Re: [biofuel] Re: Fuel-hungry China goes far afield to secure oil

2004-02-11 Thread dcande01

Hi
apparently there is a thread in the biovuel group about the prisners we  
have in cuba (Gitmo) I thought you might enjoy
pretty heavy stuff for a bunch of grease monkeys.

On Tuesday, Feb 10, 2004, at 12:29 US/Eastern, John Hayes wrote:

 Gustl Steiner-Zehender wrote:

 And  just  so  we  don't start getting puffed up here in the states
(about german concentration camps) ed.
  we
 need to remember that we had concentration camps for the Japanese here
 and  we  considered them completely legal.  Pick your enemy, persecute
 them and lock them up.  Sad commentary on we humans.

 Umm. No. We did it, but it wwas *NOT* considered legal. In Ex Parte
 Endo, Mitsuye Endo first complied with the internment order, then filed
 a writ of habeas corpus against this illegal detainment. The U.S.
 Supreme Court ruled in favor of Endo on Dec. 18th, 1994 and ordered
 Endo’s release; shortly thereafter, the U.S. government ended Japanese
 American interment.

 Specifically, in the majority opinion Justice Douglas wrote A citizen
 who is concededly loyal presents no problem of espionage or sabotage.
 Loyalty is a matter of the heart and mind, not of race, creed, or  
 color.
 He who is loyal is by definition not a spy or a saboteur. When the  
 power
 to detain is derived from the power to protect the war effort against
 espionage and sabotage, detention which has no relationship to that
 objective is unauthorized.

 Moreover, in a concuring opinion Justice Murphy added: I join in the
 opinion of the Court, but I am of the view that detention in Relocation
 Centers of persons of Japanese ancestry regardless of loyalty is not
 only unauthorized by Congress or the Executive but is another example  
 of
 the unconstitutional resort to racism inherent in the entire evacuation
 program. As stated more fully in my dissenting opinion in Korematsu v.
 United States, ante, p. 233, racial discrimination of this nature bears
 no reasonable relation to military necessity and is utterly foreign to
 the ideals and traditions of the American people.

 Thus, while we may have done it, it most decidedly was *NOT* legal.

 Cheers.

 John








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First they came for the hackers. But I never did anything
illegal with my computer, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the pornographers. But I thought there was
too much smut on the Internet anyway, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the anonymous remailers. But a lot of nasty
stuff gets sent from anon.penet.fi, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for the encryption users. But I could never
figure out how to work PGP anyway, so I didn't speak up.
Then they came for me. And by that time there was no one left
to speak up.

Alara Rogers, Aleph Press





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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[biofuel] Re: Solar to Noncarbon Fuels Other Than H2

2004-02-11 Thread Bruce Crowder

x-charset ISO-8859-1

Hi Ken,

Any idea what the energy content is of a kg of hydrazine would be?

-Bruce


*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 02:28:28 -0800 (PST) 
   From: Ken Gotberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Subject: Re: Solar to Noncarbon Fuels Other Than H2 

Hi Murdoch, Greg, and April 

Hydrazine is a liquid at normal temps (mp 2C, bp 113C) 
and while no longer used as a rocket booster fuel, it 
is used for positioning/microcontroller jets.  The 
technology is fairly developed now and could make 
sense as an earthbound vehicle fuel.  Nitrogen 
compounds are used in explosives due to high 
energy/power densities and I’m not sure how big a 
potential problem this is, perhaps on the same order 
as H2 without the storage problems.  People developing 
rockets face the same problems as, more so, trying to 
get the most useful energy out of a fuel with the 
least amount of mass.  Noncarbon fuel alternatives at 
this juncture are in electric storage (batteries, 
ultracapacitors,?), mechanical storage in things like 
flywheels, and various fuel cells.  Probably others 
that list members may know about. 

One more possibility to look at and N2 is available 
everywhere, ~800,000 ppm in the atmosphere versus ~350 
ppm for CO2 used in biofuels.  There are other 
nitrogen fuels besides hydrazine that may also be 
potential candidates.  Here’s a link to rocket fuels 


And about hydrazine 

http://www.astronautix.com/props/hydazine.htm 

Fuel: Hydrazine. Fuel Density: 1.01 g/cc. Fuel 
Freezing Point: 2.00 deg C. Fuel Boiling Point: 113.00 
deg C. 

