[Biofuel] [ARTICLE] 100% Renewable Energy Possible, Practical, & Cheaper

[dwoodard]

See


Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario
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[Biofuel] Unique Hazards of Tar Sands Oil Spills Confirmed by National Academies of Sciences

[dwoodard]

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Re: [Biofuel] A Biofuel Debate: Will Cutting Trees Cut Carbon? - NYTimes.com

[dwoodard]

Studies have shown that cutting forests for timber results in large 
releases of carbon from oxidation of non-timber wood (including downed 
and decaying trees), tree roots and soil organic matter. I'm sorry that 
I can't quote the reference but there was one in Science on work in the 
U.S. Northwest several years ago.


Conventional crop production also usually results in large carbon 
releases from oxidation of soil organic matter.


Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 19:34:04 -0500, Darryl McMahon 
dar...@econogics.com wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/business/economy/a-biofuel-debate-will-cutting-trees-cut-carbon.html

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Re: [Biofuel] Cheaper wind turbines.

[dwoodard]

It's hard for me to take this article seriously.

The article says that the new design would be 1,000 times more 
efficient than conventional wind turbines.


This is nonsense. Conventional wind turbines are around 30-50% 
efficient at extracting the energy in the wind intercepted by the rotor 
at speeds not over the speed for rated capacity. A typical maximum 
efficiency is 47% (achieved only at a specific optimum windspeed). Would 
maximum efficiency go up to 47,000%? I don't think so. Although it 
doesn't say efficiency in terms of what. Why not?
Perhaps a superconductor could reduce losses in the generator by a 
factor of 1000.


The article says that a wind turbine costs $15 million. It doesn't say 
what size of wind turbine this is. For a 6 megawatt onshore design 
(about double the average size sold) this is in the ballpark. On the 
other hand, one US dealer lists a Bergey 10 kilowatt grid tied wind 
turbine with 60 foot tower not including installation, for US$41,000.

http://www.eventhorizonsolar.com/BergeyWind.html

The developer is quoted as saying that the superconducting coil would 
replace the gearbox. This does't make sense. I can see the 
superconductor making possible cheap and light direct drive generators.


The high content of identifiable silly blather makes it hard for me to 
trust the rest of the article.


A superconductor economically usable in a wind turbine generator would 
change a lot of things besides the economics of wind turbines.


There is another source of information about Dr. Hossain's work:

http://www.uow.edu.au/research/news/buddingideas/UOW178438.html

It is much clearer and fairly hype-free, but unfortunately Dr. Hossain 
talks mostly about the possibilities for the application to wind power 
but doesn't say much about evidence for the  performance and costs of 
his proposed magnesium boride superconductor.


Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sat, 29 Nov 2014 12:41:09 +1300, bmolloy bmol...@xtra.co.nz 
wrote:

Subject: Cheaper wind turbines

Could this be the big break-through?
New superconductor-powered wind turbines could hit Australian shores 
in five

years - ScienceAlert


http://www.sciencealert.com/new-superconductor-powered-wind-turbines-could-hit-australian-shores-in-five-years


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Re: [Biofuel] The Future of the Biofuels mailing list, your input needed.

[dwoodard]

I don't contribute these days, but I read the posts and I often repost. 
I find it useful.


Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Wed, 19 Nov 2014 04:25:27 -0800 (PST), Chip Mefford c...@well.com 
wrote:

Good day all;

As of this morning, there are 456 subscribers to this list.

The recent news of Keith's passing come as sad news to us all and we
saw a tiny
uptick in traffic over those few days. Since then, we're back to some 
updates
on issues that many of us find interesting by Darryl, and not much 
else.


So, I need to hear from you, as in a *lot* of you if you want to see
this list continue.

The archives are in place, and as of right now, it's the intention to
keep them in
place, but I'm uncertain that this list is really serving any further
purpose.

Keith and I have discussed this very issue many times over the last 5
or so years.
I offered to host the list in order to keep it going a few years
back. But now
that we are no longer blessed with Keith's insights, well, I'm not 
sure

this list is really relevant.

So, please respond to this posting with your thoughts. I'll need to 
hear from

a lot of you.

--chipper


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[Biofuel] [ARTICLE] Engineered microbe could ease switchgrass ethanol

[dwoodard]

See
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40119/title/Engineered-Microbe-Could-Ease-Switch-to-Grass/

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
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Re: [Biofuel] The Village Against the World

[dwoodard]

To be more specific,

from page 12:

Astonishingly, in 1991 they prevailed. The government, exhausted by 
their defiance, gave them 1,200 hectares [~3,000 acres] of land 
belonging to the Duke of Infantado, head of one of Spain's oldest and 
wealthiest aristocratic families.


Note that the population of Marinaleda is 2,700.

From page 13:

'I have never belonged to the Communist Party of the hammer and 
sickle, but I am a communist or communitarian' Sanchez Gordillo 
clarified in an interview in 2011, adding that his political beliefs 
were drawn from a mixture of Christ, Ganhi, Marx, Lenin and Che.


From page 28:

'The power of elites, Sanchez Gordillo once said, even when they 
call themselves leftists, is always a tyranny.'


From page 53:

While the jornaleros' [day labourers] poverty was often fatal, 
hundreds of thousands of acres of the aristocratic-owned arable lands 
around them were left uncultivated, adding greater insult to the 
labourers' injurious poverty. these lands were sometimes used for 
breeding bulls or horses, or in the case of a 56,000-acre tract of land 
west of Marinaleda, simply as a shooting estate.




from pages 223-

There's no money left to pay the employees at El Humoso [the 
1,200-hectare cooperative farm]: they can't pay the cooperativistas.


The farm is inefficient, he went on, which is why they're losing 
money


...as Mariano Rajoy's [prime minister of Spain] troika-dictated cuts 
began to bite, the village's funding from the Junta de Andalucia 
[provincial government] was drying up fast. The general market downturn, 
as well as bad luck with recent harvests, was making it ever harder for 
El Humoso to pay the jornaleros, and pay them on time - sometimes they 
were waiting three months to be paid, and the olive-picking rates were 
dropping, on top of the problems with the peonadas.


It looks to me as if

1. Much of Marinaleda's success has been in mobilizing to extract 
resources from the more or less social-democratic governments of 
capitalist Spain. This is not likely something that is indefinitely 
reproducible, even in good times.


2. Much of Marinaleda's impetus seems to come from the anarchist and 
cooperative traditions of Spain in general and Andalusia in particular.


3. The cooperative farm has given employment to many people by 
concentrating on high-labour content crops, and by processing as much as 
possible locally. Again, this is not capable of indefinite extension 
although no doubt a good deal could be done by growing new crops, 
developing new markets and possibly modifying the local household 
economies to use more local resources, if the Marinalenos are up to it.


The methods used remind me of Alexander Chayanov's peasant economics 
in which a peasant family applies all of its available labour to 
whatever capital assets it has or can acquire. I think that Chayanov's 
ideas deserve further attention and development.


We are not told what agricultural land might be available to support 
the people of Marinaleda
if they had a proportional share of Anadalusia and the latifundistas 
were not a factor.


4. Dan Hancox has not reported much detailed economic information. I 
expect his access has been limited and anyway a popular book cannot go 
into too much detail.


5. We are not told much about how the decision-making structure of the 
cooperative actually works or about how much information is available to 
its members. I fear that too much information and decision making is in 
the hands of an aging leader, but that's difficult to assess.


What I know about the structure and process of one successful American 
income-sharing intentional community is very different. See

http://www.twinoaks.org

*

I am disappointed to some extent at Hancox's approach, and more at that 
of many of his reviewers which seems to be in the vein of Workers of 
the world, arise... Not much attention seems to be given to the lessons 
which can be learned from Marinaleda for future constructive work.
We have had a few hundred years of agitprop, and it seems to me that 
its possibilities are nearly exhausted.


Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario



On Wed, 13 Nov 2013 21:32:41 +0200, Keith Addison 
ke...@journeytoforever.org wrote:


http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/the_village_against_the_world_20131108

The Village Against the World

Posted on Nov 8, 2013

By Nomi Prins

The Village Against the World

A book by Dan Hancox

The most expensive government on the planet-ours-was shut down over
budget concerns, health insurance and passive-aggressiveness. The
inane partisan squabbling most acutely affected those with the most 
to
lose-the people at the bottom of the economic pile. Meanwhile, 
grossly

unequal division of wealth and power is a growing blight on the face
of humanity. Dangerous mechanisms of financial ruin are nurtured by
governments while they spew rhetoric about helping citizens. A future
in which reckless economic exploitation will 

Re: [Biofuel] US Air Force Veteran, Finally Allowed to Fly Into US, is Now banned from Flying Back Home

[dwoodard]

On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:09:24 +0200, Keith Addison 
ke...@journeytoforever.org wrote:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33899.htm

US Air Force Veteran, Finally Allowed to Fly Into US, is Now banned
from Flying Back Home

Secret, unaccountable no-fly lists are one of many weapons the US
government uses to extra-judicially punish American Muslims

By Glenn Greenwald

February 10, 2013 The Guardian - -In early November, I wrote about
the infuriating story of Saadiq Long, the 43-year-old 
African-American

Muslim who - despite having never been charged with any crime - was
secretly placed on a no-fly list and thus barred from flying to the 
US

to visit his seriously ill mother. When I met with Long in early
November in Doha, Qatar, where he has lived for several years with 
his
wife and her two children while teaching English, he was in the 
middle
of his futile months-long battle just to find out why he was placed 
on

this list, let alone how he could be removed.

Two weeks after that article was published, Long - without
explanation - was finally removed from the no-fly list and he flew
from Doha to Oklahoma City to visit his mother and other family
members. He took several flights to make the 20-hour journey, all
without incident. He has remained in Oklahoma for the last ten weeks,
visiting his family in the US for the first time in over a decade.

But now Long - unbeknownst to him - has once again apparently been
secretly placed by some unknown National Security State bureaucrat on
the no-fly list. On Wednesday night, as Associated Press first
reported, he went to the Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City to fly
back home to Qatar. In order to ensure there were no problems, his
lawyer sent the FBI a letter ahead of time notifying them that Long
would be flying home on that date (see the embedded letter below).

But without explanation, Long was denied a boarding pass at the
airport by a Delta Airlines agent. Three local police officers then
arrived on the scene, followed by a US Transportation Security
Administration agent who told Long he couldn't board a plane but did
not give him a specific reason.

Long's lawyer, Adam Soltani of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), was with him at the airport and
repeatedly asked agents why this was happening and who they should
contact. He got no answers, except was told to contact the FBI. But
both the FBI and Delta refused to comment to AP, while TSA spokesman
David Castelveter would only say this:

It's my understanding this individual was denied a boarding pass by
the airline because he was on a no-fly list. The TSA does not confirm
whether someone is or is not on the no-fly list, as that list is
maintained by the FBI.

Long and his CAIR lawyers have thus far been told nothing about why
he is barred once again from flying.

The personal cost to this injustice is obvious and substantial. Long
has a job he needs to return to in Doha from which he has been away
for more than two months, and his family needs that income for its
sustenance. I was extremely disappointed when I was unable to board
the flight this past Wednesday, Long told me through his lawyer. My
family in Qatar feels crushed that I will not be returning home as
expected.

The sense of humiliation and outrage should not be hard to fathom.
Just imagine being a US citizen, denied the right to travel home -
first to your own country, then back to your family - by a government
that has never charged you with any crime or indicated you have
engaged in wrongdoing of any sort. Imagine going to the airport and
having local and federal agents arrive to prevent you from boarding a
plane, treating you like a criminal - a Terrorist - without any
tangible accusations. I don't understand how the government can take
away my right to travel without even telling me, he told me back in
November. If the US government wanted me to question or arrest or
prosecute me, they could have had me in a minute. But there are no
charges, no accusations, nothing.

But what's particularly infuriating here is that, if they had
evidence that Long has done anything wrong, they easily could have
arrested him at any point over the last ten weeks when he was in the
US. The reality is that they could have arrested him at any time over
the last decade because he has lived in three countries with highly
US-loyal autocracies: Egypt, the UAE and Qatar. But he was never
arrested, never charged with anything - just denied the basic right 
to

travel.

Here is what CAIR's Gadeir Abbas told me about all of this on 
Thursday:


It is not as if the FBI actually thinks Saadiq is a threat. If it
did - and it had actual evidence - the FBI would simply arrest him. 
As

they surely recall, they let him fly just a few months ago. It turns
out, though, the only reason for doing so is because it is, in the
FBI's view, slightly more indefensible to prevent an American citizen
from flying home than it is to 

[Biofuel] Secret No-Fly Zones in ?US/ law-enforcement lunacy

[dwoodard]

See
http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2013/130110secret-no-fly-zone.html?WT.mc_id=130111epilotWT.mc_sect=gan

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

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[Biofuel] [ARTICLES] Roundup and GMO toxicity

[dwoodard]

First, the cheap journalism:

http://keephopealive.org/j2012v10n3.html

It's too bad these websites can't get their references straight;
however the scientific article
has pretty much the same information:

http://research.sustainablefoodtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Final-Paper.pdf

An article four years ago raised the alarm:

http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm

and a responsible journalist reflects on equally frightening 
implications:


http://grist.org/food/the-latest-gmo-study-raises-more-questions-than-it-answers/

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

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Re: [Biofuel] Dear all...

[dwoodard]

 Keith, how much do you need to keep it going?

 Do you plan to continue the archives/database? (is this also 
 threaatened?)

 Doug Woodard
 St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



 On Fri, 12 Oct 2012 17:26:41 +0200, Keith Addison 
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 It's October, the list is going to run out of time soon and the host
 service will close it down. I'm not sure of the exact date, but
 suddenly the music will stop.

 The new community I mentioned previously is still some way down the
 road, but it will eventually happen. When it does, you'll be hearing
 from me.

 Meanwhile, the list will stop, but I won't. I'll keep harvesting the
 news, I do it anyway.

 If any list members would like to keep receiving these daily
 snippets, I don't mind sending them direct. Please let me know -
 offlist please.

 All best, and a very big thanks for everything, over the years. This
 list has taught me so much (deep bow).

 Regards to all.

