Re: [Biofuel] Micro Ethanol Production?
Stratis, have you tried David Blume's Alcohol Can Be a Gas!? Despite the offputting title, the book does contain a wealth of information on setting up a distillery, including heat exchanger design and designing a plant for scalability. David Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:28:54 -0600 From: Stratis Bahaveolos Subject: [Biofuel] Micro Ethanol Production? To: Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Does anyone know where I can find information about producing small amounts of ethanol? I'm looking to explore a business concept. Produce small amounts locally, sell locally. Something in the 100,000 - 300,000 gallons per year range. Anyone done this before? Know someone what has? I see lots of plan for personal setup's but nothing that will scale. Thanks in advance for any help. Stratis _ Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ ___ 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] Some really bad news;
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 (fowarded from the comfood list) - --- I recently attended the PASA (Pennsylvanian Association for Sustainable Agriculture) conference in State College, Pa, USA. I'd love to go into fine detail about some of the exciting and interesting things I heard and learned there, but honestly, it's just too much. It was a great conference. See http://www.pasafarming.org for more info, if interested. Okay, all that said, in the opening remarks, E.D Brian Snyder (okay, maybe it wasn't Brian, but it was one of the presenters who gave opening remarks) made strong mention to the effect that President Bush's government is fully intending to gut the funding for ARS (Agricultural Research Service) center near State College. The Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit (PSWMRU) in question, basically does a lot of research on pasture lands and relevant issues. To me, and to many others, this sounds like pretty important work. Crucially important work I'd say. I recently emailed Mr. Snyder for some background information, and he passed this along to me, along with some other information. here is the stakeholder letter, unabridged/unedited. - --- Agricultural Research Service United States Department of Agriculture Research, Education and Economics February 13, 2008 Dear Stakeholder, In response to your request that you be kept informed of developments that affect the research program at the Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit at University Park, Pennsylvania, I regret to inform you that the University Park location is one of 11 Agricultural Research Service (ARS) locations and work sites slated to close in order to meet proposed budget reductions. The President?s proposed fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget for ARS represents a net decrease of 7.5 percent from the current year funding. Unless Congress acts to restore the $4.42 million allocation in support of the University Park location, the entire research program will be terminated and all 45 scientist and support staff positions will be abolished. The research program at University Park seeks to develop profitable and sustainable animal, crop, and bioenergy producing enterprises while maintaining the quality of ground and surface waters. The loss of this research unit would end cutting edge research on nutrient management, forage and grazing land management, water quality, integrated farming systems, and bioenergy cropping systems for the northeastern U.S. Flat funding, inflationary and rising research costs, along with aging facilities have been the reasons cited for the closure of research units. As a testament to the value placed on the research program at University Park, stakeholders have proposed a budget increase of $600,000 for research on reducing the environmental impacts and improving the profitability of grazing farms. However, in the four preceding budget cycles, this new initiative has not made it through the House or Senate to the final USDA appropriation. Clearly, stakeholder support and Congressional budgetary action in the coming weeks are critical to sustaining and fully funding the University Park location. If you have questions or require more information in regard to this matter, please respond to me directly at 814/865-3158 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] or contact Ray Bryant, Research Leader, at 814/863-0923 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] . - - So, okay, but what does the Pasture Lab actually do? Well, this excerpt is from one of their publications that you can dig around and find on their website http://www.ars.usda.gov/naa/pswmru - -- The Pasture Systems and Watershed Management Research Unit at University Park is centrally located on The Pennsylvania State University campus. The research program seeks to develop profitable and sustainable animal, crop, and bioenergy producing enterprises while maintaining the quality of ground and surface waters. The annual budget for this Unit is $4.42 million. This Unit employs over 45 scientists, research specialists, support staff and students. Unit Goals include: ? Identifying grazing management strategies that optimize the utilization of mixed-species pastures and reduce input costs for pasture-based producers. ? Developing profitable farm production systems that reduce nutrient losses to ground and surface waters and gaseous emissions to the atmosphere. ? Determining optimal management and environmental benefits of bioenergy cropping systems to reduce production costs and increase yields. University Park Scientists are internationally recognized. In the past 10 years, they have: ? Produced over 600 scientific manuscripts and book chapters. ? Presented over 80 international invited talks. ? Presented over 400 presentations to producer groups. ?