Hydrazine (N2H4) found early use as a fuel, but it was 
quickly replaced by UDMH. It is still used as a 
monopropellant for satellite station-keeping motors. 
Hydrazine marketed for rocket propellant contains a 
minimum of 97 per cent N2H4, the other constituent 
being primarily water. Hydrazine is a clear, 
water-white, hygroscopic liquid. The solid is white. 
Hydrazine a toxic, flammable caustic liquid and a 
strong reducing agent. Its odour is similar that of 
ammonia, though less strong. It is slightly soluble in 
ammonia and methyl-amine. It is soluble in water, 
methanol, ethanol, UDMH, and ethylenediamine. 
Hydrazine is manufactured by the Raschig process, 
which involves the oxidation of ammonia to chloramine, 
either indirectly with aqueous sodium hypochlorite or 
directly with chlorine, and subsequent reaction of 
chloramine with excess ammonia. Raw materials include 
caustic, ammonia, and chlorine; these are 
high-tonnage, heavy chemicals. The cost of anhydrous 
hydrazine in drum quantities in 1959 was $ 7.00 per 
kg. The projected price, based on large-scale 
commercial production, was expected to be $ 1.00 per 
kg. Due to environmental regulations, by 1990 NASA was 
paying $ 17.00 per kg. 

Best regards, 

Ken 





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[biofuel] more reactor design plans

2004-02-11 Thread girl mark

here's a link to a photo log of another reactor I just built with some 
Biofuel list members.

It also contains a (perhaps confusing?) description of some pressure issues 
I've had with sealed reactors:

http://www.veggieavenger.com/avengerboard/viewtopic.php?t=377


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Re: [biofuel] Breakthrough Purports Answer to Global Warming

2004-02-11 Thread Ken Gotberg

Hi Bob

This looks silly to me as well and came across it
while doing a google news search for “global warming”,
about 1,600 hits with all manner of things presented. 


Regards,

Ken

 
 this seems   very silly, at least in thermodynamic
 terms.  I don't care 
 what magical process you use it requires just as
 much (actually  more) 
 energy to to reduce carbon dioxide to carbon as you
 get from oxidizing 
 it in the first place. 
 


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Re: [biofuel] Re: Solar to Noncarbon Fuels Other Than H2

2004-02-11 Thread Ken Gotberg

Hi Bruce

Here's a link with info about hydrazine.

Ken

http://www.asi.org/adb/04/03/09/hydrazine-info.html

...Chemical Properties

Hydrazine is a powerful reducing agent. It is
attractive as a reducing agent due to its high
hydrogen content, and friendly by-product of nitrogen.
It will reduce a number of important metal salts to
the element, including silver and nickel.

Producing 148.6 kcal/mol in its oxidation reaction,
hydrazine has an impressive affininty for oxygen:

N2H4 + O2 = N2 + 2 H2O

It is used in this capacity to remove oxygen from
boiler systems, and as an additive to many substances
to prevent oxidative deterioration...


--- Bruce Crowder [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
 
 Hi Ken,
 
 Any idea what the energy content is of a kg of
 hydrazine would be?
 
 -Bruce
 
 
 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
 
 
 Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 02:28:28 -0800 (PST) 
From: Ken Gotberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 Subject: Re: Solar to Noncarbon Fuels Other Than H2 
 
 Hi Murdoch, Greg, and April 
 
 Hydrazine is a liquid at normal temps (mp 2C, bp
 113C) 
 and while no longer used as a rocket booster fuel,
 it 
 is used for positioning/microcontroller jets.  The 
 technology is fairly developed now and could make 
 sense as an earthbound vehicle fuel.  Nitrogen 
 compounds are used in explosives due to high 
 energy/power densities and I’m not sure how big a 
 potential problem this is, perhaps on the same order
 
 as H2 without the storage problems.  People
 developing 
 rockets face the same problems as, more so, trying
 to 
 get the most useful energy out of a fuel with the 
 least amount of mass.  Noncarbon fuel alternatives
 at 
 this juncture are in electric storage (batteries, 
 ultracapacitors,?), mechanical storage in things
 like 
 flywheels, and various fuel cells.  Probably others 
 that list members may know about. 
 