 Keith


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[Biofuel] Catherine Austin Fitts/solari/place based economics

[dwoodard]

James Quaid jfquaid(at)earthlink.net wrote

Keith,

You may want to check out
http://solari.com .  This was Catherine
Austin Fitt's brain child.  Where she discusses the concept of a Solari.
Briefly, its a  100k coop that agrees to do business exclusively
internally (where goods and services permit).  It's what's called placed
based economics.  Where the goal of the coop is to keep as much $ in the
community as possible.  This includes going after Gummint contracts,
etc. You can sell to anyone.  However, your purchases have to be as
close to home as possible.

After Catherine was chased out of DC by FedGov.Inc (note domain suffix)
for busting big Bush and Clinton supporters for Soprano's style HUD
fraud.  She returned to her family home in Happy Valley, TN.  Her
neighbors asked if she could help them.  They had a lot of unemployment
and city services were expensive.  They first thing she recommended is
to start there one sanitation co.  This  employed people internally and
reduced the cost of garbage pickup to everyone in the community.

The pipe dream of Globalization (thanks to Bubba and Newt) is like a
direct economic short.  Where the money is siphoned out of your place at
the expense of child and prison labor.

This model has a totally open accounting system.  Where all members are
encouraged to keep track of all transactions posted on a private solari
server.  The model is quite open to fit the needs of the members. It
includes issuing A and B stock shares.  Where A shares can only be sold
to the solari members.  B shares can be sold to anyone.

This much akin to the Mondragon Society in Spain.

If just 10% of us shifted our purchases away from the Tape Worm economic
model (WalMart, MSM, McDonalds, etc), it would effect FedGov.Inc's
profits by 30%.  Because, they count their profits thrice like Enron.
Couple that by the sustainable community business / coop model and we
have an extremely effective  Gandhi style boycott.

Regards,
JQ
(First Solari Member)

On Wed, 2012-05-23 at 20:55 +0200, Keith Addison wrote:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/22-2

http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel


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Re: [Biofuel] Vitriol Over Climate Change

[dwoodard]

Much of North America, including the Niagara Peninsula where I live, has
been having an extremely mild and low-snow winter, although there are some
predictions that our weather will soon become colder.

What seems to be happening over much of the world is instability and
change in weather patterns, which might tell us something.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


Keith Addison wrote:

 Meanwhile there's a record killer freeze in Japan:

 http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120204a1.html
 Record lows recorded at 38 locations

 And in Europe:

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095509/Eastern-European-death-toll-hits-150-big-freeze-continues-continent.html
 Snow falls in Rome for the first time in 26 YEARS as -36c
 temperatures across eastern Europe send death toll to 150

 :-(

 Regards

 Keith


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Re: [Biofuel] Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home

[dwoodard]

The more powerful technology becomes, the less we can tolerate its misuse
by a few. The possibility of its misuse by a few can never be excluded,
especially in a complex society with an atomised society, and much
alienation and anomie. In such a society, powerful technology requires
large and pervasive security forces as we have seen, but the subordination
of those forces to the interests of the society is doubtful.

A potentially powerfully destructive technology which is cheap and can be
used by individuals or very small numbers of people may not be tolerable
at all. The nature of survivable technology depends on the technical
possibility of its misuse and the strength of the motivation for its
misuse.
Godlike powers require godlike wisdom and restraint. They are not to be
looked for among humans.

We are not very far from the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Soviet Gulag, Pol
Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural
Revolution in China. The war in Iraq is still going on. We show little
sign of dealing effectively with either the climate crisis or peak oil.
Optimism about human behaviour is not warranted by the evidence.
Progress seems to be not general but highly localized and limited.

Just what makes you think that Hitler, Stalin and Curtis LeMay were not
truly human?

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


David House wrote:

 Peter,

 Good to hear from you again...

 Guag Meister wrote:
 [...] So many times with technology we find that the last condition is
 worse than the first.  Extrapolating this out to its logical conclusion,
 we find that all technology advances are bad.  Could this be the reason
 that almost all religious leaders (and by that I mean Jesus, Mohammad,
 Bhuddha, etc) shun technology.  Anyone that proposes technological fixes
 will find themselves at odds with Jesus.  Um, who do you think is right?

 Sure technology has given us open heart surgery and moonflight, but 500
 years from now, if planet earth is burnt and lifeless due to our actions
 (air and water pollution, nuclear exchange, global warming, infectious
 disease, extinctions, etc.), then what can we say about technology?  The
 last condition is much worse than the first, even if the first is a
 caveman existance and even including leprosy and black plague etc.

 I'm not aware that any of the great Teachers shunned technology. Could
 you offer any quotes or evidence in that regard? In part I question this
 because it seems to me that the whole thrust of those Teachers is to
 foster an ever-advancing civilization.

 Technology as part of that evolution has a far larger share than you
 have indicated-- as witnessed by this conversation, where you in
 Thailand and me in Oregon (US) are able to share thoughts, and educate
 one another, even though we are rather beyond shouting distance. (In
 fact, do forgive me for pointing out that these are odd statements to
 make, given the means used to make them. As might be evident, if you
 practice what you preach, no one will hear you.)

 But beyond that, the ability to create a simple hammer depends on
 advances in the technology of steel alloys. Building the factory and and
 engaging in distribution depend on advances in a bewildering slew of
 technologies, including the magic of compounding interest and the
 invention of modern transport. You grow things, to take another example.
 Agriculture, however practiced, is larded with technology and
 technological advances: understanding of the seasons; calendars; plows
 or no-till, take your pick; understanding of biology and ecology;
 advances in the understanding of weather and its prediction; even the
 invention of language and math.

 But ultimately, even given the large share that technology has in
 civilization, the problem is not technology and the Teachers have never
 particularly emphasized it, because what takes a larger share in Their
 thinking (at least as I read those various scriptures), is advances in
 ethics and virtue. Technology, after all, is merely a tool. A lab coat,
 by itself, has no power to do anything. A test tube cannot act to harm
 anyone. A computer, absent instructions otherwise, will simply be a
 device for converting electricity into heat. The point, obviously, is
 that any of these things require human intention to either help or harm,
 create or destroy. It's not all that hard to use a convenient rock to
 kill someone, and technology need have no part in that.

 Granted, where the means have been developed, Predator drones, atomic
 weapons, weaponized small pox, tanks, missiles and guns will allow
 someone with bad intentions to more efficiently act on those intentions.
 But those Teachers were nothing if not practical (again, at least as I
 see it). And for anyone, anywhere, at any time, to say Stop! Don't use
 technology! Forget what you know! would be silly, foolish, senseless,
 and without any effect. There are probably tens if not hundreds of
 thousands of people in the 

Re: [Biofuel] 747 on biofuel

[dwoodard]

It seems to me that the unusual thing for 2007 is the automatic
pressure-operated inlet valves. They were common pre World War I although
operated by suction without a supercharger.

I am surprised by the high power claimed since automatic valves reputedly
tended to be slow operating and gave low volumetric efficiency according
to Sir Harry Ricardo in his autobiography. I also wonder about the lack of
description of the supercharger although one is specified.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


 Poppet valves imply cams: but what you're describing sounds like the
 uniflow pattern in reverse, i.e. poppet intakes and port exhausts rather
 than the other way around. What I'd like to see is a two-stroke diesel
 using single sleeve valves in the Burt-McCollum mould, with intake ports
 near the bottom of the stroke and exhaust ports near the top. The facility
 to time the intake event asymmetrically around bdc would allow one to make
 better use of the blower for supercharging rather than only scavenging -
 could that be what the LIM is about?

 -Dawie


 - Original Message 
 From: Joe Street [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: sustainablelorgbiofuel@sustainablelists.org
 Sent: Thursday, 4 October, 2007 10:23:17 PM
 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] 747 on biofuel


 Valve actuation I guess.  The LIM cycle has intake valves in the head
 which are just poppet valves, no cams etc and the exhaust is through
 ports at the bottom of the cylinder.  Scavenging is unequalled.  Also
 allows an oil sump.

 Joe

 Kurt Nolte wrote:

Just out of curiosity... what really makes the LIM any different from a
two-stroke diesel? They too are blower scavenged, port exhausted closed
crankcase engines...

-Kurt

Joe Street wrote:


Damn it all to hell. My friend just bought a Moyes Dragonfly
http://www.liteflite.com.au/ and I had a half baked notion to put a
LIM cycle engine http://www.limtechnology.com/Pages/concept.htm on it
and make the claim to be the first to go flying on biodiesel!  Well I'm
glad the wheels are in motion even if I can't be first. :-)

Joe



Dawie Coetzee wrote:




They can keep their 747's, but I'm thinking what can be done with a
 time-expired Allison 250-series... -D


- Original Message 
From: Bruno M. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Sent: Tuesday, 2 October, 2007 4:27:03 PM
Subject: [Biofuel] 747 on biofuel


FYI:
~~
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7017694.stm

Biofuel trial flight set for 747
By Richard BlackEnvironment correspondent, BBC News website

Air New Zealand says it plans to mount the first test flight of a
commercial airliner
partially powered by biofuel.

The 747 flight, scheduled for 2008 or 2009, will not carry
 passengers

The 747 flight is one part of a deal signed by the airline,
engine producer Rolls-Royce and aircraft manufacturer Boeing to
research greener flying.

One of the four engines will run on a mixture of kerosene and a
 biofuel,
and is set for late 2008 or early 2009.

But Virgin Atlantic is planning to beat Air New Zealand to the punch
by having its own biofuel flight early next year.

Air New Zealand's chief executive Rob Fyfe said that advances in
 technology
had made biofuels a viable possibility for use in aviation sooner
than anticipated.

The New Zealand government recently declared the objective of
becoming carbon neutral,
and climate change and energy minister David Parker said the national
airline's initiative would help achieve that goal.

I'm delighted that Air New Zealand has taken the lead by signing up
for the first commercial trial of a biofuelled... aircraft, he said.

The partnership gave no details of the type of biofuel to be used,
but said that the test flight will not carry passengers.

... more, see link ...
===







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Re: [Biofuel] Plastic bag revolt spreads across Britain

[dwoodard]

My memory from the 50's says that waxed paper was much used, also a
special kind of strong, not too absorbent paper. Newspaper was often used
as an outer wrapping.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


Keith Addison wrote:

 can't remember how the meat got packed but the
 butcher cut it for you while you waited (greaseproof paper?), same at
 the fishmonger.

 Keith




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Re: [Biofuel] 'What the World Eats'!

[dwoodard]

It may be that poorer countries eat better quality food of a given type,
but poorer households within North America do not. My experience is that
they eat more processed and worse quality food.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario



 In these reports that Kirk posted, it seems that wealthier countries
 feed their population with food in boxes and bottles, pretty packaging,
 but very little nutrition.  The foods consumed in poorer households
 appear to have a closer route back to the soil they were grown in, hence
 a higher level in nutrients.

 doug swanson




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[Biofuel] The Plan to Disappear Canada

[dwoodard]

I suspect this is part of a plan going back a quarter-century, also that
energy is uppermost in the planners' minds .

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario

--

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/06/08/DeepIntegrate/

[see original for links to sources]


The Plan to Disappear Canada

'Deep integration' comes out of the shadows.

By Murray Dobbin

June 8, 2007

TheTyee.ca

If the machinations going on in this country regarding so-called deep
integration were instead a communist conspiracy to take over the
country (you will, of course, have to try hard to imagine this) the news
media would be blaring the story.

Pundits would pontificate, editorialists would erupt, security forces
would be unleashed.

Instead, a virtual conspiracy to make the country disappear through
assimilation into the U.S. gets barely a mention.

But news of the scheme -- formally called the Security and Prosperity
Partnership of North America (SPP) -- is finally breaking out of the
secret chambers of the ruling elite and the federal government. This is
both good news and bad. It's good that ordinary citizens are finally
getting a glimpse of the betrayal of their country. The news is bad
because it reflects just how much of this scheme is already being
implemented.

Given the meetings of CEOs and politicians to advance the scheme
politically, as well as all that must go into its actual implementation,
there is simply too much activity to keep secret.

Ten dots to connect

Here are 10 developments in the plan to disappear Canada.

1) Pesticides 'harmonized.' The most thoroughly reported story (though
even this did not go much beyond the CanWest chain) was the revelation
that Canada was about to harmonize its regulations, setting limits for
pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables. In 40 per cent of the cases,
the U.S. allows for higher levels. Richard Aucoin, chief registrar of the
Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which sets Canada's pesticide levels,
said that Canada's higher levels were a trade irritant.

The downgrading of health protection had been a NAFTA initiative, but is
being fast-tracked as part of the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Some 300 regulatory regimes are
currently going through the same process.

2) Tory tirade. The next story that broke through the wall of media
silence reported on the paranoid reaction of the Harper Conservatives to
any criticism of the SPP. The occasion was hearings of the Commons
International Trade Committee into the SPP, forced by the NDP.

Gordon Laxer, head of Alberta's Parkland Institute, was testifying on the
energy implications of the SPP, warning that eastern Canada could end up
freezing in the dark. He had barely started when the chair of the
committee, Conservative MP Leon Benoit, demanded that Laxer halt his
irrelevant testimony. The Committee members overruled Benoit -- who
promptly (and illegally) adjourned the meeting and stomped out. The NDP
and Liberal members nonetheless continued without him.

3) Council of corporate power. The SPP initiative began in earnest back in
2002 with the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (formerly the BCNI),
the most powerful corporate body in the country. It continues it
leadership role, but does not promote the scheme just in its own name. It
instead has helped create several supportive bodies that now help drive
the agenda. Included in these are the North American Competitive Council
(NACC), which includes CEOs of the largest North American
corporations, and which institutionalizes the exclusively corporate nature
of the agreement. The NACC is the only advisory group to the three
NAFTA/SPP governments.

4) Secretive summit. The NACC at least is public. But much of what happens
in building the elite consensus for deep integration is done in absolute
secrecy or very privately, away from the prying eyes of the media. The
most secretive of these was held last year from Sept. 12 to 14, in Banff
Springs. As The Tyee reported, the gathering was sponsored by something
called the North American Forum* and it was attended by some of the most
powerful members of the North American ruling elite.

Attendees, according to a leaked list that could not be confirmed,
included Donald Rumsfeld, George Schultz (former U.S. Secretary of State),
General Rick Hillier, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor and Minister of
Public Safety Stockwell Day. The media was not informed of the meeting and
it was first revealed by the weekly Banff Crag  Canyon.

