, officials in Saskatchewan say they wouldn't be building plants in the province if they didn't think there was sufficient feedstock. Hutchence added that cellulosic plants will offer alternative benefits. One of the few cellulose plants operating right now is eating up New York garbage, he said. Hutchence is not the only proponent of cellulose-based production. Iogen Corp., an Ottawa-based biotech company, has been promoting cellulose-based production for several years. Iogen officials calculated that processing just 30 percent of the wheat, barley and oat straw produced in the three prairie provinces would produce four billion litres of ethanol. In partnership with Petro-Canada, Iogen is building a $35-million demonstration plant in Ottawa. The pilot plant will produce three to four million L of ethanol per year, and will test the performance of different types of straw. --- End forwarded message ---
[biofuels-biz] Biodiesel Bulletin
BIODIESEL BULLETIN A Monthly Newsletter of the National Biodiesel Board December 2, 2002 HEADLINES: EPA RELEASES REPORT ON BIODIESEL EMISSIONS SURVEY SAYS: AMERICANS SUPPORT BIODIESEL INCENTIVES WASHINGTON UPDATE REGISTER NOW FOR BIODIESEL RESEARCH BRAINSTORMING WORKSHOP NBB ELECTS OFFICERS, WELCOMES NEW BOARD MEMBERS NATIONAL BIODIESEL BOARD CELEBRATES 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY CLEAN CITIES PRESENTS NBB WITH AWARD EPA RELEASES REPORT ON BIODIESEL EMISSIONS The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a new comprehensive technical report of biodiesel emissions data that shows biodiesel use can reduce emissions of particulate matter by 47 percent when compared to petroleum diesel in unmodified diesel engines. The report also verified a 67 percent reduction in unburned hydrocarbons and a 48 percent reduction in carbon monoxide with pure biodiesel (B100). While the technical report, which is a compilation of 39 separate scientific studies, is not an official rulemaking, the release of the report by EPA provides a government-validated reference for federal, state and local pollution strategies to reduce emissions that are harmful to human health and the environment. This EPA evaluation provides independent confirmation of the emissions benefits of biodiesel, which is important for air planners and customers who are evaluating the switch to biodiesel, said Joe Jobe, executive director of the National Biodiesel Board (NBB). We are pleased that the EPA numbers are actually a little higher than our own analysis, and that they show benefits can be obtained at any biodiesel concentration in a mostly linear fashion, as we have been advising. We are planning to adopt the EPA analysis so NBB and EPA will be giving out the same set of numbers.ä To provide the comprehensive assessment, EPA analyzed 80 prominent biodiesel emissions studies, including research performed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute and Southwest Research Institute. Thirty nine out of the 80 were used for the actual correlation. EPA then developed a set of emissions curves based on the concentration of biodiesel. After peer review and a planned public workshop ·to assure that our correlations represent the best current scientific understanding of the emissions impacts on biodiesel, the correlations will likely become the industry standard for biodiesel. Due to the sheer volume of studies used by EPA, changes suggested in the peer review and workshop are expected to be minor, if any. A full chart of the new emissions numbers for both B100 and B20 can be viewed on the NBB Web site at www.biodiesel.org. The EPA study can be viewed at www.epa.gov/otaq/models/biodsl.htm. SURVEY SAYS: AMERICANS SUPPORT BIODIESEL INCENTIVES A newly released national public opinion study funded by the United Soybean Board gives a glimpse into how the average American views biodiesel. Wilson Research Strategies conducted an omnibus survey of more than 1000 telephone interviews nationwide in October. Results indicate that most people view biodiesel favorably and would be willing to support tax incentives for the fuel. By a two to one margin, Americans who participated in the study said they are willing to support financial and tax incentives to increase the use of renewable fuels like biodiesel. Sixty percent believe it is necessary to provide measures and tax incentives to increase the use of renewable fuels, while just a third (32 percent) believe that the benefits are too small. The survey showed 38 percent of Americans believe improving human health is the most important consideration for use of renewable fuels like biodiesel, the highest of any consideration. Twenty eight percent believe that protecting the environment is the most important consideration. Of the surveyâs participants, 85 percent said they think it is at least somewhat or very important for schools to receive incentives to pay for higher cost biodiesel blends for use in school buses in order to promote healthier air for schoolchildren and reduce pollution. Also, 77 percent said they would be willing to pay 10 cents a gallon more for renewable fuels like biodiesel if they were available in their area. WASHINGTON UPDATE The November elections brought major changes in Congress including the leadership in the Senate. It is uncertain exactly what these changes will mean for consideration of energy issues next year. There have been discussions by the Republican leadership of attaching the controversial question of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to budget legislation in early January. While this may only be rhetoric, it is stirring up discussions regarding whether Congress will actually address a broader energy package. The ethanol industry is certainly pushing for consideration of a Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS); however, no commitment has been made to do so. REGISTER NOW
[biofuels-biz] Re: [biofuel] Re: [renewable-energy] Reply to David Cardill
Hi MM I do a lot of cross-posting, so do others. Nothing against it, quite opposite. But I'm not a member of that list and I don't want to join it, so I can't cross-post there. For others, you didn't repeat the address and they'd've had to go and look for it in the previous message. I have grown weary of my cross-posts being ignored by succeeding posters, and so I thought I would take a time out and ask why. I understand that you don't want to join groups, but in most of these cases that means I will sometimes not cross post, as it leaves a disjointed discussion in the other group. Well, it takes a bit of work, but it's worth doing. Keith Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuels-biz] Bio fuel business, first web page draft
Hi all, After considerable help and useful confusion from Keith I am putting up the first web page draft on the web site, http://energy.saving.nu/biofuels/biofuelorg.shtml I have to do some changes and clarifications considering ethanol. We had some interesting off list conversation about my assumption that ethanol would be dominated by large scale interests. It was not intended to be off list and Keith thought that it could have a general interest. I hope that Keith can copy pertinent parts to this posting and we can continue with participation from list members. Hakan ** If you want to take a look on a project that is very close to my heart, go to: http://energysavingnow.com/ http://hakan.vitools.net/ My .Net Card http://hakan.vitools.org/ About me http://vitools.com/ My webmaster site ** A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. -- Dresden James No flag is large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people -- Howard Zinn Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuels-biz] Small-scale ethanol - was Re: Bio fuel business, first web page draft
Hi Hakan Useful confusion? :-) Anyway, you've left some of my comments in the website piece (in square brackets), but not the Notes, which said this: Notes Ethanol production. From Carlstein, a Brazilian former member of Biofuel: small scale eth production is widespread, but for 'shine purposes. it's called 'cachaza', and it can be very tasty, and very, very, potent ! but there's no small scale eth production for fuel, because of the hydrophile nature of the beast, which requires molecular sieve technology, available to the large producer, but not to the backyard distillers. methinks that first world small scale eth distillers would not have this problem. a3 and a4 m. sieves are readily available to them, from what i understand. 3A molecular sieve is available and works well. It's also usable in 3rd World countries on the small-scale, up to a point - the initial cost is not too high, and it's reusable many times. However, Carlstein's wrong - there's no need for ethanol fuel to be anhydrous UNLESS it's to be blended with gasoline. Pure 180-proof or even 160-proof is a good fuel on its own. It's not essential to raise the compression ratio, though it helps, and anyway that's easily done by skimming the head. Otherwise, all that's needed is an enlarged main jet. So small-scale, localized ethanol fuel production is a possibility. That means it can make use of locally-grown niche crops and crop by-products that are free of the constraints of more centralized schemes. The disadvantage here is that, unlike biodiesel and diesels, it's not dual-fuel - if you want to use gasoline again you have the change the main jet back to the old, smaller one. No big hassle though. There's a good variety of farm-scale fuel stills available (another one being scanned right now). We have one standing here in our living room that's capable of 5 gal/hr. Conversion and fermenting is easy. Here's my response to your response: ... here are some of my arguments, 1. Fermenting to produce the 20-24% alcohol level before distilling takes time and space, compared to the more or less continuous oil pressing for vegetable oil and biodiesel. 15% is enough actually, turbo yeasts will get more, but not much more than 18%, which takes longer, 14% if you want it fast. It doesn't make that much difference if you're making fuel. At any rate there's not much difference, it's quite easy to run separate batches in parallel for constant processing. I'm not sure it would take more space. Biodiesel probably takes more space than you think, with settling tanks, dewatering tanks, washing tanks, more settling tanks, a glyc settling tank. To produce volumes, it needs quite big plants. Big volumes need big plants, but it's infinitely scaleable, down to backyard or kitchen size. Our still is backyard size, ideal for a homebrewer - about equivalent to a homebrew biodieseler with a 55-gal drum set-up. At 5 gal/hr it would take 100 hours to produce the average American's fuel supply for a year, a couple of hours a week or one bigger run a month. It doesn't need constant attendance, so labour isn't that much. Inputs can be free or largely free, no methanol to pay for, process energy can also be free if you use waste wood (pallets!!) or glyc by-product from biodiesel or something. Have a look at these: Six-Inch Column Still Plans http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh8.html#8-1 Three-Inch Column Still Plans http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh8.html#8-2 Two Low-cost Backyard Stills http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh9.html The Butterfield Still http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_butterfield.html I'm currently scanning the blueprints and full report for this Butterfield farm-scale still set-up, very nice. These two manuals are all about small-scale local production: Mother Earth Alcohol Fuel http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meToC.html The Manual for the Home and Farm Production of Alcohol Fuel http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_manual/manual_ToC.html At 15 years old, I worked one summer in a beer brewery and remember roughly the process and the huge fermenting tanks. Yes, but small, localized micro-breweries are proving most successful now, all over the world. 2. As most Swedes, I have done some distilling. To achieve the 150 to160-proof is quite easy, but 180-proof takes a lot more both in processing and equipment. The additional process to 180-proof 90% alcohol is quite significant. Not really. Our still is supposed to do 190 but in fact it will only do 170. But with a bit of tinkering it would do 190. These other stills above will do 180-190. We'll rig our still to do 190 when we want to produce ethanol for ethyl esters. These small stills will produce 190-proof: http://www.Moonshine-Still.com Most home distillers go for
[biofuels-biz] Polish Orlen blasts bio-fuels bill as uncivilised
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18853/story.htm Polish Orlen blasts bio-fuels bill as uncivilised POLAND: December 2, 2002 WARSAW - Poland's top refining group PKN Orlen blasted plans to force fuel firms to boost the sales of biofuels to well above levels proposed by the European Union, which the country is set to join in mid 2004. Poland's powerful farming lobby, backed by a rural junior coalition party, has already pushed the biofuels bill though the lower house of parliament and the controversial regulation will start its first reading in the Senate last week. The bill - which aims to create new demand for crops such as rapeseed to help Poland's struggling farmers - would set from 2003 an obligatory minimum 4.5 percent level of biofuels' shares in total domestic fuel sales. The EU wants a two-percent minimum level of biofuels as a proportion of all fuels by 2005, gradually reaching 5.75 percent of all fuels sold by 2010. Poland is by far central Europe's largest fuel market with annual consumption of around 10 million tonnes, of which nearly a fifth comes from imports. Biofuels are environment-friendly and often enjoy favourable tax treatment. They have many advocates among industry players as laws limiting pollutants grow stricter around the globe. They are also seen as key in lessening dependence on imported energy. But Orlen, Poland's top fuels group with 1.5 percent of sales already comprised of biofuels, said the bill was unfairly setting high obligatory minimum biofuel levels and violating EU law by forcing fuel sellers to use only Polish bio-components. While in general we are decisively in favour of getting more bio-fuels in the market, this bill is simply uncivilised, Janusz Wisniewski, Orlen's deputy chief in charge of production, told Reuters. We are just about to introduce a bill which violates European Union regulations and which will have to be reversed the first day after accession, he added. MOONSHINE FUEL While Orlen theoretically could win out on the bio-component import ban, Wisniewski said lack of clear-cut quality guidelines could easily lead to moonshine fuels flooding the market. In Poland there are no standards for checking the quality of bio-components in fuel and this bill may simply bring more harm than anything else, he said. Car makers, including the Polish unit of Ford Motor, have warned in the past few days that many engines used in cars driving on local roads could not handle high biofuel levels. The bill - which has already sparked a public debate between environmentalists, farm lobbying groups and the fuel and refining industry - also allows for a controversial government prerogative to set a minimum price for crops used in biofuels. Biofuels are combustible fuels that can be used pure or blended with conventional fuels and are obtained by processing plant oils, sugarbeet, cereals, and organic waste materials. They include biodiesel which is made from plant oils such as rapeseed, sunflower and soybean and bio-ethanol which uses fermented sugar beets and cereals. Story by Marta Karpinska REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuels-biz] Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell the Fossil Fire