 One more possibility to look at and N2 is available 
 everywhere, ~800,000 ppm in the atmosphere versus
 ~350 
 ppm for CO2 used in biofuels.  There are other 
 nitrogen fuels besides hydrazine that may also be 
 potential candidates.  Here’s a link to rocket fuels
 
 
 
 And about hydrazine 
 
 http://www.astronautix.com/props/hydazine.htm 
 
 Fuel: Hydrazine. Fuel Density: 1.01 g/cc. Fuel 
 Freezing Point: 2.00 deg C. Fuel Boiling Point:
 113.00 
 deg C. 
 
 Hydrazine (N2H4) found early use as a fuel, but it
 was 
 quickly replaced by UDMH. It is still used as a 
 monopropellant for satellite station-keeping motors.
 
 Hydrazine marketed for rocket propellant contains a 
 minimum of 97 per cent N2H4, the other constituent 
 being primarily water. Hydrazine is a clear, 
 water-white, hygroscopic liquid. The solid is white.
 
 Hydrazine a toxic, flammable caustic liquid and a 
 strong reducing agent. Its odour is similar that of 
 ammonia, though less strong. It is slightly soluble
 in 
 ammonia and methyl-amine. It is soluble in water, 
 methanol, ethanol, UDMH, and ethylenediamine. 
 Hydrazine is manufactured by the Raschig process, 
 which involves the oxidation of ammonia to
 chloramine, 
 either indirectly with aqueous sodium hypochlorite
 or 
 directly with chlorine, and subsequent reaction of 
 chloramine with excess ammonia. Raw materials
 include 
 caustic, ammonia, and chlorine; these are 
 high-tonnage, heavy chemicals. The cost of anhydrous
 
 hydrazine in drum quantities in 1959 was $ 7.00 per 
 kg. The projected price, based on large-scale 
 commercial production, was expected to be $ 1.00 per
 
 kg. Due to environmental regulations, by 1990 NASA
 was 
 paying $ 17.00 per kg. 
 
 Best regards, 
 
 Ken 
 
 
 
 


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[biofuel] Ford attacked on fuel policy

2004-02-11 Thread murdoch

http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0402/06/c01-57178.htm

California-based Blue Water Network spearheaded this ad campaign in 
response to Ford's pledge in 2000 to improve SUV fuel economy.

[...]

Ford pledged in July 2000 that the company would improve the fuel 
economy of its SUVs by 25 percent over five years. General Motors 
Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG made similar pledges soon afterward.

[...]


The fuel economy of Ford's light truck lineup was 20.3 mpg for the 
2002 model year, the last year for which the government has published 
complete data. Under federal regulations, an automaker's fleet of 
light trucks must average 20.7 mpg in the 2004 model year. That 
requirement will rise to 22.2 mpg by 2007. Cars must average 27.5 mpg.

You can reach Jeff Plungis at (202) 906-8204 or [EMAIL PROTECTED]

At the time of the 2000 pledges, I tried doing some of the math.  I think the 25
percent improvement that Ford pledged was the bare minimum or close to it, and
that this came out within a tenth of a gallon.  I recall doing the math, and I
was surprised to find that the pledge that Ford was making was not some huge
ambitious thing to be proud of so much as the bare legal requirement.  I'm not
sure if anyone has ever officially seconded these calculations or publicly taken
notice of the matter.  Ford's pledge was *nothing* so far as I could see.  They
were doing basically what all of us do every year about this time, which is drag
our time, kicking and screaming, to comply with the law and take our legally
required actions.  

I therefore came to see it as naive to put much stock in Bill Ford's
environmentalist credentials.  This is not to say that he hasn't convinced
himself that he means well.  I just mean that I did not and do not foresee
making mileage or environmental precaution, a priority any time soon.  He's made
it pretty clear, explicitly, that there are other priorities for the company.

Sure, Environmental PR seems to be a big priority, but the underlying
environmental effort seems to be a priority only insofar as it's easier to do PR
if there's a grain of truth left in it.

Ford's modest mileage efforts (alongside their failure to oppose the
market-skewing anti-competitive tax breaks for the purchase of giant gas
guzzlers) does not address the issue of fuel-types.  The only fuels that can
power new Ford Vehicles are fossil fuels.  The only exception is that E-85 can
power a Ford Flex-Fuel Vehicle and B100 could power a Ford Diesel (though I
don't know if Ford has lifted a finger to maker an effort to help keep such
vehicles under warranty if B100 is used).