Stockwell Day refused to even confirm he was there, but said that even if
he was, it was a private meeting that he would not comment on. There is
no better indication that these meetings, and the SPP itself, constitute a
parallel governing structure -- unaccountable to any
democratic institution or the public.

5) 'No fly' coordination. Canada will have its own no-fly list just like
our U.S. partner.

As the Council 

Re: [Biofuel] Fruit Trees and Compost

[dwoodard]

Robert, is this really supposed to be an insecticide or is it an 
anti-fungal agent?

By the way, I think the word you're looking for is surfactant.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


On Wed, 2 May 2007, robert and benita rabello wrote:

 Mr. Lunan told me to mix a concoction of baking 
 soda and water, with a little bit of dish soap to act as a surficant 
 (Surfacant?  If the root word is surface, why does the spelling change? 
 Sometimes I HATE this language!) and spray my trees as soon as the blossoms 
 fell off.  I expressed concern that this might have a negative impact on the 
 wasp colony that feeds on my insect pests, but he said that it shouldn't be 
 toxic to the predators.

   Hmm . . .  How can that be?

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Re: [Biofuel] Build your own wind turbine.

[dwoodard]

Hugh Piggott has a website at
http://www.scoraigwind.co.uk
see his books

Another good site without the DIY aspect is Paul Gipe's
http://www.wind-works.org

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sun, 4 Mar 2007, D. Mindock wrote:

 This site has the magnets and wire too...

 http://cgi.ebay.com/How-to-Build-a-Wind-Turbine-Generator-plan-Hugh-Piggott_W0QQitemZ110083683350QQihZ001QQcategoryZ121837QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

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Re: [Biofuel] Dr Strangelove Saves The Earth

[dwoodard]

The geoengineering approach appears to ignore the problem of the seas 
becoming more acid due to more dissolved CO2. I don't see an engineering 
approach to that one at any bearable cost.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, Keith Addison wrote:

 From: The Economist, Jan. 15, 2006
 http://www.precaution.org/lib/07/prn_global_engineering.070115.htm[P
 rinter-friendly version]

 Dr Strangelove Saves The Earth

 How big science might fix climate change

 Few scientists like to say so, but cutting greenhouse-gas emissions
 is not the only way to solve the problem of global warming. If
 man-made technologies are capable of heating the planet, they are
 probably capable of cooling it down again. Welcome to
 geo-engineering, which holds that, rather than trying to change
 mankind's industrial habits, it is more efficient to counter the
 effects, using planetary-scale engineering.

 This general approach has been kicking around for decades. A paper on
 climate change prepared for President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 made no
 mention of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. It nonchalantly proposed
 dealing with the results by dumping vast quantities of reflective
 particles into the oceans, to increase the amount of sunlight
 reflected into space.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] What's In Your Milk?

[dwoodard]

Which taste do you prefer, John?

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, ontario


On Sat, 13 Jan 2007, John Mullan wrote:

 I'm not sure what's in U.S. milk, or Canadian milk for that matter.  But I
 live right on the border and often we get groceries in the U.S. for
 significant savings.  But I have to share the fact that the taste of
 Wegman's milk is significantly different than our Canadian milk yet I'm sure
 our commercial factory farms do some of the same things.

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Re: [Biofuel] Pendulum

[dwoodard]

A heat pump is a *pump*. It moves heat from one place to another, at an 
energy cost. It does not create heat. It is not an over-unity device.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Wes Moore wrote:

 This is not more astounding than the heat pump that heats my home. It is
 giving me a COP of 5.  This is documented by ASHRAE tech data that comes
 with the unit. I have verified it with my amp meter.   Heat pumps are
 recognized to be over unity devices but it seems they have not been
 criticized possibly because there is no obvious way to translate this energy
 back to electricity.

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Re: [Biofuel] Drivers face road charge by satellite in UK *#

[dwoodard]

Fuel taxes hit everyone, people living in sparsely populated rural areas
as well as people living in densely populated cities.

If road use is the problem (and especially if it is a problem only at
certain times) then tax road use. That will be the most economically
efficient solution.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


 Dear DM,

 This must be a hoax.

 Any MP with half a brain would just add to the fuel tax to
 achieve this result.

 Redgards,

 Wendell



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Re: [Biofuel] FDA announces cloned meat safe to eat

[dwoodard]

In 1948 Henry C. Simons published a book called Economic Policy for a
Free Society. Simons was a conservative who made the point that if one
wanted small government it was necesary to intervene in the market with
anti-trust legislation to keep individual businesses small enough so that
no one firm could influence the market. If one left the market to itself
business would grow to the point where there was a need and a demand for a
countervailing power of big government.

The right-wing radicals of our time who call themselves conservatives have
ignored this.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


[snip]

 With many of these issues, what all the externalisations end up
 amounting to is that, free choice or not, nobody is excluded in the
 end from the manufactured non-decisions of the masses, as Robert has
 just been lamenting: We simply can't get away from the problem
 anymore.

 So please don't leave such things for the magic of the marketplace to
 provide solutions, because any such magic has long ago been hijacked.
 We have to see these things coming in time to stop them if necessary,
 or at least to enforce due precaution.

 Best

 Keith

[snip]


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Re: [Biofuel] Drivers face road charge by satellite in UK

[dwoodard]

In the late 1980's I read a study by Pollution Probe of Toronto which
calculated that if all costs incured by cars and their drivers were paid
by a fuel tax, gasoline would cost $5 or $6 Canadian per Imperial gallon.
Today it would be double that price. I recall that medical costs of
accidents and the cost of policing (to prevent even worse carnage on the
roads) were major components of the high cost of driving.

As I recall, these calculations did not include the high costs of urban
infrastructure made necessary by sprawl to accomodate cars.

As James Howard Kunstler has pointed out, the car culture and the
settlement patterns it has produced are so expensive to operate in a time
of high-cost oil in declining supply, that their appalling costs will
force a very painful change to a more rational transportation and
settlement pattern. We wouldn't be in this desperate situation if  it
hadn't been for the political pressure of automotive welfare bums and the
corporate interests and the politicians who pander to them.

Making drivers pay their way is the first step to economic rationality and
a future that doesn't involve freezing in the dark. If you don't want Big
Brother to know where you are, take the bus or the train. Air travelers
have been dealing with this for years.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



  UK - Road tax - Government petition
 From: Loren Brown

 Subject: FW: Road tax - Government petition
 This is the biggest move to tax  infringe on
 privacy ever proposed in this Country [UK]!

 It was stated on the news this morning (27th
 November 2006) one of the reasons this proposal
 has been suggested was to raise money for
 possible road building and improvements to
 existing roads. It should be noted that all the
 money currently collected by the DVLA for road
 fund licences, only 23% - 24% is actually spent
 on road building and improvements!

 The government's proposal to introduce road
 pricing will mean you having to purchase a
 tracking device for your car and paying a monthly
 bill to use it. The tracking device will cost
 about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC the
 lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist
 and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working Mum
 who used the car to take the kids to school paid
 £86 in one month. On top of this massive increase
 in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know
 where you are at all times. They will also know
 how fast you have been going, so even if you
 accidentally creep over a speed limit you can
 expect an NIP with your monthly bill. If you care
 about our freedoms and stopping the constant
 bashing of the car driver, please sign the
 petition on No 10's new website, sign up here
 http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/
 Even if you don't have a car please feel free to forward this e-mail on.



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Re: [Biofuel] Top scientists say man may need to dirty skies to shield against warming - CP Wire - 2006.11.16

[dwoodard]

There has been some experimentation with white roofs in the American south
and they make a useful contribution to reducing the need for air
conditioning.
I found several internet sites which discussed this from a search a couple
of years ago.

Black asphalt roads are useful in clearing the ice from roads in winter.

Some time ago, white painted cars were more vulnerable to rust. I don't
know if it is still the case. They provide poor contrast in winter.
Something that stands out better is safer.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


 If all new and replaced roofs were white how much would that do?
   What if highways were white?
 What if the cars on them and so on.
   Kirk

[snip]


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Re: [Biofuel] Water Powered Engine / Electrolysis

[dwoodard]

Hydrogen does indeed have an excellent heat value for its weight/mass, but
not for its volume, and it is a gas down close to absolute zero. Hydrogen
storage is a considerable problem. To my mind it remains to be seen
whether hydrogen will ever be economic for the sole fuel of a vehicle.

I think that hydrogen from renewable sources distributed in pipes may well
be very useful as a replacement for natural gas. As well as wind turbines,
see
http://www.shec-labs.com
which uses a solar thermal catalytic methods of making hydrogen from water.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


 Hello Doug, Andrew et al.
 Hydrogen gas has a fine heat value, which makes it very interesting as an
 energy source. However, as Doug pointed out, it will be necessary to
 obtain
 the energy for the electrolysis from an outer source, why not from solar
 cells, to make the energy balance favourable. Good Luck !
 Jan Warnqvist
 AGERATEC AB

[snip]


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Re: [Biofuel] Water Powered Engine / Electrolysis

[dwoodard]

What this amounts to is a really lousy, incompetent attempt at a perpetual
motion machine.

You have to put in the energy to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen,
then you get back the same energy when they recombine. There would be no
surplus to run the vehicle even if every stage was perfectly efficient,
which they are very far from being.

Doug Woodard
St, Catharines, Ontario, Canada


 Just trying to pick the brains of the rest of the world

 This is pertaining to gasoline engines being run off of hydrogen from an
 electrolysis reaction onboard the vehicle.
 http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/carplans_doc.htm

 What is the probability of this working correctly? Anyone done it?

 Thanks,
 Andrew



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Re: [Biofuel] Composting human manure

[dwoodard]

Some extra information from Tom Habasco.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

*

the state is Michigan,Charlevoix county,Melrose twp.
Michigan has legislation , Act 421-PA 1986 which allows for composting 
humanure.The local health dept. does not recognize.
 My compost does not leave the property, I cannot sell it, nor do I sell any
food grown.
  They complain that composting humanure is illegal.
We are headed for circuit court where I iether keep or lose my home and 
property. As a military vet, an enviromentalist, an organic farmer, a 
certified horticulturist, an honorary member of the tip of the mit 
watershed council we clean waterways, I cannot believe this is happening.
 And I agree that the health dept. should have to disprove composting
effiecency.
 please lead me to documents in support of advantages of composting for
ammunition in court.  Thank You.






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[Biofuel] Switchgrass, was Re: Pellet fuel options

[dwoodard]

I have read that switchgrass needs to be reseeded about every five years.

See
http://www.reap-canada.com

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 7 Nov 2006, Joe Street wrote:

 Have a look about switchgrass.  It only requires labour for the first 
 planting and then each successive harvest, ie it is perrenial. I heard from a 
 local organic farmer that as such it gives 13 to 1 energy return when used as 
 a fuel.  Maybe a rocket stove ??  Apparently it will grow just about 
 anywhere.

 Cheers
 Joe

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Re: [Biofuel] A heat Engine for the house.

[dwoodard]

I recall reading that Fiat experimented with a natural gas fueled 
cogeneration Total energy system based on a car engine, back in
the 1970's. I think it was intended for apartment buildings etc.
I don't know whether it was sold commercially to any extent.

I understand that Denmark uses biomass fueled cogeneration fairly widely.

District heating without cogeneration has been widely used in Europe.
It was much used in the Soviet Union. There is an old district 
heating system in part of downtown Toronto using steam as the 
transmission medium; this is regarded as inefficient these days, 
and it is not suitable for cogeneration. Industrial cogeneration
is widely used in North America.

Four years ago I read that fuel cell cogeneration systems were planned
for trials in 2003. I haven't heard anything since although I have not 
spent much effort on inquiry. I presume that the problem here is the
same as with cars; it's necessary to get the price of fuel cells way
down before they can be sold commercially.

In many cogeneration applications where not a lot of electricity is
needed relatively speaking, the electrical generating part of the
system doesn't need to be highly efficient at converting heat to
electricity so it can be made simple, cheap and reliable.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Zeke Yewdall wrote:

 This is known as Cogeneration, and in the energy consulting world is
 considered pretty hot.  Usually it's trying to recuperate heat from small
 turbines, fuel cells, or even large turbines, but it generally pays back
 pretty well (because usually the other option is just throwing away all that
 heat, because they need the electricity anyway).  I suspect that the problem
 was the gasoline is a pretty high priced form of BTU's.  But they've made
 working systems using MW sized diesel generators in some alaskan villages,
 and they pay $3 or $4 per gallon for fuel (and $0.40/kWh for the resulting
 electricity) I don't actually know anyone who's done this on a scale smaller
 than a large commercial building or campus, but perhaps there's someone out
 there   The thing is that if you just want to get heat, it's always more
 efficient to just run a boiler or furnace or such, and not waste energy in
 making movement.  But if you can syphon off 20% of the energy into motion,
 which you then turn to high value energy such as electricity, it might be
 better.   Also, you've got to match the electrical and thermal loads, which
 often don't match well, though they could in certain situations.



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Re: [Biofuel] Word Play

[dwoodard]

Detonation (knocking) and preignition are different, although preignition 
promotes detonation.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


From: Jason Katie [EMAIL PROTECTED]

actually it stops predetonation(going off too early) in high compression
gasoline engines which can damage the engine.

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Re: [Biofuel] Tiny Inhaled Particles Take Easy Route From Nose ToBrain

[dwoodard]

Uranium burns very readily and the combustion product disperses as many 
tiny particles. That's what makes it so useful to the military in 
penetrating projectiles; its high density makes it a good penetrator in 
high-speed impacts, and it is also a good incendiary once it penetrates,
normally igniting from the heat of friction on impact at say 1000 metres 
per second. In other air crashes, depleted uranium balance weights have 
been known to ignite readily and burn.

It improves the properties of steel as an alloying element which suggests 
to me that it may have good metallurgical properties on its own.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Fri, 6 Oct 2006, Paul S Cantrell wrote:

 Ah, that's at standard pressure, right?  Don't you think that the impact of
 a jetliner at several hundred miles per hour and the ensuing explosion and
 fall of the towers would increase the pressure and lower the melting point
 and vaporize some of the DU?

 Anyway, the asbestos was enough to cause breathing problems for site workers
 for the rest of their lives.

 On 9/25/06, Thompson, Mark L. (PNB RD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  Kirk the melting point of DU is 2070 F (1132C) and the boiling point us
 7101 F (3917C).
 
