[Biofuel] A Green Process for Producing Biodiesel from Feather Meal
http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/presspac/full/10.1021/jf900140e d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| /Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com | Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090724/e86b2087/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] A wind turbine for your home rides again
Per our previous discussion about wind power, Home Power magazine's current issue contains a formula for estimating output from a wind machine based on average annual wind speed. To wit kWh per year = [rotor area (sq. ft)] x [annual average wind speed (mph)]^3 x 0.085 x EfficiencyFactor Find it discussed at http://www.homepower.com/article/?file=HP132_pg24_Mail_2 d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| /Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com | Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090716/172284c1/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] A wind turbine for your home
Friends, Responding to myself: David House wrote: One can assume a standard sea level air density (0.0024 slugs per cubic foot), in which case the equation becomes 0.0001423 AV^3 , where A is expressed in square feet and V is in MPH. This results in a figure for instantaneous power in watts. Area is of course pi times the radius squared. My math is wrong there. I was taking information from something I had written 30 years ago (Wind and Windspinners, p. 99), and 0.0001423 AV^3 assumes an efficiency of 20% in the turbine. One hundred percent efficiency would be 0.0012 AV^3 . My apologies for the error. The basic point remains, which is that there is not much power in low winds to extract, and thus very modest reasons for trying to do so. d. -- David William House Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090620/11b1d19a/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] A wind turbine for your home
Andrew, Andrew Spagnolo wrote: David and everyone, Thank you for the clarification. Perhaps you could help me clear up another issues regarding this wind turbine. The only thing I can be sure of is that there's no way to the end of the forest except perhaps what Keith implied, which is calling the company. Even then, it could easily take some persistence to find anyone who knows how to answer your questions. Now the windmill advertises an output of about 2 KW, yet i fails to observe or the add failed to mention at what wind speed that would be attained. If that is the average output, one could assume that the device would be more the able to power my, or the average US household, yet the add stated you can only expect 15-18%, while also stating that you could expect it to pay for itself in 12-36 months. You can find average wind speed for most states and countries on the web. Sometimes the data has better granularity; most particularly if you have a reporting weather station near you, as I do a mile or so away at Aurora Airport, and at the County's Ag research station. That gets me closer than most, but on my land I have a number of large trees, some of which will shield the wind, depending on its direction. Relying on someone else's data in this regard is not like getting data on solar or rain fall, both of which tend to be more regular across larger areas. But wind is far more variable. Thus, depending on how serious you are, it may be that you would want to purchase a weather station that provides and allows you to record wind speed, and put it on or near the spot where you think you may want to put a turbine, but more importantly, if possible, at the height you want to put it. (There are fudge factors you can use to estimate the effect of height on your data if you can't get high enough...) You may be able to correlate what you find during a given month with the closest weather station, but you may want to actually visit the site and see whether how their equipment is set up. (Wind from the north may be shadowed at their location, for example, as compared with your location, which would introduce a variable that may not be present when the wind is from the south...) The average wind speed is one key and critical factor you would need to have in hand, or to get as close as you can with regional data. The other important hidden variable is the efficiency of the system, which can be measured in a number of ways. The manufacturer is going to want to tell you efficiency of output at the turbine, which is fine, but to get to the number you want you will be concerned with systemic efficiency. The efficiency of the turbine is merely the first number in the chain. Unfortunately I don't have time at the moment to offer a means of translating this data into your payback number (sorry), but I'm sure there are articles scattered across a number of websites that would get you closer. Anyone have links? d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090620/462579e3/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] A wind turbine for your home
Friends, doug wrote: Dawie Coetzee wrote: A practical rooftop turbine has been quite elusive. If this works it would be something of a breakthrough. The design seems quite simple, its unique feature being that its alternator is attenuated to an annular ring. In principle that's quite open to artisanal manufacture. I wonder how it will work in practice. -Dawie Coetzee Indeed, it seems like a simple enough idea to be taken into consideration for the DIY designer... Power in the wind is related to the cube of the velocity. This is one of the prime reasons that designers of wind electric machines are not concerned about winds of 2 mph. The fact that this design can generate power at low velocities is nice/interesting but as a practical matter more or less irrelevant. The basic equation for the power available from the wind is power equals one half rho times area times velocity cubed. Generally that term would be multiplied by an efficiency factor of anything less than 1. (rho in the equation refers to the density of the air at the location being measured.) One can assume a standard sea level air density (0.0024 slugs per cubic foot), in which case the equation becomes 0.0001423 AV^3 , where A is expressed in square feet and V is in MPH. This results in a figure for instantaneous power in watts. Area is of course pi times the radius squared. Given that this turbine has a swept diameter of 6 feet, it promises to give us 0.032 watts (dribble, dribble) at 100% efficiency. It is of course highly unlikely that the turbine would get anywhere near 100% efficiency, particularly at low windspeeds. When the wind is blowing at 8 MPH, the turbine should generate 64 times the power, but in fact the efficiency will probably climb along with wind speed up to some point (20 MPH??) and thereafter will fall again. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090619/10f41ba5/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Colloidal Silver Has Mainstream Medicine Singing the Blues
Keith, Keith Addison wrote: The IRS has mercy? If so it seems to get left out in the telling, the way Americans tend to tell it. That's the joke, yes. The FDA is like the IRS without mercy; like the Spanish Inquisition without the light hearted humor and clever reparteé. [...] For example, NSAIDs, drugs that help prevent heart problems, NSAIDs stands for Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs. I'm aware that, as well as for the anti-inflammatory effect, they're used to lower fever and for pain relief, but (apart from aspirin) this is the first time I see them described as drugs that help prevent heart problems. My mistake. As implied, I often found dealing with the FDA to be like living in one of the circles of hell. In spite of all of it, however, I think the system is basically sound and that the ideas underlying it are reasonable. Of course we need to test drugs. Of course we need to have solid evidence of safety and efficacy. Science actually works. Science does, yes, within its limitations, when it's allowed to. Too often it depends who's paying the piper. Equating science with the FDA is stretching it more than a little... Having been on the wrong end of the FDA's gun, I still think that the majority of what the Agency does is soundly based. And when I speak of the wrong end of the gun, I mean (for example) that our company suffered from the abuse of science at FDA's hands. They once quoted a peer-reviewed paper at us in the attempt to demonstrate that our device could potentially damage nerves. We happened to know the guy that wrote the paper, and he was kind enough to write them a letter saying This is a misuse of my work. We further demonstrated that the parameter they said was dangerous in our device was 100 to 500 times worse in already-approved devices, or to turn that around, our device was 100 to 500 times safer than approved devices. FDA had to back off. Science won that round, and often does. In other words, I don't necessarily raise a salute when FDA marches past, and in saying the system is basically sound, I am not saying that I agree with everything the Agency does. I most certainly don't. What it does mean, however, is that we need a system that uses good science and valid statistics (perhaps an irreconcilable oxymoron) to demonstrate that the treatments and drugs that are used are safe and effective. The European system, in my view, is far superior, because it is not as much of an adversarial system. In Europe, there are three parties involved: the company, the government, and the Notified Bodies. These last are like consulting organizations, hired by the companies, and they are charged with insuring the law is followed. If the NBs fail to do that, they can lose their certification, which means they lose their place on the gravy train. So the NBs have to find the sharp edge of the blade in balancing between the government and the companies. Of course, there are abuses, mistakes and problems in that system as well. In the US, it's just the companies and the FDA, and there can be a bit of the revolving door. Even so, the situation with the FDA is far superior to what it would be without the FDA. In the end, however, the finest rules and regulations will fail precisely to the degree the people are corrupt, greedy, ignorant, or asleep. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090505/3aab0ae6/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Colloidal Silver Has Mainstream Medicine Singing the Blues
Keith, Keith Addison wrote: For example, only the makers of FDA approved drugs can use the word cure... [and] the FDA only approves drugs that go through its specific approval process --- one that costs hundreds of billions of dollars. Could that be right? It really costs hundreds of billions of dollars to get a drug approved? Does it cost even hundreds of millions? As someone who once ran a medical device company, and spent many a long hour dealing with FDA, I can affirm that the FDA is like the IRS, except they have no mercy, and the audits go on for years unending. It does not cost hundreds of billions, however. Such price tags are reserved for the morass of war. Not even the conquest of AIDS in Africa would be that expensive. That said, drug approval is often more expensive than device approval. Devices can often be approved after fairly small trials consisting of 100-200 people. When trying to gain approval for a drug, by contrast (after demonstrating sufficient safety in smaller trials), sometimes one must try to tease out fairly subtle health improvements or rare complications, and either requires many, many warm bodies. For example, NSAIDs, drugs that help prevent heart problems, must be given to enough people over a long enough time to demonstrate that there is sufficient positive reason to use them and a lack of a negative reason to avoid them. A 25% improvement in a problem or reduction in a complication that may afflict only a few tenths or hundredths of a percent of a certain population may require thousands of participants in a long-term drug trial before statistical certitude is sufficient. As implied, I often found dealing with the FDA to be like living in one of the circles of hell. In spite of all of it, however, I think the system is basically sound and that the ideas underlying it are reasonable. Of course we need to test drugs. Of course we need to have solid evidence of safety and efficacy. Science actually works. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090505/3ad22bc3/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] A Food System That Kills - Swine Flu Is Meat Industry's Latest Plague
Keith, I hope things are well with you... Keith Addison wrote: How many deaths have there been from swine flu so far? A few days ago WikiAnswers.com answered: more than 10 thousands people have died. That in spite of this news a day or two earlier: Only 7 swine flu deaths, not 152, says WHO, April 29, 2009 [...] The Guardian since reported: There have been 17 confirmed deaths worldwide. It's a bit early for either a sigh of relief or abject fear. Unfortunately each of these statements could be true. Ten thousand could have died from the flu, but unless its genetic signature has been confirmed by a reputable lab, then no one can be sure that those who died had H1N1 (this new swine flu), some other flu virus, or another disease masquerading as flu. Further, WHO may be getting its confirmed death count from agencies other than those used and quoted by the Guardian. For example, in the US, at present, CDC (Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta) is the only place where there is a lab which can confirm the presence of H1N1 in a sample. Sometime this month, the plan is that each of the 50 states would have at least one lab that can do the tests which can confirm the presence of the particular genetic signature (a fluorescent dye that is specific to that signature is the main thing needed to be distributed). Nevertheless, if one wants statistics regarding confirmed cases or deaths in the US, then up to this point it was necessary to wait for the lab at CDC. Where there is a fast-moving increase in cases, obviously that bottleneck would tend to under-report either statistic. Further, even though we speak of this virus as though it were one thing, the fact is that it will continue to do what it has done to become what it more or less is at present. That is, the virus carries an amalgam of genes from human, swine and bird flu varieties, and may well have evolved some unique genetic sequences of its own. This morning's news carried a report of a human with the flu infecting more than 200 pigs, putting this masterful quick change artist into a new alembic. Things similar are bound to happen repeatedly, and unreported. In other words as it continues to spread, no doubt it will continue to change and recombine, and without question the varieties which result will be selected for those which are more easily transmitted and which are resistant to the various drugs in the cocktail of cures we throw at it. If, in addition, those characteristics somehow become coupled into a variant that is also more lethal, then the calculus will shift dramatically toward fear. Swine flu? A panic stoked in order to posture and spend... Simon Jenkins, The Guardian, Wednesday 29 April 2009 God bless Simon, but based on the short quote you offered, Keith, he has no idea what he's talking about. ... Meanwhile a real pestilence, MRSA and C difficile, was taking hold in hospitals... Now, by contrast, that's hard to argue against. And of course with the genetic reshuffling which so often occurs, and given that so many of those who are infected with H1N1 will likely be hospitalized, we will regularly be putting a highly infectious virus near highly resistant microbes... d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090504/a5bb94ae/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] A biodiesel rocket! (But... oops...)