Also, Ford conspicuously cancelled the Think City EV program despite evidence of
demand (including the fact that when I went for a Test Drive, to do an article,
there were none on the lot because the dealer had leased every one out).  Such
vehicles as the Think City get excellent mileage per gallon equivalent and if
they were sold by the Automakers, and included in mileage calculations, I think
they could provide some excellent help in making their CAFE-required mileage
numbers.  

But, apparently, the Automakers are so completely against making available a
non-fossil-fuel-powered vehicle that they will not make the effort to fight to
have such vehicles included in the CAFE mileage calculations (I don't know if
they are basically because such vehicles have never been made widely available)
and then take advantage of the good mileage to help meet these supposedly
problematic CAFE requirements.


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Re: [biofuel] Rope curtains was: First aid for house owners.

2004-02-11 Thread murdoch

I went and saw some more examples myself.  Shades and blinds do seem to be given
ratings such as R Value (keeping the heat in) and some sort of Solar Coefficient
(the lower the better, for keeping the solar heat out when not wanted), as well
as a person having to define how much opacity they want.

Hunter Douglas had their own battery-powered device (rather than just sending
them to a third party like Insolroll), so I guess there's more than one way to
do the powered-shade thing.  I can second your pricey-side conclusion.



On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 09:39:44 -0700, you wrote:

I have seen these or something like these, at a local home and garden show, 
and they could be set up to open and close automatically, depending on the 
time of day ( I think that they were working on a controller that worked with 
a light sensor, shutting them after the light reached a certain brightness or 
darkness ).  They are very secure, and on the pricey side.

Greg H.
  Subject: Re: [biofuel] Rope curtains was: First aid for house owners.


  I found these:

  http://www.insolroll.com/rolling/index.html

  which advertise that they are European Style Shutters.  

  It occurrs to me that, with the sort of motorization this company
  provides (generally they tell me their thing is motorization of other
  people's shades), one could try to program a computer to open and shut
  the screens and shades and shutters for maximum energy rejection or
  retention, depending on time-of-year factors,
  weather-detected-that-day, desired lighting by the home occupant, etc.



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[biofuel] SVO/diesel mix in Calgary diesel vehicles

2004-02-11 Thread pivincent

x-charset ISO-8859-1

Fast food aroma replaces toxic whiff of diesel fumes

Monday, February 09, 2004 
Kent Spencer
The Province
http://www.canada.com/search/story.html?id=0ee1d616-8107-40df-b4de-
f3de1da2bc75

Some drivers are feeling better about foul-smelling diesel trucks 
after toodling around in ones powered by french-fry grease.
The pilot project in five Lower Mainland cities takes recycled grease 
from fast-food restaurants and mixes it with diesel.
Its supporters, including City of Richmond vehicle fleet manager Ken 
Fryer, cite a study which found the fuel cuts harmful emissions by 24 
per cent.
Alternative fuels is who I am. We believe in this stuff, says 
Fryer, 49, who has dabbled in natural gas-powered cars and new 
combustion systems since his days as a college student in 
Ontario. We want to do our part for the environment.
Fryer manages a fleet of 500 vehicles, including loaders, forklifts, 
garbage trucks, street cleaners, pickups.
The five Lower Mainland cities -- the others are Vancouver, Burnaby, 
Delta and North Vancouver City -- are testing the viability of bio-
fuels.
The fuel aims to make diesel more environmentally friendly by adding 
used cooking oil, animal fats and/or oils from grains such as canola 
and soybean.
The smell of french fries is a little added bonus for truck drivers 
used to inhaling toxic diesel fumes.
The guys say it smells of french fries after it burns, says 
Fryer. That's a lot better than diesel. All that rotten, gucky stuff 
is gone.
Adds Delta fleet manager Curtis Rhodes: The truck smells like a 
McDonald's kitchen. People chuckle about it because diesel fumes can 
be horrible. They'd sooner smell food.
Ian Thomson of North Vancouver's Canadian Bio Fuels Corp. says it 
works because the diesel is a pressure-ignited machine designed to 
run on vegetable oil.
Rudolf Diesel invented the engine 110 years ago to run on vegetable 
oil so farmers could be self-sufficient, he says. It burns hotter 
than diesel and combusts more completely.
The Enivronmental Protection Agency in the U.S. -- where bio-fuel is 
used in 300 fleets -- shows a 24-per-cent reduction in most harmful 
chemicals.
The B-20 fuel is mixed up in a ratio of 20 per cent bio and 80 per 
cent diesel.
In the Lower Mainland, tests are being carried out on two vehicles 
per municipality: dump trucks as well as heavier street cleaners.
The results will be scientifically measured for tailpipe emissions 
and presented as a report.
Problems preventing widespread adoption are availability and price. 
The bio-fuel has to be shipped from California, resulting in a cost 
up to 10 cents per litre more than diesel's 70 cents a litre.
But Thomson plans to produce bio-diesel locally, using a process in 
which the raw ingredient is treated with alcohol.
We're trying to make it a viable business, he says.
Fryer says the saving in noxious chemicals from the city's 50 heavy 
trucks would be huge -- they burn 2.3 million litres of diesel a year.
But he admitted the public has to buy into the higher costs 
associated with the project.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.canada.com/search/story.html?id=0ee1d616-8107-40df-b4de-
f3de1da2bc75