 The max temperature seen in the TWC was round 1000C, not even enough the
 melt DU let alone vaporize it.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON SEPT 11

[dwoodard]

Well maybe, but I don't think that the stupidity lies where you seem to 
imply.

We know that years before the event PNAC wrote longingly of a new
Pearl Harbor.

We know that for a long time Al Quaeda wanted to destroy the World
Trade Centre as the ultimate symbolic blow to its own Evil Empire.

Each of them knew what the other wanted. Two hearts beat with a single 
passionI doubt that many words were needed.

They may have disagreed about the ultimate consequences of an American 
seizure of Iraq. I'd say Osama was ahead on points there.

Remember Captain Ahab? All my means are sane; my motives and objects 
mad.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 21 Sep 2006, robert and benita rabello wrote:

 D. Mindock wrote:

[snip]

Because the truth shows what a bunch of blithering idiots they
 really are!

[snip]

It happened with government stupidity.

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Re: [Biofuel] amazing himalayan salt

[dwoodard]

There's nothing wrong with profit, but what the market thinks is profit 
is not always the whole story. Markets need the help of a disciplined 
social framework, otherwise they will lie. The discipline can be imposed 
through suitable taxes.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Joe Street wrote:

 Hi Bob;

 Well I don't mean to argue this too much but what bugs me is that although I 
 don't have a problem with a scientist or a chemist making a living, it 
 disturbs me that our society is geared towards and so dominated by profit.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] amazing himalayan salt

[dwoodard]

People learning science need to be introduced to non-linear and complex 
systems as a part of their basic education.

Come to think of it, so do philosophers, sociologists, political 
scientists, economists...and journalists...just about everyone who deals 
with abstractions at all.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Joe Street wrote:

 Hi Bob;

[snip]

 I can't tell you how 
 many times I've seen a 4th year or even a grad student act shocked and 
 confused when a second or third order approximation didn't seem to cut it 
 where the rubber meets the road in the real world. In the process of doing 
 what they are taught they somehow lose sight of the stuff they decide is 
 irrelevant and act as if it doesn't even exist.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Disney

[dwoodard]

It may be that Osama knows too much, and that some people would find it 
inconvenient to have him testify in a court.

Regarding Osama has won -

Immediately after 9/11, the UK-based Canadian commentator Gwyn Dyer
remarked that the event was likely part of a strategic plan, and that
we should think carefully before reacting and not follow the
wishes of the planners.

My guess is that Osama had read the Project For a New American Century 
long before and was happy to provide the new Pearl Harbor.

To quote that grand old American philosopher Phineas T. Barnum,
Never give a sucker a chance.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Tue, 12 Sep 2006, Mike Weaver wrote:

 Whole 'nother kettle of fish.  I was responding to the notion that OBL
 didn't deserve due process - that the US has
 the right to just kill him because we feel like it - which I don't agree
 with.  If GWB had had any sense he'd have kept the goodwill that
 radiated our way after 9/11
 captured OBL AS he promised, and brought charges with the consent of the UN.

 I'd have to go looking, but I *do* (usual list caveat - don't have the
 citation at hand, so I'm not hanging my argument on it yet) think
 there's a tape of OBL claiming credit for 9/11 - which I think would
 suffice.

 As to the US and the ICC - well, we only want it applied to other countries.

 And I think GWB has managed to isolate the US from the entire world.  I
 also can't say the US hasn't broken just about every convention there is.
 There's a piece in this week's Washington Post arguing that OBL has
 already won; the US just hasn't realized it yet.

 More later - have to go work.

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Re: [Biofuel] Blair feels let down by Bush [welcome to the club!]

[dwoodard]

Strange, isn't it?

One possible explanation might be that the people in the Bush 
administration don't care about the thoughts of their allies,
about the Palestinian problem, or about human suffering in any
other area, or about the interests of the American people.

Perhaps they are only concerned about their own power and wealth.

Perhaps they feel no loyalty or obligation to the constitution or to
the constitutional republic of old. I don't think that Straussians
normally bother about that stuff. It's just a story for the peasants.

One would think that this might have occurred to the British
government by now.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

[snip]

 Citing a senior Blair government source, the newspaper said the alliance 
 between the two leaders is in danger.

 We all feel badly let down by Bush, the source said. We thought we had 
 persuaded him to take the Israel-Palestine situation seriously, but we were 
 wrong. How can anyone have faith in a man of such low intellect?

 The report comes as Parliament prepares to hold an unusual summer session, to 
 allow members to question the government's handling of Israel's war with 
 Hezbollah and examine whether the recent terror plot in Britain was linked to 
 Blair's Iraq war policy.

 The newspaper said the reported rift between London and Washington is based 
 on British anger over Bush's handling of the road map to peace between 
 Israel and the Palestinians, which Bush agreed to just before the U.S.-led 
 invasion of Iraq.

 We have been banging on at them for three years about the need to address 
 the Palestinian problem but they just won't engage, said a senior government 
 source. That is one of the reasons there is such a mess now.

 Copyright 2006 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.


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Re: [Biofuel] worth reading -an insight into politics and corporations - 4% of population is psychopathic

[dwoodard]

While I haven't read the books, I would be inclined to suspect that
the population is not divided into a small minority who are 100% 
sociopathic plus a majority who are not at all sociopathic, but that there 
is something like a continuum with the pure sociopaths at one end.

I suspect further that there might be several factors involved, perhaps

* slow social learning; Eysenck's extraversion

* poor perception of other peoples' feelings

* indifference to other peoples' feelings


Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

On Sat, 5 Aug 2006, Kirk McLoren wrote:

 http://cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm
  Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.
  If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and 
 you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of 
 deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. 
 With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit 
 back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]
  Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Window on Iran

[dwoodard]

H. J. Eysenck reported in his book The Psychology of Politics
(London: Routledge  Kegan Paul, about 1954-1956)

that he had found British Nazis to be generally overtly aggressive, and 
British Communists to be covertly aggressive.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sat, 5 Aug 2006, Kirk McLoren wrote:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski_2.htm

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Vanadium battery

[dwoodard]

The technology looks interesting, but the article takes a tone of 
uncritical boosting. There is nothing about

cost
cycle efficiency
amount of vanadium resource in proportion to possible applications
how it works
relation to other technologies (this is one of a family of flow batteries)
energy density in relation to alternatives

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Mon, 17 Jul 2006, Kirk McLoren wrote:

 http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/04/the_vanadium_ba.php

  A new mass energy storage technology is on the cusp of entering mainstream 
 society. The Japanese are currently using it on a grand scale, the Canadians 
 have comprehensively evaluated it and soon Australians will have the 
 opportunity to replace their old lead-acid batteries with a Vanadium Redox 
 Battery alternative. There are no emissions, no disposal issues, no loss of 
 charge, the construction materials are 'green' and the battery can be charged 
 and discharged simultaneously. So, is the Vanadium Battery as good as it 
 sounds and more importantly, is it the solution to our energy storage 
 problems?
  Quite simply...Yes.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] {Disarmed} Telegraph - US could be going bankrupt

[dwoodard]

Part of the cure might be to eliminate all social-welfare spending.
I suspect that this has been part of the right-wing fanatics' plan for 
the last quarter century.

Then, inflation has long been a cure for debt. It takes from the middle 
class who are wont to hold paper assets, and gives to the equity-holders; 
the rich.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Fri, 14 Jul 2006, Kirk McLoren wrote:

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/07/14/cnusa14.xml

  US 'could be going bankrupt'
 By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor
  (Filed: 14/07/2006)





The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an 
 extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's 
 central bank.
  A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could 
 send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by 
 Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a 
 leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.
  Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. To 
 paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of 
 its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in 
 property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors, he 
 asked.
  According to his central analysis, the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, 
 insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are 
 current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly 
 promised future net payments of various kinds''.
  The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this 
 week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, 
 saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller 
 than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north 
 of 3pc of GDP.
  Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: The proper way to 
 consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens 
 facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources 
 of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to 
 preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable 
 and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.
  Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are 
 strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke.
  Experts have calculated that the country's long-term fiscal gap between 
 all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely 
 as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have 
 to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an 
 almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors 
 Gokhale and Smetters.
  The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax 
 cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides 
 health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the 
 poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.
  Prof Kotlikoff said: This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost 
 twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around 
 $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this 
 red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and 
 permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an 
 immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare 
 benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and 
 permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc.
  The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose 
 confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point 
 allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US 
 Treasury bonds.
  Prof Kotlikoff said: The United States has experienced high rates of 
 inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal 
 policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past 
 century.
  Paul Ashworth, of Capital Economics, was more sanguine about the coming 
 retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. For a start, the expected 
 deterioration in the Federal budget owes more to rising per capita spending 
 on health care than to changing demographics, he said.
  This can be contained if the political will is there. Similarly, the 
 expected increase in social security spending can be controlled by reducing 
 the growth rate of benefits. Expecting a fix now is probably asking too much 
 of short-sighted politicians who have no incentives to do so. But a fix, or 
 at least a succession of patches, will come when the problem becomes more 
 pressing.

___

Re: [Biofuel] shedding fat for oil

[dwoodard]

Some 30 or so years ago I read from several source that the best
mileage was obtained from North American cars around 35-40 mph.

I understand the the cars in the transcontinental mileage contests that 
used to be held were specially modified with gear rations and 
transmissions to accelerate from about 5 mph to about 15 mph, switch off, 
coast down to 5 mph and start and accelerate again. That way they got the 
drag advantage of low speed plus the engine efficiency advantage of 
operating at high manifold pressure during acceleration (but not too high 
manifold pressure, avoiding rich mixture).

Continuous opertion at a steady speed at high manifold pressure and low 
speed would involve such extreme overdrive (except maybe with a 
continuously variable transmission) that it would be very hard to 
accelererate or handle even gentle hills, and the car would be very hard 
to drive.

Car drag is a mixture of rolling resistance (power consumption varies 
directly as the square of the speed) and air drag (power consumption 
varies directly as the cube of the speed).

I am *really* suprised that someone would get best mileage at 59 mph
and I suspect something odd going on. It seems to me that the drag would 
be just too high regardless of how the gearing was optimized.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Mon, 10 Jul 2006, Mike Weaver wrote:

 for whatever reason my Golf seems to get the best mileage at 59 mph.

 Jonathan Hardin wrote:

 I'm curious about something.  In particular the concept of limiting
 top speed to 55mph.   I understand this being important on any car
 build/imported into the US before the speed limit change in the mid
 90's.  However, have car companies not modified their timing/ratios on
 the transmissions of vehicles built after this point in time?  (I
 drive a 1990 Camry so the top speed of 55mph is what I try to stick
 with, but I am curious about newer cars).   I know the adage about
 55mph is from before the speed limit change; and it seems simple for
 the car manufacters to change the ratios to move the best ratios up to
 a 60 or 65mph area rather then 55mph.   Just curious
 Jonathan

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Re: [Biofuel] sustainable biodiesel from Casto : Big is not beautiful, small is more sustainable

[dwoodard]

I understand that lubricity has to do with the ability of the oil to 
maintain a lubricating film under pressure.

Viscosity has to do with how readily the oil flows.

They are not related.

An early detailed study of the properties of lubricants was done by
Ricardo Engineering for the British Air Ministry in the 1920's. I'm sure 
there has been a lot done since.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


On Thu, 13 Apr 2006, Keith Addison wrote:

[snip]

 ...the difference between lubricity and viscosity isn't
 that clear, or at least not to me, especially when you add high
 temperatures. Anyone know better?

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[Biofuel] Gregory Bateson, was Re: New EPA Rules

[dwoodard]

Gregory Bateson was an anthropologist who was at one time married to 
Margaret Mead; he worked in Bali. He was also involved in cybernetics
in its early days, and in research on schizophrenia (the double bind
hypthesis). He also did some work with dolphins. One smart man. His
father William was a biologist and geneticist of note; one of those
who revived Mendel's work.

If you can find the time to read Steps to An Ecology of Mind (1972),
I don't think you'll regret it. There was a widely distributed paperback 
edition. It should be available in many libraries, or on inter-library 
loan. It's not so much a book of one great thesis but a collection of 
essays, good ones. He wrote several other books.

He also had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson , who wrote on related 
topics.

http://www.oikos.org/baten.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.Gregory_Bateson

http://www.crazytigerinstitute.com/batesonarch.htm

Bateson remarked in Steps to an Ecology of Mind that wisdom might be 
defined (?) as an understanding of whole systems...

He also had things to say about the pathology of conscious purpose 
extended too far.

Bateson might lead you to Warren McCulloch, a psychologist and 
cyberneticist and a deep thinker; see his book Embodiments of Mind
(MIT Press, 1965, 1988) and in it especially the paper A Heterarchy
of Values Determined By the Topology of Nervous Nets.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, Michael Redler wrote:

 Keith, Doug,

  Can you tell me a little about GB and spare me the time to research him 
 myself? I never heard of him.

  Mike

 Keith Addison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  As Gregory Bateson put it in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972),
 a business corporation is not a group of people, but a group of parts of
 people; i.e. Economic Man #1, Economic Man #2, Economic Man #3, etc.

 Doug Woodard
 St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

 Thankyou Doug, indeed so. A collective is not necessarily just the
 sum of its parts and may not even be like them at all.
 http://journeytoforever.org/fyi_previous5.html#creed

 Thanks too for the reminder of Gregory Bateson, one doesn't hear
 enough about him these days, IMHO. I lost that book some years ago,
 damn.

 Best

 Keith


 On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, Keith Addison wrote:

 You can't change a corporation's mindset by education, nor by any
 means other than hurting their bottom line. The humans who work for
 them notwithstanding, corporations are not human and do not have
 human drives or instincts or inhibitions, their only drive is
 profit-growth. Their PR budgets help people to think they're
 oh-so-human, but the money's only spent because it helps the bottom
 line. You can educate them like Pavlov educated his dogs, via shocks
 that hurt their bottom line and rewards that improve it. Unlike dogs,
 it doesn't work without the shocks.


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Re: [Biofuel] New EPA Rules

[dwoodard]

As Gregory Bateson put it in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972),
a business corporation is not a group of people, but a group of parts of 
people; i.e. Economic Man #1, Economic Man #2, Economic Man #3, etc.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, Keith Addison wrote:

 You can't change a corporation's mindset by education, nor by any
 means other than hurting their bottom line. The humans who work for
 them notwithstanding, corporations are not human and do not have
 human drives or instincts or inhibitions, their only drive is
 profit-growth. Their PR budgets help people to think they're
 oh-so-human, but the money's only spent because it helps the bottom
 line. You can educate them like Pavlov educated his dogs, via shocks
 that hurt their bottom line and rewards that improve it. Unlike dogs,
 it doesn't work without the shocks.