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=3332 d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090316/b2d90bec/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Composting toilets
Elmer, all, Elmer Stenger wrote: Dawie: I found the information at Clivus Multrum, Lawrence Ma. 01840 Phone 1-800-425-4887 or www.clivusmutrum.com. Missing an l. As Kieth says, copy and paste from the browser, don't type: http://www.clivusmultrum.com/ d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) http://bahai.us/ -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090108/93981256/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Jatropha and ethanol
Keith, Keith Addison wrote: Where can I find a quick transform between gpd/lpd of biodiesel and mixer volume, for batch-process mixers? As to the size of the mixer, how long is a piece of string? I didn't really want to get into this [...] Still, I'm glad you did. That helps a lot. What I am trying to do (besides publicly exposing my ignorance re biodiesel), is to get some idea of how it will look on the ground so I can fold that information into my thoughts about the design of the biogas part of the process, which (as mentioned) is apparently an afterthought. As the poor step child, feeding from the table scraps of the biodiesel process, it behooves us to have a fine understanding of what is happening so as not to get in the way... Finally, I mentioned interplanting or intercropping options with Jatropha. I have found some resources regarding this [...] Did you try this? http://www.fact-fuels.org/en/FACT_Knowledge_Centre/FACT_Publications?session=cl4scdo0dk1e8c4ql2hpeev1s1 I had not previously seen that page, although I had encountered some of the publications, such as the handbook. Again, many thanks. Also: Physic nut -- Jatropha curcas L. Promoting the conservation and use of underutilized and neglected crops [...] I did run across that publication by Heller. But in spite of its relatively recent vintage (1996) he seems unconvinced that you (and your brethren and sistren) exist: Transesterified oil can be used in any diesel engine. This process is normally carried out in centralized plants since the the small-scale economy of transesterification has not been determined. [p 22, para 3] And he does not even mention biogas (sniff!). For my own purposes only, I found Claims and Facts on Jatropha curcas L. (linked from the page you mentioned) to have more of the sort of information that interests me (http://www.ifad.org/events/jatropha/breeding/claims.pdf and elsewhere). d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090104/de53cdef/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Jatropha and ethanol
Keith, Where can I find a quick transform between gpd/lpd of biodiesel and mixer volume, for batch-process mixers? If I understand correctly, it will take perhaps 3 days to produce the biodiesel in the mixer, after which one could (and in a plant this size, would probably) pump the reactant elsewhere to undertake other processes using other equipment: settling, separation, washing, etc. If it takes a day to clean, prepare and load the mixer, and we add a half day to give some slack for... whatever, then the amount of reactant one can process in a year would have to be about 80 times the volume of the mixer. Thus with some idea of the ratio of end-product biodiesel volume to reactant volume, I would be able to estimate the size of the mixer itself. What is that ratio? Keith Addison wrote: The project information I have says that they intend to use a suitable packed column, condenser, and receiver... to recover excess amount of Methanol in the system. These are the options: Reclaiming excess methanol http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make2.html#methreclaim As I grow more familiar with the site, I grow more amazed and grateful. Fabulous resource. By the way, on the page http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html, a link to Boston University's site is given for the MSDS for methanol (http://www.bu.edu/es/labsafety/ESMSDSs/MSMethanol.html). It's not there, even given that a search of the site using the tools thereon provided demonstrates that it's supposed to be there. In fact, it looks like, for the moment or permanently, /all/ MSDS information (http://www.bu.edu/es/labsafety/ESMSDSs/ESMSDS.html), even as linked from the lab safety page itself, has disappeared. (A pretty good MSDS for methanol is found at http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/M2015.htm, if the BU site does not resolve its problems soon, and a generic resource for MSDS information is at http://www2.hazard.com/msds/.) One can make biogas from methanol, and it therefore seems possible to me based on what little I know about its contents that the whole unseparated glycerol fraction of the trans-esterified result could likely be put in the digester. List members have surmised that, but not confirmed it. I'd be interested to know the results. I'm fuzzy as yet on when we will get a chance to run proof-of-concept tests, but if/when, I'll be in touch. Finally, I mentioned interplanting or intercropping options with Jatropha. I have found some resources regarding this: http://www.jatrophabiodiesel.org/intercropping.php?_divid=menu3 http://www.bioruta.com/JATROPHA/Documentos/Agrotechnology%20of%20Jatropha.pdf The basic story, as far as I yet have found out, appears to be that young Jatropha plants (up to 3 years) need a lot of sunlight to grow, so any other crop interplanted while the Jatropha plants are small, should not shade them. Other than that, I have not found any mention of restrictions, i.e. plants that will not grow when interplanted with Jatropha, or which suppress the growth of Jatropha. I have seen mention of corn, tomatoes, rice, sesame, red peppers, legumes and grasses in general, and many other plants which, it is suggested on various sites, can be used in co-plantings. I suspect that there must be allelopathic interactions between some of these plants and Jatropha, but as yet I have not found careful reports of research which bear on the question. Some work has apparently been done by Pankaj Oudhia (http://www.pankajoudhia.com/resume_pankaj.htm), who appears to have a real aversion to Jatropha. (Based on what he says about himself, I'm not sure I would entirely trust his evaluation as dispassionate.) d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090103/a2cf70f5/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Jatropha and ethanol
Keith, Keith Addison wrote: Hello David And back at you. Good to hear from you. I've been contacted about a project in south Asia which would involve planting 600 ha to Jatropha, to produce 3,500 tonnes of biodiesel annually Since it bears on some of the points you raised, let me say that my connection to the project is indirect. An organization with which I've done some consulting re biogas has gotten interest from the folks who are developing the biodiesel plant, and so I've been asked to assist with the biogas add-on. As such, even if I had the answers to your [excellent] questions regarding the selection of Jatropha, monocultures, and whether mere jobs count as SED (social and economic development) since the information I have thus far makes only that connection, I neither know nor if I did would it make any difference. My position in the venture is rather humble, as befits my vast gifts (or perhaps they're half-vast). As such, I ask the questions I ask for two reasons. One is that I'm insatiably curious, just like Kipling's elephant child, and the other is that the biogas portion of the project, afterthought that it appears to be, should be designed with an eye towards the realities that are likely, as contrasted to simply what is stated as the plans. I'm always suspicious of the best crop or the best technology approach (see eg http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous4.html#1511Technology and the poor), and 600-ha monocrop plantations don't have a very good record. No question. We've talked about SED previously. My view, boiled down, is that what is needed is to attend to improving human capacity, in a manner which is very sensitive and wise regarding creating dependencies. Whereas, most projects that engage or purport to engage in SED aim themselves at problems identified by the external organization (not the people themselves; this is often the first mistake), and generally tend toward solutions that are impossible for the people themselves to implement. There are times, no question, where certain necessary solutions are and will remain beyond the capacity of people to implement, but generally those are not low on Maslow's hierarchy. That is, people everywhere are really pretty smart about their own circumstances, and usually with fairly modest help they can feed and shelter themselves. Where people provide these things themselves, there is an increase in dignity, confidence, and capacity. Where solutions are offered which require them to depend on external charity in a chronic manner (for example) usually things get worse. Why jatropha? Whose choice was it? [... etc.] As I said, excellent questions, but having an impact on the implied decisions is presently above my pay grade. My wisest option, I imagine, is to do the best possible job within the fairly obvious constraints of the situation, and try to make as valuable a contribution as I can. All else being equal, if there are follow-on projects, successful realization of those goals may give me earlier access, increase my responsibility, and make it more possible to be among the voices that determine the shape of critical aspects of those future projects. Amid all the jatropha hype, this report is interesting, I don't know if you saw it, from GRAIN: Jatropha - the agrofuel of the poor? GRAIN July 2007 http://www.grain.org/seedling/?id=480 That whole July 2007 issue of Seedling is worth a look: http://www.grain.org/seedling/?type=68 Excellent resources. So, ... [w]hat size would/should [the mixer] be to produce that much biodiesel annually? You could probably set the upper limit of what would qualify as DIY or homebrew or local coop or Appropriate Technology-level biodiesel production at about 1,000 gallons a day, which is about a [third] of what they're planning. They'll be wanting an industrial processor. [...] Yes, I think they are; or at least the plant will be at the small end of industrial. Where can I find a quick transform between gpd/lpd of biodiesel and mixer volume, for batch-process mixers? Second, am I near the mark with suggesting that the project consider producing ethanol (or butanol) rather than purchasing methanol? [...] Nobody does it [...] I strongly suggest you stick with methanol. Good to know. After modest research I had thought so, but I was not sure. Glycerol/glycerine would be one by-product at perhaps 10% of the amount of biodiesel (i.e. ~350 tonnes/yr?). Glycerol/glycerine plus soap, and it will take quite a lot of 85% phosphoric acid (not cheap) to separate the two, which would probably be advisable, unless you want a whole lot of powerful soap in the biogas digester, not sure it would like that. If the feedstock is mostly oil cake (small particle size), it might be possible to deal with some of the soap-type contaminants, which would tend to increase problems with scum.
