Re: [Biofuel] doubt to the members
Dear Dr. Paulraj: I suspect that it is due to the suboptimal Nitrogen availability in the diet, because of which sufficient digestion is not taking place (though typically pongam cake has somewhere around 3.5-4.5% Nitrogen content). May be you can work on this? Again, if you had not powdered the oilcake before introducing it into the slurry/digester - this may work because of the increased contact area and you may want to try that. Better still, please do get in touch with Dr. Anand Karve ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) who seems to have successfully demo'd a biogas system based on nonedible oilcake etc. I think the stoves list at REPP had some discussion on this sometime back. Hope this helps. warm regards: __ramjee. - Original Message - From: Dr. Paul Raj [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Sunday, March 20, 2005 12:57 pm Subject: [Biofuel] doubt to the members Dr.S.Paulraj [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can anybody solve our problem? we started an experimental biogas unit 1m3 size to find out the value of deoiled cake of pongamia seed. When we started replacing the cow dung with deoiled cake, we not only see slow production of gas but also the gas produced in not burning. probably some other gas is produced. What is the problem in our experiment?? __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
[biofuel] Oil Age Eskimos
Oil Age Eskimos Joseph J. Jorgensen 401 pages University of California Press May 1990 ASIN: 0520068432 This is one of a few fine books on the impact assessment of huge petro_projects - covering all aspects of 'life'; which incidentally was published a little less than year after the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in March 1989. In this book Joseph Jorgensen analyzes the impact of Alaskan oil extraction on Eskimo society - with a very wide canvas comprising its impact on village organization, economies, kinship relationships. The author seems to have investigated three communities representing three environments: Gambell (St. Lawrence Island, Bering Sea), Wainwright (North Slope, Chukchi Sea), and Unalakleet (Norton Sound). The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, which seems to have primarily helped and facilitated oil operations, dramatically altered the economic, social, and political organization of these villages and others like them. Although the folks belonging to these villages had experienced little direct economic benefit from the oil economy, they have unwittingly taken on many an environmental risk insidiously tossed at them by the industry. Jorgensen provides a detailed reminder that the Native villagers still depend on the harvest of naturally-occurring resources of the land and sea - birds, eggs, fish, plants, land mammals and sea mammals - and the unfortunate fact that the availability of these minimalist resources has also been affected... This nice book (which of course results in a lotta bile secretion because of the outrageousness of the situation) is a must read for all alt_fuel enthusiasts (though it is very sociological in a few sections), who want to get hold of the big_picture applied in specific to a community of original americans (as opposed to (mostly) avaricious immigrants post colombus). It is available free online from Univ of California press. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt567nb8vs Enjoy! (?) __ramjee. Ramjee Swaminathan | http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ | ramjee at vsnl dot net the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. -- Chaucer Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?list=biofuel Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] longdiscover article: anything to oil!
This is an interesting article. But with quotes like - Suddenly, the whole built world just becomes a temporary carbon sink, says Paul Baskis, inventor of the thermal depolymerization process - it looks and sounds suspiciously like a grandiose plan (and big factory solution) out to solve all problems of the world in one master stroke... ein l, ein zukunft and all that? __ramjee. http://www.discover.com/may_03/gthere.html?article=featoil.html DISCOVER Vol. 24 No. 5 (May 2003) Anything into Oil Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year By Brad Lemley Photography by Tony Law Gory refuse, from a Butterball Turkey plant in Carthage, Missouri, will no longer go to waste. Each day 200 tons of turkey offal will be carted to the first industrial-scale thermal depolymerization plant, recently completed in an adjacent lot, and be transformed into various useful products, including 600 barrels of light oil. In an industrial park in Philadelphia sits a new machine that can change almost anything into oil. Really. This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind, says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri. This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming. Pardon me, says a reporter, shivering in the frigid dawn, but that sounds too good to be true. Everybody says that, says Appel. He is a tall, affable entrepreneur who has assembled a team of scientists, former government leaders, and deep-pocketed investors to develop and sell what he calls the thermal depolymerization process, or TDP. The process is designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing. Unlike other solid-to-liquid-fuel processes such as cornstarch into ethanol, this one will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock. If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water. While no one plans to put people into a thermal depolymerization machine, an intimate human creation could become a prime feedstock. There is no reason why we can't turn sewage, including human excrement, into a glorious oil, says