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[Biofuel] Rotproofing wood, was Re: acids

[dwoodard]

I think it was in 1979 that I read in Gleanings in Bee Culture
about a beekeeper who soaked his hive bottom boards in a mixture of 
paraffin wax and resin (50/50 as I recall) and said they lasted well 
against the ground. I imagine the stuff would burn pretty well though. 
Enough better than the wood to make it more dangerous?? I don't know.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Wed, 5 Apr 2006, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hi Jim,

 Are you saying that you use biofuel as a wood preservative or as a
 basis for wood preservative? If so, can you say more about that? I am
 very interested in finding alternative wood preservatives especially if
 they are non-toxic.

 New Zealand has a huge forest plantation industry, right up there next
 to the sheep industry which produces 100's of thousands of tons of
 tallow most of which is exported today. Marrying the two would be an
 elegant solution.

 I am the steward of a 22Ha ( ~50 acres) Radiata Pine plantation myself.
 Radiata (Pinus Radiata or Monterey Pine) produces a beautiful clear
 wood that has excellent properties but not the best of choices for
 exposed weather applications. Unfortunately New Zealand has decided,
 because of some poor building practices which created moisture problems
 and therefore wood rot( what wood wouldn't rot?), that it was the
 timber which was at fault and now mandates CCA (chromated copper
 arsenate) treatment of this wood for use even in interior home framing.
 While I think it may be an uphill battle to convince the industry to
 stop using CCA in the short term, investigating alternative forms of
 preservatives may provide a way of moving forward towards using this
 sustainable resource closer to an environmentally responsible way. ( Of
 course the real answer is better building practices or alternative
 materials like earth brick) As it is though, we are creating a
 nightmare of chemical concoction houses now with sure to follow health
 and disposal issues.

 So if you have any ideas on non toxic preservatives,  biofuel based or
 otherwise, I'd be very interested to hear about them. Is there any way
 of using recycled glass in a coating, for example?

 Steve

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Re: [Biofuel] SPAM[Level 5.7]: Build Your Own Dragons

[dwoodard]

It sounds to me as if the Economist has rejuvenated the New
Scientist's Ariadne of old.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Fri, 31 Mar 2006, Kirk McLoren wrote:

 There is GM and then there is GM
   Kirk


   Build Your Own Dragons

 Here be dragons
 Mar 30th 2006 | SAN MELITO
 From The Economist print edition
 http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=6740040CFID=78583140CFTOKEN=39f9741-109e11f6-1292-4b21-93bb-7a3672e4ced1

 With luck, you may soon be able to buy a mythological pet

 PAOLO FRIL, chairman and chief scientific officer of GeneDupe, based in
 San Melito, California, is a man with a dream. That dream is a dragon in
 every home.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Fw: The Indigo Evolution

[dwoodard]

Why do you say this?

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Sat, 28 Jan 2006, Mika Feldmann wrote:

 Albert Einstein is considered to be one of the most important thinkers
of our time.  He was a genius in his own way.

   But to have a personal conversation with him, one would consider
him to be an idiot.  He was also not able to operate a motor vehicle.


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Re: [Biofuel] water, ethanol and gasoline

[dwoodard]

Some comments by Sir Harry Ricardo about his early work with fuels
just after World War I may be of interest. This is from his book
Memories and Machines (London: Constable, 1968):

(Those intersted in the workings of piston engines should read The
High-Speed Internal Combustion Engine by Ricardo and Hempson (5th
edition, Blackie, 1957) or earlier editions by Ricardo alone)

Our investigation into the behaviour of fuels of the alcohol group
brought into prominence the important part played by the latent heat of
evaporation of the liquid fuel. The calorific value of say, ethyl
alcohol is much less than that of petrol, but its latent heat of
evaporation is about three times greater. According to Tizard and Pye's
calculations the total heat energy of a standard cubic inch of an
air/alcohol mixture was very slightly less than that for a straight
alcohol fuel. Other things being equal, the power output returnable from
an alcohol fuel should be correspondingly less; in fact we found it to be
between 5 and 10% greater, the discrepancy being due to the lower
temperature and therefore greater density of the mixture entering the
cylinder. In short we were making use of the high latent heat of
evaporation of alcohol to supercharge the cylinder by refrigeration to a
degree that more than compensated for the lower internal energy per
standard cubic inch of mixture. This observation suggested to us that it
might be amusing to concoct a special fuel mixture for racing-cars and
motorcycles. I discussed this possibility with Waley Cohen who had no
objection, in fact, he, too, thought it would be rather fun.

Ethyl alcohol, unlike its sister methyl, did not suffer from
pre-ignition or detonation, even at the highest compression we could
reach with our E35 [research] engine, but because of its poor
volatility, cold starting with neat ethyl alcohol was virtually
impossible. We had therefore to add a small proportion of a much more
volatile fuel for the sake not only of startability but also of
distribution in a multi-cylinder engine. The choice lay between methyl
alcohol and acetone, and for a variety of reasons we chose the latter.
Because of the low calorific value of ethyl alcohol we tried adding a
substantial proportion of benzole as a thermal makeweight, while to
compensate for the much lower latent heat of the latter, we added between
5 and 10 per cent of water. The presence of a small proportion of acetone
served to act as a mutual solvent and formed a stable mixture between
these otherwise incompatible components; thus we arrived at a fuel which
in our E35 engine showed no trace of detonation or pre-ignition at its
higest ratio of 8 to 1 or, expressd in modern terms, at an octane number
of at least 100, as compared with about fifty in that of commercial
petrol, and about sixty in that of the best aviation spirit...

As applied to an existing engine without any modification other than
fitting larger jets to the carburettor, this racing fuel gave, at high
engine speeds, an increase in power output of between 5 and 10%, but
when an engine was suitably modified to provide for a compression ratio
of the order of 8 to 1, as much as a 30% increase could be obtained.
Its use also had the advantage that its high latent heat of
evaporation, most of which took place after its entry into the cylinder,
both lowered the cycle temperature and, at the same time, provided much
needed cooling to the piston and exhaust valve. For use on the road,
however, this fuel mixure was not satisfactory, for its poor volatility
involved bad distribution at low engine speed with consequent rough
running and sluggish acceleration. To combat this it was necessary to
employ a very rich mixture which, together with the low calorific value
of the fuel, meant that the mileage per gallon was only about half that
obtainable with petrol. As the price per gallon was about four times
that of petrol, the real use of the fuel was limited to track racing at
Brooklands and to hill climbing competitions...

...The introduction of this fuel broguht confusion to the committee
responsible for handicapping, and after one season's racing its use,
like that of pressure supercharging, was banned, but large quantities
of the fuel continued to be sold to enthusiastic amateurs for ordinary
road use despite its high cost and other drawbacks...

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

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Re: [Biofuel] Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

[dwoodard]

Not at all. About 1948 or 9 my mother used to put my middle sister
out in her baby carriage (with the hood up) in view of the kitchen
window to get fresh air. She found that the neighbours' cat liked to
get into the carriage and lie on my sister's face. If I recall
rightly this was in cool weather.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Jeromie Reeves wrote:

 That is not entirely a old wives tale. In 80/81 my little brother
 would have issues when our cat would
 get into his crib to try and drink his bottle. While it never killed him
 he did get upset. I can see how a
 child who is alergic, or if the cat is large, could possibly hurt a infant.

 Jeromie


 Greg and April wrote:

 Let's not forget of the old wives tale of cat's laying on infants,
 smothering them.
 
 Greg H.

[snip]

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[Biofuel] What's wrong with U.S. government, was Re: Bin Laden citing US polls about withdrawing from Iraq

[dwoodard]

Reforming the voting system would help; a partial cure would be
instant runoff voting or what the Australians call the alternative
vote which is the single-seat form of the single transferable vote.
San Franciso is supposed to use it for their next election of a mayor.

Proportional representation preferable using the multi-seat form, of STV
would be better. Ireland, Malta, and the Australian Senate use it as well
as the municipal government of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

See for starters

http://www.fairvote.org

Of course you need votes that can't be fiddled and a country in love with
electronic voting machines has a problem there.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 19 Jan 2006, Paul Webber wrote:

 As to your #12, the US will always have just two main parties because it
 cannot support more than that the way the government is set up.  You either
 vote for one guy or the other because if you vote for guy C then you are
 most likely taking votes away from the original guy you would have
 supported.  Basically, if you have a democrat and a republican running head
 to head, and an independant decides to run also, then he will take more
 votes away from one candidate than the other ( lets say the democrat ) then
 the other candidate ( the republican ) will win.  This is why in the 2000
 election people accused the green party of costing Gore the election.  Most
 likely, if Nader had not run, then the people that voted for him would have
 voted for Gore instead and Gore would have won Florida and the election.
 So, basically, while it is possible that the republican party and/or
 democratic party could disappear, after a year or two, two other parties
 would take the lead and the US would again be a two-party democracy.
 I personally believe this is one of the largest flaws in our government, but
 I am not smart enough to come of with a good plan for doing it differently,
 and I try not to whine too much if I cannot give an alternative.

[snip]

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[Biofuel] Negative voting, was Re: Bin Laden citing US polls about withdrawing from Iraq

[dwoodard]

The problem with negative voting is that you can be left without a
legislator from a given constituency, or without an executive - maybe
without a functioning legitimate government. From there one could
easily end up with an illegitimate government.

As the comic-strip Calvin once remarked,

The funny thing about life is that it's never so bad that it can't get
worse.

I do believe though that plurality voting in single-seat constituencies
(first-past-the-post) is a poisonous system.

I understand that polls in the Irish Republic, which uses the single
transferable vote form of proportional representation in a parliamentary
system (with a largely ceremonial president elected by instant runoff)
have shown that the citizens there are reasonably satisfied with their
system and their politicians. Other polls have shown that Irish
voters *don't want* a single-party majority government - which they very
rarely get.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


On Fri, 20 Jan 2006, Keith Addison wrote:

 The voting system itself makes some strange assumptions. There's no
 provision for a dissenting vote for instance. The idea is that most
 people will want to vote for someone, and the only other choice is
 not to vote, not Yea's or Nay's, just Yea's or silence. And when
 indeed most people don't vote, like most times these days, it's
 dismissed as apathy - natural-born apathy too, because that's the
 way we humans just are, selfish and apathetic. (I had a nice time
 trashing that last bit here more than once.) Those who say it's just
 apathy, including the politicians, shouldn't therefore have any
 objection to revising the rules so that voters could actively vote
 either for or against a candidate. It shouldn't make any difference,
 right? I'm sure no politician would object to being put to the test
 that way, after all that's what elections are for, putting candidates
 to the test. Or maybe there'd be record high turn-outs and we'd get
 to see if anybody had a mandate at all, including the entire system.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Negative voting, was Re: Bin Laden citing US polls about withdrawing from Iraq

[dwoodard]

No offense taken, Keith. I don't by any means wish to say that things are
not bad (in fact some of my friends seem to regard me as the local
Sarcophagus McAbre), I just think that negative voting has some potential
for making them worse.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sat, 21 Jan 2006, Keith Addison wrote:

 I'm sorry Doug, I didn't mean to be rude, I hope you're not offended.

  The problem with negative voting is that you can be left without a
  legislator from a given constituency, or without an executive - maybe
  without a functioning legitimate government.

 It's not easy to find such a thing anyway, and never has been.

 Legitimate means in accordance with the law. Who makes the law? The
 government does. Ah, but they're elected by the people to represent
 the people's interests. Well, are they really.

 It's the time of the Other Superpower, and the powers-that-be are
 seeing the signs:

 http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg58869.html
 [Biofuel] A global public opinion survey shows people losing faith in
 governments
 16 Dec 2005
 ... an alarming picture of declining levels of trust. (Davos)

 http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg58999.html
 [Biofuel] New Surveys Show That Big Business Has a P.R. Problem
 New York Times, December 9, 2005
 More than ever, Americans do not trust business or the people who run it.

 Etc etc. So let's put it to the test. Who exactly do our elected
 representatives really represent? Everybody knows the answer to that.
 The trouble is they know a whole lot of other stuff too. Such as
 that elections are level, and indeed that they count at all, that
 their vote matters.

Or maybe there'd be record high turn-outs and we'd get
to see if anybody had a mandate at all, including the entire system.

 That's what Davos et al have to demonstrate beyond any doubt if
 they're so concerned about their alarming picture of declining
 levels of trust. That's what the Other Superpower wants too. So
 let's see them do it. Or let's kick them out.

 Best wishes

 Keith

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Re: [Biofuel] Ashes from Glycerin sawdust logs

[dwoodard]

Pure glycerin or glycerol (same chemical) contains only carbon, hydrogen
and oxygen: C3H8O3. All the combustion products are gaseous (unless
there is a little coking) so it should not produce any ash. The ash will
come from the sawdust.

High school chemistry *is* good for something.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Sun, 25 Dec 2005, JJJN wrote:

 I have been burning Glycerin sawdust logs to heat my little laboratory
 and now I am wondering if I put the wood ashes in my compost pile will I
 be messing anything up or will the byproducts that remain in the ashes
 be good for the compost bugs. I searched the archive but did not find
 anything specific to ashes from glycerin.  Any help here?

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Re: [Biofuel] Alternative way of producing bd (using electric)

[dwoodard]

From reading some patents I have the impression that the descriptions are
designed to distinguish the invention from others, and that in practice
the U.S. Patent Office doesn't place any significant weight on ensuring
that a reasonably intelligent reader can understand how the invention is
supposed to work.

To my mind this is wrong. The justification for patents is that the
invention is placed in the public domain, available for others to make
and use, after the protected period has elapsed. Mind you, in order for
that argument to be completely effective, patent law and the courts would
have to offer more protection than they do against big corporate pirates
who use an invention and count on their large legal budgets to bankrupt
any small competitor who tries to protect his patent. The big car
companies are notorious for this.

I understand that before World War II, U.S. patent law and practice was
deliberately designed to make it difficult for foreigners to acquire,
hold or enforce U.S. patents; i.e. to encourage international patent
piracy by Americans.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Michael Redler wrote:

 As far as I know, patent offices do not check whether inventions work
 or not or have merit.

