Re: [Biofuel] Governments using filters to censor Internet, survey finds
MK DuPree wrote: Anyone know how JTF List members can know if JTF is ever filtered? Would each member stop receiving posts to the List? Would we each receive only certain posts? Thanks in advance for any ideas, comment. Mike DuPree As I read the article what was labeled, filtering would more accurately be called, blocking access to to web content. As in the U. S. military recent action of blocking service personnel's access to myspace, youtube along with other web pages. This access is blocked when using military computers, LANs, but not from other internet access options like home and public computers. Doug, N0LKK ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] the largest power plant in the western hemisphere
The Largest Power Plant In The Western Hemisphere By Tom Dyson A riddle: Campbell County, Wyoming, is 1,800 mils from Lamar County, Georgia. So how did 500 acres of Campbell County end up in Lamar? Answer: Lamar County, Georgia, is home to the largest coal-fired power plant in the Western Hemisphere Southern Company's Plant Scherer. Every year, Plant Scherer burns 12 million tons of Wyoming bedrock. In a clearing beside the power plant, Southern Co. keeps a 1 million-ton reserve, known locally as the Pile. I'm currently reading John McPhee's book Uncommon Carriers, about industrial transportation. He cruises on barges, hangs out with truck drivers, figures out the mechanics of overnight airfreight, and much more. Yesterday, I read his chapter on coal trains. Plant Scherer's coal comes from Arch Coal's Peabody Energy's Black Thunder mine, the U.S.'s most prolific coal mine. BNSF Railway dedicates 36 coal trains to Plant Scherer. These 36 trains spend their entire existence traveling the 1,800 miles from the rail loop at Black Thunder in Wyoming's Powder River Basin to another loop at the Georgia plant. The round-trip takes about 10 days. A loaded coal train weighs 23,000 tons and stretches almost two miles. For comparison, mixed cargo, auto transporters, and container trains may weigh as little as 4,000 tons. Nothing rolls on rails heavier than a coal train. Every year, Plant Scherer burns through 1,300 coal trains 2,000 miles of coal cars. Before 1970, the Powder River Basin was a beautiful grassland stretching for hundreds of miles. Geologists knew immense coal deposits lay buried underneath, but the coal in Wyoming produced 30% less heat than Appalachian coal, so no one cared. In 1970, Congress passed the Clean Air Act. It required power plants to burn low-sulfur coal. Wyoming coal has one-fifth of the sulfur as Appalachian coal. Suddenly, every power plant in the country wanted to fire its furnaces with Wyoming coal. Today, 63 coal trains haul 1.5 million tons of coal from the Powder River Basin every day. Even at this rate, there's still enough coal there to last another 200 years. But, Wyoming coal's relatively low sulfur content hardly has the Sierra Club embracing places like Plant Scherer. Just picture how the coal gets unloaded. Plant Scherer has the most efficient unloading operation in the country. It unloads a coal train in 30 minutes. The train pulls onto a trestle at 3 mph. Compressed air opens bay doors in the floors of the coal cars, and the coal drops onto a mound below the trestle. The cars were unloading like sticks of bombs... writes McPhee. The uncontrollable dust far below had the look of an occurring disaster, the spreading clouds dark and flat as if they were derived from incendiary bombs. Plant Scherer burns through the coal from one train in less than eight hours. Now think about this: Coal produces 55% of this country's electricity and - apart from nuclear - it's the cheapest source. Generating 1 million BTUs of power requires $9 of fuel oil or $6 of natural gas, writes McPhee. It takes$1.85 worth of coal. The Department of Energy predicts that electricity demand will rise 41% by 2030. New coal-fired plants, it says, will meet 54% of this increase. So what does the future look like for the Powder River Basin? Here's a clue: Plant Scherer owns 12,000 acres of vacant land around its existing plant. It's earmarked for expansion. While there's no pure play in Powder River Basin coal, Arch Coal comes pretty close. The company generates 71% of its production from the region. It operates two mines there, Black Thunder and Coal Creek. The railroads UP and BNSF - are potential plays. You can also check out FreightCar America, the largest manufacturer of coal gondolas. Good investing, Tom - Yahoo! oneSearch: Finally, mobile search that gives answers, not web links. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] getting off oil - Amory Lovins