engineer Terry Adams, a project consultant. So the city of Philadelphia is in discussion with Changing World Technologies to begin doing exactly that. The potential is unbelievable, says Michael Roberts, a senior chemical engineer for the Gas Technology Institute, an energy research group. You're not only cleaning up waste; you're talking about distributed generation of oil all over the world. This is not an incremental change. This is a big, new step, agrees Alf Andreassen, a venture capitalist with the Paladin Capital Group and a former Bell Laboratories director. The offal-derived oil, is chemically almost identical to a number two fuel oil used to heat homes. Andreassen and others anticipate that a large chunk of the world's agricultural, industrial, and municipal waste may someday go into thermal depolymerization machines scattered all over the globe. If the process works as well as its creators claim, not only would most toxic waste problems become history, so would imported oil. Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil. Referring to U.S. dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East, R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and an adviser to Changing World Technologies, says, This technology offers a beginning of a way away from this. But first things first. Today, here at the plant at Philadelphia's Naval Business Center, the experimental feedstock is turkey processing-plant waste: feathers, bones, skin, blood, fat, guts. A forklift dumps 1,400 pounds of the nasty stuff into the machine's first stage, a 350-horsepower grinder that masticates it into gray brown slurry. From there it flows into a series of tanks and pipes, which hum and hiss as they heat, digest, and break down the mixture. Two hours later, a white-jacketed technician turns a spigot. Out pours a
[biofuel] bioremediation-oily sludge
Oilzapper: eliminate crude oil spills, manage oily sludge After seven years of research work, TERI has developed Oilzapper (crude oil and oily sludge degrading bacterial consortium). Oilzapper was produced in bulk and immobilized on to a carrier material (organic powder material). Carrier based Oilzapper was used for clean up of crude oil spills and treatment of oily sludge. Crude oil and oily sludge degradation efficiency of Oilzapper was tested under laboratory as well as under field conditions. With application of Oilzapper more than 10,000 metric tonnes of oily sludge have been treated, more than 10 acre land and many lakes (North-Eastern part of India) contaminated due to oil slick have been cleaned up in two years. http://www.teriin.org/case/oilzap.htm This is an interesting development though am always skeptical about the 'side-effects' of runaway 'remediation' - anyway, much to my disappointment, the article does not talk about oil spills on the high seas and as to whether this tech is applicable to those scenarios though! Please read 'crude oil spills' as 'crude oil sludge' in this writeup. Regards: __ramjee. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE : [biofuel] Indian bio fuel drive
Dear Siva: Nice to hear about the biofuel drive... :-) India the second largest sugarcane producer has at last kick started the BIO fuel revolution in India. Hmm... IIRC, India is the topmost producer (at least for the past 2 years) - and it is currently in the realm of 18 million tonnes pa; the next would be Brazil at circa 17 million tonnes pa. Government has made it mandatory to add 5% of Ethanol in petrol sold in 9 of 25 states from jan 1st 2003. Remaining states will also be included may be in a years time. Other policy on the anvil is making this to 10% and also having upto 10% of ethanol in diesel. No time frame have been mentioned about this. Dear Siva, as per the original announcement, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Goa (9 states) + Chandigarh, Pondicherry, Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Union territories) must have complied with this 5% directive; however, TN and AP have not complied with it (infrastructure reasons; Gujarat and Punjab havent also haven'd complied(no 'capacity'). That leaves us with only 5 states! Plans are there to make the 5% blend available all over India from sept 2003 and from oct 2003 it would be increased to 10% in a phased manner. For diesel RD is going on (am told) and there have been no policy decisions or deliberations. We probably can expect some news from the govt in 2004, in this respect. This is a great saving of upto 2 billion US$ per year. May be by 2-3 years this will touch upto to 5 billion US$. Adding a great benefit to environment which I I don't know how these figures have been arrived at... But *any* saving is well worth the trouble! :-) need not explain to this user group. Its a great boon to sugar cane farmers who for the last 2-3 years have not been getting their money from the sugar producing mills in proper time and also at a good price ( I mean 2 billion US$ will be circulated at rural economy). Am not sure about this. Sugar mills are controlled by 'sugar barons' and the rates for sugarcane are determined by the 'juice yield' rather than by any byproduct - including bagasse. The state governments have a circutous say in the matter only with respect to 'levy' sugar for onward distribution thru the 'public distribution center'. The central minister may say otherwise (he needs votes!) - but the ground realities are unfortunately pretty straightforward. Time and again I am drawn to berating the obvious - the evils of a purely top-down (thanks keith for the apt term) approach. Considering the fact India *imports* sugar from Pakistan :-) and the fact that sugar baron lobby is a *very* powerful one - I dont see the cane growers benefitting significantly from this 'ethanol' factor. Sad. Please note that ROI wise, farmers stand to get more per acreage