   In the US, there is a requirement for the invention to be useful. Perpetual 
 motion machines (for example) cannot be patented.

   Someone with skill in the art must also be able to make and use the 
 invention.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/patents.htm#CanAndCannotPatent

   Disclaimer: I'm an engineer and (amateur) inventor but, not a lawyer.

   :-)

   Mike

 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   As far as I know, patent offices do not check whether inventions work or
 not or have merit.

 They are solely interested in whether the invention embodies a new,
 non-trivial (obvious to one skilled in the art in question)
 idea or concept.

 Doug Woodard
 St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


 On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, bob allen wrote:

  Howdy Teoman,
 
  looking back in the archives I find the link:
 
  http://tinyurl.com/8hjv7
 
  this is to a patent application, not a patent. Even if the process is 
  patented, does that mean that
  the patent office has checked out the process and confirms that it actually 
  works as described, or
  simply that the process is novel and has not been described before?

 [snip]


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Re: [Biofuel] Alternative way of producing bd (using electric)

[dwoodard]

As far as I know, patent offices do not check whether inventions work or
not or have merit.

They are solely interested in whether the invention embodies a new,
non-trivial (obvious to one skilled in the art in question)
idea or concept.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, bob allen wrote:

 Howdy Teoman,

 looking back in the archives I find the link:

 http://tinyurl.com/8hjv7

 this is to a patent application, not a patent. Even if the process is 
 patented, does that mean that
 the patent office has checked out the process and confirms that it actually 
 works as described, or
 simply that the process is novel and has not been described before?

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Steam hybrid from BMW to enter market with 'Turbosteamer'

[dwoodard]

For kilowatts, multiply horsepower by 0.746.
(from memory, may not be dead accurate but will be pretty close)

Such a combined cycle diesel should be especially useful for diesel
vehicles and given the weight of the battery and the lack of need for
extra transmission the additional weight should be fairly unimportant.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Fri, 16 Dec 2005, Joe Acquisto wrote:

 
 
  Zeke Yewdall[EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/16/05 3:01 PM 
 Although it doesn't specify, I would suspect that this is a turbine
 design, not a piston design.  I've seen a 30kW steam turbine that
 wasn't much larger than an AC compressor for a car.  Add a heat
 exhanger in the exhaust manifold, and it could be quite compact.  Of
 course it was also noisy enough to hear from a good 200 feet away, and
 would require a geared stepdown drive to provide useful torque -- I
 think it ran at 20,000 rpm or something?
 
 

 I would be very interested in finding out more about this steam
 turbine, for another project.  Is the KW rating the HP equivalent?

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Re: [Biofuel] BioButanol replaces gasoline

[dwoodard]

I'm just speculating, but the purity requirements for butanol as a solvent
may be higher than for fuel, requiring extra processing for solvent use.

Considering the comparison with ethanol, I wouldn't be surprised if
typical butanol production processes from say corn also produce small
amounts of other, related substances.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 15 Dec 2005, Paul S Cantrell wrote:

 From the first URL:
 Butanol currently sells for about $3.70 per gallon in bulk  (barge) and
 $6.80 in 55 gallon drums.
 and
 Our preliminary cost estimates suggest that we can produce butanol from
 corn for about $1.20 per gallon, not including a credit for the hydrogen
 produced. This compares with ethanol production costs of about $1.28 per
 gallon. Taking into account the higher Btu content of butanol, this
 translates to 105,000 Btu per dollar for butanol and 84,000 Btu per dollar
 for ethanol with corn at $2.50 per bushel. As a further point of reference,
 butanol produced from petroleum costs about $1.35 per gallon to
 manufacture.

 With US wholesale gasoline (ie barge) at ~$1.65 (Source: NYMEX for January
 delivery), $1.20 per gallon production sounds great, especially against
 $1.35 per gallon from petrochem.  But if the (bio)Butanol would be worth
 $3.70 as a solvent, would the price as a fuel be low enough to replace
 gasoline?  I think only if the supply outstripped demand to a large degree.
 No rational capitalist would sell a product worth $3.70 for $1.65.  Did I
 miss something?

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Re: [Biofuel] Biofuel for model Aircraft

[dwoodard]

Back in the 50's I had an .049 cu. in diesel for model planes that used a
special fuel. Ether was a main ingredient. Don't assume that a diesel for
models has similar fuel requirements to a big engine.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


On Tue, 29 Nov 2005, Jeffrey Kumjian wrote:

 Can you tell me how to make Bio diesel for a model
 Aircraft? Jeffrey

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Re: [Biofuel] exclusive: Bush Plot To Bomb His Arab Ally

[dwoodard]

The Marshall Plan was developed well after World War II was over,
in the absence of any other sensible plan for dealing with the situation
in Germany and Europe. One major reason for its development and ready
acceptance was that there was then a hostile great power (the USSR)
which was benefiting from the chaos and despair in Europe. That said, the
U.S. was a different country then.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Mon, 28 Nov 2005, Mike Weaver wrote:

 Germany and Japan were occupied with a long-range plan - The Marshall
 Plan.  Arguably it worked.

 Afganistan and Iraq were flattened and then...

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Re: [Biofuel] US Guvmint to tax alternate fuel vehicles?

[dwoodard]

There are major costs besides road maintenance and building, such as
health costs of pollution medical (National Health Service) and other
costs related to accidents, costs of policing. Back in the late 80's
Pollution Probe in Toronto published a study The Costs of the Car
which estimted that charging all costs to fuel would result in a total
gasoline price of $5 to$6 CDN per Imperial gallon. the price would be
almost double now. Also, the more roads the less land there is for
other uses and the lower the tax base to pay for ever increasing roads
and infrastructure. The ultimate solution is charges for road
use; difficult but becoming easier with the advance of computers and
electronics.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sun, 27 Nov 2005, Chris lloyd wrote:

  If you are talking about hybrids that use electricity the government
 gets the fuel side tax but would have a rough time implementing a zap
 tax for charging the vehicle but its not out of the question they may try.

 Here in the UK we buy a licence to use our vehicles on public roads, I pay
 about 280 dollars a year which is far more than is required for road
 maintenance/building.   Chris.

 Wessex Ferret Club
 www.wessexferretclub.co.uk



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Re: [Biofuel] Lye - Metric to Imperial Unit Conversions

[dwoodard]

Remember that water weighs 1 kilogram per litre, by the original
definition of the litre. If Joe's specific gravity for the oil of
0.92 is exact, then the oil weighs 920 grams per litre.

Is the 1.0% supposed to be the amount of lye *solution* per litre of
oil (which would raise the question of what concentration), or the
amount of actual NaOH?

Also remember that the Imperial and U.S. systems are not the same.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 18 Oct 2005, Hunter McCormack wrote:

 I am trying to understand the conversion of lye quantities from metric to
 imperial and I have stumped myself in the process.

 I understand from given data that lye is used in the amount 1.0% of the
 virgin vegetable oil weight.  It's given that this is approximately 3.5
 grams/liter.  This implies that the vegetable oil weighs .35 kg/liter.
 There are 3.8 liters/gallon.  This means that the oil would weigh 1.3
 kg/gallon or 2.9 lbs/gallon.  This is contradictory to the weight
 measurements that I have found for virgin vegetable oil that state there are
 approximately 7.4 lbs/gallon.  What am I missing in this unit conversion?

 Hunter

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Re: [Biofuel] Peugeot 505 four cylinder turbo charged diesel vehicle!?

[dwoodard]

I have a dim memory from decades ago of reading a comment on the Peugeot
403/404 engines, which said that they were excellent and would have been
good racing engines for their size class - if they hadn't had rubber seals
(o-rings?) between the wet liners and the block (head?). Consider the
possibility that somethong has gone wrong with these seals - if the engine
has wet liners (wet meaning in contact with the coolant).

I learned to drive partly on my father's 403 and drove it a lot. I owned a
404 and a 304. They were very nice cars except for

* the bronze differential ring gear in the 404 which was overstressed by
radial tires and forced the use of bias ply tires - I found this out the
hard way.

* the very tight engine compartment in the 304 which was hard to work
in - you had to take off the header tank to get at the spark plugs.

* the rubber driveshaft covers in the front wheel drive 304 were expensive
and hard to replace - but it was absolutely essential to replace them
*before* they developed a hole which they tended to do at a certain age;
otherwise the shafts would quickly need replacing.

I think Peugeot was later than other manufacturers in moving to rust
resistant steel for the North American market but I think by 1981
they may have started to adapt - anyways in New Mexico you
shouldn't have that much trouble. I was in Montreal and Ottawa.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Fri, 7 Oct 2005, Brian Rodgers wrote:

 October 7, 2005

 Hi everyone

 After three months of wishy washy thinking and anxiety over money to
 invest in my biodiesel project, this very moment my dream has been
 realized. I am now the proud owner of a 1981 Peugeot 505 four cylinder
 turbo charged diesel vehicle! I know what you are thinking,  What's a
 American good ol' boy' doing with a Peugeot? Well, it is a long
 story, the short version is: If we live our lives in a spiritually
 wholesome and environmentally friendly fashion,  we can expect good
 things to come to us. We don't need much and we have patience. Anyway,
 I said this is the short version right? We now have this car sitting
 here at the Ranch in northeastern New Mexico. It has only one
 mechanical problem that I can see; It is very hard to start, when it
 finally does it bellows blue-white smoke, and the coolant lines slowly
 begin to pressurize. The radiator hoses balloon up, very scary and we
 shut it down before they blow. At first glance it looks like a leaking
 head gasket. It is now sitting in front of my little workshop and I am
 so excited to finally have a car that I can make my own biodiesel for.
 Nevertheless, my rash days are past and I am content to ask first
 before I tear into anything mechanically. I ask for information.  I am
 relatively new to Biofuels, but I do have a fine set of Mechanics
 tools, much updated from the days long ago when I was a factory
 trained VW mechanic.  Please don't give me the negative perspective.
 If you do, I can take it. But I still have that wonderful glow  a guy
 gets when he gets a new car to refurbish.

 How's that line go? Sing me the bad news!



 So far I have zero cash investment in this really cute little car. I
 have three Mercedes gas powered monsters which have been steadily
 moving closer to the ranch dump. I toyed with the idea of buying a
 1982 300 Turbo Sedan that a friend has offered for $2000.00. I don't
 like the body style,  too heavy, and we couldn't afford it anyway.
 This Peugeot is almost 1000 pounds lighter than my 1980 480SE. And
 damn, did I say it is sleek and in mint condition? So yeah that's the
 good news. Anybody out there have any experience with these? Looks
 like a very clean engine, but that may be because the radiator already
 washed it off with a steam bath. I have extended experience with
 petrol vehicles.  My tools are metric and I love to read first then
 spin nuts after I at least think I understand.



 Diesel engines, this is only my second. I won't say what I did to the
 first one. I intend to make this motor sing again! So, I have heard of
 carbon buildup in the cylinders causing issues in dino-diesel motors.
 Any ideas? Things I could check. I suppose checking the compression
 through the spark plug holes is out of the question, lol. I will be
 looking for the factory service manual, unless it is written in French
 of course. Nah, I have factory service literature on the Benz and it
 is not in German. See how wishy washy I have become? Maybe it is the
 fog this morning, yeah fog in New Mexico, go figure. They have fog in
 France right?



 So how did my bio-diesel processing chemicals and WVO collecting go
 this week? Not well, physically. I talked it up pretty good, whatever
 that is worth. I think I know what I need to find for the test
 batches. A couple of little bottles of Heet (methanol).  Blue or
 yellow? There is a bit of confusion in the biofuel group about this,
 and a jar of Red Devil drain opener (lye.) A five gallon can for
 transporting 

Re: [Biofuel] New question on oil seed crops and ley farming

[dwoodard]

Andres, it might be a good idea to inspect the livers of the rabbits you
slaughter.

Comfrey is supposed to contain pyrolizidine (spelling?) alkaloids
which are said to be toxic to human livers. I don't know whether the
alkaloids are broken down or whether it would be possible to ingest them
from animals fed on comfrey.

I've read that strains of comfrey vary widely in their content of
the alkaloids. Supposedly the Bocking clones contain much less than
ordinary seedlings.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Andres Yver wrote:

 Right now, we have an area that
 is overrun with comfrey, which is here considered a noxious weed.
 Following Newman Turner's lead (see JTF small farms library for his and
 other invaluable books on farming the easy way), we have wilted it and
 are feeding it to rabbits. They LOVE it!!!


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[Biofuel] Natural gas in diesel engines, was Re: Tadgerdevice

[dwoodard]

Typically they injected a small amount of the usual liquid diesel fuel,
say 5% of the total, which functioned as an igniter to start the natural
gas burning, much like a spark plug. The natural gas was mixed with the
intake air.

They were called dual-fuel or oil-field engines, because they could
operate on whichever fuel was cheapest at the time, and both oil and
natural gas were readily available in the oil fields.

I recall reading that natural gas has a detonation (knock) resistance
equivalent to 130 grade gasoline (a BMEP 30% above 100 octane's maximum)
and I expect that at lean mixtures it could take still higher compression
ratios. I believe that the compression ratios of the large industrial
diesels tend not to be great, maybe 14 or 16 to 1. With a big cylinder
the air loses less heat to the walls. I suspect the oil field engines
were/are unsupercharged.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Mon, 26 Sep 2005, Zeke Yewdall wrote:

 alot of the
 industrial diesels for power generation are designed to run on natural
 gas instead of diesel, because of lower emissions and cost.  I'm not
 sure what they do to the injection system to run a gaseous fuel in a
 diesel engine.

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Re: [Biofuel] Ch 7 10PM News out of Boise

[dwoodard]

I've known Bruce McBurney, the fellow who runs himacresearch, for about 14
years now. He lives in Niagara Falls, Ontario, about 12-15 miles from me.
I regard him as a total flake. I suspect that the others whose exploits he
talks about, and whose literature he sells, are much the same.

Bruce told me that he had built a supercarburetor (from purchased
plans) and had installed it in his van. It involved heating gasoline and
steam, using the engine's coolant and exhaust heat, in the presence of
steel wool whch presumably served as an iron catalyst. He ran the system
for a while and then removed it. I asked him about driveability problems;
he indicated that there were some but refused to discuss details. He
claimed high mileage; I think he said 60 miles per gallon. He also said
that the device only worked for a short time due to poisoning of the
iron catalyst by additives in the gasoline, which sounded plausible to me.