Full text online Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell the Fossil Fire HOW DOES SHELL'S RHETORIC MATCH THEIR RECORD AROUND THE WORLD? In 2002, an alliance of independent organizations, journalists and ordinary people collected and forwarded their documentation about Shell's environmental, community, workplace, and ethical business practices for a major new book. We thank everyone for their submissions and hope that you will now participate in the global release of this new book. If your community or organization is concerned about Shell, please contact us. To get more information, submit your concerns about Shell or obtain a copy of the new book on Shell, contact us. http://www.shellfacts.org/ CONTENTS Select icon to download complete chapter or select section heading to read an excerpt online first) Acknowledgements Introduction The Good Shell. . . 1. Two Different Worlds Bobby Peek lives in Durban, South Africa; Phil Watts in London, UK. 2. Building The Empire It began trading seashells; today it's the world's 2 nd largest oil company. 3. Poisons Still With Us Chemicals old new - the Drins, DBCP, leaded gasoline, and MTBE. 4. Dangerous Places Shell refineries, terminals, and chemical plants are not always safe places. 5. Chronic Pollution From well head to the corner gas station, the Shell system is releasing toxic chemicals. 6. Shell At Sea The Brent Spar flap and Shell in the water. 7.Nigeria Lots of oil, brutal executions, and a polluted country. 8. Norco, Louisiana One community's history with Royal Dutch Shell. 9. Gas, Gas, Gas Shell plots a cleaner future. 10. China Tibet A big pipeline raises Tibetan human rights concerns. 11. Oh, Canada Sour gas, sick cattle, and unhappy neighbors. 12. Sensitive Places Shell's footprint in delicate habitat. 13. Raise the Drilling Rigs Adapting to a greenhouse world. 14. 100 Years of Notice Shell has had a century to get its act together. 15. The Work Ahead A to do list for Royal Dutch Shell. Appendix A A Royal Dutch Shell Sampler - A Chronology of Selected Environmental Public Safety Incidents, 1947-2002 Explosions and FIres Leaks and Spills Emissions and Releases About the Author Back Cover Text Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuels-biz] Shell Oil and the Politics of Hype
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2002/000134.html Shell Oil and the Politics of Hype Robert Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon, 02 Dec 2002 15:04:50 -0500 Shell Oil and the Politics of Hype By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman So, what's up with the biggest of the big oil companies -- Exxon Corporation, BP Amoco and Royal Dutch Shell? Last week, BP Amoco said that it was pulling out of a major lobbying effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. BP wants people to believe that the company is moving beyond petroleum -- BP -- get it? -- into the solar age. Last month, ExxonMobil announced that it was donating $5 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in an effort to save the tiger. At a press conference announcing ExxonMobil's donation the Save the Tiger Fund, the company handed out cuddling little tiger beanie baby dolls for the kids. ExxonMobil wants people to believe that it cares about the natural world and all of its living creatures. In May 2000, Royal Dutch Shell set up a $30 million foundation to push for sustainable energy and social investment projects around the world. Last week, the Shell Foundation announced that it was spending $3 million on a campaign to raise awareness on how the loss of Louisiana's wetlands will affect the state and to gain support for efforts to save coastal Louisiana. Shell has called on environmentalist Amory Lovins to do an energy audit of one of its petrochemical facilities in Denmark. Shell also has pledged $7 million to the World Resources Institute here in Washington, D.C. to find environmentally sound solutions to the problems of urban transport. And earlier this year, Shell donated $3.5 million to form the Shell Center for Sustainability at Rice University. Now, of course these are good deeds. But why are the oil companies doing this? Are they doing it because they want to move us away from this fossil fuel economy that is destroying the environment? Are they doing it because they actually want to move us to a solar energy economy? Or are they doing it to greenwash their image and buy silence from their environmental critics? Are they doing it to cover up their past history of oil spills, workers injured and killed on the job, and the spewing of cancer-causing pollutants into the environment? It was John D. Rockefeller, the turn of the century millionaire, who gave out dimes to children. Why did Rockefeller give out dimes to children? To buy silence and good will. Similarly, the oil companies today are giving millions to environmental groups and activists to buy silence and good will. Now comes Jack Doyle, who has just completed a remarkable corporate history of Shell titled Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell the Fossil Fire. The book is published by the Boston-based Environmental Health Fund and is also available on-line on www.shellfacts.org. In documenting hundreds of cases of human rights abuses, oil pollution, worker injuries and deaths, andthe manufacture of cancer-causing chemicals, Doyle makes the point that Shell and the big oil companies have a lot to hide. And yet, despite all the rhetoric of moving beyond petroleum, they continue to secure long term contracts that tie them to the fossil fuel economy, with all of its geopolitical hazards, all of its human rights abuses, and environmental destruction. Doyle makes the point that while Shell is spending millions of dollars to create the impression that it is a socially and environmentally responsible oil company, the world's second largest oil company remains one of the world's biggest environmental violators. For example, the new Shell refuses to clean up what is now the worlds' largest urban underground oil spill in Durban, South Africa, where more than one million liters of oil have been dumped so far, Doyle reports. The book documents a concerted campaign by Shell to halt critical government reports, rewrite history and cover-up its misdeeds. Since Shell's alleged involvement in the execution of their highest profile critic, Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria, the company has claimed to adopt a new set of principles aimed at reforming their internal practices and re-making their image. Despite an ongoing civil trial in New York on Shell's alleged role in the execution of Saro-Wiwa and other activists, Shell has the temerity to advertise itself as a new company committed to human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development, Doyle said. There is ample reason to be skeptical about this manufactured image, which is wildly at odds with the facts. Don't believe the hype. Put aside the cute little web sites and beany baby tigers. There's nothing new about new Shell, Exxon, and BP. They are bought into the fossil fuel economy. We need to get out. Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is
[biofuels-biz] ExxonMobil Caves To Science
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6808 ExxonMobil Caves To Science Slick Maneuvering By Oil Giant On Climate Change Ross Gelbspan is a veteran newspaper editor and reporter, and the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Heat Is On, published by Perseus Books in 1998. He maintains the Web site The Heat Is On-Line. ExxonMobil deserves a measure of congratulations for finally acknowledging what has long been accepted by more than 2,000 scientists, some 160 nations and virtually every other oil company in the world. The world's largest oil company softened its long-standing campaign of disinformation against mainstream science by acknowledging the potential risks of climate change and announcing a 10-year $100 million grant to Stanford University for research on low-emissions technologies. Still, ExxonMobil can't seem to break its disinformation habit. Even as ExxonMobil declared that renewable technologies remain years in the future, Toyota announced it is putting a fleet of hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars on the streets of Tokyo in December. Its New York Times op-ad on November 22, 2002 drew howls of ridicule when the world's third largest corporation declared: [M]any ... alternative energy approaches are not as energy efficient, environmentally beneficial or economic as competing fossil fuels. They are often sustained only through special advantages and government subsidies. This is not a desirable basis for public policy or the provision of energy. Currently ExxonMobil benefits from federal subsidies of about $25 billion a year for fossil fuels. That figure does not include an estimated additional $15 billion to protect oil supplies from the Middle East. Under the Bush administration, renewable technologies will receive about $920 million a year in subsidies for five years. The oil giant contends that the government has extended special advantages to renewable energy providers. But during the formation of the administration's Energy Plan, the renewable energy industry was essentially invisible. By contrast, ExxonMobil, the second biggest energy funder of the Bush Campaign, met on numerous occasions with Vice President Cheney and his staff in preparation of the administration's Energy Plan. Those meetings followed a memo from ExxonMobil to the White House which led to the ouster of Dr. Robert Watson as head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Moreover, ExxonMobil hand-picked the Bush administration's new climate negotiator, who promptly announced the United States will not engage the Kyoto process for at least 10 years. ExxonMobil's 10-year research grant amounts to one-tenth of one percent of the money the oil giant will spend on oil exploration in the next decade, according to Campaign ExxonMobil. It amounts to about 40 percent of the annual salary of its CEO. ExxonMobil's change of posture was designed to deflect further demonization of the company, which has been the object of a widespread European boycott and the victim of an unexpectedly successful shareholder campaign at its annual meeting. An alternative resolution, calling on the company to cease its disinformation and develop a plan for renewables, gained a remarkable 21 percent last May. Still, despite ExxonMobil's effort to project a kinder, gentler tone of denial, it is still having problems with the scorched-earth rhetoric of CEO Lee Raymond. Raymond proclaimed recently: The mainstream of some so-called environmentalists or politically correct Europeans isn't the mainstream of all scientists or the White House. The world has been a lot warmer than it is now and it didn't have anything to do with carbon dioxide. So much for 100 years of peer-reviewed scientific research into the heat-trapping qualities of atmospheric carbon dioxide. By contrast, more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries reporting to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in what is the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history found in 1995 that human beings are changing the climate by our burning of fossil fuels. In 2001, the IPCC found: Climate change is occurring much more rapidly than scientists anticipated ... temperatures in this century could rise by as much as 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit as impending climate impacts occur ... most of earth's people will be losers. On balance, ExxonMobil's change of posture is a welcome step. If it is an indicator of future corporate policy, ExxonMobil could become a central engine of positive change for the world. But if, as many climate activists worry, ExxonMobil's latest initiative is simply a prolonged stall to avoid dealing with the climate crisis, it will soon be hard pressed to prove that its corporate behavior does not constitute a crime against humanity. Click here to subscribe to our free e-mail dispatch and get the latest on what's new at TomPaine.com before everyone else! You
[biofuels-biz] Ex-GM CEO makes green auto industry comeback
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18867/story.htm Ex-GM CEO makes green auto industry comeback USA: December 3, 2002 ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. - Nearly 10 years to the day after he was pushed out as chief of General Motors Corp. (GM.N), Bob Stempel shoveled a handful of dirt to break ground for a new plant in Ohio that could make him a key player in a more environmentally-friendly automotive industry. Stempel, 70, could easily have retired to a comfortable life after his tenure as chairman and CEO of GM ended in October 1992 with a boardroom coup. But now as chairman of Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ENER.O) he works 60 to 70 hours a week, and flies around the world to visit clients as he makes his case for battery-powered vehicles. Stempel is betting that sales of hybrid cars and trucks, powered by conventional gasoline or diesel engines mated to an electric drive system, will grow in the coming years as companies seek more fuel-efficient vehicles. In late October, Stempel ceremoniously kicked off construction of a 170,000-square-foot plant in Springboro, Ohio, that will make enough nickel-metal hydride batteries to supply 50,000 to 60,000 vehicles a year. Production at the plant, a joint venture between Chevron Texaco (CVX.N) and Energy Conversion Devices, is scheduled to start in the third quarter next year. MOVING OFF THE FENCE People have been sort of on the fence about hybrid cars, Stempel told Reuters, his voice booming with excitement. All of a sudden they are moving off the fence. We know that there's going to be enough solid business out there that we ought to get under way. Currently there are only three hybrid gas-electric vehicles for sale in the U.S. market, all made by Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp. (7203.T) and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (7267.T) - the Toyota Prius, the Honda Insight and a hybrid-version of the popular Honda Civic small car. However, Stempel said that U.S. and European automakers are requesting prototypes for some test vehicles from his joint venture company, Texaco Ovonic Battery Systems. Unlike pure electric vehicles, which take hours to recharge and have limited range, hybrid gas-electric vehicles recharge themselves and can travel as far as conventional cars and trucks. Some so-called soft hybrids expected to be rolled out over the next two years shut the engine down when the vehicle idles or comes to a stop, such as at a traffic light, and quickly restart upon acceleration, also saving gasoline. Some will also have 110-volt outlets that can be used for power tools, which could appeal to construction workers. Other hybrids, such as the Prius, Insight and Civic hybrid, have electric motors that provide extra power, thus improving fuel economy even more. Because they use less fuel, hybrids produce less carbon dioxide, which is considered one of the prime greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. BETTER MILEAGE, LOWER EMISSIONS Stempel, an engineer by trade, was part of a team at GM that created the catalytic converter to clean vehicle emissions. He laughs now when recalling how he and his colleagues thought they had perfected the converter so it produced only harmless carbon dioxide. If we don't really control the emissions from personal transportation, the way the regulators are going to control it is to put limits on driving. Look what happened to Mexico City. There are days in Mexico City when you can't see, he said. I think once the public really gets used to (hybrids) there won't be any question that they're going to be pretty well accepted, Stempel said. By 2007, we may be approaching 500,000 a year from all manufacturers here in North America. Stempel said that automakers are moving ahead with plans that include his batteries, though he declined to give details, citing confidentiality agreements. The company is also testing some Toyota vehicles with its batteries to try to win business from Matsushita Battery, a unit of Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (6752.T). Matsushita and Stempel's company have been embroiled in a patent dispute. ECD has alleged that Matsushita, which supplies the batteries through a joint venture with Panasonic Electronics for the Toyota Prius, wrongfully obtained patents held by ECD. Matsushita has denied the charges. Toyota intends to sell 300,000 hybrid vehicles a year by 2005, with most of the sales in North America. One of its next hybrid models will be a version of the Lexus RX 330, the upcoming replacement of the popular RX 300 SUV. Perhaps not surprisingly, the U.S. automakers who are trailing the Japanese in the race for hybrid vehicles have played down their importance. John Smith, GM's vice president of field sales, service and parts, said that the ultimate goal for GM is for cars and trucks that run on fuel cells. Hybrids can never be an endgame because they have packaged in one vehicle two modes of power