from sugar than alcohol - it is unfortunately the current situation of the economics... :-( If only things were less complex... Where is that guide for the purplexed? I have embarked on a mission to go to every school once in a week to educate people on this bio fuel drive. Any help in this regard is greatly appreciated. I mean some good inputs to my presentation slides. All the best. I live in bangalore - please let me know whether you need any specific help. We can take this discussion offline. I have also approached a TV channel which telecast weekly debates to have a programm on having a national policy on BIO fuel. Any help/pointers in this regard is also greatly appreciated. Good luck. :-) You probably should get in touch with IREDA (indian ren energy dev agency) and the good folks at MNES(ministry of nonconven energy resources). I think webservers and email ids are available (google?) - If you go thru the archives of the list you can find tonnes of info. You can probably look at journeytoforever.org and webconx.com to start with (if you have not already done that)... I have another question. Can normal petromax lamp be lit on ethanol? Yes sir. In fact it can run on a blend of (castoroil+kerosene), diesel, and ethanol ofcourse. I would invoke the 'caveat emptor' cluase though! :-) In fact Anil Rajvanshi of Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) - has done significant research in this direction. Please read: Ace innovator holds up Aladdin's lamp http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?art_id=250315493 All the best: __ramjee. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference, but in practice there is -- Craig A. Finseth. http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE : Re: [biofuel] jatropha@india - musings
Keith: If you throw in the NGOs brigade (who revel in sailing along *any* funding_wind [2]) and the forest department (whose idea of 'social' forestry so far is to plant eucalyptus trees all over India) - I don't know what the outcome is going to be. * That bad? They know there are better ways of doing things, don't * they? Did they learn nothing from the Chipko movement etc? They have learnt the wrong lessons I guess, and have fallen a victim to Ngotitis. Anyway, my cynicism apart, I do know a number of organizations who work *genuinely* at the grassroots level... I am just against *that* crop of NGOs with a buccaneerish attitude whose various cultivars have practically hijacked the 'development' agenda. * So we've funded everything out of our own far-from-deep pockets so * far, not easy. We wanted to develop the project first, then we'd go * for funding, not just asking, but with something valuable to offer, * so we could deal, no need to beg. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to * resist the commercial pressures, nor other pressures, and the project * wouldn't be able to deliver its goods. It seems to be working, we're * nearly at that stage now and can soon start putting our funding * strategy into operation at last. In fact the project has achieved * quite a lot already, without any funding, and without even going * anywhere yet. Please accept my congratulations - and best wishes for the journey... * There's more about that here, and on the next page: * http://journeytoforever.org/community.html * Community development * I can send you the whole thing if you like, it's a good read, it * strengthens your case I think. Thanks Keith, I have already gone thru these pages. In fact, I have immensely benefitted from your j2fe site - what amazing range of information! I have been happily recommending your pages and that Steve Solomon (www.soilandhealth.org) - to anyone and everyone who cares... :-) Thanks once again. Regards: __ramjee. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. -- Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964 Ramjee Swaminathan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] jatropha@india - musings
Interesting days, these... NEW DELHI: The Government is mulling investment of over Rs 17,500 crore to undertake a comprehensive programme for extracting oil from Jatropha plantations for blending with diesel. [1] I am also told that the Indian Railways intends to use a 10% mix of Jatropha oil in its diesel rail engines to save about Rs. 300 crores (circa USD 60 million) this year(2003) from its fuel bill. However, I am just wondering whether it needs to be only jatropha all the way. India is a repository of various agroclimatic zones and there are various trees that can yield VOs to a significant extent. For example, across India, one can find various oilseed bearing trees like: Madhuca indica, Pongamia glabra, Cacophyllum inophyllum, Salvadora oleoides, Actinodaphine hookerii, Schleichera trijuga, Hydnocarpus wightiana, Shorea robusta, Vateria indica, Garcinia indica, Mesua ferrea, Mallotus phillip et al... even the common azadirachta indica (neem) and nicotiana tabacum (tobacco) can be explored. On the one hand we can be happy that blended VOs are going to be used - but then, by resorting to 'commercial' monocrops of one oilseed bearing species, the benefits that could accrue over a period of time can only be dubious at best, IMHO! If you throw in the NGOs brigade (who revel in sailing along *any* funding_wind [2]) and the forest department (whose idea of 'social' forestry so far is to plant eucalyptus trees all over India) - I don't know what the outcome is going to be. And as for calling SVOs and Blended VOs as 'biodiesel' by the media - please don't get me started on *that*! ;-) __ramjee. [1] Business online - Monday, December 9, 2002 http://www.hinduonnet.com/bline/blnus/14091304.htm Govt mulls investment for bio-diesel NEW DELHI: The Government is mulling investment of over Rs 17,500 crore to undertake a comprehensive programme for extracting oil from Jatropha