Bruce claimed that the device worked because it transformed the fuel into
uniform small molecules. He also showed me a report of an analysis of the
product of his device by a Dr. Cherniak, a professor of chemistry at
Brock University in St. Catharines. It showed ethane and other
hydrocarbons including several alcohols (i.e. the analysis made nonsense
of Bruce's theory which didn't appear to register with him). Dr.
Cherniak was not able to test for hydrogen, but I expect there was some.
I don't recall whether the report said anything about carbon monoxide;
again I would expect there was some produced.

Hydrogen and some of the hydrocarbons will ignite at extremely lean
mixtures and will enable other fuels which will ordinarily not ignite at
very lean mixtures to do so. I surmise that this lean mixture operation
would produce an improvement in fuel economy. However the heating of the
fuel/air mixture in the device would drastically lower the misture density
and the power produced. That and the changes in mixture ratio, chemical
composition and density of the mixture during warmup would be likely to
produce serious performance and driveability problems, which seems to
have been the case from the limited information I was able to extract
from Bruce.

There is a likely efficiency improvement from another source besides the
lean mixture; see if you can guess it what it is.

Bruce claimed to me that the inventors of supercarburetors had been
routinely assassinated by big oil companies, also that the companies were
responsible for the rewriting of textbooks of chemistry and physics to
conceal the possibility of such devices from the public. It seemed that
nothing was too complicated or expensive for the companies to do to
suppress the inventions. Bruce appeared to believe that he had re-invented
true chemistry and physics although he was unable to produce any coherent
account of what he claimed to have done.

I talked to Dr. Cherniak by phone (he died shortly after); he told me
among other things that Bruce didn't want to learn which accords with my
experience.

I have had some experience with flakes in other lines, one a prophet of
monetary reform as the solution to all our economic ills. I've concluded
that ordinary sensible people have no conception of the number of wackos
there are walking around, who are able to function in daily life and earn
their livings, but who have only the weakest connection with reality in
any context which doesn't bring that reality home to them in their daily
lives. These experiences have made my reading of religious and political
history and its high content of madness much more understandable. The
stuff I have encountered about zero-point energy has sounded quite
familiar.

I also put just as much stock in written testimony as it seems to deserve
from its context. Think about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Think
about  ...hmmm... I'd better let you fill in the blanks or I'm liable to
be assassinated myself.

To return to Mr. Ogle and Secret 5, I read in the 1970s that
Siemens in Germany had experimented with the heating of gasoline to get
complete vapourization to enable operation on slightly lean mixtures with
resultant improvements in efficiency (nothing like a fivefold increase in
mileage though). I gathered that the efficiency improvement was useful, but
aparently the system never went into production. I guess the problems of
volumetric efficiency, weight and bulk, plus driveability were too much.

I think myself that treatments involving raising the temperature of the
fuel can be useful but that we will have to develop methods of injecting
the fuel into the cylinder not far from top dead centre in the cycle;
certainly after the intake valves close.

When evaluating reports of engine efficiency improvements
it's important to remember that for about 70 years we have been able to
build gasoline engines running on knock-resistant fuels which have turned
about 33% of the heat energy in the fuel into shaft horsepower, when
operated at cruise at high BMEP 

[Biofuel] [ARTICLE] Organic vs. conventional farming: yields, external costs

[dwoodard]

In response to one of Rexis Tree's questions.

Biofuel may have a problem with competition for land with food and
wildlife, but I don't think that we need fear lower yields with organic
farming.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario

-- Forwarded message --

The Institute of Science in Society: Science Society
Sustainability
http://www.i-sis.org.uk

General Enquiries  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website/Mailing List  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ISIS Director  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

This article can be found on the I-SIS website at
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OBCA.php



ISIS Press Release 12/09/05

Organic Agriculture Enters Mainstream
**

Organic Yields on Par with Conventional and Ahead During
Drought Years

But by far the greatest gains are due to savings on damages
to public health and the environment estimated at more than
US$59 billion a year Dr. Mae-Wan Ho puts the nail on the
coffin on industrial agriculture

A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS
members' website http://www.i-sis.org.uk/full/OBCAFull.php.
Details here http://www.i-sis.org.uk/membership.php

Myths die hard

Scientists who should know better - if only they had kept up
with the literature - continue to tell the world that
organic agriculture invariably means lower yields,
especially compared to industrial high input agriculture,
even when this has long been proven false (see for example,
Organic agriculture fights back SiS 16 [1];
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis16.php
Organic production works, SiS 25 [2]).
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis25.php




Researchers led by David Pimenthal, ecologist and
agricultural scientist at Cornell University, New York, have
now reviewed data from long-term field investigations and
confirmed that organic yields are no different from
conventional under normal growing conditions, but that they
are far ahead during drought years [3]. The reasons are well
known: organic soils have greater capacity to retain water
as well as nutrients such as nitrogen.

Organic soils are also more efficient carbon sinks, and
organic management saves on fossil fuel, both of which are
important for mitigating global warming.

But by far the greatest gains are in savings on externalised
costs associated with conventional industrial farming, which
are estimated to exceed 25 percent of the total market value
of United States' agricultural output.

Long-term field trials at Rodale Institute

From 1981 through 2002, field investigations were conducted
at Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania on 6.1 ha.
Three different cropping systems: conventional, animal
manure and legume-based organic, and legume-based organic.
Plots (18 x 92 m) were split into three (6 x 92 m) subplots,
which are large enough for farm-scale equipment to be used
for operations and harvesting. The main plots were separated
with a 1.5 m grass strip to minimize cross movement of soil,
fertilizers, and pesticides. Each of the three cropping
systems was replicated eight times.

The conventional system based on synthetic fertilizer and
herbicide use, represented a typical cash-grain 5-year crop
rotation (corn, corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans) that
reflects commercial conventional operations in the region
and throughout the Midwest. According to USDA 2003 data,
there are more than 40 million ha in this production system
in North America. Crop residues were left on the surface of
the land to conserve soil and water; but no cover crops were
used during the non-growing season.

The organic animal-based cropping represented a typical
livestock operation in which grain crops were grown for
animal feed, not cash sale. This rotation was more complex:
corn, soybeans, corn silage, wheat, and red clover-alfalfa
hay, as well as a rye cover crop before corn silage and
soybeans. Aged cattle manure served as the nitrogen source
and applied at 5.6 tonnes per ha (dry), 2 years out of every
5 immediately before ploughing the soil for corn. Additional
nitrogen was supplied by the plough-down of legume-hay
crops. The total nitrogen applied per ha was about 40
kilograms per year or 198 kg per ha for any given year with
a corn crop. Weed control relied on mechanical cultivation,
weed-suppressing crop rotations, and relay cropping, in
which one crop acted as living mulch for another.

The organic legume-based cropping represented a cash grain
operation without livestock. The rotation system included
hairy vetch (winter cover crop used as green manure), corn,
rye (winter cover crop), soybeans, and winter wheat. The
total nitrogen added to this system per ha per year averaged
49 kg (or 140 kg per ha) per year with a corn crop). Both
organic systems included a small grain, such as wheat, grown
alone or inter-seeded with a legume. Weed control was
similar in both organic systems.

Yields no different except under drought conditions

For the first five years of the experiment 

Re: [Biofuel] Debatable statement?

[dwoodard]

One major way acceleration hurts is that engines are set to richen the
mixture during hard acceleration in order to prevent detonation
(knocking, pinging) at high cylinder pressures.

Also, carburated engines richen the mixture to compensate for fuel
vapour condensing on the intake manifold walls as manifold pressure
increases when the throttle is opened.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, Joe Street wrote:



 Zeke Yewdall wrote:
 Snip

 I think for otherwise identical cars, a medium sized engine (but
 smaller than what most cars come with nowdays) will get better
 mileage, because it can accellerate fast enough to get out of the fuel
 dumping acceleration, and into more fuel efficient cruising faster.
 
 
 If you accelerate you are doing work.  If you accelerate slowly you use
 less fuel per unit time but for a longer time.  If you use high
 acceleration you use more fuel per time but for a shorter time.  However
 definitely the frictional losses are higher when the engine is asked to
 produce high torque, thus dropping the efficiency.

 But if it's to large, it's less efficient at cruising speed because of
 low part load efficiency.  And if it's too small, it it always trying
 futiley to accellerate, instead of cruising.   Also, due to real fixed
 ratio transmissions, a less powerful engine may spend more time at a
 higher RPM, where the fuel efficiency in grams/kWh is less, whereas a
 higher power engine could downshift sooner.
 
 
 The engine turning at higher rpm is not necessarily using more fuel.  It
 depends on the power the engine is producing and other factors including
 thermal efficiency, bearing friction etc.  There are a family of curves
 for the engine showing torque vs rpm, power vs rpm and fuel consumption
 vs rpm at a given load.  For instance years ago one of the bikes I used
 to ride got better fuel economy on the highway by driving in 4th gear at
 higher rpm than in 5th gear at a lower rpm for the same highway speed.

 Joe

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Re: [Biofuel] Debatable statement?

[dwoodard]

Charles Lindberg did some of this training for P-38 pilots in the Pacific.

For gasoline engines, high BMEP is good as long as you stay below the
range where you have to richen the mixture to avoid detonation.

Operation at lean mixtures is good as long as combustion is fast enough
so that you can exploit nearly all of the expansion ratio. Too lean and
you burn the valves, because combustion slows down and you can't extract
enough energy from the combustion gases.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, David Miller wrote:

[snip]

 What I found fascinating when studying piston engines is that it all
 boils down to piston speed and brake mean effective pressure.  There
 would seem to be no logical way to compare a chainsaw engine and a
 marine diesel, but their piston speeds and BMEP's are generally within a
 factor of 2 of each other.
  From an engineering perspective - clean sheet of paper - you increase
 efficiency by increasing BMEP.  That gets more HP per cubic inch
 displacement, unit weight of engine, whatever measure you want - without
 increasing friction.
 Someone - James Dolittle? made this famous during world war II.  They
 had adjustable propellers on long range bombers, and they didn't have
 enough range to bomb some pacific islands.  Jamie?  Jimmy?  showed them
 they could change the propeller settings and lug the engines down.
 Lowering the RPM on the engines (and increasing the BMEP of the engine)
 increased efficiency enough they could reach the island they wanted to
 bomb.  Apologies to all for mangling the story - I forget the islands
 name but took the fuel efficiency lesson away.

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Re: [Biofuel] Debatable statement?

[dwoodard]

No, diesels are not susceptible to detonation which is a non-applicable
concept in its pure form. You want a diesel to burn the fuel wherever the
fuel is, as soon as it is injected. The problem is to get it to burn fast
enough.

Diesels do generate smoke from incomplete combustion as the air excess
grows less. I imagine that a fair amount of smoke can be produced on
without affecting efficiency much - but I don't *know*.

All other things being equal, the leaner the mixture, the more efficient.
The ideal is air standard efficiency, heat with no fuel. In practice a
diesel engine has to be designed for reliability at a certain power
density/ mixture strength/BMEP (brake mean effective pressure) level, and
if you go too much below this BMEP level, the mass of the moving engine
components and the areas subject to friction, required by the designed
maximum power, will start to impose excessive losses. The friction of the
piston rings during compression and expansion even without combustion
pressures, is also a source of loss, and there are other motoring (zero
combustion operation as in turning over the engine with outside power)
losses.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 15 Sep 2005, Zeke Yewdall wrote:

 One major way acceleration hurts is that engines are set to richen the
 mixture during hard acceleration in order to prevent detonation
 (knocking, pinging) at high cylinder pressures.

 Does this apply to diesel engines which almost always operate with
 excess oxygen?

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Re: [Biofuel] Ethanol in the Philippines - just put it in and go?

[dwoodard]

In very round numbers, gasoline has about 20,000 BTU per pound, ethanol
12,000, methanol 10,000.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Fri, 9 Sep 2005, Zeke Yewdall wrote:

 My understanding is that ethanol will run fine in existing gasoline
 engines.  The difference is in compatibility with seals, and ability
 to vaporize at lower temperatures.  It's got a bit higher vapor
 pressure, so in northern US, it can create hard starting in the
 wintertime.

 It does have a bit lower energy content per gallon, and higher oxygen
 content, which could confuse the electronic controls systems that most
 cars have now.  They measure input airflow, and oxygen content in the
 exhaust, and decide how much fuel can be put in and still assure
 complete combustion.  I don't know if ethanol might mess this up.
 Older cabureated cars you'd probably just have to reset the jets.

 The lower energy content per gallon also means that the mpg is a bit
 less.  Somewhere around 10% I think???  If you designed the car to run
 only on ethanol, then you can typically use a much higher compression
 ratio (12:1 or so instead of 9:1 or less).  This gives you back alot
 of the performance and mpg losses from using the lower energy content
 fuel.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] wind and current power

[dwoodard]

I suspect that large arrays of wind farms would have an effect similar
to forests. We've chopped down a lot of forests over tha last few hundred
years, so this doesn't worry me.

Tidal power would slow the earth's rotation a little faster than it is
slowing anyway from friction - probably not a big deal.

Removing a significant fraction of energy from say the Gulf Stream
strikes me as asking for trouble.

Regarding jet streams, I would be worried if it were possible. They
wiggle around so much that I can't imagine any practical method of
tapping their energy.


On Sun, 11 Sep 2005, TarynToo wrote:

 Hi JJJN,

 On Sep 10, 2005, at 9:47 PM, JJJN wrote:

  ...
 
  Ok one last question about wind farms.  I told someone that wind farms
  have the _potential_ of changing the weather if there is enough energy
  extracted.  I was laughed at and got that look  _Now I did say
  potentia_l.  The laws of thermodynamics say so. So can any one share
  some more insight to this potential possibility??
 


 This has been on my mind too, but I've not collected enough information
 to make an informed guess.

 The same question applies to tidal power and current power  There have
 been proposals to anchor huge slow speed propellors in the gulf stream,
 to generate electric power. This seems (to me) to have the potential to
 extract enough energy to slow the stream. Even a fractional change in
 the energy delivered to the north atlantic might have extreme
 consequences for the ecosystem as well as weather.