[biofuels-biz] The future is here - Japan launches fuel cell cars
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18859/story.htm The future is here - Japan launches fuel cell cars JAPAN: December 3, 2002 TOKYO - It sounds too good to be true: a car that runs on an inexhaustible power source and doesn't harm the environment. But that's exactly what two Japanese automakers put on the road yesterday, with the launch of the world's first fuel cell cars. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor are leasing a handful of the cars to the Japanese government and several public establishments in the United States in an experimental programme that marks the biggest step yet towards the mass marketing of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). The ultimate green car, FCVs could be part of the solution to smog, global warming and other ecological problems that conventional cars help cause. The technology, which was first used during the Apollo moon project in the 1960s, mixes hydrogen fuel and oxygen from air using an electrochemical process to produce the electricity that powers the car. Far from harming the environment, its only by-products are heat and water - water so pure the Apollo astronauts drank it. Many of the world's biggest carmakers want to make FCVs available to the average consumer. If all goes as planned, FCVs may begin replacing gasoline-powered cars in the next decade. However, carmakers still haven't figured out how to make FCVs at an affordable price, or how to build enough fuelling stations - and rapidly enough - to make them practical. The high costs of research would force car firms to charge anything from $1 million to $2 million for every FCV initially. There are still many challenges left for full-blown commercialisation, Honda President Hiroyuki Yoshino said at a handover ceremony at the prime minister's office. Leasing the first FCVs won't be cheap, either. Three Japanese ministries and the Cabinet Office will fork out a hefty $9,800 a month to rent Toyota's five-seater FCHV. Honda's four-seater FCX will cost $6,500 a month in Japan. BEST ALTERNATIVE Still, FCVs are considered the most promising alternative to today's gasoline-fuelled cars. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Oil supplies, on the other hand, are finite, and global oil production could peak by 2020, according to a U.S. government report. That means even gasoline-electric hybrid cars, the most fuel-efficient cars around now, will lose their power source one day. Unlike pure electric cars, FCVs don't need to be recharged. They can run for at least 300 kilometres (186 miles) before refuelling, at a speed of about 150 km an hour (93 mph). With automotive vehicles believed to be responsible for a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, which lead to global warming, governments have recognised the urgent need to encourage cleaner cars. When I took office last year, I promised that in three years we would replace all cars used by the government with low-emission vehicles, even if it costs a little more, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said at the ceremony. It's important that we continue to develop green cars. The United States is doing its part, too. Although the country pulled out of an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, its biggest auto market, California, has been aggressively leading the nation's drive for stricter standards for emissions and fuel efficiency. California, which has the unique right to set its own emissions regulations, is calling for all cars sold in the state to have near-zero emissions by 2009, which could set a precedent for federal legislation. The state is leading by example. The FCVs launched today will be leased to two California universities by Toyota and the city of Los Angeles by Honda. The United States is also keen to reduce its dependence on oil from the Middle East, and fuel cell technology is one answer. BARRIERS, HAZARDS In addition to price, the question of refuelling stations could be the biggest barrier to winning a mass market. Japan, the world's second-largest automobile market, wants to lay the groundwork for full commercialisation by 2005, with the aim of having five million FCVs - or one out of every 14 cars - on the road by 2020, but there are no concrete estimates of how many hydrogen stations would be needed. Today, there are about 53,000 petrol stands for the 70 million cars in Japan, so you can do the maths, said Yasuji Hamada, an official at the economy, trade and industry ministry. Using that ratio, it would take 3,800 hydrogen stations to fuel the five million FCVs that Japan wants on the road by 2020, and they would need to be spread out around the country. Even before that, Japanese officials will have to revise 26 laws - many of them safety-related - to make it possible for carmakers to mass market FCVs. Because hydrogen in its natural gaseous state is potentially dangerous to store, Japanese regulations prohibit
[biofuels-biz] Today's oily news
IEA says EU risks doubling gas imports by 2030 UK: December 3, 2002 LONDON - The European Union should give further backing to green energy or face doubling gas imports and thereby jeopardising security of supply, the International Energy Agency's chief economist said. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18860/story.htm ARCTIC SEA ICE MAY VANISH THIS CENTURY WASHINGTON, DC, December 2, 2002 (ENS) - Perennial sea ice - the floating ice that remains year round near the Arctic Circle - could vanish entirely by the end of this century, warns a new study by researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The NASA study concludes that sea ice is now melting about nine percent faster than prior research had indicated, due to rising temperatures and interactions between ice, ocean and the atmosphere. http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-02-06.asp BAN SINGLE-HULLED TANKERS NOW Let me get this straight. The Prestige, that flimsy, single-hulled tanker that recently sank off the coast of Spain, was built in Japan, registered in the Bahamas, owned by a Liberian company based in Greece, chartered by a Russian company based in Switzerland, last inspected in Dubai and carrying a load of Russian fuel oil to Singapore. Source: David Suzuki Foundation http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/12/12032002/s_49077.asp U.S. APPEALS COURT BLOCKS CALIFORNIA OFFSHORE DRILLING A U.S. appeals court Monday upheld a block on new oil and natural gas exploration off the California coast, ruling that future exploration cannot go forward without a state environmental review. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals does not cover existing offshore production in state and federal tracts. But it is a blow to the Bush administration, which had sought to open up 36 offshore leases to exploration. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49078.asp MASSES PROTEST AS NEW WAVE OF OIL HITS SPAIN Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators packed Galicia's capital on Sunday to protest the government's handling of a tanker disaster as a new wave of fuel oil hit Spanish beaches. The streets of Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage center in northwestern Spain, were thronged with marchers upset by the destruction wrought on the region's environment and fisheries by a huge oil spill from the sunken tanker Prestige. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49083.asp SELL OIL FIRM STAKE TO FUND KYOTO, SAYS CANADA'S MARTIN The front-runner to replace Canada's prime minister on Monday proposed developing clean environmental technology to meet Kyoto climate change commitments rather than buying pollution permits abroad. Paul Martin, who leads the race to replace Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said he favored using an estimated C$1.5 billion (US$950 million) profit from the eventual sale of Ottawa's stake in Petro-Canada to develop the new technology. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49079.asp PATRIOTISM MEANS WEANING U.S. FROM OIL, SAYS REDFORD Actor Robert Redford, in an op-ed opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times, accused the Bush administration Monday of lack of leadership for failing to wean the United States from dependence on fossil fuels. The actor, a longtime solar power advocate, warned that the nation's wasteful use of gas and oil created political problems abroad and air pollution at home. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49081.asp SEN. JEFFORDS BLASTS BUSH ON ENVIRONMENT The chairman of the Senate environment panel criticized President Bush Saturday for moving backward on the environment, saying he is putting special interests above clean air, clean water, and public health. Vermont independent Sen. James Jeffords, who will give up the gavel of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee when Republicans take over the Senate in January, said Bush is rolling back protections for clean air and water, cutting Superfund site cleanups, and clearing new oil and gas drilling on national lands. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49082.asp Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuels-biz] Re: [biofuel] Small-scale ethanol - was Re: Bio fuel business, first web page draft
Hej Keith, Thank you for starting the list. Yes, I left out the note, some of the brackets I will keep and some will go when I corrected my parts about ethanol. I hope that somebody else is interested to add to the discussion. Hakan This was my answer to you and your response, that will bring us up to date: Reading through the links you gave me, I agree that small ethanol production looks quite feasible. Very. Not as good as biodiesel and SVO. Different, comparable, often complementary. Some points were however added to my feeling of unease and the possibility of a group monopolization by responsible large interests. Such as? I can see that in a third world production, it is some merits for small ethanol production, without involvement from dominant oil interests. Not only 3rd World. Big corporations would have problems in manipulating in those markets. They have problems anywhere manipulating small local markets. For instance, via the USDA's rigged organics standards, the big food (?) interests tried to hijack the organics market in the US. In fact they've simply created a different market. The small organics producers are unaffected and have simply opted out, continuing to deal with their local farmers' markets, local customers, CSAs, regardless, and doing very nicely thankyou. Organics is local, and that's that. They can't do it. The major point was the correct and important mentioning of control of bacteriological waste. The other smaller points was additions to my doubts in feedstock preparation and fermentation. You'll have to be more specific. But I want to take this discussion to the mailing list, or both of them rather. Otherwise it is partly wasted. I was rather hoping you'd cross-post my last response to the lists with your responses. Best Keith At 11:18 PM 12/3/2002 +0900, Keith Addison wrote: Hi Hakan Useful confusion? :-) Anyway, you've left some of my comments in the website piece (in square brackets), but not the Notes, which said this: Notes Ethanol production. From Carlstein, a Brazilian former member of Biofuel: small scale eth production is widespread, but for 'shine purposes. it's called 'cachaza', and it can be very tasty, and very, very, potent ! but there's no small scale eth production for fuel, because of the hydrophile nature of the beast, which requires molecular sieve technology, available to the large producer, but not to the backyard distillers. methinks that first world small scale eth distillers would not have this problem. a3 and a4 m. sieves are readily available to them, from what i understand. 3A molecular sieve is available and works well. It's also usable in 3rd World countries on the small-scale, up to a point - the initial cost is not too high, and it's reusable many times. However, Carlstein's wrong - there's no need for ethanol fuel to be anhydrous UNLESS it's to be blended with gasoline. Pure 180-proof or even 160-proof is a good fuel on its own. It's not essential to raise the compression ratio, though it helps, and anyway that's easily done by skimming the head. Otherwise, all that's needed is an enlarged main jet. So small-scale, localized ethanol fuel production is a possibility. That means it can make use of locally-grown niche crops and crop by-products that are free of the constraints of more centralized schemes. The disadvantage here is that, unlike biodiesel and diesels, it's not dual-fuel - if you want to use gasoline again you have the change the main jet back to the old, smaller one. No big hassle though. There's a good variety of farm-scale fuel stills available (another one being scanned right now). We have one standing here in our living room that's capable of 5 gal/hr. Conversion and fermenting is easy. Here's my response to your response: ... here are some of my arguments, 1. Fermenting to produce the 20-24% alcohol level before distilling takes time and space, compared to the more or less continuous oil pressing for vegetable oil and biodiesel. 15% is enough actually, turbo yeasts will get more, but not much more than 18%, which takes longer, 14% if you want it fast. It doesn't make that much difference if you're making fuel. At any rate there's not much difference, it's quite easy to run separate batches in parallel for constant processing. I'm not sure it would take more space. Biodiesel probably takes more space than you think, with settling tanks, dewatering tanks, washing tanks, more settling tanks, a glyc settling tank. To produce volumes, it needs quite big plants. Big volumes need big plants, but it's infinitely scaleable, down to backyard or kitchen size. Our still is backyard size, ideal for a homebrewer - about equivalent to a homebrew biodieseler with a 55-gal drum set-up. At 5 gal/hr it would take 100 hours to produce the average American's fuel supply for a year, a couple of hours a week or one bigger run a month. It doesn't need
[biofuel] 2002 Ford F-250
A friend has a 2002 F-250 Diesel, I'm trying to convince her. She thinks she needs to change the nozzles but I'm pretty sure she can run straight biodiesel, especially since it's such a new engine (no rubber, right?) Has Ford certified biodiesel for this engine? If not - is there a good reason why not? Thanks! Elijah Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Peugeot 306TD and hello!