plantations for blending with diesel. The investment, to be undertaken under a National Mission on Jatropha during the Tenth Plan, would have a multi-purpose objective of making available bio-diesel in the country, greening five million hectares of degraded waste land, generating employment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Under the mission, being formulated by the Planning Commission, it is proposed to take up plantation of Jatropha on five million hectares consisting of two million hectares through joint forestry management committees and under Social Forestry programme by Government agencies and three million hectares outside forest areas through voluntary organisations. If the programme is approved now, the nurseries and seedlings would be available next year for plantation and the diesel would be available from 2004. - PTI [2] Foreign aid to Indian NGOs considered harmful http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/foreign_aid_considered_harmful.html Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE : [biofuel] Forest Fights
At Thu, 19 Dec 2002 20:40:02 -, motie_d [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Motie, may I suggest the following? 1. It would be a nice idea to show some consideration to people (like me) with flaky Internet connections - like whetting the URL, whether the matter has already been discussed, if so what is the prevailing viewpoint, and what additional facets of the 'truth' that the article brings about. http://www.reason.com/rb/rb121802.shtml (am reminded of the old arabic saying - 'dogs bark, but caravans carry on' - with due respect to the canines... :-) 2. Though raw bits like what you have posted are okay - it would be nice to know *your* opinion on the subject, especially when the issue it rakes up, happens to be a very contentious one. Also please note that His Highhandedness Ron Bailey's views are at best known to be white noise. Unfortunately, everytime this kind of stuff is posted, it results/may result in one or more of the following: 2.1 It generates a backlash (well deserved) but the energy and time of the others could be better utilized for composing more *useful* mails rather than debunking (for the nth time) the trollish views of a few working for the likes of treason.con ;-) 2.2 Signal to Noise ratio of the list suffers. 2.3 People like myself have to pay to download mails - which we may not be interested in reading in the first place, resulting in exasperation! 2.4 People may killfile these kinds of mails at their mailboxes, so they may lose the benefit of reading and getting to know your opinions/views in future... I'm terribly pressed for time, but thought this may be of interest. 3. So are most of us, am sure! :-) It would have been nicer on your part to go thru the article first and offer your opinion rather than simply forwarding the URL that you have come across. Warm regards: __ramjee. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] biofuel pointers (and some others too!)
My apologies, if these links have already been forwarded to the list. The Green Center, Inc., on Cape Cod, is a non-profit educational institute that evolved from the New Alchemy Institute. Our goals are the same - the support of ecologically derived forms of energy, agriculture, aquaculture, housing, and landscapes, and living in harmony with nature. http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/home.htm New Alchemy Quarterly - Fall 1986, No. 25 (The Future Of The Small Farm) http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/q25/toc.htm Biothermal Energy: Cogenerants of Thermophylic Composting and their Integration Within Food Producing and Waste Recycling Systems http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/rr/rr001.htm The Composting Greenhouse at New Alchemy http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/rr/rr003.htm New Alchemy Quarterly - Spring 1989, No. 35 (Educating Tommorrow's Environmentalists) http://www.fuzzylu.com/greencenter/q35/toc.htm New uses council - Changing the World through Renewable Resource (does not seem to have been updated in a major way after 1997) http://www.newuses.org/index.html Plant/Crop-Based Renewable Resources 2020, A Vision to Enhance U.S. Economic Security Through Renewable Plant/Crop-Based Resource Use. (the report is in pdf format though!) http://www.newuses.org/EG/EG-17/vision17.html Ethanol Plant Development Handbook 2001 (pdf docs) http://www.ethanolrfa.org/pubs_reports.shtml#plantdev Willow Biomass For Bioenergy - Report from State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1994 http://www.esf.edu/pubprog/brochure/willow/willow.htm __ramjee. ramjee at vsnl dot net | http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Thought Provoking Book Review
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote Mommy, There's A Monster Under My Bed! (A Review Of Global Warming And Other Eco-Myths) snip Probably the subject line should have read 'provocative book review!' ;-) I guess, an Indian edition/context of the book would include a lengthy chapter on greed (oops, green) revolution by that illustrious agri scientist of India called MS Swaminathan, who is the Norman Borlaug's equivalent in India. The cutest thing is that this scientist has now started talking about 'sustainable' farming etc - probably because, this would get suffient funding, in these days of enlightened benefactors! Anyway, a few quotes that I harvested are in order here: Do not become archivists of facts. Try to penetrate to the secret of their occurrence, persistently search for the laws which govern them. -- Ivan Pavlov It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. -- Caron de Beaumarchais So Motie, please forgive Ron Bailey - he knows naught what he is doing. ;-) Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Free energy?