[Biofuel] Stop-and-go biofuels
Subject: People Putting Food First #109 Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:57:09 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Food First [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1. Join together with organizations and individuals calling for a U.S. moratorium on biofuels 2. Plant a Row for the Hungry-Providing local food to food banks 3. Fuel at the Farm Gate - New tools for local fuel production New at http://www.foodfirst.org/www.foodfirst.org Thousands of People Protest NAFTA and defend Food Sovereignty in Mexico 1. Join together with organizations and individuals calling for a U.S. moratorium on biofuels On January 29th, Food First, in collaboration with Rainforest Action Network, Grassroots International and Student Trade Justice Campaign held a press conference in to officially launch the Call for a U.S. Moratorium on all incentives and renewable fuels targets for agrofuels. Also supporting the moratorium was Rafael Alegría, former president of La Via Campesina, the largest family farmers' organization in the world. The event was held outside of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) San Francisco office, and signaled the first formal opposition to the federal government's push for agrofuels as mandated in the Renewable Fuels Standards in the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act. The act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2007, mandates the annual use of 36 billion gallons of agrofuels by 2020-a fivefold increase. The Call for the Moratorium, which has already been signed by more than 60 organizations and social movements from around the world, comes at a time when the media is full of stories about the dangers agrofuels pose to global food supplies, forests and rural livelihoods. Yet, government and industry continue to espouse the benefits of agrofuels, and promote their use. According to Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First, The side effects of biofuels-the rise in food costs, shrinking water tables, deforestation and displacement of rural people-are rarely discussed. The question is not whether ethanol and biodiesel have a place in our future, but whether or not we allow a handful of global corporations to transform our food and fuel systems, destroy the planet's biodiversity and impoverish the countryside. The U.S. Call for a Moratorium comes on the heels of a similar call for an agrofuels moratorium in Europe, which has forced European Commission officials to acknowledge the dangers of agrofuels expansion, leading to a re-evaluation of Europe's own agrofuels mandates. Even the government of the Philippines is re-evaluating its proposed expansion of agrofuels production. These encouraging developments are no doubt results of the mobilization of civil society groups and moratorium calls, worldwide. It is critically important to harness this same momentum for the United States Moratorium. To view and sign the U.S. Call for a Moratorium, click on http://ga3.org/campaign/agrofuelsmoratoriumhttp://ga3.org/campaign/agrofuelsmoratorium. 2. Plant a Row for the Hungry-Providing local food to food banks snip 3. Fuel at the Farm Gate - New tools for local fuel production Biofuel production, now being capitalized on by big agribusiness, began with do-it-yourselfers like Mike Pelly. Pelly, however, has a much different view of biodiesel than his corporate competitors in the agro-fuels craze. Pelly is an inventor and the owner of Olympia Green Fuels. His company has just begun marketing small scale biodiesel processors for community biodiesel operations and farmer co-ops. His refrigerator sized processors could allow small farmer co-operatives to produce and control their own fuel supply, helping farmers cut out Cargill and ADM. So far Olympia Green Fuels is supplying a company in Portland with relatively inexpensive processors to turn locally salvaged used vegetable oil into around 1 million gallons of biodiesel per year for consumption on the local market. Pelly is hoping to form partnerships with makers of oil pressing equipment, so vegetable oil can be produced and refined into biodiesel from within the farm gate. Olympia Green Fuels ultimately sees biodiesel as an opportunity to decentralize the fuel system, giving power to people and farmers over oil companies, and helping to keep money local. What we are doing here is taking their power away. Here is one fuel the oil companies don't control, he declares. While that isn't likely to be true for long, technology like Pelly's processors is one step towards helping farmers and local economies capture profits from the agro-fuels boom. ___ 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] Peak Food