[Biofuel] Jatropha and ethanol
Dear list experts, I note a good deal of information in the list about using Jatropha (J. curcas) for biodiesel, and, mindful of repeated admonitions, I've looked for information about the questions I have in the archives, but I've not yet seen answers directly to my questions. My own background is in biogas, and I have only recently started learning about biodiesel and ethanol, so I'm an admixture of knowing and novice. May I ask a few questions? (And Kieth, no doubt there are many gems in the archives which of which you know, yet which I missed. Please feel free to educate me regarding their nature and location.) I've been contacted about a project in south Asia which would involve planting 600 ha to Jatropha, to produce 3,500 tonnes of biodiesel annually. (Based on what I've seen about Jatropha, that may be optimistic for yield, but I'm just presenting the information as given to me.) Obviously then that also means either the use of a good deal of methanol (as presently planned), or (as I have suggested), producing either ethanol or butanol through fermentation and using one or more than one together for separation. The oil cake resulting from oil extraction would be feedstock for a biogas plant. The biodiesel plant is presently being considered as a prototype for a number of such plants, and among the key goals of the project are social and economic development, not merely the production of fuel, and although the project expects a profit, my impression is that things would be operated to produce a balance of outcomes. So, first question: Although I've reviewed the project overview, which mentions that the biodiesel mixer will be batch loaded, as yet I have no information about the size of the unit. What size would/should it be to produce that much biodiesel annually? Second, am I near the mark with suggesting that the project consider producing ethanol (or butanol) rather than purchasing methanol? Certainly it will provide increased challenges to use ethanol, and perhaps even more to use butanol (in either case including adding complexity to the process), but I would think for a plant this large, with good access to land (albeit perhaps marginal land) and given the low labor costs in the area, it may make sense, although one problem may be training personnel. Yes? No? The Jatropha will almost certainly be planted in rows, ~3x2m per plant, and it appears that the project developers are not considering using irrigation. The area in which the plants will be growing has a rainy season (June-September; 130cm rainfall), and a hot, usually dry season (April-May, sometimes 40 deg C). What plants might be considered to assist in producing ethanol/butanol, if they were interplanted with the Jatropha? Glycerol/glycerine would be one by-product at perhaps 10% of the amount of biodiesel (i.e. ~350 tonnes/yr?). I know that depending on how one handles this waste stream, it can be burned (at high temp), composted, used in soap-making, used to supplement the oil cake for biogas production, used in Clostridium fermentation to produce ABE, used to dry ethanol (and butanol?), et al. Are there other options? Among those possibilities, which might best serve the mix of goals? Lastly, the information I have says that Furthermore, the process to manufacture biodiesel... has no waste at all [excepting the oil cake and glycerol]. The process employed has no emissions and absolutely no effluent treatment. I don't see how that can be correct. Can that be the case? d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090101/00e0f327/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
Peter, Guag Meister wrote: [N]o offense at all intended David, but you seem to be asking a question and not really expecting an answer. There is an answer. Find it. [...] Some of the answers you seek are here, and in my previous email. I appreciate the spirit of generosity which has no doubt prompted your offer of guidance. Be well. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081231/b8379634/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
Dear Peter, Guag Meister wrote: It seems to me [...] that there is no courage unless there is danger, no faith without a context of doubt [...] (Although quite frankly this is only part of the answer-- the outside surface of a great mystery-- since while these things are true, they don't reach all the way to such issues as why children suffer and starve, for example.) Yes they do if you think it through. [...] How can it be possible for anyone to be a star if everyone passes and no one fails? [...] I need a bell curve to seperate the good students from the bad. I need to fail some to allow some to shine. [...] The world must be a tough place to allow the Saints to be revealed, and this includes suffering of children and everyone else. Suffering sets the stage for our test. First of all, your sincerity should be praised, and do forgive me, therefore, for again being disagreeable. The reason I said it's a very difficult problem is because it's a very difficult problem. Let me please speak only for myself. It's a large and beautiful and terrible world, and I'm sure there is room for different approaches. I'm merely talking about my own approach here Consider: No saints exist except for grace. We can choose to turn toward the light or away, but ultimately the All-Powerful chooses. (I think a good many people misunderstand such terms as all powerful, by the way. To me it means not only able to do x and y, but as well it must, in context, mean that there is no power otherwise. Any god-- a creature of our imagination-- worthy of being God-- rather far beyond us and our imagination-- would have to be the author and sole source of all power...) It seems to me that any god which needs for suffering to exist in order to reveal which of us is a saint is ipso facto a god who is not all-knowing, i.e. not God. Further, any god that would allow innocent children to suffer, starve, and die-- to be crucified in pain-- simply because a bell curve is more important than that child is, again, not God. If God is love, then what is loving about such suffering? Wouldn't any of us, if we had any knowledge of that child's condition, and any slight power to relieve her pain-- Wouldn't any of us act to do that? Then why doesn't the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful act? I ask such questions as a person of faith, as someone who's own child died, as someone who has suffered, because I believe-- and I think-- that if I fail to wrestle with such deeply difficult questions then I have more to learn: about faith, about myself, about life. I'm not seeking safety; I want truth. (Mind you, again, I have no idea about your approach, and I am not implying or trying to imply anything one way or another about your faith-- I am speaking only of my own process, and what I personally find necessary.) Obviously as well, simply because someone of faith has asked the questions does not indicate that they have learned the answers. Rather it's simply a necessary step at a certain stage, or at least it is for me. The problem of evil is a Zen koan. It's a question with which we wrestle, with no satisfying logical answer. Answering it-- living an answer-- changes us, and that is part of the answer. Another part, for me, became very clear when my daughter died. Up to that point in my life, God and I had pretty much seemed to agree about what was good for me. There were, of course the ordinary disappointments and difficulties, but by and large I was sanguine. I've done a lot of traveling and I knew, I know, very clearly that as compared with most of the people in the world I was, I am, very lucky. I have a name, an education, enough to eat, no bombs are falling on my home. Those are big things. That's a long list. But when my daughter died, I was really forced to confront the thought that God and I might well disagree about what was best. And the choice in that instance is: who's right? There's a time to fight and there's a time to surrender, and while there's so much I don't know, I can assure you that continuing to fight when it's time to surrender has no good consequences. The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on. Nor all your piety nor wit shall ever lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it. And there are other parts, deeper inside the mystery. If there is a soul, then there is also a world of which we are presently essentially ignorant, and therefore a timeless time and a placeless place where temporal harms can be redressed, ills cured, and harms suffered in a world where we were ponderous creatures of flesh, a world which must seem dark and narrow by comparison with that sea of light, can be soothed. So many important things cannot be shared, because there are no words which can really explain. We have to find the place and go there, to have the experience, to be present at the moment; then perhaps we know.
Re: [Biofuel] Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
Peter, Guag Meister wrote: Could this be the reason that almost all religious leaders... shun technology[?] Do they? Jesus was a carpenter, what did he use to cut wood [...] If Jesus was who He said He was, then why couldn't He have invented electricity? [...]Or ANY other technological improvements? I have pondered over this one for many hours. He certainly could have if He wanted to. So my conclusion is HE DIDNT WANT TO. Why not? Answer (in my humble view): He knew that, due to man's nature, these things would only propel mankind faster on the road to oblivion. He only used what was available at the time but offered NO improvements. One must wonder why. And this is not the purpose of life anyway. Great question. Way outside most folk's box. But I reach a different conclusion, based on the fact that in most theological interpretations of the powers and conditions of Christ, He created the physics which allowed the battery back when light was separated from darkness, before rocks were invented. As such, He not only could have invented the battery, but more fundamentally He could have done anything, including making it impossible for technology to be harmful. Likewise, He could easily have changed human nature. And by my lights, He knew everything, including that our species would go through the present difficulties. So here's the problem: If He had the powers you appear to believe He had (and that I believe He had), then why would He have let mankind come to it's present difficulties, or to any difficulty, for that matter, regardless of scope or era or proximate cause? It would seem that either these problems are unnecessary and God is cruel for allowing them to exist (a conclusion that many have reached, often as a waystation to becoming an atheist), or that there is a fundamental reason why doubt, danger and difficulties are a necessary part of the human condition. This is a very difficult question indeed. It seems to me, however, that there is no courage unless there is danger, no faith without a context of doubt, and nothing for which to strive except to overcome difficulties in achieving better ends. (Although quite frankly this is only part of the answer-- the outside surface of a great mystery-- since while these things are true, they don't reach all the way to such issues as why children suffer and starve, for example.) But turn it around and look at it. Suppose that Christ or God did change human nature so that evil was impossible; or suppose They had created a world in which it was impossible to injure yourself or others; or a world in which truth was self-evident, entirely and to everyone; a world where it was impossible to suffer or starve. Impossible to lie, impossible to be injured or die; impossible to suffer; impossible even to consider the possibility of evil. What kind of world would that be? What kind of people would we be? Good... for nothing? In my view Christ did not offer technology because it was more or less irrelevant to the point He was making, which was quite simply that we should all practice the Golden Rule, or the Noble Eightfold Way, or the prescriptions of the other Great Teachers, all of Whom, as has been said here, taught essentially the same thing. As you imply, that's the purpose of life. Therefore as you know, the rest gets added if we just do those things, and the rest becomes a source of sorrow and pain if we do not, as anyone's own experience and the world's history bear witness. That line of thinking, of course, puts the onus back on us, although again without answering the question. Yet, really, given that we, puny humans, cannot modify the fact what is possible, nor fathom the mind of God, surely it's a good deal more productive to be concerned with the human condition than a list of philosophical conundrums. See the problem with rational people is that they cannot see how the irrational mind works. In yesterdays newspaper there was an article about a devoted mom in Japan who was injecting her own baby with sewage water so the baby would be sick so she could continue to care for the baby. Three previous babies of hers died and the last one is in critical condition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munchausen_syndrome_by_proxy d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081228/3ade5166/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined
Re: [Biofuel] Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
Peter, Good to hear from you again... Guag Meister wrote: [...] So many times with technology we find that the last condition is worse than the first. Extrapolating this out to its logical conclusion, we find that all technology advances are bad. Could this be the reason that almost all religious leaders (and by that I mean Jesus, Mohammad, Bhuddha, etc) shun technology. Anyone that proposes technological fixes will find themselves at odds with Jesus. Um, who do you think is right? Sure technology has given us open heart surgery and moonflight, but 500 years from now, if planet earth is burnt and lifeless due to our actions (air and water pollution, nuclear exchange, global warming, infectious disease, extinctions, etc.), then what can we say about technology? The last condition is much worse than the first, even if the first is a caveman existance and even including leprosy and black plague etc. I'm not aware that any of the great Teachers shunned technology. Could you offer any quotes or evidence in that regard? In part I question this because it seems to me that the whole thrust of those Teachers is to foster an ever-advancing civilization. Technology as part of that evolution has a far larger share than you have indicated-- as witnessed by this conversation, where you in Thailand and me in Oregon (US) are able to share thoughts, and educate one another, even though we are rather beyond shouting distance. (In fact, do forgive me for pointing out that these are odd statements to make, given the means used to make them. As might be evident, if you practice what you preach, no one will hear you.) But beyond that, the ability to create a simple hammer depends on advances in the technology of steel alloys. Building the factory and and engaging in distribution depend on advances in a bewildering slew of technologies, including the magic of compounding interest and the invention of modern transport. You grow things, to take another example. Agriculture, however practiced, is larded with technology and technological advances: understanding of the seasons; calendars; plows or no-till, take your pick; understanding of biology and ecology; advances in the understanding of weather and its prediction; even the invention of language and math. But ultimately, even given the large share that technology has in civilization, the problem is not technology and the Teachers have never particularly emphasized it, because what takes a larger share in Their thinking (at least as I read those various scriptures), is advances in ethics and virtue. Technology, after all, is merely a tool. A lab coat, by itself, has no power to do anything. A test tube cannot act to harm anyone. A computer, absent instructions otherwise, will simply be a device for converting electricity into heat. The point, obviously, is that any of these things require human intention to either help or harm, create or destroy. It's not all that hard to use a convenient rock to kill someone, and technology need have no part in that. Granted, where the means have been developed, Predator drones, atomic weapons, weaponized small pox, tanks, missiles and guns will allow someone with bad intentions to more efficiently act on those intentions. But those Teachers were nothing if not practical (again, at least as I see it). And for anyone, anywhere, at any time, to say Stop! Don't use technology! Forget what you know! would be silly, foolish, senseless, and without any effect. There are probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in the world who, with fairly simple tools and modest resources, could build a Kalashnikov rifle, and any reasonable analysis of the real problems of war in the world today would have to admit that small arms cause far more devastation than any battleship or atom bomb. So. We cannot go backwards. And we cannot stay here. The only reasonable action is to move forward, and that direction is defined by improvements in the peace and well being of every human being, man, woman and child, in the world. Further, the only possible way to achieve such ends is to change the hearts. This clearly follows from Einstein's maxim that we have become technological giants while remaining moral midgets. From my point of view, then, the question which should underlie every effort we make in our lives is: how can be be of benefit to others? How can I improve my armamentarium of virtues, the fundamental tools required for me to be truly human? d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| No matter how far the material world advances, it cannot establish the happiness of mankind. Only when material and spiritual civilization are linked and coordinated will happiness be assured. Then material civilization will not contribute its energies to the forces of evil in destroying the oneness of humanity, for in