Obviously the schools aren't teching science. I think they're not teaching healthy scepticism. Scientists can be as gullible as anyone else, especially if it involves a different branch of science. Eric Krieg points to a common thread of mixing patriot politics, religion and a grand conspiracy. He says farmers are good marks. Thought this article is very pertinent... :-) http://www.salon.com/books/review/2002/06/19/stupid/index2.html Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid, by Robert J. Sternberg Scholars finally tackle the question that has plagued humanity since time immemorial. - - - - - - - - - - - - Review by Gavin McNett June 19, 2002 | Only a few questions can be called basic to the human condition -- such as What can we eat? or Who created us? -- and lots of very smart people have been working on them for millennia. The eating thing, for instance, has been minutely parsed by agriculture, economics and the culinary arts (among other fields), while the question of origins has given us religion and several branches of the hard sciences. But there's at least one question -- as basic as any other in its topical relevance and its grounding in the ancient -- that human inquiry has only recently begun seriously to address. It was asked in caves, by people clad in mastodon-hide shifts, and chances are it crossed your mind this very day. How, it goes, can people be so stupid? And who knows the answer, really? I don't -- do you? The academy is finally catching up with that one. There's long been a rich vernacular literature on stupidity, including such titles as Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things, and Charles McKay's 1841 classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. But recently, a couple of academic works on the topic have appeared, so that stupidity studies would seem to be something of an emerging field -- an academic trendlet. Avital Ronell, the post-structuralist theorist perhaps best known for the naked photos of herself in the Re:Search Angry Women collection, had a book out last year called, simply, Stupidity. (It wasn't clear whether she was for or against it.) Psychologist Gene F. Ostrom's Why Smart People Do Stupid Things came out last year as well (he's against it). Now Robert J. Sternberg, IBM professor of psychology and education at Yale and the hyperprolific editor or author of more than 60 other books, has compiled and edited Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid, a volume of scholarly papers on the subject. Sternberg's premise is that stupidity and intelligence aren't like cold and heat, where the former is simply the absence of the latter. Stupidity might be a quality in itself, perhaps measurable, and it may exist in dynamic fluxion with intelligence, such that smart people can do really dumb things sometimes and vice versa. Each of the 10 contributors (or teams of contributors) examines the nature and theory of stupidity from a different angle, coming up with different notions of what it is and how it works -- and making the book, on the whole, a rather compelling treatment of what could be humankind's oldest and most persistent problem. That said, there also seems to be something rather odd about the book and about the way it frames its subject. But more on that anon. The appearance of the smart and canny Ronell amid the fray gives a hot tip as to where this small explosion of stupidity literature might be coming from. These days, when complex academic works such as Ronell's and Sternberg's cross over to a readership outside academia, all slicked-up and flashy of cover, it's often less because of what's inside than because of the immediate hook of the title -- and the lower the hook is aimed, the better. Ronell's titles include Crack Wars and The Telephone Book (both post-structuralist treatises unreadable by civilians), while the grand exemplar of the trend is the late Dominique Laporte's The History of Shit, issued in translation (in a deluxe black-velvet-bound edition) by MIT Press a couple of years back. Why this might be, nobody knows. Like many stupid things, it's mysterious. But one tries in vain to avoid picturing the editorial meeting behind Sternberg's book: The editor at Yale University Press leans back in his chair, puts his arms behind his head. OK, Bob, he says. I need crossover titles like you wouldn't believe, but everything's been done. 'History of Shit' is taken; there are books out on piss, armpits, you name it. University of Illinois Press just did a collection of papers by a classics professor on the pugilistic tradition of a certain Greek island, called 'Lesbian Double Fisting.' Your last thing on the psychology of love was good. What else have you got? The professor leans forward intently, hands in a professorial clasp. Well, I'm also working on the psychology of hatred, and on a theory of what you'd call negative intelligence ... Hey, great! the editor says. Title: 'You're Stupid and I Hate You: Why Everyone
Re: [biofuel] Farmers Turn To Composting, Georgia, USA
For those interested, this beautiful book is available online at: http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html __ramjee. - Original Message - From: Christopher Witmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 7:27 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] Farmers Turn To Composting, Georgia, USA A very welcome development indeed -- let us hope we shall also see wider application of the composting principles set forth in Jenkins' Humanure Handbook. MH wrote: Farmers Turn To Composting To Protect Crops, Revive Soils Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send quot;unsubscribequot; messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Global Warming fertilizer