Hello, I'm a new user to this group and new to the world of biofuels too! It's all pretty interesting ATM! I'm looking to use straight veg oil and so I'm looking for a suitable engine... I saw a 2nd hand Peugeot 306TD for sale for a reasonable price: does this have direct injection? Do all 'turbos' use direct injection? If not, is it OK to us SVO on a turbo? (the Peugeot website is a bit rubbish: I can't find any info on it!). Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Cat Converter
Yes. Its the sulfur that poisons the catalyst. None of that in vegetable oil. Edward Beggs http://www.biofuels.ca On Monday, December 2, 2002, at 03:10 PM, Crabb, David wrote: To try to improve emissions... Can you run a catalytic converter with SVO like you can with biodiesel? thanks. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Fwd: We almost have heat!
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Kim Garth Travis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My dh and I spent our lovely 4 day weekend working on a wood stove. Since I don't have the $600 - $800 to buy one that won't fill the place with soot, we decided to build the barrel stove from Lehman's. We purchased the gasketed door and the kit for a second barrel smoke chamber. cost: $113.95 Then I picked up two 30 gallon barrels. The stove can be made with either 30 or 55 gal metal air tight barrels. The barrels are heavy steel, brand new and cost: $62. Total cost for stove: $175.95 If I was to do this all over again, this is what I would do the same and differently. On the positive, we installed a piece of 1/4 plate on the top of the smoke chamber barrel, about 3x5. This gives our Ecofan a place to sit and yes it does get enough heat there to work real well. We were very careful to cement every screw hole and joint with fireplace mortar, which I strongly recommend. For now our chimney looks funny, since the top is stainless and the bottom is blue black metal. The bottom will be hidden behind the paper adobe that is in the process of being applied to that wall, but the top will always be in the weather, so On the never do again side - I would not install it in the house until I had finished tempering the barrels! They recommend six small fires, to start with. They don't warn you how bad the barrels are going to off gas as they burn the paint off. I had to grab a blower from the fire department to clear the building of the fumes. We have had four small fires, actually getting successively bigger, in the stove so far. Last night, as the sun was setting and the fire cooling down, I was able to close the house up and trap the heat from the coals for a warm evening. Today I must get rid of the last of the paint, since it will be raining all day tomorrow and a bad cold front is coming the day after. I hope this helps anyone else that is looking for a decent, non smoking wood stove at a great price. Bright Blessings, Kim --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: Re: [biofuel] Re: It all comes back to the sun Was: Forests / Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], John E Hayes III [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hakan Falk wrote: They major and most dangerous difference is the habit on overtaking on both sides of a vehicle in front of you on multi lane highways and streets. The European are very strict on overtaking on the outside. I always thought that it was permitted to overtake on both sides in US, until somebody told me that it was not and the rules was the same in US and Europe. I have not been able to verify this information. Passing on both the right and the left is not so much a problem as is an utter lack of lane discipline. A failure to keep right except when passing, coupled with idiotic speed kills left lane blockers, forces many otherwise conscientious American drivers to pass on the right. This is particularly bad on 3+ lane highways. Some states, such as NJ allow passing on the right if you are driving on a one-way road that is marked for two or more lanes or is wide enough for two or more lanes, and passing is not restricted by signs. But yes, in general, passing on the right, as well as failure to keep right are ticketable in many US states although I've never personally met anyone that has been ticketed for either. Now back to our regular programing. -john --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: Re: storage batteries
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], csakima [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Once upon a time PopSci carried an article about future molten Sodium Sulfer Batteries . Curtis P.S. Grease Police??!! Get your free newsletter at http://www.ezinfocenter.com/3122155/NL - Original Message - From: Robby Davenport [EMAIL PROTECTED] Off topic : I read about a year ago in a common publication of a boron battery . you could recharge it with elec. of you could heat the electrolite to 120 F . thought it was a NASA invention or the publication was popular science or mechanics. has anyone heard of this ? another thought; in the countries that are slaming people for using Bio-diesel or wvo,svo. and there exhaust has a diiferent smell . could they use a few gallons or a percentage the keep the grease police at bay. thanks Robert - Introducing NetZero Long Distance 1st month Free! Sign up today at: www.netzerolongdistance.com --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: US patents Was: Reply to David Cardill
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], csakima [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, MY creator is the one that holds the patents!!Jus' being silly. Indeed, I MUST comment. LIFE ... is perhaps the HIGHEST TECHNOLOGY available on the planet today!! Curtis Get your free newsletter at http://www.ezinfocenter.com/3122155/NL - Original Message - From: motie_d [EMAIL PROTECTED] Who invented it has been a major question thoughout History. Darwin presents one popular theory, and every religious group in the world has a different answer as to who is the inventor or Creator! They are readily avaiable nearly everywhere, in many different models and sizes. You can even grow your own from readily avaiable seeds. - Introducing NetZero Long Distance 1st month Free! Sign up today at: www.netzerolongdistance.com --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: Re: [biofuel] Cat Converter
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Steve Spence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: yes you can! Steve Spence Subscribe to the Renewable Energy Newsletter Discussion Boards. Read about Sustainable Technology: http://www.green-trust.org [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: Crabb, David [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 6:10 PM Subject: RE: [biofuel] Cat Converter To try to improve emissions... Can you run a catalytic converter with SVO like you can with biodiesel? thanks. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: Re: [biofuel] BioD - 70's Mercedes
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Martin Klingensmith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not to stop the conversation, but check this out for lots of Mercedes diesel related information: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?keywords=%2Bdiesel+%2Bmercedes http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?keywords=%2Bdiesel+%2Bmercedeslis t=BIOFUEL list=BIOFUEL Searching for +Mercedes +diesel +reliable : http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?keywords=%2Bdiesel+%2Bmercedes+%2Br eliable http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?keywords=%2Bdiesel+%2Bmercedes+%2B reliablelist=BIOFUEL list=BIOFUEL +Mercedes +diesel +conversion : http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?keywords=%2Bdiesel+%2Bmercedes+%2Bc onversion http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?keywords=%2Bdiesel+%2Bmercedes+%2B conversionlist=BIOFUEL list=BIOFUEL Hope that helps [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: Smoke bombs!! Was: We almost have heat!
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], csakima [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sheesh!! Now THAT'S bad!! (cough, cough, cough) Curtis Get your free newsletter at http://www.ezinfocenter.com/3122155/NL - Original Message - From: Kim Garth Travis [EMAIL PROTECTED] On the never do again side - I would not install it in the house until I had finished tempering the barrels! They recommend six small fires, to start with. They don't warn you how bad the barrels are going to off gas as they burn the paint off. I had to grab a blower from the fire department to clear the building of the fumes. We have had four small fires, actually getting successively bigger, in the stove so far. Last night, as the sun was setting and the fire cooling down, I was able to close the house up and trap the heat from the coals for a warm evening. - Introducing NetZero Long Distance 1st month Free! Sign up today at: www.netzerolongdistance.com --- End forwarded message ---
Re: [biofuel] Peugeot 306TD and hello!
Hi all, the earlier version Pre 2000 is indirect injection, later post 2000 is H.D.I. (high direct injection) please keep posted on progress, Regards, Damian Dolan biofuel@yahoogroups.com wrote: Hello, I'm a new user to this group and new to the world of biofuels too! It's all pretty interesting ATM! I'm looking to use straight veg oil and so I'm looking for a suitable engine... I saw a 2nd hand Peugeot 306TD for sale for a reasonable price: does this have direct injection? Do all 'turbos' use direct injection? If not, is it OK to us SVO on a turbo? (the Peugeot website is a bit rubbish: I can't find any info on it!). Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Peugeot 306TD and hello!
On Tue, 3 Dec 2002 07:52, you wrote: Hello, I'm a new user to this group and new to the world of biofuels too! It's all pretty interesting ATM! I'm looking to use straight veg oil and so I'm looking for a suitable engine... I saw a 2nd hand Peugeot 306TD for sale for a reasonable price: does this have direct injection? Do all 'turbos' use direct injection? If not, is it OK to us SVO on a turbo? (the Peugeot website is a bit rubbish: I can't find any info on it!). Have a look at the engine: if it has a big unit (ie injector pump) in the front of the engine, with 4 pipes running to the injectors at the top of the engine, it is pump injection. The computer controlled ones use a different system, so the injectors are fed by a 'common rail' ie a pipe goes to all injectors, not a single pipe from the pump for each injector. a good site for Pugs http://www.aussiefrogs.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi This site is for French car owning aussies, but they can be helpful. I doubt if the people there would know about SVO however. (There are Pommie Pug sites also - try Google) Doug (Pug 405 SRDT owner - great car) Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
BS - was Re: [biofuel] Thought Provoking Book Review
Motie, if you don't mind, this is total BS. Ronald Bailey, FCOL! When it comes to sheer hard facts, Mr Bailey, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Reason Magazine are right up there with Denis Avery, Michael Fumento, Bjorn Lomborg and, indeed, the one and only David Pimentel - hooray for these torch-bearers of perverted truth, talented liars one and all who would save us from ourselves! Sheesh! The Competitive Enterprise Institute 'postures as an advocate of sound science in the development of public policy. In fact, it is an ideologically-driven, well-funded front for corporations opposed to safety and environmental regulations that affect the way they do business.' Simply that, spinners one and all, very much including Mr Bailey: Ronald Bailey (1993) is the author of a 1993 book titled Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse and a contributing editor to Reason magazine. In 1995, CEI published a book edited by Bailey titled The True State of the Planet, written to counter to the Worldwatch Institute's influential annual State of the World reports. Contributors to The True State of the Planet included a who's-who of the libertarian right: Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, Terry L. Anderson of the Political Economy Research Center, Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, Kent Jeffreys of the Heritage foundation, Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute. http://www.prwatch.org/improp/cei.html Competitive Enterprise Institute Impropaganda Review - A Rogue's Gallery of Industry Front Groups and Anti-Environmental Think Tanks (Center for Media Democracy) Organic farming could kill billions of people, wrote Mr Bailey in an article titled Organic Alchemy in Reason Magazine (June 5, 2002). Ho-hum. On the other hand, his co-author in this Thought Provoking Book, Norman Borlaug, is accused of doing just that, with some reason. Other chapters recount the DDT charade, including the ongoing costs in human life resulting from its ban; the illogical debate over energy supplies and alternative sources; the widespread acceptance of the Precautionary Principle, whose main object is to stop the development of the human race. Stop the rampant development of the corporate bottom-line maybe, at the expense of everything else, including the planet. DDT is essential to controlling the spread of malaria - BS. (One reason malaria's spreading is the spreading of the effects of global warming - not BS.) Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution? He still has some semblance of credibility outside of the Monsanto boardroom? Amazing. All the usual suspects. Hey, guys, we're all being illogical with this childish nonsense over biodiesel and so on - Love Big Oil! And all will be well. Trust me. Er, Motie, you were joking, right? Try this instead: #737 - Environmental Trends -- Part 1, 11-08-01 http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=2114bulletin_ID=48 #738 - Environmental Trends -- Part 2, 11-22-01 http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=2116bulletin_ID=48 Please, no more Mr Bailey, nor Messrs Avery, Lomborg, etc. Best Keith Mommy, There's A Monster Under My Bed! (A Review Of Global Warming And Other Eco-Myths) Beginning with the publication of Silent Spring, the environmental movement has become progressively disconnected from science and more rigidly defined by a utopian ideology. Based primarily on exaggerations, distortions, and a willful neglect of valid scientific data that runs contrary to their preaching's, the movement continues to advance an agenda that, while posing as society's savior, condemns millions to poverty and disease. Aided by contemporary press- release journalism and the want-it-to-be-true attitudes on the part of those reporting the stories, their claims go unchallenged, becoming part of the conventional wisdom. But information about the true state of the world environment is available; it's just difficult for to find among the hysteria. Fortunately, Ronald Bailey, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is trying to change that. As the editor of the recently published Global Warming and Other Eco- Myths, Mr. Bailey has assembled a group of the most respected researchers in their respective fields to explain the truth in their areas of interest. The list of contributors includes, among others, Dr. John R. Christy, Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Lead Author of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Global Warming]; Dr. Norman Borlaug, Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture at Texas AM and the driving force behind the Green Revolution [Biotechnology]; Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies [Population and Resources]; Dr. C. S. Prakash, Director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research, Tuskegee University, Alabama [Genetically modified plants]. Along with their