Re: [Biofuel] Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
Doug, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The more powerful technology becomes, the less we can tolerate its misuse by a few. The possibility of its misuse by a few can never be excluded, especially in a complex society with an atomised society, and much alienation and anomie. In such a society, powerful technology requires large and pervasive security forces as we have seen, but the subordination of those forces to the interests of the society is doubtful. While there are circumstances which allow for the use of force to control technology, what's clear is that over time knowledge leaks. You can find out as much on the internet today about how to build an atomic bomb as likely was passed by Julius Rosenberg to the Russians in the 50's, resulting in his conviction for treason and subsequent execution. I just don't see therefore that large and pervasive security forces would have any impact on the issue. I agree that powerful technologies can (and unfortunately probably in some cases will) be misused by a few-- witness the subject which initiated this thread-- but unrealistic efforts at control will ultimately have to give way to reality. As problematic as it no doubt is, I feel sure that a careful analysis of the issue will demonstrate that given the inevitable advance of knowledge, and the consequent increase of human power, the maturation of the human race is the best answer, because ultimately it is the only answer. Godlike powers require godlike wisdom and restraint. They are not to be looked for among humans. To me, this is the crucial distinction. With any significant degree of despair or fear, and where wisdom is lacking and ignorance rampant, I would think that it should be far easier to convince a good fraction of the populace that, as you indicate, mere humans can't be trusted. We just don't have the capacity to be responsible for ourselves. We have to protect ourselves against... fill in the blank, torn from the headlines. You, says the leader-in-chief, need me to protect you. And with a contented sigh, we nestle into the arms of another dictator. In other words, it seems to me that anyone who really believes this should argue vociferously against the infection of democracy. If people can't be trusted, then, clearly, we need to be protected from ourselves. Knowledge will increase. Anyone who argues otherwise hasn't been paying attention in class. Can we restrict that knowledge to a chosen few? (Who will choose them? Who will choose the choosers?) Can we control the knowledge with force? Respectively, no and no. The remaining alternatives are few... We are not very far from the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Soviet Gulag, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China. The war in Iraq is still going on. We show little sign of dealing effectively with either the climate crisis or peak oil. Optimism about human behaviour is not warranted by the evidence. Progress seems to be not general but highly localized and limited. That's one point of view. The thing about the world that I notice is that it is sufficiently complex and extensive that, in the end, it depends mostly on the filter which we (generally unconsciously) apply as to what we see out there, and therefor to what conclusion we reach. We are not very far from the conquest of small pox, the invention of the Internet, Woodstock, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, the spread of democracy and the establishment of the United Nations. Pessimism about human behavior would seem premature, based on the evidence. Destruction and mayhem do occur, but the clear general trend across mankind's history is to increasing unity and advancing wisdom. Progress seems discontinuous, particularly in some locations, but ultimately both universal and inevitable. It seems to me in other words-- and of course this finger points to me as much as anyone else-- that we tend to generalize based on our own internal condition. What we see in the world may inevitably say more about us-- inveterate Pollyanna or hard-eyed rationalist that we may be-- than it does about the world. Just what makes you think that Hitler, Stalin and Curtis LeMay were not truly human? I'm guessing that you are reacting to my saying How can I improve my armamentarium of virtues, the fundamental tools required for me to be truly human?, since the quoted words do not appear in my message otherwise. However, on that basis I'm not sure I understand your question. Therefore please forgive me if my comments are not on point. As regards Hitler and Stalin, it seems clear to me that they were, quite simply, monsters. (For my money, you can include Pol Pot and those folks from the radio station that catalyzed the massacre in Rwanda.) I think Maslow's thought applies, which, roughly translated, is that we do see, in our mind's eye, that mangy, sickly creature with the
Re: [Biofuel] Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
Chris, Chris Burck wrote: [...] i also agree with peter and doug, because once you get a high enough degree of centralization (in a society), the technologies that are pursued become ever more rarified and removed from the human level. With respect, I disagree. The clear and most fundamental trend in technology is toward the destruction or evanescence of inertia. For writing letters, electrons have far less inertia than paper. For preservation of images, contrast a 50's TV camera with a modern cell phone equipped with camera. And so on. Likewise, the clear trend is therefore towards the personalization of technology, both for good and bad. Again I would refer back to the article that started this thread. At the same time that the ecosystem of technology is rapidly becoming far more complex (consider GPS, and its reliance on Einstein's 1916 general theory of relativity, among a bewildering array of other technologies) it continues to become more personal (consider the $150 GPS receiver). Then think about a Google mash-up, where Web 2.0 comes together with GPS to allow a map of everyone in a given state that owns a Great Dane, as an hypothetical example. And not only can I sit at my desk and with a single powerful mouse click see that mash-up, I can create another one, if I choose to educate myself, for displaying gas stations and tracking their price-per-gallon. While it is true that many will not choose to educate themselves regarding such technologies, there is little to stop anyone with the fundamental capacity from so doing. Consider the many differences, in that regard, between Carnegie's libraries and the Internet. In what way, then, are these technologies becoming more rarefied and removed? ...the probability that there be malevolent purpose behind the pursuit of a given technology increases exponentially, as does the probability that those who will suffer as a result of a given technology will far outnumber those who will benefit (though, this does not have to lead inevitably to the destruction of humankind). Again, there are examples of these points, to be sure (the green revolution, some aspects of globalization), but I am unpersuaded that the probability of malevolent purpose increases exponentially, or that those who suffer will for some reason necessarily outnumber those who will benefit. These things happen, as I just said, but this has nothing to do with the inherent nature of technology. Rather, it simply demonstrates the increased need for responsible choices, the destructive nature of greed (witness our present financial condition), and so on. In this regard, the bad news about technology-- it can cause problems-- seems exceeded by its good news-- it can easily solve far more problems than it creates, given only that it is properly used. Perhaps we can agree that technology acts to magnify what is in the human heart, which is what I have clearly been saying; and that therefore the only solution is not technological, not available to us through the application of force, not impossible, not found anywhere except the original place of its genesis: the human heart. We may not know how, we may think it difficult-- clearly it seems rare, which may be an artifact of what is considered newsworthy, but just as clearly it is not impossible. People change. I do; don't you? But regardless, the point is that we can't solve the problem unless we address its source. We have to change the hearts. david, i agree that we can only move forward, in the sense that we cannot change what has already happened. but this does not mean, for example, that where things (power, capital, resources) have become overly centralized, that they cannot be decentralized. I think they can, and have, and will be. As I said previously on this forum, we've never seen such a thing as the human species, all grown up. We know that it happens to children, and we know that most folks, often in spite of their parents, turn out all right. But will mankind grow up? Will mankind be mature, some day? I don't feel the need to prove it to anyone, particularly, although I'm happy to discuss it, but for me, as I see it, the answer is yes, we will. Yes. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081226/7165260b/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages):
Re: [Biofuel] Fwd: seek some help to implement the biogas plant digester (the simplest and cheapest)
Kieth, Sister MoroClaire, Keith Addison wrote: David - Maybe you'd like to forward this to the Digestion list? Regards Keith Subject: seek some help to implement the biogas plant digester (the simplest and cheapest) To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Respected Sir, I am Sister Claire from Ivory Coast (West Africa). I involve in social activities and humanitarian work. Our vocation is to help rural population in health, education, economical status and social empowerment. Please, i would like implement the biogas plant digester, the cheapest one in the remote area because we need the slurry for natural fertilizers and to provide the basic foundations for the people in poor rural communities to improve their well being. For this noble reason, i humbly request you to kindly provide me the drawing biogas plant digester along with exact measurements so that it will be easy for the architect in my country to build it. I am really looking forwards to hear from you. yours sincerely Sister Claire Thanks, Keith, for the opportunity. I'm very much in favor of noble reasons and humble requests... There is a lot of information free on the Internet regarding biogas, but it is hard to find good information of the sort an engineer or architect would be able to instantly transfer to one's own situation. That said, thankfully small-scale, rural, and very low cost are far better represented than information about what would be required for a commercial-scale facility. But let me start by saying that building the digester is only one of several challenges. It is very important that whoever is going to run the digester, in each village, understand as much as possible about what will and won't work. In the best instance, for example, they should know a bit about the biology of digestion (http://completebiogas.com/BiogasHandbook_C04_biology.pdf), and about the parameters of digestion, the key ones (for a simple, plug flow digester) being C/N, pH, and temperature. Unfortunately as yet I don't know of a solid, simple explanation of these parameters, except perhaps the Biogas Handbook. (No doubt they exist; I just don't have the time to look for them at present.) Therefore if the Sister would be so kind as to send me her address, I will send her a copy of the book as a donation. But to again emphasize: building the digester is only the first challenge. If villagers are going to get the most out of the digester, then someone in the village will have to understand enough about the crucial processes to insure that it keeps functioning. Over and over again, as anyone who has been involved with social and economic development efforts will testify, and as the Sister likely understands, well-meaning gifts have been given to people who did not ask for them, and who did not have the resources to understand or maintain them. There are far too many hospitals and clinics scattered throughout the developing world that are useless, abandoned and falling into ruin, because they were given to people as a mysterious and indigestible lump, full of shiny promise and requiring from them things they simply did not have. Success in using biogas in such rural situations can only come when there is significant buy-in, a local need locally identified, and on-going community support. This is also important to understand because in the worst case, when some seeming miracle is given to people without any of the crucial local integration, the people end up feeling even more powerless and blameworthy than they did before the gift, because they could not (even if through no real fault of their own) understand how to use it to improve their circumstances. Such gifts become proof that they need help from outside, and when that help is given, they will not be able to use it without continuing support from the outside. They become more dependent, therefore, when the goal should and easily can be their increasing independence. As such, I would strongly recommend to the Sister that she carefully consider having an educational component in the biogas program. Where children and women learn how it works, the whole village can participate and may even be able to build more digesters. Where no one understands how it works, failure is near at hand. To return, then, to free resources on the Internet: I would start with Small-Scale Biogas Use with Biogidesters in Rural Costa Rica, found at http://www.ruralcostarica.com/biodigester.html. That page has some information about construction, but it really is not sufficient (at least as I see it) to provide full understanding of biogas per se, nor in fact of the design and construction of digester itself. The plastic bag digester that is discussed, given the details provided, is best for tropical climates and manure-fed digesters. (Plastic is less well suited for colder climates, and the design itself would not work well
Re: [Biofuel] How To Legally Avoid Unwanted Immunizations OfAll Kinds
Hakan, Without refuting your basic point: Hakan Falk wrote: The less people that are vaccinated, the better possibility the disease have to develop resistant strains, that is why an unvaccinated group are putting everyone at risk. As for the first part of the sentence, actually it is those who misuse antibiotics-- very much including the CAFOs, concentrated animal feeding operations-- which are largely responsible for the development of resistant strains. What the tiny critters are resistant to is not vaccines, but antibiotics. As for the second part of the sentence, I think it's generally true that an vaccinated group can increase risk for many others. Witness the tribal authorities in Africa who prevented measles vaccination of the populations under their control. Except for that, measles would have been eradicated for the whole human species. Nothing, of course, is without risk, and vaccination is a case in point. There has been more than one report of parents who have gotten polio from their vaccinated infants when quality control has not been sufficient. That said, anyone who goes back and researches the fear and tragedy which was caused by the polio epidemic prior to Salk's vaccine will be certain that vaccination of the population generally has been by far the better alternative. There are no longer wards full of iron lung patients, susceptible to death from a power failure. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081211/9d709038/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Plastic to diesel: Is recycling by this method better than others?
Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12141 d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081204/412f9b77/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Biogas - was alternative to vaccines
Keith, Better late than never? I don't know that I answered a question you asked, when we were finishing our conversation about Harold Bate: Keith Addison wrote: If Bate's regulator won't work, then what will? How would one run a modern car on biogas (scrubbed I suppose)? Would propane conversion kits work, like these maybe? Propane Conversion Kits http://poweredbypropane.net/products-pricing-order-online/propane-conversion-kits-3.html Diesel Injection Kits http://poweredbypropane.net/products-pricing-order-online/diesel-injection-kits.html There may be more reasons (I'm not sure), but I can think of at least two reasons that propane conversion equipment would not work, or would not work well. The more minor of these derives from the fact that propane (C3H8) is much easier to compress or liquefy than natural gas or methane (CH4). (As you know, what one wants for use in a mobile engine is the pure or nearly pure methane that results after biogas has been scrubbed of its CO2. Natural gas often has a higher BTU rating per cu. ft. as compared with methane, because it generally has a few percent of ethane [C2H6], propane and butane [C4H10] in it, with the remainder [~90%] being methane.) When any of these gases exit a tank under pressure, travel down a pipe and are injected into a carburetor, at some point they expand, and according to Boyle's law (or actually, Charles's law), the more they expand, the greater the temperature drop. As such, a gas under greater pressure would expand more, and would cool off to a greater degree. As I said, I'm not sure (I haven't tried it, and it would depend on the design of the system), but I suspect that because methane would generally be under far more pressure than propane, propane equipment, handling methane, might freeze under heavy use, or in cold weather. The second reason is that the energy density of propane is rather different than that of methane, and it requires a different amount of air to combust. As such any equipment which is designed to inject propane would have been designed under assumptions that might not work well with methane. What one would want, therefore, when powering a car from well-scrubbed biogas is either LNG (liquefied natural gas) or CNG (compressed natural gas) conversion equipment. Such equipment would be designed to insure that enough heat could be extracted from the air, exhaust or radiator water to expand the gas, and it would be designed to provide the proper range of mixtures necessary to properly combust methane. Based on what I see on the 'net, CNG conversion kits run from $700 up, and a complete conversion where one drives the vehicle in and then picks it up-- the no scraped knuckles, no grease on the pants option-- could be up to $3,800. It is harder to find LNG conversion kits, and it would be more difficult and rather more expensive both in dollars and calories to liquefy methane, as we have previously discussed, but the advantage is that one can store almost twice the volume of fuel in any given volume of tank. The energy density of CNG is about 25% of diesel, whereas the energy density of LNG is about 40% of diesel. With a higher mileage car used for shorter trips, it would make little sense to use LNG (i.e. L/B/G, in this context), but with heavy vehicles used for more extensive trips, it may be a sensible choice. There really would be little point, of course, in using biogas to power a vehicle unless one has a lot-- a lot-- of biogas, and sufficient funds to be thinking about payback periods of a few years or more. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081124/ec84fb18/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Annuals converted into perennials
Peter, Guag Meister wrote: Hi David ; I have one other customer in Oregon, but just planted this year and no winter experience yet. Why don't you send me your address offlist and I will send you 20 seeds. I just ask for an occasional status report so I can update the site. The flowers bloom quickly after planting (3 months), the fruits take a few months, the root tuber might survive the winter, it might work. That is a very gracious offer. I will, as you request, respond privately with my address. Please allow me in return to send you a copy of The Complete Biogas Handbook, if you would be so kind as to send me your address as well. Last year I grew 3,000 starts in a greenhouse beginning in February, with what I expected would be two months before I could put things in the ground. That worked well for my tomatoes, not as well for the cantaloupe, very poorly for the corn (an experiment in any case). Perhaps Gâc fruits would respond well to transplantation, but if there is a substantial tuber, as you indicate, they may not. If time allows, I will try starting potatoes (both /solanum/ and /ipomoea/) next year in the greenhouse as well to have a rough analog for comparison. I know that Vietnamese is a tonal language, and so the pronunciation guide on your site would have to be approximate, but whether it's closer to GAK or GUK, I think the name may have to change if the plant is to become established in the marketplace in the US et al. None of the noises I find myself making in order to try to pronounce the name sounds particularly refreshing, tasty or nutritious. What is the translation, if there is one, of the fruit's name? d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081123/0360d25e/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Biogas - was alternative to vaccines
Menno, Sorry to be delayed... [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My original question was about anaerobic conditions in the Jean Pain pile. I have seen on the video how he trambles this pile layer by layer, by completely soaked fine wood chips, so I was wondering if the container inside was a digester or collector of methane. Without any question, it is a digester. There is no credible means of beaming methane molecules from inside a compost pile to the inside of a steel drum. ...any more source of methane which can be avoided would not get permission in Europe. No well-constructed and properly maintained digester will leak appreciable amounts of biogas/methane. To put it another way, if there is any detectable methane near the digester, then something is wrong or broken, and should be fixed. My point, therefore, with regard to the methane released by cows, termites-- and indeed humans-- is that any of these sources would ...swamp any amounts produced by a fleet of biogas digesters. In any case, in any reasonable analysis of the situation, where the digester is functioning properly and to that degree replacing reliance on fossil fuel, it would be carbon negative, even given the greater impact of any given methane molecule as compared with a carbon dioxide molecule. Again, therefore, from any point of view one cares to analyze the situation, either by comparison to a dozen or more other sources or in relation strictly to itself, biogas generation should properly be welcomed by any authority interested in ameliorating greenhouse gas emissions. Small is... often the right size. I was not promoting large scale application at all, therefor I was interested in Jean Pain's method. My point was perhaps not clear. In order to have an appreciable effect on soil quality in EE, which you stated as your goal, the number of Jean Pain-type compost piles would have to be substantial, one may even say extravagant. There would be no way to produce a sufficient number of piles through any single agency except through a process that would have to be industrial-scale. One would have to purchase a fleet of trucks and chippers, supply an army with chain saws, etc., etc. Given the wasteful expenditure of fossil fuels which Jean Pain's method entails-- even in the video there is a small fleet of vehicles, running hither and yon-- and the necessity to shred a large pile of wood and branches to make it into a large pile of compost, this seems among the poorest choices which might be made to accomplish the goals, within the strictures you outline. Any agency concerned with global warming which would reject a biogas generator for the stray methane it produced, but which would blithely accept the huge carbon footprint of a Jean Pain compost pile, should be replaced with a machine that would randomly spit out Yes and No tickets (in response to the detection of cosmic rays, for example) for each incoming request. (The random answers would almost certainly be better, on average, than such an agency.) Far, far, and even far better, as I said, to educate the farmers about why it is important to take care of the soil. Concentrate on that. Forget Jean Pain: translate the best free book on the web regarding cover crops (navigate to http://www.sare.org/publications/all_pubs.htm and look top right) into languages spoken by the farmers in the region of your concern, and you will have an outsized impact on both the sequestration of carbon and the improvement of soil. I'm quite serious about this: If you really want to gain leverage on the problems you point toward, the lowly and difficult work of translation (and education more generally) is the place to gain that leverage. Jean Pain did mention that he did an energy analysis on the use of energy for chipping, and he said that he could use the gas for it, and still have a surplus. I have a bridge I can sell you, as well. (This is a phrase in colloquial American which roughly translates to If you believe that, then you'll believe anything.) No offense intended, honestly, but Jean Pain would have to have been able to suspend the laws of physics regionally in France before he could ever have seen a surplus. It just ain't so. d. -- div style=font:Georgia;David William House div style=padding-left:3em;font-size:80%;503-678-5162 (home)br503-206-1001 (cell)brnbsp;/div div style=padding-left:2em;Make no search for water. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; But find thirst,br And water from the very ground will burst. div style=padding-left:2em;font-size:80%;(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in emDelight of Hearts/em, p. 77)/div/div -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081120/6914a8cc/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Re: [Biofuel] Biogas - was alternative to vaccines
Bernard, Bernard wrote: Menno wrote: The cow farting is definitely a point of concern for many people... When I eat the right foods, I don't have gas... Regardless whether you were joking or not, the point is really very sensible. That is, what is true for us-- we produce more or less biogas depending on dietary and other factors-- is also true for cattle and other ruminants, based on research that has been done: *'Burpless' Grass Cuts Methane Gas From Cattle, May Help Reduce Global Warming* http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080506120859.htm *Methane Emissions of Beef Cattle on Forages * http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/reprint/32/1/269.pdf *Reducing Methane Means Money To Cattle Producers * http://www.jpcs.on.ca/biodiversity/ghg/info_sheets/RotationalTipsHandout.pdf *Cattle selected for lower residual feed intake have reduced daily methane production * http://jas.fass.org/cgi/reprint/85/6/1479 ...etc. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081120/85855255/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Who Owns Nature?