Marc, 1. Re Ozone layer depletion and it being perceived as 'party line' stuff @biofuel_list or a figment of imagination - please note that alleged software glitches of the TOMS[1] satellite data have been beaten to death. Please note that a group of brits later used the same raw data that the glitched study did and showed that indeed there was a rapid depletion of the ozone layer. IIRC, the group was associated with the antarctica research team of england. 2. No body said that Ozone depletion takes place only over the stratosphere of Antarctica, not in this list anyway. A slew of studies have shown that in the mid-north latitudes (30 N - 60) there have been significant depletions too. I agree however that the popular term 'ozone hole' has its primary linkages with Antarctica. But, that does not mean that proto_ozone_holes(tm);-) don't exist anywhere else. 3. Ofcourse the accentuation (not the appearance, which please note) of the 'hole' is seasonal - but the rate of increase of the hole scope and the related ramifications are what a cause for alarmbells, IMO. 4. If one does some digging around with the concepts of polar stratospheric clouds, active chlorine and polar (antarctic) vortices - and understands them, the 'ozone hole in the south' where as 'most CFC emissions are in the Northern Hemisphere' kind of apparent incongruities would disappear, IMO. 5. I dont understand how/what 'continuously emit chlorine compounds' translates to in terms of tonnage, but I understand that the Erebus volcano does not operate 'continuously!' 6. I note with a wry grin that a blog says Mt. Erebus, a volcano located 6 miles from McMurdo base, dumps up to 1000 tons of chlorine a day into the polar atmosphere. I wonder where this gentleman got his data from! The url [2] is given for your amusement and edification. Probably you are referring to these kinds of claims. I am reminded of that cute quote by Mark Twain - 'First get the facts straight,then you are free to distort them at your leisure.' :-) [1] http://jwocky.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [2] http://sproteus.blogspot.com/2002_04_01_sproteus_archive.html Thanks and regards: __ramjee. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ramjee Swaminathan http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ Mandatory quote: Prudens questio dimindium scientia. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - Original Message - From: F. Marc de Piolenc [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Biofuel List biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, June 21, 2002 12:13 PM Subject: [biofuel] Global Warming fertilizer And I'm sure that you'll also notice that the compilers at this site don't refute ozone depletion as the myth that you would suggest or have others believe. I did notice that they hew to the Party Line - which is still tenable if you are only aware of errors in reduction of the SATELLITE data. Once it is clear that the surface survey data were also incorrectly processed it becomes untenable. But let's be charitable and say they are not aware of those facts. And let's also ignore the fact that there are other, much stronger arguments against any connection between the Ozone Hole and CFC's, namely: ~most CFC emissions are in the Northern Hemisphere - which depending on whom you read has either no ozone hole or a slight dimple - while the big (though still only seasonal) ozone hole is in the south ~no site that I have yet found even mentions the active Antarctic volcanoes Erebus and Terror, which continuously emit chlorine compounds in hot plumes that convect them to high altitudes. Marc -- Remember September 11, 2001 but don't forget July 4, 1776 They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Free $5 Love Reading Risk Free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/3PCXaC/PfREAA/Ey.GAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send quot;unsubscribequot; messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] African droughts triggered by Western pollution
http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns2393 African droughts triggered by Western pollution 19:00 12 June 02 Rachel Nowak, Melbourne Emissions spewed out by power stations and factories in North America and Europe may have sparked the severe droughts that have afflicted the Sahel region of Africa. The droughts have been among the worst the world has ever seen, and led to the infamous famines that crippled countries such as Ethiopia in the 1980s. The cause appears to be the clouds of sulphur belched out alongside the soot, organic carbon, ammonium and nitrate produced when fossil fuels are burnt, according to researchers in Australia and Canada. As these compounds move through the atmosphere, they create aerosols that affect cloud formation, altering the temperature of the Earth's surface and leading to dramatic shifts in regional weather patterns. In the past thirty to forty years, the Sahel--a loosely defined band across Africa, just south of the Sahara and including parts of Ethiopia in the east and Guinea in the west--has suffered the most sustained drought seen in any part of the world since records began, with precipitation falling by between 20 and 