Re: [biofuel] Thought Provoking Book Review
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote Mommy, There's A Monster Under My Bed! (A Review Of Global Warming And Other Eco-Myths) snip Probably the subject line should have read 'provocative book review!' ;-) I guess, an Indian edition/context of the book would include a lengthy chapter on greed (oops, green) revolution by that illustrious agri scientist of India called MS Swaminathan, who is the Norman Borlaug's equivalent in India. The cutest thing is that this scientist has now started talking about 'sustainable' farming etc - probably because, this would get suffient funding, in these days of enlightened benefactors! Anyway, a few quotes that I harvested are in order here: Do not become archivists of facts. Try to penetrate to the secret of their occurrence, persistently search for the laws which govern them. -- Ivan Pavlov It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. -- Caron de Beaumarchais So Motie, please forgive Ron Bailey - he knows naught what he is doing. ;-) Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Re: [renewable-energy] Reply to David Cardill
Hi MM I do a lot of cross-posting, so do others. Nothing against it, quite opposite. But I'm not a member of that list and I don't want to join it, so I can't cross-post there. For others, you didn't repeat the address and they'd've had to go and look for it in the previous message. I have grown weary of my cross-posts being ignored by succeeding posters, and so I thought I would take a time out and ask why. I understand that you don't want to join groups, but in most of these cases that means I will sometimes not cross post, as it leaves a disjointed discussion in the other group. Well, it takes a bit of work, but it's worth doing. Keith Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Forests - was Re: It all comes back to the sun
Motie wrote: --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Greg and April [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The role is reversed here. Environmentalists threaten lawsuits if the government would allow what I think needs done. High-level Bureaucrats who know nothing about forestry succumb to this pressure. Legislators pay attention to the numerous phone calls they receive on act accordingly. I wonder if we can counter sue the enviromentalist, to keep them from sueing in order to let the Foresters and Loggers get on with the job? So far it hasn't worked that way. Both sides file Suits, then a round of Appeals and Counter-suits and on and on and on, until finally either the wood is too decomposed to be salvageable or the whole forest catches fire and burns. Occasionally, a lot of money is spent on required Environmental Impact Studies to comply with environmentists's demands, and the wood either rots or burns before the study allowing the harvest is completed. Basically, it all boils down to..Time and Money that should be spent on Forest Management is spent on Environmental Studies, Regulatory Paperwork and Lawsuits. There are no funds left to actually do the needed maintainance once all the legal regulatory requirements are met. If this could be done in a more timely fashion, the wood would have a marketable value, and maintainance operations could be self-funded, or quite likely turn a profit. snip Motie, I'm prepared to accept your allocation of fault and blame in the forest you live in, though I've said it doesn't reflect my experience with forest management or mismanagement in various places. But you seem to extend it as a general rule: environmentalists are at best misguided, misinformed, and their effects destructive; loggers, including big logging companies, and the Forest Service can be trusted to maintain and sustain forests - that the only problem with Big Loggers is that they've failed to refute mis-information. I found this rather bizarre: Hakan: You have other groups involved but disguised and one of the is the professional Moneymakers. Motie: I spent several minutes trying to discern the meaning of this statement. The only group I can think of that meet this criteria is the professional 'environmental' activist. Motie: Rape and Pillage is NOt in their planning. Please do a search for Interfor and Boise Cascade, among others in the US, among destructive Big Logging companies worldwide. BOISE SAYS IT WILL STOP LOGGING OLD GROWTH The Oregonian, Monday, March 18, 2002 - Timber Company Violates Pledge, Cuts Canada's Oldest Trees (Interfor), British Columbia - etc etc etc That it's the environmentalists who tie any effective action up in law-suits is mistaken. http://ens-news.com/ens/jul2002/2002-07-11-06.asp Conflicting Reports Shade Forest Fire Debate By Cat Lazaroff WASHINGTON, DC, July 11, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. Forest Service released a report this week charging that lawsuits from environmentalists are preventing the agency from effectively managing forests to reduce wildfire risk. Environmentalists counter that the agency report ignores a number of fire management tools that the conservation community supports, and warn that the Forest Service is misspending funds provided for forest management. The Forest Service report found that 48 percent of projects in which the agency planned to cut down small trees to reduce fire fuels were stalled by administrative appeals filed by conservation groups. Twenty-one of those cases were eventually taken to court. While the agency recognizes there are multiple factors that affect its ability to decide on and implement fuels reduction projects, the report notes, the number of mechanical fuel treatment decisions appealed shows how much this process can contribute to the overall process timeframe for agency fuel treatment decisions. Administrative appeals and litigation contribute significantly to the time it takes to plan for and decide on fuels projects prior to implementation, concludes the report. The report looked at 326 national forest tree thinning projects from the past two years, finding that 155 were stalled by appeals. In Arizona and New Mexico, site of this year's worst wildfires, 73 percent of mechanical thinning projects were appealed; in the northern states of Montana, northern Idaho, North Dakota and northern South Dakota, all 53 of the reviewed projects were appealed. Any way you cut it this is a pretty high rate of appeals, said Mark Rey, the Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for natural resources and environment. Some members of Congress pointed to the Forest Service report as evidence that the catastrophic wildfires that have swept through Western states this year could have been prevented if environmental groups had not blocked the agency from doing its job. Fires have already burned more than three million acres this year, about three times the annual average over
[biofuel] Bio fuel business, first web page draft
Hi all, After considerable help and useful confusion from Keith I am putting up the first web page draft on the web site, http://energy.saving.nu/biofuels/biofuelorg.shtml I have to do some changes and clarifications considering ethanol. We had some interesting off list conversation about my assumption that ethanol would be dominated by large scale interests. It was not intended to be off list and Keith thought that it could have a general interest. I hope that Keith can copy pertinent parts to this posting and we can continue with participation from list members. Hakan ** If you want to take a look on a project that is very close to my heart, go to: http://energysavingnow.com/ http://hakan.vitools.net/ My .Net Card http://hakan.vitools.org/ About me http://vitools.com/ My webmaster site ** A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world being round that agitated people, but that the world wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. -- Dresden James No flag is large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people -- Howard Zinn Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Small-scale ethanol - was Re: Bio fuel business, first web page draft
Hi Hakan Useful confusion? :-) Anyway, you've left some of my comments in the website piece (in square brackets), but not the Notes, which said this: Notes Ethanol production. From Carlstein, a Brazilian former member of Biofuel: small scale eth production is widespread, but for 'shine purposes. it's called 'cachaza', and it can be very tasty, and very, very, potent ! but there's no small scale eth production for fuel, because of the hydrophile nature of the beast, which requires molecular sieve technology, available to the large producer, but not to the backyard distillers. methinks that first world small scale eth distillers would not have this problem. a3 and a4 m. sieves are readily available to them, from what i understand. 3A molecular sieve is available and works well. It's also usable in 3rd World countries on the small-scale, up to a point - the initial cost is not too high, and it's reusable many times. However, Carlstein's wrong - there's no need for ethanol fuel to be anhydrous UNLESS it's to be blended with gasoline. Pure 180-proof or even 160-proof is a good fuel on its own. It's not essential to raise the compression ratio, though it helps, and anyway that's easily done by skimming the head. Otherwise, all that's needed is an enlarged main jet. So small-scale, localized ethanol fuel production is a possibility. That means it can make use of locally-grown niche crops and crop by-products that are free of the constraints of more centralized schemes. The disadvantage here is that, unlike biodiesel and diesels, it's not dual-fuel - if you want to use gasoline again you have the change the main jet back to the old, smaller one. No big hassle though. There's a good variety of farm-scale fuel stills available (another one being scanned right now). We have one standing here in our living room that's capable of 5 gal/hr. Conversion and fermenting is easy. Here's my response to your response: ... here are some of my arguments, 1. Fermenting to produce the 20-24% alcohol level before distilling takes time and space, compared to the more or less continuous oil pressing for vegetable oil and biodiesel. 15% is enough actually, turbo yeasts will get more, but not much more than 18%, which takes longer, 14% if you want it fast. It doesn't make that much difference if you're making fuel. At any rate there's not much difference, it's quite easy to run separate batches in parallel for constant processing. I'm not sure it would take more space. Biodiesel probably takes more space than you think, with settling tanks, dewatering tanks, washing tanks, more settling tanks, a glyc settling tank. To produce volumes, it needs quite big plants. Big volumes need big plants, but it's infinitely scaleable, down to backyard or kitchen size. Our still is backyard size, ideal for a homebrewer - about equivalent to a homebrew biodieseler with a 55-gal drum set-up. At 5 gal/hr it would take 100 hours to produce the average American's fuel supply for a year, a couple of hours a week or one bigger run a month. It doesn't need constant attendance, so labour isn't that much. Inputs can be free or largely free, no methanol to pay for, process energy can also be free if you use waste wood (pallets!!) or glyc by-product from biodiesel or something. Have a look at these: Six-Inch Column Still Plans http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh8.html#8-1 Three-Inch Column Still Plans http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh8.html#8-2 Two Low-cost Backyard Stills http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meCh9.html The Butterfield Still http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_butterfield.html I'm currently scanning the blueprints and full report for this Butterfield farm-scale still set-up, very nice. These two manuals are all about small-scale local production: Mother Earth Alcohol Fuel http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/meToC.html The Manual for the Home and Farm Production of Alcohol Fuel http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_manual/manual_ToC.html At 15 years old, I worked one summer in a beer brewery and remember roughly the process and the huge fermenting tanks. Yes, but small, localized micro-breweries are proving most successful now, all over the world. 2. As most Swedes, I have done some distilling. To achieve the 150 to160-proof is quite easy, but 180-proof takes a lot more both in processing and equipment. The additional process to 180-proof 90% alcohol is quite significant. Not really. Our still is supposed to do 190 but in fact it will only do 170. But with a bit of tinkering it would do 190. These other stills above will do 180-190. We'll rig our still to do 190 when we want to produce ethanol for ethyl esters. These small stills will produce 190-proof: http://www.Moonshine-Still.com Most home distillers go for
[biofuel] Polish Orlen blasts bio-fuels bill as uncivilised
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18853/story.htm Polish Orlen blasts bio-fuels bill as uncivilised POLAND: December 2, 2002 WARSAW - Poland's top refining group PKN Orlen blasted plans to force fuel firms to boost the sales of biofuels to well above levels proposed by the European Union, which the country is set to join in mid 2004. Poland's powerful farming lobby, backed by a rural junior coalition party, has already pushed the biofuels bill though the lower house of parliament and the controversial regulation will start its first reading in the Senate last week. The bill - which aims to create new demand for crops such as rapeseed to help Poland's struggling farmers - would set from 2003 an obligatory minimum 4.5 percent level of biofuels' shares in total domestic fuel sales. The EU wants a two-percent minimum level of biofuels as a proportion of all fuels by 2005, gradually reaching 5.75 percent of all fuels sold by 2010. Poland is by far central Europe's largest fuel market with annual consumption of around 10 million tonnes, of which nearly a fifth comes from imports. Biofuels are environment-friendly and often enjoy favourable tax treatment. They have many advocates among industry players as laws limiting pollutants grow stricter around the globe. They are also seen as key in lessening dependence on imported energy. But Orlen, Poland's top fuels group with 1.5 percent of sales already comprised of biofuels, said the bill was unfairly setting high obligatory minimum biofuel levels and violating EU law by forcing fuel sellers to use only Polish bio-components. While in general we are decisively in favour of getting more bio-fuels in the market, this bill is simply uncivilised, Janusz Wisniewski, Orlen's deputy chief in charge of production, told Reuters. We are just about to introduce a bill which violates European Union regulations and which will have to be reversed the first day after accession, he added. MOONSHINE FUEL While Orlen theoretically could win out on the bio-component import ban, Wisniewski said lack of clear-cut quality guidelines could easily lead to moonshine fuels flooding the market. In Poland there are no standards for checking the quality of bio-components in fuel and this bill may simply bring more harm than anything else, he said. Car makers, including the Polish unit of Ford Motor, have warned in the past few days that many engines used in cars driving on local roads could not handle high biofuel levels. The bill - which has already sparked a public debate between environmentalists, farm lobbying groups and the fuel and refining industry - also allows for a controversial government prerogative to set a minimum price for crops used in biofuels. Biofuels are combustible fuels that can be used pure or blended with conventional fuels and are obtained by processing plant oils, sugarbeet, cereals, and organic waste materials. They include biodiesel which is made from plant oils such as rapeseed, sunflower and soybean and bio-ethanol which uses fermented sugar beets and cereals. Story by Marta Karpinska REUTERS NEWS SERVICE Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell the Fossil Fire