Keith, Keith Addison wrote: All of mankind owns the planet though... Only mankind? Doesn't nature own itself? If ownership (rather than, say, stewardship) is to be the operative word, perhaps better to say that the planet is owned by our grandchildren's grandchildren, and always will be. We need find a broader cultural expression of the attitudes and actions of the fictional Elzéard Bouffier (The Man Who Planted Trees, or-- as it was originally-- The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness). Text: http://www.deeshaa.org/the-man-who-planted-trees/ (or http://www.vidyaonline.net/arvindgupta/plantedtrees.pdf) Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSlN_4ZGE38 (or http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2926032018049266053ei=5xomSfzbFp3eqAPEhLD-AQq=the+man+who+planted+trees) Ecuador's new constitution... How very cool. Thanks for this. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081120/1877ae34/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Annuals converted into perennials
David, David Penfold wrote: Toensmeier also wrote the two volume /Edible Forests/... Actually, David Jacke was the main author of Edible Forest Gardens... I appreciate the correction. The book makes that clear, but it has been some time since I read it, and I did not check my recollection before sending the message... d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081118/926a0220/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Annuals converted into perennials
Guag, Guag Meister wrote: Hi David ; [...] What are you growing on your farm? Selling prices are generally higher for tree crops, it is better for the land and soil fertility, and less work too, but people generally don't plant and develope them due to the time lag to production. Yearly crops are more attractive due to fast return. Billions of people are in poverty. You cannot tell them to wait 3-4 years for income. How to change the vision of the people? Last year, for me, it was annuals, veggie crops. Although most of what I grew was a ubiquitously cultivated perennial: the tomato. As far as changing the vision of the billions in poverty, those who have managed to preserve their culture-- that is, those whom circumstances have not forced off their land and into a slum in the city-- are generally better at assisting themselves, with modest and respectful help, than is the World Bank, with an approach which is often paternalistic, and narrowly focused on top-down solutions. Speaking for myself, I feel quite certain that we will grow up, as a species, and become a proper steward of the planet, peaceful, productive, wise and unified. In my view it's inevitable. (But then, as we make poor choices along the way, so is a requisite measure of suffering...) There are several good books on this subject (J. Diamond for example). Yes in the past sometimes we have beed successful and sometimes not, the failures have been many and spectacular. Not sure why we think we are any better than those in the past. You must understand that they too thought they were super smart and clever. Aren't we polluting the air and water faster than ever, frantically digging oil wells faster than ever?? Many species going extinct faster than ever? Bombing innocent civilians with depleted uranium faster than ever? How to slow the juggernaut? Then after that, we maybe can stop it. Then after that maybe we can turn it around. How to do it?? In California in the early part of the last century, there was a group of Indians called the Yahi, part of the larger Yana tribe. They were hunted for sport by cowboys, decimated by disease-- the old story. One survived-- only one from the entire tribe of perhaps thousands of people-- and he was captured in 1911. His whole family and everyone he ever knew had been slaughtered or had died in hiding. He was the only speaker of the only language he knew. He was called Ishi, which was not his real name, because it was taboo in his culture to speak one's own name. Of course, everyone who had known his name was already dead by the time he came to our attention, and therefore his name was never known to the rest of us. He was eventually put in a museum-- he literally became one of the dioramas, on display, much like a creature in the zoo, where he made arrowheads and wove baskets. He was studied by Alfred Krober, an anthropologist, and two books were written about him by Theodora Krober. (They were the parents of Ursula Le Guin, the science fiction writer.) In the remaining few years of his life, he, Krober and other anthropologists were able to learn enough of one another's language to communicate. I tell this much of the story to give a resonance and background for my favorite Ishi observation. He said of us that we were like children, smart but not wise. For me, not only is the observation true, but the fact that it is so gentle, coming from this man and given his history, embeds it in rich pathos. And I mention Ishi's observation by way of responding to your questions. In my view, intelligence is necessary and insufficient. All of the problems you list are in a sense the result of intelligence unconstrained by wisdom or any other virtue. And as I see it, that provides part of the answer, clearly, which is that as a species we have to increase in (that old-fashioned word) virtue. As to how that will happen, I have my own views-- I am a Bahá'í-- but I will refrain from saying more than that. The main point remains however. Yes, your short list of problems will stand for the whole array of the threats that man poses to himself and the planet. But as we look at the whole arc of history, what we see is uneven but continuous progress and development. From the family to the tribe to the city-state to the nation we see that across the millennia mankind has learned to cooperate at higher levels of unity, that knowledge has increased and civilization has flowered and died, leading to new and more complex civilizations. We now stand at the threshold of a global civilization, diverse-- yes-- but unified. Generally, as in the present period, we have responded to new realities and opportunities from an old mindset, as if we were adolescents confronting our new circumstances by reacting as children would, but eventually we clearly outgrow the old ways and accept our new circumstances. Then our
[Biofuel] In the news
Two links that pretty much describe themselves: http://cleantechnica.com/2008/10/16/man-creates-homemade-biodiesel-from-algae/ http://cleantechnica.com/2008/11/06/fungus-discovered-that-makes-diesel-from-cellulose/ d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081118/9a6d6398/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Annuals converted into perennials
Dear Guag, Guag Meister wrote: Hi David ; You know I really believe that you are a nice person and you have really great thoughts and ideals, so there is nothing personal in my response. No offense taken, none offered. ...cut We now stand at the threshold of a global civilization, diverse-- yes-- but unified. Sorry for that severe cut, I don't have too much time to write an eloquent response. I don't think the data fits your assertions. Total military spending worldwide for 2007 was an astonishing $1.2 TRILLION Then we have the other effects I mentioned previously, ie. pollution (cost to the planet is how many US$Trillions?), crime, etc. This does not sound like we are moving in the right direction to me (the right direction being peace and harmony and unity). In fact, from my vantage point outside the US, I can say we are moving in exactly the WRONG direction. Please correct me if I am wrong. If the world were one thing, moving on one path, then I would have to agree with you. But of course, as happens even with individuals, the world is moving, in a sense, in many directions, all at the same time. As I said before, you are correct in listing such problems; they exist, they are severe and intractable. However, there are likewise many trends in entirely the opposite direction. The signs that I see are many of them hopeful. These stand our in clearest relief when we look back over the span of history, rather than merely reading the front page of today's newspaper. The question which cannot be simply answered is which of these tendencies will win out in the end. The point that I made previously is that across the span of history what we see is evolution, a clear trend toward progress in the right direction as you define it. Consider the progress which is being made technologically and scientifically, in public health, in the development of transportation and communication, in medicine, and so on. We are beginning to explore the cosmos and plumb the depths of the human mind. To quote from an essay written in 1985 (The Promise of World Peace), Among the favourable signs are the steadily growing strength of the steps towards world order taken initially near the beginning of this century in the creation of the League of Nations, succeeded by the more broadly based United Nations Organization; the achievement since the Second World War of independence by the majority of all the nations on earth, indicating the completion of the process of nation building, and the involvement of these fledgling nations with older ones in matters of mutual concern; the consequent vast increase in co-operation among hitherto isolated and antagonistic peoples and groups in international undertakings in the scientific, educational, legal, economic and cultural fields; the rise in recent decades of an unprecedented number of international humanitarian organizations; the spread of women's and youth movements calling for an end to war; and the spontaneous spawning of widening networks of ordinary people seeking understanding through personal communication. The scientific and technological advances occurring in this unusually blessed century portend a great surge forward in the social evolution of the planet, and indicate the means by which the practical problems of humanity may be solved. They provide, indeed, the very means for the administration of the complex life of a united world. Yet barriers persist. Doubts, misconceptions, prejudices, suspicions and narrow self-interest beset nations and peoples in their relations one to another. When winter finally ends, the ice breaks up, a kind of necessary chaos before spring takes hold and the green mantle spreads. In the same way, what we now see around us is the changing of the world, with old and outmoded institutions thrashing and dying, and new ones being born, as yet imperfect and underdeveloped. As I indicated previously, many of the problems we now have are the result of new capabilities that we have which we are using in the wrong way. We should expect, however, that when we are handed new tools to solve new problems we should, for a time, use them as if they were old tools and the same problems. Thus we can find hope in the new capabilities-- even, strangely, in the new problems-- and a sobering caution in their misuse. In the end, the message of that picture of the earth hanging in the nothing blackness of space offers a very clear message: we are one. Our fates are inextricably linked. That is our present reality, and history has finally offered us the tools, is developing the institutions, and has broadcast the thoughts we need to finally understand that reality, and respond appropriately. I understand how fractured and wounded the world is, but at the same time the strongest trend I see
Re: [Biofuel] Annuals converted into perennials