50 per cent. Although the droughts have had climate experts scratching their heads, the impacts have been obvious. During the worst years, between 1972 and 1975, and 1984 and 1985, up to a million people starved to death. Now Leon Rotstayn of the CSIRO, Australia's national research agency, thinks he knows what caused them. Rotstayn and his colleague Ulrike Lohmann of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, ran a simulation of global climate that included interactions between sulphur dioxide emissions and cloud formation. Sulphur dioxide creates sulphate aerosols that provide condensation nuclei for clouds. With more nuclei, clouds form from smaller droplets than usual, and are more efficient at reflecting solar radiation, cooling the Earth below. When the researchers included the huge sulphur emissions from the northern hemisphere during the 1980s in their model, the Earth's surface in the north cooled relative to the south, driving the tropical rain belt south and causing droughts in the Sahel. Their results will be reported soon in the Journal of Climate. It's still speculative, and the model isn't very refined, but it's very interesting. It's the first time we've seen a connection between pollution in the mid-latitudes and climate in the tropics, says Johann Feichter of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg. Feichter, who has run similar simulations but cannot talk about the results because the research is being peer-reviewed for a major journal, says the sulphur emissions probably worsen the natural cycle of droughts that would have happened anyway. During the past few years, the droughts have become less severe, a change that Rotstayn puts down to the clean air laws in North America and Europe that reduced sulphur dioxide emissions in response to another environmental crisis, acid rain. But the problems in Asia may be just beginning. Climate researchers around the world are beginning to study other types of aerosols, such as the clouds of black soot and sulphate being churned out by rapidly industrialising India and China, in the hope that they may shed light on other regional weather anomalies. For instance, northern China has had unusually dry summers in the past few years, while it has been particularly wet in the south. 19:00 12 June 02 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Free $5 Love Reading Risk Free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/3PCXaC/PfREAA/Ey.GAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send quot;unsubscribequot; messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE : Re: [biofuel] oil crisis data
Sorry. Here it is... http://www.hubbertpeak.com/politics/ __ramjee. At Fri, 07 Jun 2002 17:52:04 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Do you happen to know precisely where you found this? You didn't give the exact link. TIA. MM Another interesting snippet from the same site: George W. Bush on Next Four Years: Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send quot;unsubscribequot; messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] oil crisis data
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/ Named after the late Dr. M. King Hubbert, Geophysicist, this website provides data, analysis and recommendations regarding the upcoming peak in the rate of global oil extraction. Among others, there is an interesting doc - 'Modelling future liquids production from extrapolation of the past and from ultimates' by Jean Laherrere, France - which has a lot of data - and anyway Hubbert's peak is not challenged here. http://www.hubbertpeak.com/laherrere/uppsalaJHL.pdf Another interesting snippet from the same site: George W. Bush on Next Four Years: Tom Brokaw: You talk a lot about the energy crisis, but you've talked about it almost exclusively as the need to produce more energy. There's been very little talk about conservation. We have been on a buying and consumption binge in this country. George W. Bush: Well, I thought - listen, I believe we need to conserve. I mean, I think we need to have incentives to encourage people to insulate their homes better. I think we need to make sure industry does not, you know, is not wasteful, not question about it. But I'm realistic. We can't conserve our independence. I mean, you got an energy problem in California primarily caused by the fact there's no plants, and there's not enough to fuel the plants if there were new plants. We need to explore natural gas. I mean we need to be moving U.S. product. And so I think the two go hand in hand. I was reading somewhere the other day, where we can get out of this crisis by more wind. Well, you know, that's an interesting thought, except our technology isn't enough to capture enough wind to be able to make sure our economy continues to grow. And so I strongly believe in conservation. I believe we made great progress in conservation. But I know if we don't find more product we're going to have a problem. Excerpted from an interview on MSNBC (January 14, 2001 http://www.msnbc.com/news/515320.asp) Essence: Independence = more consumption and more production! (perhaps with more wind!) I am really amazed and find it hard to believe that this person is the president of *the* superpower. good grief! __ramjee. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ramjee Swaminathan http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ Mr. Muste, asked a reporter, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle? Oh, I don't do this to change the country. I do this so the country won't change me. -- Andrea Ayvazian, as Quoted in The Sun =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send quot;unsubscribequot; messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Business2's take on biofuels