Hi Chip Keith Addison wrote: The Telegraph article is below. Goldman Sachs has been talking to Lester Brown, it's exactly his line, especially about China. Haha. Don't think Goldman Sachs actually talks to anyone. :-) No, I don't suppose they actually do. More like someone there read some of Brown's website. :) Or wherever. He's sure tireless when it comes to getting himself widely published. It's about agrofuels, not biofuels. That said, it's hard to find an actual case of anyone actually starving because of agrofuels expansion. It's all just assumed, like all the projections Brown and others make. But it's very fashionable to blame biofuels (agrofuels) for whatever might stick, there's solid column-inches in media exposure to be gained, for one thing. Take a closer look and it vanishes. As quite a few recent posts show. Agreed, however, all that said, the prices of feedstocks, regardless of intended use are going up, radically. Personally, I think this is a good thing, but I fear that behind it all, is monsanto et al, just making a play for a drastic increase in market share. Yes. Land use for biofuels has shot up from 12m to more than 80m hectares worldwide over six years, says Goldman Sachs. Sounds dire eh? Brazil has 320m hectares [3.2m sq km] of arable land, only a fifth of which is cultivated. Of this, less than 4% is used for ethanol production ... This is not a choice between food and energy. (Brazil's president Luiz Lula) The FAO says the total world agricultural area is 5.0 billion hectares. So the 80m hectares worldwide under biofuels is 1.6% of the total. How can that account for food price rises in the last year variously touted as 10%, 17%, 20%, 43%, double? My point. Retail food prices are indeed soaring worldwide. ExxonMobil's $40.6 billion profits from rising oil prices point rather clearly at one cause - high oil costs, in a globalised food system that depends on fossil-fuel inputs at every stage, that plus corporate profit-taking by the food industry (or perhaps profiteering). The same causes are pushing all consumer prices up, not just food. Apparently world concrete prices are way up too, difficult to explain how it's caused by the evils of biofuels though. Biofuels or not, ag commodity prices probably aren't going to stop rising, nor will oil prices. It's already causing hardship, especially for poorer people, in the industrialised countries as well as the 3rd World. Grow your own. Go local. Best Keith Egg-zactly! This is, here in the west for certain, a good thing. As things go now, where folks are able to access real high quality food products at farmers markets and farm shops, one hears about people complaining about the costs of 'real food'. Yes, that's James's point too, and I agree. But the downside is the effect on those who can't afford real food - 40 million Americans live below the poverty line, for instance, including a high proportion of children. Genuine poverty, not just lazy won't-works after a free ride on the welfare system, as so often alleged (most odiously). As one small farmer put it to a person sniffing at the cost of his eggs compared to the supermarket variety, sure, you can buy 3 times the eggs at the supermarket for what I'm charging, but ONE of my eggs contains more nutrition than a dozen of those white balls. Exaggeration? perhaps, but sadly, perhaps not. Definitely not. It's worse than that - previous post: Donna Fezler of Grand Cypress Ranch did a funded, controlled study of the nutritional value of grocery-store vs free-range eggs. She had three groups of chicks, fed on free-choice non-medicated commercial feed, with one group fed a supplement of cooked free-range eggs twice a day, a second fed the same amount of grocery-store eggs, and the third a control getting only the free-choice feed. The grocery store egg fed group ate more than any group by 28 days and weighed the least ... the grocery eggs were actually negative nutrition. The birds in that group had poor feed efficiency, consuming the most feed and having the least weight gain. The free-range egg fed birds were 22.4% heavier than the grocery egg fed birds... There were residual effects of the grocery egg on the chicks' development... There is an issue here: grocery store eggs did not even provide the same nutrition as nothing at all with these chicks. See: http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0010L=sanet-mgT=0F=S=P=11762 More here: http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0402L=sanet-mgT=0F=S=P=14869 Also: Salmonella levels over 5x higher in battery eggs than organic http://www.naturalchoices.co.uk/Salmonella-levels-over-5x-higher?id_mot=7 Mercola just posted some useful comments: The Multiple Benefits of Organic, Free-Range Eggs http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/2/19/most-grocery-store-eggs-far-more-likely-to-be-infected.aspx Meet Real
Re: [Biofuel] Micro Ethanol Production?