All, I've not quoted anyone in this thread since my post is not really a response to what has been said, but pertains to the subject per se. I purchased (and read most of) a copy of /Perennial Vegetables/ by Eric Toensmeier, which lists over 100 delicious, easy-to-grow edibles which are (as one may expect) perennial. Toensmeier also wrote the two volume /Edible Forests/, which offers a good deal of information about perennials (and interplanted annuals) from a permaculture perspective. Either of those works are quite new, and must be purchased, but as well, those interested may wish to read /Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture/ by J. Russell Smith (http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library.html#treecrops for a description and link). In other words, there are a good many perennial crops which would serve well-- without insertion of new genes, or epigenetic manipulation to permanently turn existing genes on or off-- to support agriculture. I tend to think that we engage in an undue degree of hubris if we think we can make a few changes in a few genes and hey presto we have changed an annual into a perennial. But of course that is a presumption on my part. My point, however, is that we would likely be better off looking at plants which already exist... Granted, however, regardless of the nutritive value of novel crops, they are generally not well accepted in the marketplace, offering a non-agricultural barrier. Ultimately, depending on who you ask, it appears that our species can sustain itself, not merely by growing enough food without assistance from GMOs (see, for example, Frances More Lappé, /World Hunger: Twelve Myths/, http://www.smallplanet.org/books/item/world_hunger_twelve_myths/), but in all other ways, when it so chooses. When we look at a child that is learning to walk, we generally do not condemn it for falling down, but based on our experience with ourselves and other children, we know it will walk: so we praise it. Likewise, with adolescents that have been given a good foundation, we know even if they are awkward or occasionally make poor judgments, they will grow into productive adulthood. So again, if those adolescents make those poor choices, we admonish but do not condemn. But we've never seen an adult version of the human race; so we are far less certain that it will grow into productive adulthood. It is, therefore, far easier to despair and criticize. Speaking for myself, I feel quite certain that we will grow up, as a species, and become a proper steward of the planet, peaceful, productive, wise and unified. In my view it's inevitable. (But then, as we make poor choices along the way, so is a requisite measure of suffering...) d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081117/398d02a1/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Biogas - was alternative to vaccines
Keith, Keith Addison wrote: The whole DIY field of biogas production is rife with misinformation and hype. Harold Bate was only one of a type. Why do you think Bate didn't do what he said he was doing? It's not that different from John Fry - Fry used pigs, Bate chickens, Fry powered a stationary diesel with methane, Bate a small car. I've seen people sneering at the polythene bag on top of Bate's car, but that wasn't Bate, it was Jean Pain. Bate compressed the methane and had a gas canister in the boot (trunk). http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_bate.html With regard to my comments about (some) DIY types, I did not have Journey in mind. Your site is in a different class. With regard to Bate, however, that's a different story. Consider what he says, as quoted on the page referenced above: The method is really very simple, Bate said. You just put about three buckets of manure into a sealed oil drum. Put a small oil heater under the drum to keep the manure at a steady 80 degrees I keep replenishing my manure supply. I run my car for about six months before I clean out the tank and start with fresh dung. Now, maybe if you used three buckets of manure to produce a /cold fusion/ reaction, that much manure would power a car, but there are just not enough carbon bonds in three buckets of manure-- added daily, even added hourly, to a hyper-efficient digester no less-- that breaking every one of them would produce enough energy to come close to allowing a car to start on a daily basis, much less go somewhere. Most oil drums in the US and GB are 55 gal.-- too small! Worse, what he's standing next to in the picture looks more like it's 30 gal., or less... Now, if one reads all the information you have gathered (to your credit; I'm pretty sure it's the best single resource about Bate on the web), it becomes clear that he has a chicken farm, and he has a larger generator. Given that, he likely in fact could have and may well have done what he said: to run his car and heat his home with biogas. Thus given your question (Why do you think Bate didn't do what he said he was doing?), as I said, he may well have done it. The evidence in hand suggests he probably ran his car on biogas on occasion: but he implied or stated that it all came from the 30 gal. container. Impossible. As a rough guide, figure 500-800 liters (130-215 gal., 15-30 cu.ft.) of well-scrubbed biogas /per HP/ per hour/ /to run an engine. And as a rough guide, figure 1-2 generator volumes in biogas production volume per day. So Bate would have needed a 1-3 cu.m. (260-800 gal., 35-100 cu.ft.) generator to get enough to heat the generator, his house, the compressor needed to liquefy the biogas (etc.), and to run his car for an hour daily-- if it had something less than a 5 HP engine in it. (By the way, he could not have liquefied the methane at 1,100 psi. Even if it were liquefied, the energy density of LNG is about 60% of that of diesel. As such, the small container-- the camping gas bottle-- shown in the picture of his trunk may perhaps have held the equivalent of a gallon or two of petrol-- if liquefied. At the pressures stated in the article, it would have held rather less.) The clear implication in the articles and Bate's own statements is You can do this too; it's simple, and the generator costs from £5 upwards. Yet if it's clear that one cannot power a car using the biogas pouring out of a 30 gal drum-- and it would have been very clear to Bate, assuming he did run his car on biogas-- then the only reason to sell the regulator is the same reason that PT Barnum put up a sign saying This way to the Egress, as if there were another exhibit beyond that door. In fact, however, it was the exit, and the folks who left had to pay to get back in. So it just ain't so: there is nothing about the purchase of a regulator that will allow a 30 gal drum to generate enough biogas to run Bate's Hillman, or my weed eater for that matter. And, to really put the cherry on this banana split, it turns out that (according to no less an authority than Jerry Friedberg-- the guy who became famous for teaching others how to convert their VWs to run on propane) Bate's regulator won't actually work! [All in all, the Bate gadget is simply a single-stage demand regulator that must be supported by at least $150 [1972 dollars] in extra equipment if it's to work satisfactorily (even with compressed methane). http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Transportation/1972-05-01/Jerry-Friedberg-on-Harold-Bate.aspx] Barnum did a lot of good things; so did Bate. And as well both engaged in fairly egregious hyperbole. Well, there are questions and doubts about Jean Pain's methods too. Same situation. It does not pencil out. It would have been impossible for Jean Pain to have gained more energy out of his small generator than he invested as
Re: [Biofuel] Biogas - was alternative to vaccines
Bernard, Bernard wrote: here are a couple of links to biogas, small scale plans for a digester: http://biorealis.com/digester/construction.html a cool calculator: http://biorealis.com/wwwroot/digester_revised.html browse his site: http://biorealis.com/ Bernard http://biorealis.com/digester/operation.html shows the design and offers operational notes. It's a useful site (put up by Robert Crosby), but the generator as designed may suffer from problems (blockages) unless special care is taken to insure that the feedstock is non-fibrous. (Incoming waste material should be macerated...) Likewise, an external settlement tank would be needed if there is any sand or grit in the feed, because the design shown has no way to deal with such stuff. I would suggest making the inlet/outlet pipes larger than shown. I don't think the design actually gains value from counter-current flow (a strategy used by whales, for example, to keep their core body temperature high), particularly as compared to the potential for blockages at sharp turns and in narrowed pipes. While he makes some good points about the digestion process (http://biorealis.com/digester/digestion.html)-- and I strongly agree with several of his points with regard to two-stage digestion-- nevertheless his statement that single-stage digesters... are inherently unstable is not supported by any research that I know about. Rather, almost a century of research and experience shows that single stage digestion-- where both acid-production and methanogenisis occur simultaneously-- is likely easier to stabilize than two-stage digestion. Indeed, the vast majority of the world's digesters are single stage. Where digestion of any sort becomes unstable is where the parameters of digestion, such as HRT, are pushed towards the envelope. Two-stage digestion has excellent potential, but any fair-sized and larger generator would require pretty sophisticated instrumentation and monitoring or it will quickly go awry. (The methanogens, as he indicates, can be overwhelmed by being overfed, so inflows would need to be regulated by keeping an eye on volatile acid concentrations.) Those quibbles aside, however, it's a good site, succinct and educational as well. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/2008/22545a2b/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Biogas - was alternative to vaccines
Menno, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Keith, My point is that we need a lot of compost, especially in Eastern Europe, where soil erosion because of dehumification is huge. Digestion of woody materials derived from nature could in principle produce a lot. But we cannot promote large scale application of open air anaerobic composting, without knowing how much methane the pile is producing, because methane is a strong greenhouse gas. Methane as a greenhouse gas, of course, has about 25 times greater effect (molecule per molecule) than carbon dioxide. However, the amount which one would expect to produce from properly made agricultural compost-- that is, aerobic compost-- would almost certainly be insignificant. To produce compost in any quantities-- sufficient to have any appreciable impact on soil quality in Eastern Europe-- then certainly one should not look at what Jean Pain did, but rather at what is done with large-scale composting operations worldwide. The US is an especially rich resource for good information about this. (See http://www.biocycle.net/, for example.) Given that making a large quantity of compost of any sort would require substantial investment in site modifications, equipment to gather the raw materials and move the compost around, etc., the capital cost difference between making aerobic vs. anaerobic compost seems unlikely to be the principal barrier. This would seem particularly true where one is contemplating doing what Jean Pain did on a large scale, since it would require a large investment to produce a significantly sized operation to gather that much wood waste, and it would take a good deal of fuel-- i.e. it would have a large carbon footprint-- as well... With regard to man-mediated methane production, if Eastern Europe is sufficiently concerned about the issue, then it should not raise cattle. The US Environmental Protection Agency (in 1994) said that the methane emissions of the global cattle population then at 1.3 billion were estimated to be 64 million tons/year-- about a quarter pound/25 gallons a day per cow. The point, in other words, is that one has to be aware not only of the potential harm-- to increase global warming, for example-- but also aware of the appropriate level of concern. One needs perspective. In a sense, however, the whole idea of trying to solve such problems on the macro level is probably wrong-headed. That is, in the aggregate these are big problems, but that does not mean that one is required to find an aggregate (i.e. single source) solution. For example, if farmers in Eastern Europe, through steady and persistent outreach efforts, began increasingly to understand the farm biologically and as an ecosystem, and to produce their own compost, then soil quality would be improved, far more generally and likely far better than if compost is made centrally and distributed widely. Besides, with regard to centralized composting facilities, who would pay for that compost to be delivered and spread if there were no appreciation for the benefit? Education would be required in any case: why not carry it a modest step further? Small is... often the right size. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/2008/78315eed/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Promoting Food Sovereignty and Helping Pachamama in Ecuador
Keith Addison wrote: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081102/d4207e29/attachment.html http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2296, about half-way down. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081101/ddb7128e/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
[Biofuel] Effects of Intermediate Ethanol Blends on Legacy Vehicles...