Full text online Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell the Fossil Fire HOW DOES SHELL'S RHETORIC MATCH THEIR RECORD AROUND THE WORLD? In 2002, an alliance of independent organizations, journalists and ordinary people collected and forwarded their documentation about Shell's environmental, community, workplace, and ethical business practices for a major new book. We thank everyone for their submissions and hope that you will now participate in the global release of this new book. If your community or organization is concerned about Shell, please contact us. To get more information, submit your concerns about Shell or obtain a copy of the new book on Shell, contact us. http://www.shellfacts.org/ CONTENTS Select icon to download complete chapter or select section heading to read an excerpt online first) Acknowledgements Introduction The Good Shell. . . 1. Two Different Worlds Bobby Peek lives in Durban, South Africa; Phil Watts in London, UK. 2. Building The Empire It began trading seashells; today it's the world's 2 nd largest oil company. 3. Poisons Still With Us Chemicals old new - the Drins, DBCP, leaded gasoline, and MTBE. 4. Dangerous Places Shell refineries, terminals, and chemical plants are not always safe places. 5. Chronic Pollution From well head to the corner gas station, the Shell system is releasing toxic chemicals. 6. Shell At Sea The Brent Spar flap and Shell in the water. 7.Nigeria Lots of oil, brutal executions, and a polluted country. 8. Norco, Louisiana One community's history with Royal Dutch Shell. 9. Gas, Gas, Gas Shell plots a cleaner future. 10. China Tibet A big pipeline raises Tibetan human rights concerns. 11. Oh, Canada Sour gas, sick cattle, and unhappy neighbors. 12. Sensitive Places Shell's footprint in delicate habitat. 13. Raise the Drilling Rigs Adapting to a greenhouse world. 14. 100 Years of Notice Shell has had a century to get its act together. 15. The Work Ahead A to do list for Royal Dutch Shell. Appendix A A Royal Dutch Shell Sampler - A Chronology of Selected Environmental Public Safety Incidents, 1947-2002 Explosions and FIres Leaks and Spills Emissions and Releases About the Author Back Cover Text Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Shell Oil and the Politics of Hype
http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2002/000134.html Shell Oil and the Politics of Hype Robert Weissman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon, 02 Dec 2002 15:04:50 -0500 Shell Oil and the Politics of Hype By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman So, what's up with the biggest of the big oil companies -- Exxon Corporation, BP Amoco and Royal Dutch Shell? Last week, BP Amoco said that it was pulling out of a major lobbying effort to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. BP wants people to believe that the company is moving beyond petroleum -- BP -- get it? -- into the solar age. Last month, ExxonMobil announced that it was donating $5 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in an effort to save the tiger. At a press conference announcing ExxonMobil's donation the Save the Tiger Fund, the company handed out cuddling little tiger beanie baby dolls for the kids. ExxonMobil wants people to believe that it cares about the natural world and all of its living creatures. In May 2000, Royal Dutch Shell set up a $30 million foundation to push for sustainable energy and social investment projects around the world. Last week, the Shell Foundation announced that it was spending $3 million on a campaign to raise awareness on how the loss of Louisiana's wetlands will affect the state and to gain support for efforts to save coastal Louisiana. Shell has called on environmentalist Amory Lovins to do an energy audit of one of its petrochemical facilities in Denmark. Shell also has pledged $7 million to the World Resources Institute here in Washington, D.C. to find environmentally sound solutions to the problems of urban transport. And earlier this year, Shell donated $3.5 million to form the Shell Center for Sustainability at Rice University. Now, of course these are good deeds. But why are the oil companies doing this? Are they doing it because they want to move us away from this fossil fuel economy that is destroying the environment? Are they doing it because they actually want to move us to a solar energy economy? Or are they doing it to greenwash their image and buy silence from their environmental critics? Are they doing it to cover up their past history of oil spills, workers injured and killed on the job, and the spewing of cancer-causing pollutants into the environment? It was John D. Rockefeller, the turn of the century millionaire, who gave out dimes to children. Why did Rockefeller give out dimes to children? To buy silence and good will. Similarly, the oil companies today are giving millions to environmental groups and activists to buy silence and good will. Now comes Jack Doyle, who has just completed a remarkable corporate history of Shell titled Riding the Dragon: Royal Dutch Shell the Fossil Fire. The book is published by the Boston-based Environmental Health Fund and is also available on-line on www.shellfacts.org. In documenting hundreds of cases of human rights abuses, oil pollution, worker injuries and deaths, andthe manufacture of cancer-causing chemicals, Doyle makes the point that Shell and the big oil companies have a lot to hide. And yet, despite all the rhetoric of moving beyond petroleum, they continue to secure long term contracts that tie them to the fossil fuel economy, with all of its geopolitical hazards, all of its human rights abuses, and environmental destruction. Doyle makes the point that while Shell is spending millions of dollars to create the impression that it is a socially and environmentally responsible oil company, the world's second largest oil company remains one of the world's biggest environmental violators. For example, the new Shell refuses to clean up what is now the worlds' largest urban underground oil spill in Durban, South Africa, where more than one million liters of oil have been dumped so far, Doyle reports. The book documents a concerted campaign by Shell to halt critical government reports, rewrite history and cover-up its misdeeds. Since Shell's alleged involvement in the execution of their highest profile critic, Ken Saro-Wiwa of Nigeria, the company has claimed to adopt a new set of principles aimed at reforming their internal practices and re-making their image. Despite an ongoing civil trial in New York on Shell's alleged role in the execution of Saro-Wiwa and other activists, Shell has the temerity to advertise itself as a new company committed to human rights, environmental protection and sustainable development, Doyle said. There is ample reason to be skeptical about this manufactured image, which is wildly at odds with the facts. Don't believe the hype. Put aside the cute little web sites and beany baby tigers. There's nothing new about new Shell, Exxon, and BP. They are bought into the fossil fuel economy. We need to get out. Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is
[biofuel] ExxonMobil Caves To Science
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6808 ExxonMobil Caves To Science Slick Maneuvering By Oil Giant On Climate Change Ross Gelbspan is a veteran newspaper editor and reporter, and the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Heat Is On, published by Perseus Books in 1998. He maintains the Web site The Heat Is On-Line. ExxonMobil deserves a measure of congratulations for finally acknowledging what has long been accepted by more than 2,000 scientists, some 160 nations and virtually every other oil company in the world. The world's largest oil company softened its long-standing campaign of disinformation against mainstream science by acknowledging the potential risks of climate change and announcing a 10-year $100 million grant to Stanford University for research on low-emissions technologies. Still, ExxonMobil can't seem to break its disinformation habit. Even as ExxonMobil declared that renewable technologies remain years in the future, Toyota announced it is putting a fleet of hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars on the streets of Tokyo in December. Its New York Times op-ad on November 22, 2002 drew howls of ridicule when the world's third largest corporation declared: [M]any ... alternative energy approaches are not as energy efficient, environmentally beneficial or economic as competing fossil fuels. They are often sustained only through special advantages and government subsidies. This is not a desirable basis for public policy or the provision of energy. Currently ExxonMobil benefits from federal subsidies of about $25 billion a year for fossil fuels. That figure does not include an estimated additional $15 billion to protect oil supplies from the Middle East. Under the Bush administration, renewable technologies will receive about $920 million a year in subsidies for five years. The oil giant contends that the government has extended special advantages to renewable energy providers. But during the formation of the administration's Energy Plan, the renewable energy industry was essentially invisible. By contrast, ExxonMobil, the second biggest energy funder of the Bush Campaign, met on numerous occasions with Vice President Cheney and his staff in preparation of the administration's Energy Plan. Those meetings followed a memo from ExxonMobil to the White House which led to the ouster of Dr. Robert Watson as head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Moreover, ExxonMobil hand-picked the Bush administration's new climate negotiator, who promptly announced the United States will not engage the Kyoto process for at least 10 years. ExxonMobil's 10-year research grant amounts to one-tenth of one percent of the money the oil giant will spend on oil exploration in the next decade, according to Campaign ExxonMobil. It amounts to about 40 percent of the annual salary of its CEO. ExxonMobil's change of posture was designed to deflect further demonization of the company, which has been the object of a widespread European boycott and the victim of an unexpectedly successful shareholder campaign at its annual meeting. An alternative resolution, calling on the company to cease its disinformation and develop a plan for renewables, gained a remarkable 21 percent last May. Still, despite ExxonMobil's effort to project a kinder, gentler tone of denial, it is still having problems with the scorched-earth rhetoric of CEO Lee Raymond. Raymond proclaimed recently: The mainstream of some so-called environmentalists or politically correct Europeans isn't the mainstream of all scientists or the White House. The world has been a lot warmer than it is now and it didn't have anything to do with carbon dioxide. So much for 100 years of peer-reviewed scientific research into the heat-trapping qualities of atmospheric carbon dioxide. By contrast, more than 2,000 scientists from 100 countries reporting to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in what is the largest and most rigorously peer-reviewed scientific collaboration in history found in 1995 that human beings are changing the climate by our burning of fossil fuels. In 2001, the IPCC found: Climate change is occurring much more rapidly than scientists anticipated ... temperatures in this century could rise by as much as 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit as impending climate impacts occur ... most of earth's people will be losers. On balance, ExxonMobil's change of posture is a welcome step. If it is an indicator of future corporate policy, ExxonMobil could become a central engine of positive change for the world. But if, as many climate activists worry, ExxonMobil's latest initiative is simply a prolonged stall to avoid dealing with the climate crisis, it will soon be hard pressed to prove that its corporate behavior does not constitute a crime against humanity. Click here to subscribe to our free e-mail dispatch and get the latest on what's new at TomPaine.com before everyone else! You
[biofuel] Ex-GM CEO makes green auto industry comeback
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18867/story.htm Ex-GM CEO makes green auto industry comeback USA: December 3, 2002 ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. - Nearly 10 years to the day after he was pushed out as chief of General Motors Corp. (GM.N), Bob Stempel shoveled a handful of dirt to break ground for a new plant in Ohio that could make him a key player in a more environmentally-friendly automotive industry. Stempel, 70, could easily have retired to a comfortable life after his tenure as chairman and CEO of GM ended in October 1992 with a boardroom coup. But now as chairman of Energy Conversion Devices Inc. (ENER.O) he works 60 to 70 hours a week, and flies around the world to visit clients as he makes his case for battery-powered vehicles. Stempel is betting that sales of hybrid cars and trucks, powered by conventional gasoline or diesel engines mated to an electric drive system, will grow in the coming years as companies seek more fuel-efficient vehicles. In late October, Stempel ceremoniously kicked off construction of a 170,000-square-foot plant in Springboro, Ohio, that will make enough nickel-metal hydride batteries to supply 50,000 to 60,000 vehicles a year. Production at the plant, a joint venture between Chevron Texaco (CVX.N) and Energy Conversion Devices, is scheduled to start in the third quarter next year. MOVING OFF THE FENCE People have been sort of on the fence about hybrid cars, Stempel told Reuters, his voice booming with excitement. All of a sudden they are moving off the fence. We know that there's going to be enough solid business out there that we ought to get under way. Currently there are only three hybrid gas-electric vehicles for sale in the U.S. market, all made by Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp. (7203.T) and Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (7267.T) - the Toyota Prius, the Honda Insight and a hybrid-version of the popular Honda Civic small car. However, Stempel said that U.S. and European automakers are requesting prototypes for some test vehicles from his joint venture company, Texaco Ovonic Battery Systems. Unlike pure electric vehicles, which take hours to recharge and have limited range, hybrid gas-electric vehicles recharge themselves and can travel as far as conventional cars and trucks. Some so-called soft hybrids expected to be rolled out over the next two years shut the engine down when the vehicle idles or comes to a stop, such as at a traffic light, and quickly restart upon acceleration, also saving gasoline. Some will also have 110-volt outlets that can be used for power tools, which could appeal to construction workers. Other hybrids, such as the Prius, Insight and Civic hybrid, have electric motors that provide extra power, thus improving fuel economy even more. Because they use less fuel, hybrids produce less carbon dioxide, which is considered one of the prime greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. BETTER MILEAGE, LOWER EMISSIONS Stempel, an engineer by trade, was part of a team at GM that created the catalytic converter to clean vehicle emissions. He laughs now when recalling how he and his colleagues thought they had perfected the converter so it produced only harmless carbon dioxide. If we don't really control the emissions from personal transportation, the way the regulators are going to control it is to put limits on driving. Look what happened to Mexico City. There are days in Mexico City when you can't see, he said. I think once the public really gets used to (hybrids) there won't be any question that they're going to be pretty well accepted, Stempel said. By 2007, we may be approaching 500,000 a year from all manufacturers here in North America. Stempel said that automakers are moving ahead with plans that include his batteries, though he declined to give details, citing confidentiality agreements. The company is also testing some Toyota vehicles with its batteries to try to win business from Matsushita Battery, a unit of Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (6752.T). Matsushita and Stempel's company have been embroiled in a patent dispute. ECD has alleged that Matsushita, which supplies the batteries through a joint venture with Panasonic Electronics for the Toyota Prius, wrongfully obtained patents held by ECD. Matsushita has denied the charges. Toyota intends to sell 300,000 hybrid vehicles a year by 2005, with most of the sales in North America. One of its next hybrid models will be a version of the Lexus RX 330, the upcoming replacement of the popular RX 300 SUV. Perhaps not surprisingly, the U.S. automakers who are trailing the Japanese in the race for hybrid vehicles have played down their importance. John Smith, GM's vice president of field sales, service and parts, said that the ultimate goal for GM is for cars and trucks that run on fuel cells. Hybrids can never be an endgame because they have packaged in one vehicle two modes of power