Hello Stratis You have a strange idea of micro, IMHO. Micro would be enough for one family, say 1,200 gallons a year if they had two cars (but they should only have one car, if any). You're planning to produce enough for at least 500 cars, 1,100 gallons a day on a 5-day week, equivalent to 3,300 tons of corn. When you say micro, what's your comparison, Archers Daniel Midland? Wrong comparison! Small is beautifuel. Anyway the function of the list is not to provide free consultancy services to help people with their business concepts, and the open-source information at Journey to Forever is not intended for that use either. Keith Addison Journey to Forever KYOTO Pref., Japan http://journeytoforever.org/ Biofuel list owner Does anyone know where I can find information about producing small amounts of ethanol? I'm looking to explore a business concept. Produce small amounts locally, sell locally. Something in the 100,000 - 300,000 gallons per year range. Anyone done this before? Know someone what has? I see lots of plan for personal setup's but nothing that will scale. Thanks in advance for any help. Stratis ___ 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] Peak Food
Great Keith - that's the reply I've been waiting for - and expecting. We've all got a lot to thank you for. Thank you! You're most welcome James, thanks for your kind words. James ps. hope you don't get 2 of these Only one. :-) One definite plus here where I am is that local produce prices are becoming ever more competitive - without changing Good point. I wonder if that also applies to what unsubsidized farms in 3rd World countries can still manage to produce in competition with the artificially cheap, heavily subsidized commodities dumped on their markets by the rich countries now the rich-country struff is getting pricier. If that's quite what's happening... Best Keith - Original Message - From: Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 6:35 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Peak Food The Telegraph article is below. Goldman Sachs has been talking to Lester Brown, it's exactly his line, especially about China. It's about agrofuels, not biofuels. That said, it's hard to find an actual case of anyone actually starving because of agrofuels expansion. It's all just assumed, like all the projections Brown and others make. But it's very fashionable to blame biofuels (agrofuels) for whatever might stick, there's solid column-inches in media exposure to be gained, for one thing. Take a closer look and it vanishes. As quite a few recent posts show. Land use for biofuels has shot up from 12m to more than 80m hectares worldwide over six years, says Goldman Sachs. Sounds dire eh? Brazil has 320m hectares [3.2m sq km] of arable land, only a fifth of which is cultivated. Of this, less than 4% is used for ethanol production ... This is not a choice between food and energy. (Brazil's president Luiz Lula) The FAO says the total world agricultural area is 5.0 billion hectares. So the 80m hectares worldwide under biofuels is 1.6% of the total. How can that account for food price rises in the last year variously touted as 10%, 17%, 20%, 43%, double? Retail food prices are indeed soaring worldwide. ExxonMobil's $40.6 billion profits from rising oil prices point rather clearly at one cause - high oil costs, in a globalised food system that depends on fossil-fuel inputs at every stage, that plus corporate profit-taking by the food industry (or perhaps profiteering). The same causes are pushing all consumer prices up, not just food. Apparently world concrete prices are way up too, difficult to explain how it's caused by the evils of biofuels though. Biofuels or not, ag commodity prices probably aren't going to stop rising, nor will oil prices. It's already causing hardship, especially for poorer people, in the industrialised countries as well as the 3rd World. Grow your own. Go local. Best Keith http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/02/07/cnoil107.xml Why the price of 'peak oil' is famine By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard International Business Editor Last Updated: 2:54am GMT 09/02/2008 Vulnerable regions of the world face the risk of famine over the next three years as rising energy costs spill over into a food crunch, according to US investment bank Goldman Sachs. We've never been at a point in commodities where we are today, said Jeff Currie, the bank's commodity chief and closely watched oil guru. Sugar cane on a bullock cart in India - the commodity is popular as the basis of biofuel, as it is a cost-effective and cleaner alternative to oil Global oil output has been stagnant for four years, failing to keep up with rampant demand from Asia and the Mid-East. China's imports rose 14pc last year. Biofuels from grain, oil seed and sugar are plugging the gap, but drawing away food supplies at a time when the world is adding more than 70m mouths to feed a year. Markets are as tight as a drum and now the US has hit the stimulus button, said Mr Currie in his 2008 outlook. We have never seen this before when commodity prices were already at record highs. Over the next 18 to 36 months we are probably going into crisis mode across the commodity complex. The key is going to be agriculture. China is terrified of the current situation. It has real physical shortages, he said, referencing China still having memories of starvation in the 1960s seared in its collective mind. While the US housing crash poses some threat to the price of metals and energy, the effect has largely occurred already. The slide in crude prices over the past month may have been caused by funds liquidating derivatives contracts to cover other demands rather than by recession fears. Goldman Sachs forecasts that oil will be priced at $105 a barrel by the end of 2008. The current supercycle is a break with history because energy and food have converged in price and can increasingly be switched from one use to