Business2 has come up with listing of 8 technologies that will change the world[1], wherein biofuel production plants have been identified too. Fossil Fuels Go Vegan - Biofuel Production Plants[2] The big idea: Replacing oil with fuels from genetically engineered crops The challenge: To increase the yield of biofuel crops, control the environmental strain imposed by biofuel farming, and renovate the fossil-fuel infrastructure Ethanol, methanol, biodiesel, and other fuels made from agricultural products can reduce emissions and eliminate dependence on foreign oil. Today most biofuel is low-yield ethanol, derived from sugars stored in corn. Similarly, methanol takes almost as much energy to create as it releases when it's burned. But higher-yielding biofuel crops may create new hazards. Genetically engineered plants could escape to spawn kudzu-like superweeds. Widespread biofuel cultivation could also strain other resources, such as underground aquifers. Today's battles over oil could become tomorrow's water wars. I recollect Keith making a statement (obviously tongue_in_cheek) wondering whether the biofuels would become the 'next big_bad thing,' a few 100 messages back. Does anyone in the list have pointers with respect to the unintended consequences of massive and widespread cultivation of biofuel plants (in future)? Am curious. __ramjee. PS: J2FE is also mentioned in [2] [1] http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/print/0,1643,40435,FF.html [2] http://www.business2.com/webguide/0,,71306,00.html?ref=wg_el =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ramjee Swaminathan http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists. -- Reflections on the Human Condition, by Eric Hoffer =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/orkH0C/n97DAA/Ey.GAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send quot;unsubscribequot; messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] OPEC, Big Oil and you - 10
Keith: Am a very active lurker in the list and I just surfaced to thank you for your efforts. The saga of oil is fascinating and sordid. Please keep them coming. Thanks once again: __ramjee, who would make [EMAIL PROTECTED] one of these days. :-) - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 10:01 PM Subject: [biofuel] OPEC, Big Oil and you - 10 The Seven Sisters The Great Oil Companies and the World They Made Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] information about biodiesel
Amit Pratap [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: expected to study about the biodiesel as an alternative source for the fuel. can u suggest some work on which more emphasis is needed so that i can proceed in some particular direction which will be beneficial from the view of industry. * There is a group called Sustainable Transformation of Rural Areas (SuTRA), a programme unit of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, which has done commendable groundwork and research to demonstrate the potential of Honge (pongamia pinnata) oil as an effective substitute for diesel in the operation of diesel engines in rural areas. A very enthu person - Prof Udipi Shrinivasa, is driving the show. AFAIK, field trials have been going on for the past 3 years and the tech has been commercialized; am aware that quite a few plantations of this wild growing tree are up and productive in the state of Karnataka (south India). Am also told that there is a steel foundry which is powered *exclusively* by this honge oil. I have seen newspaper reports of farmers using pongamia oil (as svo) to power their tractors and sprayers. * You get in touch with the group at: SuTRA (Sustainable Transformation of Rural Areas) Dept of Mechanical Engineering Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. * They can give you tonneloads of ideas; may be you can also seriously look at other trees like neem (azadiracta indica), mohwa (madhura indica), karanja (pongamia glabra), kamaca(mallotus phillip) etc as sources of oil... * Interestingly, far back in 1930s at Calcutta (now Kolkata), 11 vegetable oils, including Honge oil, were used as substitutes for diesel in a study. These efforts were not sustained as fossil fuels were found cheaper at that time. However, I dont have much details about this info. * When I went to Magan Sangrahaalay (at Wardha - founded by Dr. Devendrakumar + JC Kumarappa, as per the instructions/advice of the very insightful Mahathma Gandhi) I found that a lot of work had been carried out to effectively exploit these sources of oils - *decades* back; You can get in touch with the good folks at Center of Science for Villages at Wardha for more directions on this as this is the organization that looks after MS. You can contact Ms. Savitha Mehta - PRO, Center of Science for Villages, Wardha, Maharashtra - 442 001. Perhaps you can think about teaming up with them. Good luck: __ramjee =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ramjee Swaminathan http://www.qsl.net/vu2sro/ Mandatory quote: Prudens questio dimindium scientia. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck Monitoring Service trial http://us.click.yahoo.com/ACHqaB/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