[biofuel] The future is here - Japan launches fuel cell cars
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18859/story.htm The future is here - Japan launches fuel cell cars JAPAN: December 3, 2002 TOKYO - It sounds too good to be true: a car that runs on an inexhaustible power source and doesn't harm the environment. But that's exactly what two Japanese automakers put on the road yesterday, with the launch of the world's first fuel cell cars. Toyota Motor and Honda Motor are leasing a handful of the cars to the Japanese government and several public establishments in the United States in an experimental programme that marks the biggest step yet towards the mass marketing of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). The ultimate green car, FCVs could be part of the solution to smog, global warming and other ecological problems that conventional cars help cause. The technology, which was first used during the Apollo moon project in the 1960s, mixes hydrogen fuel and oxygen from air using an electrochemical process to produce the electricity that powers the car. Far from harming the environment, its only by-products are heat and water - water so pure the Apollo astronauts drank it. Many of the world's biggest carmakers want to make FCVs available to the average consumer. If all goes as planned, FCVs may begin replacing gasoline-powered cars in the next decade. However, carmakers still haven't figured out how to make FCVs at an affordable price, or how to build enough fuelling stations - and rapidly enough - to make them practical. The high costs of research would force car firms to charge anything from $1 million to $2 million for every FCV initially. There are still many challenges left for full-blown commercialisation, Honda President Hiroyuki Yoshino said at a handover ceremony at the prime minister's office. Leasing the first FCVs won't be cheap, either. Three Japanese ministries and the Cabinet Office will fork out a hefty $9,800 a month to rent Toyota's five-seater FCHV. Honda's four-seater FCX will cost $6,500 a month in Japan. BEST ALTERNATIVE Still, FCVs are considered the most promising alternative to today's gasoline-fuelled cars. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Oil supplies, on the other hand, are finite, and global oil production could peak by 2020, according to a U.S. government report. That means even gasoline-electric hybrid cars, the most fuel-efficient cars around now, will lose their power source one day. Unlike pure electric cars, FCVs don't need to be recharged. They can run for at least 300 kilometres (186 miles) before refuelling, at a speed of about 150 km an hour (93 mph). With automotive vehicles believed to be responsible for a third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, which lead to global warming, governments have recognised the urgent need to encourage cleaner cars. When I took office last year, I promised that in three years we would replace all cars used by the government with low-emission vehicles, even if it costs a little more, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said at the ceremony. It's important that we continue to develop green cars. The United States is doing its part, too. Although the country pulled out of an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, its biggest auto market, California, has been aggressively leading the nation's drive for stricter standards for emissions and fuel efficiency. California, which has the unique right to set its own emissions regulations, is calling for all cars sold in the state to have near-zero emissions by 2009, which could set a precedent for federal legislation. The state is leading by example. The FCVs launched today will be leased to two California universities by Toyota and the city of Los Angeles by Honda. The United States is also keen to reduce its dependence on oil from the Middle East, and fuel cell technology is one answer. BARRIERS, HAZARDS In addition to price, the question of refuelling stations could be the biggest barrier to winning a mass market. Japan, the world's second-largest automobile market, wants to lay the groundwork for full commercialisation by 2005, with the aim of having five million FCVs - or one out of every 14 cars - on the road by 2020, but there are no concrete estimates of how many hydrogen stations would be needed. Today, there are about 53,000 petrol stands for the 70 million cars in Japan, so you can do the maths, said Yasuji Hamada, an official at the economy, trade and industry ministry. Using that ratio, it would take 3,800 hydrogen stations to fuel the five million FCVs that Japan wants on the road by 2020, and they would need to be spread out around the country. Even before that, Japanese officials will have to revise 26 laws - many of them safety-related - to make it possible for carmakers to mass market FCVs. Because hydrogen in its natural gaseous state is potentially dangerous to store, Japanese regulations prohibit
[biofuel] Today's oily news
IEA says EU risks doubling gas imports by 2030 UK: December 3, 2002 LONDON - The European Union should give further backing to green energy or face doubling gas imports and thereby jeopardising security of supply, the International Energy Agency's chief economist said. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18860/story.htm ARCTIC SEA ICE MAY VANISH THIS CENTURY WASHINGTON, DC, December 2, 2002 (ENS) - Perennial sea ice - the floating ice that remains year round near the Arctic Circle - could vanish entirely by the end of this century, warns a new study by researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The NASA study concludes that sea ice is now melting about nine percent faster than prior research had indicated, due to rising temperatures and interactions between ice, ocean and the atmosphere. http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2002/2002-12-02-06.asp BAN SINGLE-HULLED TANKERS NOW Let me get this straight. The Prestige, that flimsy, single-hulled tanker that recently sank off the coast of Spain, was built in Japan, registered in the Bahamas, owned by a Liberian company based in Greece, chartered by a Russian company based in Switzerland, last inspected in Dubai and carrying a load of Russian fuel oil to Singapore. Source: David Suzuki Foundation http://enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/12/12032002/s_49077.asp U.S. APPEALS COURT BLOCKS CALIFORNIA OFFSHORE DRILLING A U.S. appeals court Monday upheld a block on new oil and natural gas exploration off the California coast, ruling that future exploration cannot go forward without a state environmental review. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals does not cover existing offshore production in state and federal tracts. But it is a blow to the Bush administration, which had sought to open up 36 offshore leases to exploration. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49078.asp MASSES PROTEST AS NEW WAVE OF OIL HITS SPAIN Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators packed Galicia's capital on Sunday to protest the government's handling of a tanker disaster as a new wave of fuel oil hit Spanish beaches. The streets of Santiago, the ancient pilgrimage center in northwestern Spain, were thronged with marchers upset by the destruction wrought on the region's environment and fisheries by a huge oil spill from the sunken tanker Prestige. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49083.asp SELL OIL FIRM STAKE TO FUND KYOTO, SAYS CANADA'S MARTIN The front-runner to replace Canada's prime minister on Monday proposed developing clean environmental technology to meet Kyoto climate change commitments rather than buying pollution permits abroad. Paul Martin, who leads the race to replace Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said he favored using an estimated C$1.5 billion (US$950 million) profit from the eventual sale of Ottawa's stake in Petro-Canada to develop the new technology. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49079.asp PATRIOTISM MEANS WEANING U.S. FROM OIL, SAYS REDFORD Actor Robert Redford, in an op-ed opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times, accused the Bush administration Monday of lack of leadership for failing to wean the United States from dependence on fossil fuels. The actor, a longtime solar power advocate, warned that the nation's wasteful use of gas and oil created political problems abroad and air pollution at home. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49081.asp SEN. JEFFORDS BLASTS BUSH ON ENVIRONMENT The chairman of the Senate environment panel criticized President Bush Saturday for moving backward on the environment, saying he is putting special interests above clean air, clean water, and public health. Vermont independent Sen. James Jeffords, who will give up the gavel of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee when Republicans take over the Senate in January, said Bush is rolling back protections for clean air and water, cutting Superfund site cleanups, and clearing new oil and gas drilling on national lands. Source: Reuters http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/12/12032002/reu_49082.asp Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Auto Fuel Taxes
Gas cars pay fuel taxes at the pump. Large biodiesel producers add such taxes to their sale price presuming, presumably, that their customers will be using their fuel to power vehicles on public roadways. Many smaller and even home-brew BD producers also are seeking to ante up such taxes to avoid worry. My question is this: Why are home-brew or coop-brew biodiesel producers worried about fuel taxes given: 1) there is no way an enforcer on the road can know if your BD fuel has had taxes paid or not, 2) that if the fuel is made but not sold, there is no commerce, and hence no tax should be levied, 3) that ELECTRIC VEHICLES use the same roads, NEVER pay any fuel taxes to support road maintenance, and still, fear not the revenuer. 4) biodiesel fuel has MANY USES other than road vehicles. So why is it that small and home-brew producers are worried about the revenuer? In my case, I burn untaxed 100% biodiesel to heat our home and also use biodiesel to fuel a steam boat and steam car. Two other local steam boats also burn 100% biodiesel. There are no fuel taxes applicable to the marine environment. Thoughts appreciated. -Myles Portland, Or. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
BS - was Re: [biofuel] Thought Provoking Book Review
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Motie, if you don't mind, this is total BS. Er, Motie, you were joking, right? Please, no more Mr Bailey, nor Messrs Avery, Lomborg, etc. Best Keith Keith and all, My sincere apologies! It wasn't meant to be a joke, just thought provoking. I confess I didn't research it. It came in my email, and I passed it on without knowing it's History, or researching it. To be honest, I am embarrassed, particularly after my recent tirades against those who pass on debunked 'studies'. I do now have a better understanding as to how it can happen. Feeling Humble, Motie Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Re: Thought Provoking Book Review
I have read sections of similar publications by Bailey before. There is some useful information therein, and undoubtedly it is always good to hear a different opinion. But my impression, after going through the contents posted at http://www.nrbookservice.com/bookpage.asp?prod_cd=C5961 is that this publication is largely greenwash, as is most of what the CEI puts out. I don't care what experts Bailey has lined up. You can always find an expert who disagrees with other experts. What is important is that CEI has a strong ideological grounding, that has nothing itself to do with science. They believe in free markets and limited government. They pick and choose science to suit their point of view, not in any quest for objective truth. Two examples from CEI's The Environmental Source 2002 at http://www.cei.org/gencon/026,01623.cfm 1. on energy policy: CAFE does not reduce gasoline consumption. enough said 2. the section on Agricultural Biotechnology looks as if it has been written by Monsanto. Talk about shoddy science and lack of empirical grounding. It dismisses legitimate ecological concerns (laregely by not mentioning them) about the potential consequences of introducing GMOs into the environment. It claims that labeling of GMO foods will raise the cost of food for poor people--by how much they don't say, and they don't mention that it won't raise the cost of food that DOESN'T contain GMOs. and on and on What is remarkable about CEI's work is that, although they extoll the free market, they say nothing about the role played by corporations (e.g. large market actors) in influencing public policy and regulation. You'd think the only ones out there doing lobbying were misguided environmental organizations and activist groups. Also, they selectively promote consumer welfare; that is, they support the purported desire of consumers to have the lowest priced goods no matter what the ecological, ethical, human rights, or economic impacts of the production, distribution, or consumption of those products, but they generally oppose consumer education and choice through labeling and certification, or anything else that would expose these impacts or reflect them in pricing. In short, it's largely a load of crap, but nevertheless probably an interesting read in parts. best to all, thor skov -- ORIGINAL MESSAGE: --- Message: 10 Date: Tue, 03 Dec 2002 06:36:48 - From: motie_d [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Thought Provoking Book Review Mommy, There's A Monster Under My Bed! (A Review Of Global Warming And Other Eco-Myths) Beginning with the publication of Silent Spring, the environmental movement has become progressively disconnected from science and more rigidly defined by a utopian ideology. Based primarily on exaggerations, distortions, and a willful neglect of valid scientific data that runs contrary to their preaching's, the movement continues to advance an agenda that, while posing as society's savior, condemns millions to poverty and disease. Aided by contemporary press- release journalism and the want-it-to-be-true attitudes on the part of those reporting the stories, their claims go unchallenged, becoming part of the conventional wisdom. But information about the true state of the world environment is available; it's just difficult for to find among the hysteria. Fortunately, Ronald Bailey, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, is trying to change that. As the editor of the recently published Global Warming and Other Eco- Myths, Mr. Bailey has assembled a group of the most respected researchers in their respective fields to explain the truth in their areas of interest. The list of contributors includes, among others, Dr. John R. Christy, Director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Lead Author of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Global Warming]; Dr. Norman Borlaug, Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture at Texas AM and the driving force behind the Green Revolution [Biotechnology]; Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies [Population and Resources]; Dr. C. S. Prakash, Director of the Center for Plant Biotechnology Research, Tuskegee University, Alabama [Genetically modified plants]. Along with their colleagues, and in only eleven chapters, they manage to address the major claims of environmental theology: Global Warming, population control, sustainable development, Genetically-modified foods, synthetic chemicals, energy production and the widely cited precautionary principle. And, surprisingly, the book is both readable and understandable. I say surprisingly because, too often, experts in a field tend to fall back on unfamiliar phrasing and jargon specific to their specialty. That tendency is refreshingly absent in this book. And the