[Biofuel] Vaccine Quotes Worth Repeating
Vaccine Quotes Worth Repeating [and remembering]: The only safe vaccine is one that is never used. Dr. James R. Shannon, former Director, National Institute of Health Live virus vaccines against influenza or poliomyelitis may in each instance produce the disease it intended to prevent. The live virus against measles and mumps may produce such side effects as encephalitis (brain damage) Jonas and Darrell Salk, 1977 The DEATH RATE from smallpox was actually higher among those who had been vaccinated. It took over three years of research before we looked at each other and said 'Vaccines are killing babies'. It is a well documented fact that the incidence and mortality from infectious diseases fell by 90% well before any vaccine was even introduced... So [the U.S.] mandated vaccination and it resulted in a three-fold increase in whooping cough... This is not a rare occurrence. Epidemics in fully vaccinated populations are a rule rather than an exception... Dr. Viera Scheibner, Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viera_Scheibner Do you still believe vaccines are safe? http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?p=534 - Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. -- next part -- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20080220/cbe99786/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] Stop-and-go biofuels
Keith, I appreciated the item #3 below. This is exactally the type of information I was looking for with my Mirco production email a few days back. It seems that a co-op is another way to go and I could learn alot from Mike Pelly and his efforts, even though his production is on a much larger scale than I was thinking. His efforts are a good thing, right? This email list is in support of these type of non-oil makers (like Cargill/ADM) efforts to produce biofuels, no? Thanks for sending this along. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:31 AM To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: [Biofuel] Stop-and-go biofuels Subject: People Putting Food First #109 Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:57:09 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Food First [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1. Join together with organizations and individuals calling for a U.S. moratorium on biofuels 2. Plant a Row for the Hungry-Providing local food to food banks 3. Fuel at the Farm Gate - New tools for local fuel production New at http://www.foodfirst.org/www.foodfirst.org Thousands of People Protest NAFTA and defend Food Sovereignty in Mexico 1. Join together with organizations and individuals calling for a U.S. moratorium on biofuels On January 29th, Food First, in collaboration with Rainforest Action Network, Grassroots International and Student Trade Justice Campaign held a press conference in to officially launch the Call for a U.S. Moratorium on all incentives and renewable fuels targets for agrofuels. Also supporting the moratorium was Rafael Alegría, former president of La Via Campesina, the largest family farmers' organization in the world. The event was held outside of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) San Francisco office, and signaled the first formal opposition to the federal government's push for agrofuels as mandated in the Renewable Fuels Standards in the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act. The act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2007, mandates the annual use of 36 billion gallons of agrofuels by 2020-a fivefold increase. The Call for the Moratorium, which has already been signed by more than 60 organizations and social movements from around the world, comes at a time when the media is full of stories about the dangers agrofuels pose to global food supplies, forests and rural livelihoods. Yet, government and industry continue to espouse the benefits of agrofuels, and promote their use. According to Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First, The side effects of biofuels-the rise in food costs, shrinking water tables, deforestation and displacement of rural people-are rarely discussed. The question is not whether ethanol and biodiesel have a place in our future, but whether or not we allow a handful of global corporations to transform our food and fuel systems, destroy the planet's biodiversity and impoverish the countryside. The U.S. Call for a Moratorium comes on the heels of a similar call for an agrofuels moratorium in Europe, which has forced European Commission officials to acknowledge the dangers of agrofuels expansion, leading to a re-evaluation of Europe's own agrofuels mandates. Even the government of the Philippines is re-evaluating its proposed expansion of agrofuels production. These encouraging developments are no doubt results of the mobilization of civil society groups and moratorium calls, worldwide. It is critically important to harness this same momentum for the United States Moratorium. To view and sign the U.S. Call for a Moratorium, click on http://ga3.org/campaign/agrofuelsmoratoriumhttp://ga3.org/campaign/agrofue lsmoratorium. 2. Plant a Row for the Hungry-Providing local food to food banks snip 3. Fuel at the Farm Gate - New tools for local fuel production Biofuel production, now being capitalized on by big agribusiness, began with do-it-yourselfers like Mike Pelly. Pelly, however, has a much different view of biodiesel than his corporate competitors in the agro-fuels craze. Pelly is an inventor and the owner of Olympia Green Fuels. His company has just begun marketing small scale biodiesel processors for community biodiesel operations and farmer co-ops. His refrigerator sized processors could allow small farmer co-operatives to produce and control their own fuel supply, helping farmers cut out Cargill and ADM. So far Olympia Green Fuels is supplying a company in Portland with relatively inexpensive processors to turn locally salvaged used vegetable oil into around 1 million gallons of biodiesel per year for consumption on the local market. Pelly is hoping to form partnerships with makers of oil pressing equipment, so vegetable oil can be produced and refined into biodiesel from within the farm gate. Olympia Green Fuels ultimately sees biodiesel as an opportunity to decentralize the fuel system, giving power to people and farmers over oil