Getting off oil Investing in energy efficiency will be good business, argues Amory Lovins, CEO of Rocky Mountain Institute, a not-for-profit consultancy on natural resources The world uses a cubic mile of oil a year, costing almost $2 trillion. Oil and cars are the world¡¯s biggest and most entrenched industries. Yet an inexorable half-century transition beyond oil has begun, squeezing oil between effi cient use and alternative supplies. Lamp oil from whales lit most American homes in 1850. Yet in the next nine years, just before Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania, fi ve-sixths of whale oil¡¯s lighting market fl ed to cheaper competitors. Likewise in 2007 powerful ways to save and replace oil, which have been quietly emerging for 30 years, will visibly start to rout oil from its strongholds. Fleet turnovers take time: putting the fi rst half-million hybrid cars on the road took nearly a decade. Yet in 2007 20 new hybrid models will enter the American market, and operating effi ciency will fi nally become entrenched as carmakers¡¯ top design priority, locking in oil savings for decades. Biofuels, too, will continue double-digit growth as Brazil¡¯s 2006 oil independence and Sweden¡¯s 2020 off-oil goal spur emulation. Some 94% of the world¡¯s oil reserves are held by governments, which do not know or will not reveal the size of their holdings. But no matter how much oil there is, we should save it whenever doing so is cheaper than buying it, and nowadays that is always. Unlike short-term behavioural changes, effi ciency investments are irreversible: you do not scrap fuel-frugal boilers or remove roof insulation when fuel prices drop, so effi ciency ratchets up. And frugality will involve more than incrementalism: effi ciency often yields expanding returns. Each day a modern car burns fuel derived from 100 times its weight in ancient plants; yet a mere 0.3% of that fuel moves the driver. Tripled-effi ciency, ultralight petrolhybrid suvs were designed in 2000, paying back in one year at European and Japanese fuel prices or two years at America¡¯s much cheaper pump prices. In 2007 the Automotive X Prize will start moving such designs to market. Just in America, they will ultimately save 8m barrels of oil a day¡ªequivalent to fi nding a new, secure and inexhaustible Saudi Arabia under Detroit. In 2007, too, Toyota will emerge as the leader in supereffi cient plug-in hybrid cars: electric for short commutes, petrol-hybrid for long trips. This could double the already doubled petrol effi ciency of a Prius. Next, make that car ultralight and its petrol effi ciency redoubles. Biofuel it and you quadruple petrol effi ciency again, to 30 times today¡¯s norm. Sound like the whale-oil story yet? Oil prices will drop¡ªbut effi ciency will remain cheaper still. Full practical use of the best effi ciency technologies in all applications would halve American barrels burnt per dollar of gdp, to a quarter of the 1975 level. The average cost: $12 per saved barrel. Saved natural gas and advanced biofuels could replace the remaining oil for $18 per barrel. So eliminating American oil use by the 2040s costs $15 per barrel¡ªone-fi fth its 2006 price. It surely follows that getting off oil¡ªthus abating 42% of global carbon-dioxide emissions¡ªwill be led by business for profi t. That transition already shapes competitive strategy. Wal-Mart¡¯s new heavy trucks will be a quarter more effi cient in 2007 than in 2006. By 2015 they will be twice as effi cient, saving over $300m a year. Next will come trebled effi ciency, which yields a 60% internal rate of return. In 2007 Boeing¡¯s 20%-more-effi cient but same-price 787 will take fl ight. In Detroit, Schumpeterian ¡°creative destruction¡± will accelerate as smart money favours leapfrogs; markets will change managers or their minds, whichever happens fi rst. Ford¡¯s new chief executive, Alan Mulally, whose effi ciency-based Boeing strategy is beating Airbus, will bring to Ford Boeing¡¯s focus on ultralight materials (the 787 is 50% advanced composites), systems integration and breakthrough design. The greening of the Pentagon In Washington, dc, a surprisingly strong voice in 2007 for getting off oil will be the world¡¯s biggest buyer both of oil and of renewable energy¡ªthe Pentagon. This is not just because oiligarchs tend not to be freedom-loving democrats and sometimes foment instability and confl ict. Rather, the risk and cost of vulnerable fuel convoys, easy prey to roadside bombs, will persuade military leaders that only super-effi cient platforms dragging dramatically slimmer fuel logistics tails, or none, can fi ght persistent, dispersed, affordable wars. This strategic shift will not just save hundreds of lives and tens of billions of dollars a year. It will also speed key technologies, like ultralight
[Biofuel] Fwd: US Gasoline Prices Hit All Time Historical Highest Level - Adjusted For Inflation