[biofuel] addendum to my last post
I'd like to mention another book along the same lines as Bailey's latest, that came out last year and caused quite a stir, called The Skeptical Environmentalist. You can read reviews of this and how its many claims of falsely created environmental problems were debunked here: https://www.worldwatch.org/issues/skeptical.html best to all, thor = Grants Manager Stillaguamish Tribe Of Indians 3439 Stoluckquamish Lane P.O. Box 277 Arlington, WA 98223-0277 (360) 652-7362 Ext 284 __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Re: addendum to my last post
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Thor Skov [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd like to mention another book along the same lines as Bailey's latest, that came out last year and caused quite a stir, called The Skeptical Environmentalist. You can read reviews of this and how its many claims of falsely created environmental problems were debunked here: https://www.worldwatch.org/issues/skeptical.html best to all, thor Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. I may not be able to reply. I'm having a very busy day. Motie Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Small-scale ethanol - was Re: Bio fuel business, first web page draft
Hej Keith, Thank you for starting the list. Yes, I left out the note, some of the brackets I will keep and some will go when I corrected my parts about ethanol. I hope that somebody else is interested to add to the discussion. Hakan This was my answer to you and your response, that will bring us up to date: Reading through the links you gave me, I agree that small ethanol production looks quite feasible. Very. Not as good as biodiesel and SVO. Different, comparable, often complementary. Some points were however added to my feeling of unease and the possibility of a group monopolization by responsible large interests. Such as? I can see that in a third world production, it is some merits for small ethanol production, without involvement from dominant oil interests. Not only 3rd World. Big corporations would have problems in manipulating in those markets. They have problems anywhere manipulating small local markets. For instance, via the USDA's rigged organics standards, the big food (?) interests tried to hijack the organics market in the US. In fact they've simply created a different market. The small organics producers are unaffected and have simply opted out, continuing to deal with their local farmers' markets, local customers, CSAs, regardless, and doing very nicely thankyou. Organics is local, and that's that. They can't do it. The major point was the correct and important mentioning of control of bacteriological waste. The other smaller points was additions to my doubts in feedstock preparation and fermentation. You'll have to be more specific. But I want to take this discussion to the mailing list, or both of them rather. Otherwise it is partly wasted. I was rather hoping you'd cross-post my last response to the lists with your responses. Best Keith At 11:18 PM 12/3/2002 +0900, Keith Addison wrote: Hi Hakan Useful confusion? :-) Anyway, you've left some of my comments in the website piece (in square brackets), but not the Notes, which said this: Notes Ethanol production. From Carlstein, a Brazilian former member of Biofuel: small scale eth production is widespread, but for 'shine purposes. it's called 'cachaza', and it can be very tasty, and very, very, potent ! but there's no small scale eth production for fuel, because of the hydrophile nature of the beast, which requires molecular sieve technology, available to the large producer, but not to the backyard distillers. methinks that first world small scale eth distillers would not have this problem. a3 and a4 m. sieves are readily available to them, from what i understand. 3A molecular sieve is available and works well. It's also usable in 3rd World countries on the small-scale, up to a point - the initial cost is not too high, and it's reusable many times. However, Carlstein's wrong - there's no need for ethanol fuel to be anhydrous UNLESS it's to be blended with gasoline. Pure 180-proof or even 160-proof is a good fuel on its own. It's not essential to raise the compression ratio, though it helps, and anyway that's easily done by skimming the head. Otherwise, all that's needed is an enlarged main jet. So small-scale, localized ethanol fuel production is a possibility. That means it can make use of locally-grown niche crops and crop by-products that are free of the constraints of more centralized schemes. The disadvantage here is that, unlike biodiesel and diesels, it's not dual-fuel - if you want to use gasoline again you have the change the main jet back to the old, smaller one. No big hassle though. There's a good variety of farm-scale fuel stills available (another one being scanned right now). We have one standing here in our living room that's capable of 5 gal/hr. Conversion and fermenting is easy. Here's my response to your response: ... here are some of my arguments, 1. Fermenting to produce the 20-24% alcohol level before distilling takes time and space, compared to the more or less continuous oil pressing for vegetable oil and biodiesel. 15% is enough actually, turbo yeasts will get more, but not much more than 18%, which takes longer, 14% if you want it fast. It doesn't make that much difference if you're making fuel. At any rate there's not much difference, it's quite easy to run separate batches in parallel for constant processing. I'm not sure it would take more space. Biodiesel probably takes more space than you think, with settling tanks, dewatering tanks, washing tanks, more settling tanks, a glyc settling tank. To produce volumes, it needs quite big plants. Big volumes need big plants, but it's infinitely scaleable, down to backyard or kitchen size. Our still is backyard size, ideal for a homebrewer - about equivalent to a homebrew biodieseler with a 55-gal drum set-up. At 5 gal/hr it would take 100 hours to produce the average American's fuel supply for a year, a couple of hours a week or one bigger run a month. It doesn't need
Re: [biofuel] Auto Fuel Taxes
Dear Myles, It is a real and present threat in most countries, At 09:08 AM 12/3/2002 -0800, you wrote: Gas cars pay fuel taxes at the pump. Large biodiesel producers add such taxes to their sale price presuming, presumably, that their customers will be using their fuel to power vehicles on public roadways. Many smaller and even home-brew BD producers also are seeking to ante up such taxes to avoid worry. My question is this: Why are home-brew or coop-brew biodiesel producers worried about fuel taxes given: 1) there is no way an enforcer on the road can know if your BD fuel has had taxes paid or not, Yes it is, because the difference between on road and off road diesel is different colors. One is colored the other not and Biodiesel also have another smell.. 2) that if the fuel is made but not sold, there is no commerce, and hence no tax should be levied, That is rather used or not used, since the user are liable for paying the tax. 3) that ELECTRIC VEHICLES use the same roads, NEVER pay any fuel taxes to support road maintenance, and still, fear not the revenuer. Covered by energy tax on electricity. To call fuel taxes a road tax is misleading. It does not go to road purposes. 4) biodiesel fuel has MANY USES other than road vehicles. With a much lower tax and an other color. It is nothing to hinder you from using your own produced Biodiesel, without paying tax. If you sell for business, you have to collect sales taxes and the producer is responsible for those. So why is it that small and home-brew producers are worried about the revenuer? The road checks and the likelihood to be detected. In my case, I burn untaxed 100% biodiesel to heat our home and also use biodiesel to fuel a steam boat and steam car. Two other local steam boats also burn 100% biodiesel. There are no fuel taxes applicable to the marine environment. It is very large off road use of diesel and that should be noticed. Thoughts appreciated. -Myles Portland, Or. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] BioD - 70's Mercedes
craig, i have a 1980 merc. 300 d. what evperiance are you looking for? I'm looking for a mechanic to help me get it running. It has a rebuilt engine that is good but the fuel injection pump needs to be aligned. lee Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Auto Fuel Taxes
US residents note, as discussed in the archives, no Federal excise taxes due on biodiesel if under 400 gallons per quarter. State taxes may apply, though not in California. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Today's oily news
I wish my country worried about where it came from, not taking the mentality: We have bombs, what's the problem? --- Martin Klingensmith infoarchive.net [archive.nnytech.net] nnytech.net -Original Message- From: Keith Addison [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 11:52 AM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Cc: biofuels-biz@yahoogroups.com Subject: [biofuel] Today's oily news IEA says EU risks doubling gas imports by 2030 UK: December 3, 2002 LONDON - The European Union should give further backing to green energy or face doubling gas imports and thereby jeopardising security of supply, the International Energy Agency's chief economist said. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/18860/story.htm Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Auto Fuel Taxes
Hello Myles Gas cars pay fuel taxes at the pump. Is that what they pay? Is it a fuel tax or a sales tax or a road tax? There are federal taxes and state taxes, which vary. There's also one set of requirements for those producing fuel for on-road use (registration, and more), and a much less burdensome set for off-road use. Large biodiesel producers add such taxes to their sale price presuming, presumably, that their customers will be using their fuel to power vehicles on public roadways. Many smaller and even home-brew BD producers also are seeking to ante up such taxes to avoid worry. Some small producers are planning to exploit the off-road market first, to establish themselves, and seem to see very good potential there. That seems to be a good strategy. I don't think homebrewers are particularly bothered. Mark wrote this, which does bother her: I've heard rumors at one point that there is a certification program that's been discussed at DOE at one point or another, and it was supposed to be for our own good, to educate us about process and to supposedly keep us from blowing ourselves up or whatnot. I've written about this elsewhere- I'm scared sh*tless about what a certification program or other regulations for homebrewers could lead to- She also wrote this: oops, it's late here, an' I got too much equipment on the brain. I didn't make it clear in the post below what exactly I was talking about. World Energy put out a letter that says that a nonprofit organization in Maine, which made their own biodiesel fuel only to fuel their own vehicles, and did not sell any fuel to the outside world, is being prosecuted for not paying road tax. I know that this announcement from World Energy has gotten a bunch of biodiesel and SVO users here all freaked out and people are trying to figure to whom they should prepare to pay fuel tax TO (which has led to the ridiculous situation that a guy in Sonoma County is calling the state office in charge of these things and educating them about the existence of SVO fuels, which they previously didn't know about, and all this in a country where dipping of tanks does not happen to passenger car drivers like it does in the UK) Mark t 12:02 AM 11/23/2002 -0800, you wrote: While we're kind of on the subject of naming names and such, could anyone verify the recent World Energy assertion that a nonprofit in Maine got hit with massive fines by the IRS for not paying road tax? I'm particularly interested in hearing who it was this happened to. When Homestead got the run-around for trying to produce fuel for sale, the news hit the biodiesel homebrewer circles since Homestead is on some of these listserves. Has anyone heard who these folks in Maine are, or more about their situation? Mark Eric Ruttan wrote: If you use it as a fuel additive there is no road tax. State Taxes tho. So as long as you blend it in the us your ok. No restrictions on blend ratios in federal law. Eric Also see the archives for the recent thread on Excise tax on Biodiesel: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?keywords=%22Excise+tax+on+Biodies el%22list=biofuel My question is this: Why are home-brew or coop-brew biodiesel producers worried about fuel taxes given: 1) there is no way an enforcer on the road can know if your BD fuel has had taxes paid or not, 2) that if the fuel is made but not sold, there is no commerce, and hence no tax should be levied, 3) that ELECTRIC VEHICLES use the same roads, NEVER pay any fuel taxes to support road maintenance, and still, fear not the revenuer. That is a good question. Steve Spence has raised that issue a couple of times at a couple of forums, and nobody seems to have an answer. (Shhh!) How about a car burning woodgas? No way you'd fool anyone you'd paid taxes on that. A different question is how much, if any, of the road tax revenue goes to maintain roads. 4) biodiesel fuel has MANY USES other than road vehicles. So why is it that small and home-brew producers are worried about the revenuer? Small producers have good cause to be, homebrewers probably not. In my case, I burn untaxed 100% biodiesel to heat our home and also use biodiesel to fuel a steam boat and steam car. Two other local steam boats also burn 100% biodiesel. There are no fuel taxes applicable to the marine environment. But you're liable for taxes on the steam car if you use it on-road. Two things to know, are you liable? Can you get away with it? Also, should you even try to get away with it? Another matter, for each to decide. Best wishes Keith Thoughts appreciated. -Myles Portland, Or. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