Re: [Biofuel] Stop-and-go biofuels
Hello Stratis Thanks for sending this along. You're welcome, but you miss the point, which was/is that yet another biofuels-bashing group is beginning to see that there are two kinds of biofuels, that small is beautifuel and big is uglifuel. Keith, I appreciated the item #3 below. This is exactally the type of information I was looking for with my Mirco production email a few days back. It seems that a co-op is another way to go and I could learn alot from Mike Pelly and his efforts, even though his production is on a much larger scale than I was thinking. It's a comparable scale. Though Mike Pelly is not a biodiesel producer as you infer, he builds processors. His efforts are a good thing, right? So if it's okay for Mike it's okay for you too, eh? This email list is in support of these type of non-oil makers (like Cargill/ADM) efforts to produce biofuels, no? :-) Not quite. It's as I said in the message you didn't reply to: http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg71924.html Anyway the function of the list is not to provide free consultancy services to help people with their business concepts, and the open-source information at Journey to Forever is not intended for that use either. It's the difference between someone who just wants to make some money and jumps on the bandwagon after everyone else has done the work, and those who did all the work building the wagon in the first place. Mike Pelly has been a mainstay of the D-I-Y biodiesel movement for longer than we have, more than nine years. His efforts have been tireless and unstinting. His biodiesel page at our website has helped untold thousands of people. Unlike people who want designs handed to them on a plate, the development of the Pelly Model A5 Biodiesel Processor is all Mike's own work, and I can tell you that it cost him several years of hardship. Mike's paid his dues, more than that. I don't see anything in common between you and Mike Pelly, it's a specious comparison. Now why don't you reply to the original message, instead of trying to come at it sideways like this? Best Keith Thanks for sending this along. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Keith Addison Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:31 AM To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Subject: [Biofuel] Stop-and-go biofuels Subject: People Putting Food First #109 Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:57:09 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Food First [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1. Join together with organizations and individuals calling for a U.S. moratorium on biofuels 2. Plant a Row for the Hungry-Providing local food to food banks 3. Fuel at the Farm Gate - New tools for local fuel production New at http://www.foodfirst.org/www.foodfirst.org Thousands of People Protest NAFTA and defend Food Sovereignty in Mexico 1. Join together with organizations and individuals calling for a U.S. moratorium on biofuels On January 29th, Food First, in collaboration with Rainforest Action Network, Grassroots International and Student Trade Justice Campaign held a press conference in to officially launch the Call for a U.S. Moratorium on all incentives and renewable fuels targets for agrofuels. Also supporting the moratorium was Rafael Alegría, former president of La Via Campesina, the largest family farmers' organization in the world. The event was held outside of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) San Francisco office, and signaled the first formal opposition to the federal government's push for agrofuels as mandated in the Renewable Fuels Standards in the 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act. The act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2007, mandates the annual use of 36 billion gallons of agrofuels by 2020-a fivefold increase. The Call for the Moratorium, which has already been signed by more than 60 organizations and social movements from around the world, comes at a time when the media is full of stories about the dangers agrofuels pose to global food supplies, forests and rural livelihoods. Yet, government and industry continue to espouse the benefits of agrofuels, and promote their use. According to Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First, The side effects of biofuels-the rise in food costs, shrinking water tables, deforestation and displacement of rural people-are rarely discussed. The question is not whether ethanol and biodiesel have a place in our future, but whether or not we allow a handful of global corporations to transform our food and fuel systems, destroy the planet's biodiversity and impoverish the countryside. The U.S. Call for a Moratorium comes on the heels of a similar call for an agrofuels moratorium in Europe, which has forced European Commission officials to acknowledge the dangers of agrofuels expansion, leading to a re-evaluation of Europe's own agrofuels mandates. Even the government of the Philippines is re-evaluating its