US Gasoline Prices Hit All Time Historical Highest Level - Adjusted For Inflation US average, self-serve, unleaded regular hits $3.18 This is a point we have been dreading. Before this, the all time highest US average gasoline (regular) price was during 1981 (March IIRC). Adjusted for inflation, we finally topped it, and appear to be still climbing at a steady pace. It was announced on the news yesterday (Sunday) on PBS. CNN verifies it, today: http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/21/news/economy/record_gas_monday/ Here is a webpage, anticipating it, but not being able to anticipate what the number would be, or when it would get reached: http://www.answers.com/topic/oil-price-increases-of-2004-2006 We got close in 2006 http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/07/gas_prices_allt.html We got closer, earlier this month: http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=21867 http://zfacts.com/p/35.html This website that was set up to say gasoline is cheap now shows that today it has gotten expensive, by their standards. http://www.nationalreview.com/moore/moore082803chart.asp http://infohost.nmt.edu/~armiller/gasprices.htm This one will give you an idea of the kind of misleading verse that we were being fed by Washington, and that some propagandists still spout, even in the face of reality. http://www.cted.wa.gov/energy/archive/Indicators99/Indicator24.htm Here is a radical, George Will, trying to make fun of the concern about gasoline prices, just last month. However, since then, the pump price has gone up 18% (since last month) and is now at the highest price in history, both in actual dollars, and also in inflation adjusted dollars. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402251.html http://jalopnik.com/cars/gas-prices/never-mind-the-4-per-gallon-heres-the-summer-road-trips-61124.php This one would be funny, if it weren't so sad: from last month: Quote: says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, an energy consulting firm. The reality is that we're nearing the highs of the year, and within 30 days there will be more gasoline on the market The article was dated 4/25/2007, twenty six days ago, and the quote was from before that. Those prices better drop fast. Instead they have climbed about 15%. Here is an other quote from the deceptive experts: The most recent Energy Dept. forecast, released Apr.10, predicted retail regular gasoline prices would average $2.81 per gallon in the summer of 2007 (April-September). We are already nearly 40% through that time, and prices are still climbing. Here is another one: We expect to see prices flatten around where they are now, says Douglas MacIntyre, senior oil analyst for the f ederal Energy Information Administration, part of the DOE. More refinery outages and higher crude prices could push it to $3 Since then the price has climbed about 18%, to $3.18, the highest price in history. More: experts say consumers are actually getting a bargain at the pump, as prices are still lower than in the early 1980s, adjusted for inflation. Since then the price has climbed about 18%, to $3.18, the highest pump price in history. Another: On a national average, gasoline prices actually decreased for the week of Apr. 23, falling 0.7 to $2.87 per gallon http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20070426/bs_bw/apr2007db20070426139334Since then the price has climbed 11%, to $3.18, the highest price in history. Also the old record year 1981 only averaged $2.64 (adjusted to 2006 dollars) while 2006 averaged $2.81, and this year is looking to set a new record average, not just the highest price records. . http://www.swivel.com/data_columns/spreadsheet/2690244 However, gasoline is still a lot more expensive in other countries. And another curious fact. Adjusted for inflation, the cost of oil was around $90 a barrel, back in 1981. It is hanging at around 2/3rds of that today. The difference is going to the oil companies, not for the purchase of oil. They are currently, with two oil men in the White house, reaping the largest profits of any companies in the history of the human race. -Laren Corie- Solar Building Design Since 1975 www.LarenCorie.com - Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fwd: US Gasoline Prices Hit All Time Historical Highest Level - Adjusted For Inflation