Effects of Intermediate Ethanol Blends on Legacy Vehicles and Small Non-Road Engines, Report 1 (Oct. 2008) The report is linked from http://www.energy.gov/6640.htm This 136 page report may be more information than most of us would wish, but if you want to know a good deal about how certain engines respond to the use of 20% ethanol blends, here it is. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081101/bc04d3af/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Fwd: bio gas arabian cow farm proects
Kieth, all, Keith Addison wrote: Can you use cowdung mixed with seawater for biogas? All the minerals, which is nice, but too much sodium? Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:49:49 -0700 (PDT) From: essam hussen Subject: bio gas arabian cow farm proects dear sir , can we can sea water to mix it with the cow dung of our biogas projects , if so, tell me till we can to go to the next step In my previous research I had been able to obtain only one study which used seawater for a generator, and that was for the digestion of kelp, macrocystis pyrifera, done by United Aircraft Research Laboratories in 1974: The study was interesting; these researchers not only tried using kelp in a continuous-fed freshwater generator, but in a seawater generator. The substrate was pure kelp. The seawater generator was gradually acclimated to increasing concentrations of seawater, and a stable and successful ecosystem was established in one of the generators thus converted. Gas production was in the neighborhood of 530 cubic centimeters per gram TS added. The freshwater generator averaged about 580 cubic centimeters per gram TS added. (The Biogas Handbook, p 75-76) There are a number of other studies which have been done to digest kelp, including some by David Chenowyth, formerly of the Gas Technology Institute. Naturally, as it concerns cow dung, such studies would be of limited use, but I would assume that other researchers interested in the digestion of kelp or another seaweed have likewise tried using seawater. Indeed, a search in Google bears that out. Two among a large number of references: Mass culture of brackish-water-adapted seaweeds in sewage-enriched seawater. II: Fermentation for biogas production (http://www.springerlink.com/content/x577v51780716786/fulltext.pdf?page=1 This is a free preview of the article-- first page only-- which is otherwise available for purchase.) Biological Gasification of Marine Algae (http://www.abe.ufl.edu/~chyn/download/Publications_DC/Book%20Chapters/1987%20-%20Biological%20Gasificationpdf) d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081026/0490903e/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] alternative to vaccines
SupriseShan2, On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:09:24, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mold and fungi make me very uneasy. I am not saying that it is not a good thing, at least in some circumstances If one is going to use mold in the soil, I would advise wearing a mask and gloves at the very least I do not like fungi- they are very dangerous, in my opinion. Not to pummel a dead equine, but today I again ran across a video from Paul Stamets, which I would recommend to you. There are several, actually, but try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY, which is another marvelous presentation made at what must have been another marvelous TED conference. As I said, the thought occurred because I again encountered the vid, trying out some software which promised to be able to save YouTube videos to one's hard disk (http://www.save2pc.com/full/index.html). But regardless, the point is that there certainly is no kingdom of living things, the whole of which is bad. Indeed, from one point of view, there is nothing in the natural world which is bad, excepting that some things in combination with one another have deleterious effects: Don't mix poisonous snakes with small children, for example. But surely the children (most of them) and the snakes (probably more of them) have their place in the world. If I said to you that there is a common substance which will certainly cause death certain circumstances-- and which indeed probably kills people every day around the world-- you might be surprised and perhaps concerned to learn that it is found in every home in some abundance, all of us are regularly exposed to it, and indeed is impossible to escape from it. But on the other hand, perhaps not, particularly if you learn the many good uses that we have for... water. I think fungi are similar in regards these two points. No one would advise eating death cap mushrooms, although they no doubt fill an important ecologic niche in the forest. That is, they are not only harmless, but beneficial, except in combination with our digestive system. Likewise, most fungi are not only beneficial in virtually all circumstances, but, like water, even essential to continuation of the biosphere, and therefore, to the continuation of... us. Surely one sign of wisdom is that we are able to change our own opinion, if it is founded on inadequate or incorrect information, in order to understand more and begin to have a vision which is world embracing. (This is otherwise known as growth.) In this regard, I thought of you and this concern you mentioned when I again encountered the Stamets' video. It's worth watching. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081018/76455a22/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] Biogas for diesels - was Re: alternative to vaccines
Kieth, all, Keith Addison wrote: Someone just asked me this: id like to know if this conversion is possible for any diesel, and if so how and how easy is it? Any good answers? I can respond with what little I know, which is that in general diesel engines can fairly easily be run on biogas. L. John Fry was able to run one of his two diesel engines with essentially no conversion, as he generally describes in a Mother Earth interview which is posted on your estimable site at http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/MENintvus/fryintvu.html and at Mother's site (http://www.motherearthnews.com/print-article.aspx?id=74930) John was very intelligent and forward thinking, but not particularly scientific, and as such although he says he saw little difference when running his engines between removing CO2 and leaving it in the biogas, he would have produced power more efficiently had he scrubbed. With regard to science, however, in most circumstances this would not be evident without putting the engine on a dynamometer. Even so, the fact that it's not required to scrub CO2 to successfully use biogas in an engine shows that it's generally not difficult. One of the better resources about the subject is the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (try GTZ) publication Engines for Biogas, which is best seen as a complete document (although as a number of web pages) on Alex Wier's CD3WD site at http://www.cd3wd.com/cd3wd_40/CD3WD/APPRTECH/G36ENE/EN/B512_14.HTM. It's also available on Travis Hughey's fastonline site as a PDF (http://www.fastonline.org/CD3WD_40/JF/JF_OTHER/BIG/GTZ-%20Engines%20for%20Biogas%20-%201988.PDF), but in the conversion from HTML to PDF, somehow a number of the illustrations were left out. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081016/d00a8146/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] alternative to vaccines
Kieth, Keith Addison wrote: Greetings David, welcome Dear SurpriseShan2, First of all, it passes my understanding what this has to do with biofuels, but the terms of use (taken liberally) say that no one can tell, and newbies should probably not question the scope of topics. So there you are. I'm glad you read the rules, even if you didn't quite follow them. :-) Never mind. Let me know sometime-- although of course I will not (directly) ask that it be done off line-- about what I missed. You could go back in the archives seven or eight years to find the Journey to Forever has an online Biofuels Library... And much else. Excellent resource. Now how about them biofuels? Small-scale ethanol technology was already quite well-developed, obviously; David Blume's Alcohol Can Be A Gas plus the resources at Journey to Forever and the list archives provide a full how-to for fuel ethanol. Would you say that's the case with biogas? Is there a how-to? Is The Complete Biogas Handbook a full how-to, for instance - start here, do this, don't do that? I wouldn't say so, no, or at least not precisely as described. It's more a compendium of information such as one would want to know in any serious effort to understand and use biogas, and in most cases rather than saying do and don't, what is offered is sufficient so that choices can be made ad hoc in the ever-changing world. Beyond that book, there's a lot available about the subject in general-- scads more now that Al Gore has invented the Internet-- but it's rather harder to find information-in-depth. It's a different sort of problem, isn't it? Biology, not just chemistry. I think it would be hard to find much difference in that regard with ethanol production. In fact, in order to venture very far into celluslosic ethanol production, one would have to know a good deal of chem, biochem, and biology, I would think. Or consider algae production for biodiesel, as another example. You probably wouldn't find exactly the same conditions in any two biodigesters, especially small-scale local ones, for small farmers or city farmers or community groups or whatever. I don't have direct experience of that, but it's certainly true with compost piles. Good analogy. The thing about either is it matters a good deal how much and what you have have as regards the best way to deal with it, how many dollars and calories it's worth to invest, and what you can do with what comes out at the end in the solid, liquid and gaseous phases. ...but there's no biogas section at the Journey to Forever website as there is with biodiesel and ethanol. One reason for that is that we didn't do it here yet, though it would easily fit in, and another reason is my suspicion that there isn't a straightforward start here-type how-to on biogas. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's more a matter of style and choice than right and wrong. There's so much out there these days in any of these realms of endeavor that most of one's time would have to be devoted to collecting and hauling out the trash. (On the other hand, as in so many things, if it was easy than everyone would be doing it.) I can't see that there's a large dark line somewhere in the intellectual cosmos in this context which would distinguish biogas all that profoundly from ethanol, or indeed from biodiesel, depending in that latter case on how substantial one wanted the resource to be. But to pick out a few gems and offer a short how-to on creating a 5 gallon digester would not be that challenging. I've been thinking about creating a new page on the completebiogas site offering links and such, but with the time one must devote to watching American Idle on TV and playing freecell... well it leaves precious few minutes in the day for solving world hunger and designing the new mega super collider, much less writing HTML. You like Rumi? So do I. Also Al-Ghazzali. Well, Sufis. (Among others.) I do like Rumi, and this quote, at least for me, points to a certain experience of the world which is transformative, as if one were looking in a mirror and on a sudden, and only once in a great while, the one looking back winks at you. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081016/c8a7ef21/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages):
[Biofuel] Beetles and fungi together degrade lignin
Friends, I haven't been on the list long enough to know whether this has already been posted. If so, my apologies. Doing some spelunking this evening for other matters, I ran across this. As you know, one of the problems with cellulosic ethanol is to liberate the sugars which are tied up in lignin to insure that more of the energy in plant and tree materials so they can contribute their share to the process. Recent research (Lignin degradation in wood-feeding insects Gleib et al) has shown that enzymes produced by fungi found in the gut of Asian longhorn beetles (beetle juice) allows depolymerization of lignin. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/ps-nfh081808.php Researchers say the speedy process could potentially be harnessed to produce biofuel. Getting rid of the lignin barrier and making the cellulose more accessible is the most expensive and environmentally unfriendly part of making ethanol from biomass, said Geib. The team's discovery, he added, could lead to the potential development of cheaper and more efficient enzymes for converting wood into ethanol. http://sci.odu.edu/hatchergroup/announcements/announce5.shtml These insects have enzymes in their guts that allow them to digest not only cellulose, but also degrade the lignin. This is a mechanism for depolymerization. If we can understand the way the enzymes work to depolymerize the lignin and release cellulose, then we could make the enzymes and employ them in the processing of cellulose in fresh wood. [Hatcher said] After all, he added, The bugs are trying to get energy from the cellulose, and we are too. As executive director of the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium (VCERC), Hatcher also is leading an initiative based at ODU to use algae for the production of biodiesel fuel. d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081014/4dfce4ab/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] alternative to vaccines
Dear SurpriseShan2, First of all, it passes my understanding what this has to do with biofuels, but the terms of use (taken liberally) say that no one can tell, and newbies should probably not question the scope of topics. So there you are. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I truly fail to follow your logic here - or is it logic? And cancer is a fungus, not a fungicide. Though it has long been debated just what percentage of cancer were bacteria, or virus or fungus - it being a fungus has not been under debate, at least not for many years. It has only been the last 2 years that a doctor, Dr Simoncini, proved that cancer was usually if not always a fungus. But I am curious, please tell me why fungus can't replicate? Especially as fungus is a natural componate in the body; it only makes people sick when it is overgrown and the natural controls are not working or are diminished. Not even Simoncini says that cancer is a fungus. And the gentleman to whom you are replying did not say that cancer is a fungicide, as you imply. This is simply a misuse of language: slipshod, funky, and inaccurate. Without clear language, how is clear thought possible? Dr. Simoncini says rather that cancer is /caused by /a fungus, and that killing the fungus cures the cancer. His treatment of choice is intravenous or oral sodium bicarbonate: Arm and Hammer baking soda. That's the wonder drug. The idea, apparently, is that cancer cells produce an acidic environment, and the use of bicarb neutralizes acidity. Certainly both things are true. However, it is difficult to change the pH of the blood or body because it is very strongly homeostatic, and well buffered. If the pH of someone's body is changed in any marked way, that person would probably die, because so many physiologic systems depend on a narrow pH range. But really, this is barely worth discussing, much less arguing about. None of us has the tools to be certain whether the man is a genius or a charlatan, or both. Or maybe neither. But it doesn't matter, since the stuff is available in any drugstore. If you want to swallow sodium bicarb, have at it. It makes a good toothpaste, and is cheaper in that use than anything you can squeeze out of a tube. Add hydrogen peroxide and you've got something really useful. And if you happen to swallow some, and he's right, then you will never suffer from cancer, and you can put to rest any residual fear of fungus. If he's wrong, well, bicarb can't hurt, in modest quantity, taken orally. Occasionally. Probably. Now how about them biofuels? d. -- David William House The Complete Biogas Handbook |www.completebiogas.com| Make no search for water. But find thirst, And water from the very ground will burst. (Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77) -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20081014/9de0c1e4/attachment.html ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