Pierre




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/x-charset


Re: [biofuel] Global Warming Alarmists Are the Ones Filled with Hot Air

2004-02-11 Thread murdoch

x-charset ISO-8859-1
If you stopped reading there—as most of the knee-jerk,
junk scientists do—you’d be terribly misled. 

NASA has been monitoring the temperature of the lower
layers of the atmosphere since 1979. Since this
encompasses the same “last 20 years” of the National
Academy of Sciences’ report of a “particularly strong”
warming trend, certainly balloon measurements in the
atmosphere should support this postulate. 

What the data shows is not warming but cooling: 

I found this essay no more useful than most others.  Probably a little
less useful, because the author starts off with this skepticism as to
the cold spell in the Northeast and whether this can be held
consistent with the emergence of any sort of global warming.  For
years, if not decades, I've heard that Global Warming theory predicts
a temporary localized cooling in some areas including North America,
and an increase in extreme weather events.  I don't know if the
modelers have been correct in these definitions of a global warming
model, nor if those events are coming true, but the it's cold so
global warming can't be happening argument doesn't seem to be
sufficiently aware of basic theory.

What I want to say is this:

Many of us in this and other discussion groups have a strong interest
in Earth Science if for no other reason than we find it darn
fascinating.  But I've come to this partial working-idea on Global
Warming, that even if I consider myself to be a decent (if
often-wrong) armchair science-follower, I think global warming
questions are tough ones, and the haughty what this shows
overly-confident conclusions of this fellow amateur are not wortwhile.
They fail to show proper respect for the difficulty of the questions,
and the apparent preponderance of opinion of serious disinterested
(politically) scientists who just want to try and help themselves and
us understand what's really happening to the Earth, its climate, etc.
To try and understand such matters in a serious way is to have respect
for the complexity of the matter, in my view.

I've been thinking about the fact that we seldom if ever see much
mention of the great CFC-Ozone debate that took place, and the fact
that there *was* a cooperative global action that has taken place to
try to correct this disputed (by some, at the time and perhaps now)
problem.  Could we have afforded to wait any longer?  Not in my view,
and evidently not in the view of enough other people so that we took
action.

Has the action taken proven to have been useful?  So far as I know.  I
think the hope is that, over the years, we'll continue to see evidence
come in that we did the right thing.  But I just don't hear that many
folks claiming that they would have preferred that we do nothing, or
that they would have preferred that we all ignore the serious
scientists who did indicate they thought a problem might arise and
listen only to the serious scientists who thought that a problem
mightn't arise.

Now, the CFC-Ozone problem seemed a bit easier to predict and identify
and nail down and try to do something about it.  The assertions of
CO2-linked and other-chemical-linked Global warming seem harder to
implement a precautionary principle process if only because of the
relatively greater (seeming) complexity and attendant uncertainty that
we may associate with complexity.

But I've just been meaning to point out that the Ozone-CFC actions,
however imperfect, seem to have worked out a little.  Why aren't they
regarded as more of a precedent-setting baby-step... helping us have
confidence that if we take specific actions to remediate-in-advance
with respect to Global Warming, we might well turn out to thank
ourselves that we did the right thing?


“The
lower [troposphere] data are often cited as evidence
against global warming, because they have as yet
failed to show any warming trend when averaged over
the entire Earth. The lower stratospheric data show a
significant cooling trend…In addition to the recent
cooling, large temporary warming perturbations may be
seen in the data due to two major volcanic eruptions:
El Chichon in March 1982, and Mt. Pinatubo in June
1991.”



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