Finally. I don't like where the money is going, but for years, I have been arguing for public transportation, higher mpg vehicals, electric cars, etc. And the argument has always been that the wonderful free market economy should dictate what companies make and people buy -- not governments. Well folks, how do you like your free market now? What the SUV drivers don't realize is that they've WON their argument against the environmentalists and proved that the market is the only thing that can get rid of gas guzzlers -- not legislation, lawsuits, etc. Well, it hasn't quite won yet, but just in the last two weeks, I haven't heard any SUV ads on the radio, and every manufacturer is touting the gas mileage of their cars, whatever they make. Sort of like all the old magazine ads you see from the early 80's (I wasn't old enough to remember it) -- gas mileage was THE big thing. Of course, our vaunted free market is actually a pretty corrupt form of crony capitalism, not an ideal free market economy, but that never stopped anyone from blindly supporting it in the past. Especially the same people who are begging congress for an inquiry on why gas prices are so high now, I bet. On a more positive and sustainable note, my earth bermed greenhouse is progressing, and with luck I will be growing my own tomatoes, peppers, and squash locally this summer, at 9,300 feet elevation, instead of buying them from far far away and shipping them across oceans and whatnot. And, the greenhouse is made from at least 50% reclaimed materials destined for landfills (five good condition double paned sliding glass doors... someone was giving them away for free to save himself the cost of disposing of them). Big bed of potatoes is going in in front of the greenhouse too. And a bed of raspberries on the other side of teh house (some native ones, some cultivated varieties) Z On 5/21/07, Kirk McLoren [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: US Gasoline Prices Hit All Time Historical Highest Level - Adjusted For Inflation US average, self-serve, unleaded regular hits $3.18 This is a point we have been dreading. Before this, the all time highest US average gasoline (regular) price was during 1981 (March IIRC). Adjusted for inflation, we finally topped it, and appear to be still climbing at a steady pace. It was announced on the news yesterday (Sunday) on PBS. CNN verifies it, today: http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/21/news/economy/record_gas_monday/ Here is a webpage, anticipating it, but not being able to anticipate what the number would be, or when it would get reached: http://www.answers.com/topic/oil-price-increases-of-2004-2006 We got close in 2006 http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/07/gas_prices_allt.html We got closer, earlier this month: http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=21867 http://zfacts.com/p/35.html This website that was set up to say gasoline is cheap now shows that today it has gotten expensive, by their standards. http://www.nationalreview.com/moore/moore082803chart.asp http://infohost.nmt.edu/~armiller/gasprices.htmhttp://infohost.nmt.edu/%7Earmiller/gasprices.htm This one will give you an idea of the kind of misleading verse that we were being fed by Washington, and that some propagandists still spout, even in the face of reality. http://www.cted.wa.gov/energy/archive/Indicators99/Indicator24.htm Here is a radical, George Will, trying to make fun of the concern about gasoline prices, just last month. However, since then, the pump price has gone up 18% (since last month) and is now at the highest price in history, both in actual dollars, and also in inflation adjusted dollars. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402251.html http://jalopnik.com/cars/gas-prices/never-mind-the-4-per-gallon-heres-the-summer-road-trips-61124.phpThis one would be funny, if it weren't so sad: from last month: Quote: says Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for the Oil Price Information Service, an energy consulting firm. The reality is that we're nearing the highs of the year, and within 30 days there will be more gasoline on the market The article was dated 4/25/2007, twenty six days ago, and the quote was from before that. Those prices better drop fast. Instead they have climbed about 15%. Here is an other quote from the deceptive experts: The most recent Energy Dept. forecast, released Apr.10, predicted retail regular gasoline prices would average $2.81 per gallon in the summer of 2007 (April-September). We are already nearly 40% through that time, and prices are still climbing. Here is another one: We expect to see prices flatten around where they are now, says Douglas MacIntyre, senior oil analyst for the f ederal Energy Information Administration, part of the DOE. More refinery outages and higher crude prices could push it to $3 Since then the price has climbed about 18%, to $3.18, the highest price in history. More: experts say consumers are actually getting a bargain at the pump, as
[Biofuel] copyright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel and lay it on us.http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=48516/*http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7 hot CTA = Join Yahoo!'s user panel___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