 So anyone have informed guesses, or hard data, on the possible effects
 of pulling significant power out of tides, big water currents, jet
 streams, and ground level winds?

 Taryn
 http://ornae.com/

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Re: [Biofuel] New Catalyst Produces Hydrogen from Water

[dwoodard]

Organosilane fuels?

When carbon is oxidised we get a gas; when silicon is oxidised we get
sand. External combustion engines perhaps. Not as efficient.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 8 Sep 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 hmm.  you'd think there's one obvious way the stuff could be obtained in
 larger quantities, but only if the current paradigm changes.

 -chris b.


 In a message dated Wed, 7 Sep 2005 14:59:18, Kirk McLoren writes:

 The big question is, of course, whether it would be economically viable
 to create organosilane fuels in the quantities necessary. . .and while
 it's a relatively easy process, it's not dirt cheap.
 One of the drawbacks, the team reports, is the high cost of the
 organosilane starting materials. But if the silicon byproduct can be
 sold or recycled efficiently, the new approach could

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Re: [Biofuel] Methanol in Engines was Materials, Venturis and Biodiesel

[dwoodard]

Ray, it's been well known for many years that high concentrations
of methanol have a bad effect on light metals and their alloys, and on
many organic compounds used in engine intake systems. It's been so well
known for so long that the racers who use methanol fuel mostly all know
about and take precautions which they regard as routine. I would guess
they don't talk much about because it isn't news to them.

Low concentrations as resulting from the use of fuel line de-icer
apparently don't matter.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Ray J wrote:

 Thats funny .. i have been around race engines on and off for years, on
 dirt tracks , drag strips, and go karts and have not heard / seen
 anything special about them compared to their gasoline burning versions
 other than carb setup.  mabey its just  on them million dollar indy
 car engines...

 Ray J

 
 I went looking some time back and foun this at a race site. I've seen
 some other references to parts of it. Seems those racecars have
 special engines, thoroughly corrosion-proofed, no exposed aluminium,
 the entire fuel system is internally coated with Teflon and stainless
 steel, the fuel bladder is made of a special compound, the valve
 seats are brass, no fuel is left in the engine overnight, the
 cylinder walls have to be fogged with oil so they won't rust.  Turns
 aluminum to powder...
 
 There's this too:
 http://www.bera1.org/LA-buses.html
 Los Angeles Evaluation of Methanol- and Ethanol-Fueled Buses

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[Biofuel] Grass for fuel

[dwoodard]

Presumably they could be used for celulose to alcohol processes.
I wonder about the invasiveness of miscanthus.

Thanks to Lawrence F. London on the permaculture list.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

-- Forwarded message --

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4220790.stm

Last Updated: Wednesday, 7 September 2005, 00:49 GMT 01:49 UK
Tall grasses set to power Europe
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter, Dublin

Miscanthus, University of Illinois
Miscanthus: High output for small input
The fields of Europe could soon take on a shimmering silver colour as
farmers grow giant grasses to try to mitigate the effects of global warming.

The latest studies suggest one form of elephant grass would make a
productive energy crop to be burnt in power stations to generate
electricity.

Scientists told a Dublin conference the 4m-high Miscanthus needs little
fertiliser to produce very high yields.

A breeding programme would improve its economics still further, they said.

There's no reason why in 10 years' time this shouldn't be widely
exploited, commented Professor Mike Jones, an Irish expert on plants
and climate.

If we grew Miscanthus on 10% of suitable land in [the 15-member]
Europe, then we could generate 9% of the gross electricity production,
he told the British Association's Festival of Science.

Hectares and barrels

Burning biomass is broadly neutral in terms of its emissions of carbon
dioxide, the major gas thought responsible for warming the planet.

As the plant grows it is drawing carbon dioxide out of the air,
explained Professor Steve Long, from the University of Illinois. When
you burn it, you put that carbon dioxide back, so the net effect on
atmospheric CO2 is zero.

Whereas, if you take coal out of the ground and burn it, you are adding
a net gain of carbon to the atmosphere.

Professor Long has been cultivating a hybrid of two Miscanthus species
on plots in his home state. The project has managed to achieve yields of
60 tonnes of dry material per hectare.

This is a considerable improvement on the trials that have been
conducted in Europe, where a typical yield is some 12 tonnes per hectare.

But even this lower production provides an energy content equivalent to
about 36 barrels of crude oil. And with a barrel currently priced around
$60, such a yield would have a potential value of about $2,160 per hectare.

Growing interest

Biomass crops have always been viewed as something that can only make a
tiny contribution to mitigating rising carbon dioxide, said Professor Long.

The point we want to make is that it could actually make a major
contribution and it doesn't require big technological breakthroughs to
do that.

Farmers are increasingly being drawn to the idea. One of its attractions
is that harvesting takes place at times of the year when machinery in
not being used on food crops.

Added Professor Jones: This is definitely being taken seriously in the
UK, where the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is now
funding a major breeding programme.

One farmers' cooperative also plans to cultivate 10,000 hectares for
burning over the next three years.

LINKS TO MORE SCIENCE/NATURE STORIES

SEE ALSO:
Climate food crisis 'to deepen'
05 Sep 05 |  Science/Nature
Asian peat fires add to warming
03 Sep 05 |  Science/Nature
UK 'lagging on biomass potential'
11 May 04 |  Science/Nature

RELATED INTERNET LINKS:
BA Festival of Science
BA Festival of Science Webcasts
Trinity College Dublin
Science for a Successful Ireland
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

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Re: [Biofuel] Iran's Nuclear Program

[dwoodard]

Would you be willing to be shot or hanged first? Given the typical
methods of authoritarian governments, that's the crucial question.

In 1812 coercion was not necessary; propaganda alone sufficed. The
American immigrants who made up most of the population of the Niagara
peninsula found it hard to take the war seriously, until the American
militia started burning and looting. By the end of the war the Niagara
frontier was a burned-out desert on both sides.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


On Wed, 7 Sep 2005, Mike Weaver wrote:

 In all seriousness, can you really imagine US citizens taking up arms
 against Canada?  No one I know would.  I would go to jail first.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Cross Posted: Fwd: [DIYGasTurbines] Re: I'd like to try something...but first, your opinions (please).

[dwoodard]

I'm pretty sure the V-1 pulse-jet flying bomb used a rocket to launch and
get up to flying speed. I don't recall whether it was a solid fuel rocket
like the contemporary American JATO, catalyzed hydrogen peroxide
monopropellant. or a liquid rocket with hydrogen peroxide oxidiser.
If I had to guess I would say the second.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Manzo, Emil wrote:

 Hi Doug. 400 mph...oops...just a minor detail. Of course you're right.
 The SCRAM jet is the super-sonic version (supersonic combustion ram
 jet). I think the old German V1 (buzz-bomb) used a variation on the
 pulse jet that had a front-flap, allowing starting from a standing stop
 using only the turbine. It was quite advanced for the time. My vehicle
 will not be approaching 400mph any time soon...did I say hairbrained?

 Regards,
 Emil

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 1:02 PM
 To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Cross Posted: Fwd: [DIYGasTurbines] Re: I'd like
 to try something...but first, your opinions (please).

 I seem to recall that the minimum airspeed for halfway reasonable
 efficiency with a ramjet is about 400 mph. Hiller once experimented with
 a small helicopter powered by ramjets on the rotor tips. I don't recall
 any mention of starting problems but I doubt it was easy.

 I believe that a fuel adaptable to forming a reasonably fine mist is
 needed for ramjets and gas turbines. Kerosene works and I believe the
 Germans used diesel fuel during the war.

 Doug Woodard
 St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

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Re: [Biofuel] Cross Posted: Fwd: [DIYGasTurbines] Re: I'd like to try something...but first, your opinions (please).

[dwoodard]

I seem to recall that the minimum airspeed for halfway reasonable
efficiency with a ramjet is about 400 mph. Hiller once experimented with
a small helicopter powered by ramjets on the rotor tips. I don't recall
any mention of starting problems but I doubt it was easy.

I believe that a fuel adaptable to forming a reasonably fine mist is
needed for ramjets and gas turbines. Kerosene works and I believe the
Germans used diesel fuel during the war.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Manzo, Emil wrote:

 Hi Joe, for no (very few) moving parts you need a ram-jet. Or as some
 used to call a scram jet. It is essentially a pipe with a venturi and
 a fuel injector. It needs to have air flowing through it before
 ignition, like if it was attached to a glider or vehicle. Once enough
 airspeed flows, the injector is activated and the fuel ignited producing
 thrust. I bet WVO would work for fuel :-). Another one of my
 hair-brained dreams



 Regards,

 Emil

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Street
 Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 4:03 PM
 To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Cross Posted: Fwd: [DIYGasTurbines] Re: I'd like
 to try something...but first, your opinions (please).



 Yes but as for sustainability tell me how long do these things run for
 at 60 and 70,000RPM and how often do you have to repair them??

 Joe

 Michael Redler wrote:



 You have to have deep pockets to play with those things.



 Not necessarily. I joined [EMAIL PROTECTED] a few weeks ago
 after learning that you can get everything you need from a junk yard.
 People are buying auto turbochargers and back feeding the compressor
 gasses to the exhaust turbine and adding some fuel and an igniter (spark
 plug).



 http://www.junkyardjet.com/ http://www.junkyardjet.com/



 I'm just having trouble collecting data on efficiency for this
 technique.



 Mike


 Joe Street [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]  wrote:

   Hi Emil;

   I should have said that is not my page.  I haven't built a
 conventional type pulsejet.  I just pulled the link from my bookmarks
 FYI.
   I am more interested in the coanda effect and the ferroelectric
 effect. The problem wih turbines is they are not very sustainable.  You
 have to have deep pockets to play with those things. I want something
 with no moving parts. (other than phonons :-) )
   Just wanted to let you know there are surplus turbines available
 out there.

   Good luck
   Joe

   Manzo, Emil wrote:



   Hi Joe. When you said Pulse-jet you reminded me of something I
 saw when I was a kid. It was a small jet turbine that bolted onto your
 car's differential. It bolted in place of the rear differential cover
 and connected to your fuel and electrical system.  As the car ran down
 the highway, the turbine came up to speed and you could flip a switch
 and inject fuel into it for a boost. Primitive but effective. I bet one
 of these would run well on biodiesel.

   Your pulse-jets are fabulous. At first I thought they were
 scram-jets but then saw the turbine. Cool. How much to they cost?



   -Original Message-
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Joe Street
   Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 1:39 PM
   To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
   Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Cross Posted: Fwd: [DIYGasTurbines] Re:
 I'd like to try something...but first, your opinions (please).



   This is not at all far fetched.  Several people are bulding teir
 own turbines and other things like pulsejet engines etc.  However you
 can get surplus APU's (auxiliary power units) at bargain prices if you
 look around.  Check here:
 http://freespace.virgin.net/dyno.power/gasturbine/

   Fun stuff!  Pulse jets are not just for the military anymore!
 There is even a guy talking about building his own personal cruise
 missile. =-O   Talk about civil disobedience!

   Joe

   Michael Redler wrote:

   I've been researching the feasibility of building a biofuel
 turbojet engine.



   Apparently, it's not as far fetched as one might think. I'm
 still unsure of thermal efficiency and if it's competitive with other
 cycles. In theory, it should be.



   Has anyone done similar research?



   Mike





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Re: [Biofuel] Solar panals or wind

[dwoodard]

A lot depends on the seasonal variations in sun and wind in your area.
Here in southern Ontario, Canada, the good winds are in the period
October-May peaking in January. July and August are poor. Correspondingly
we have little sunshine in winter. So wind and solar go well together.

It seems that solar photovoltaic systems are very expensive but need
little maintenance and are durable. Wind turbines need regular
maintenance (rotating machinery, subject to fatigue loads, and they
vibrate). Also, everything depends on durability and reliability.
There are some makes of good machines, and some not so good, as well as
scam artists who seem to be attracted to the wind energy field.

Wind turbines that don't last and are often out of service can be even
more expensive than PV.

I wouldn't worry too much about climate change producing more clouds.

Noise is a factor, there are some poorly designed and noisy wind turbines
around.

Site location and the local windspeed are very important for wind
turbines. Buildings and trees can seriously affect windspeed and
turbeulence with resulting metal fatigue and vibration. Good locations for
solar collectors are somewhat easier to come by. On the other hand wind is
more amenable to DIY than solar *electricity* - for those who know what
they are doing.

Solar thermal energy for water and space heating is should be fully
exploited before bothering about renewable electricity.

Conservation and efficiency are the keys to economical use of renewable
energy.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Tue, 30 Aug 2005, Tom Irwin wrote:

 Hi All,

 If climate change occurs from global warming do solar panels make more sense 
 to buy or will wind be better. My thoughts go toward wind. If the temperature 
 expected occur, many areas will have more cloudy days from all of the extra 
 moisture evaporated into the atmosphere from the rising ocean tamperatures. 
 What do you all think? Wind can be fairly constant in some areas and should 
 only increase from climate change.

 Tom Irwin

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Solar panals or wind

[dwoodard]

Supposing that incoming solar radiation were mostly converted to
electrical power, the electricity would be converted to heat in the
process of use. This heat would be re-emitted from the earth's surface.
The heat would also drive the weather, but the pattern of re-emission
and presumably of the weather would be different. Much would depend
on what proportion of the heat evaporated water, compared to what
happens now.

However, I don't think your vision is likely to come about, partly because
of efficiency limitations, and partly because the scale of the human
population and its environemntal impact, anbd its resource consumption, is
likely to be limited by other factors.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Wed, 31 Aug 2005, Joe Street wrote:

 As a further note to the discussion of high efficiency solar arrays
 a question occured to me.  The average incoming radiation from the sun
 is something like 1Kw /sq.m
 This is a substantial amount of energy and much of it goes into heating
 up a shallow layer of the surface and much gets re-radiated back to the
 air as longwave radiation or heat  not just during the day but at night
 as well.  Anyone who doubts the amount of solar energy re-radiated to
 the atmosphere needs only to consider a towering cumulonimbus cloud or
 better yet to get a real up close and personal gut feel for that energy
 take up the sport of hang gliding and experience what it is like being
 yanked skyward at over 1000 feet per minute by convective air currents
 generated by this solar energy.
 Supposing that some dirt cheap mass production technique allows us
 to produce rolls and rolls of film with very high efficiency organic
 solar cells one day.  This technology could solve one of our needs in
 terms of energy generation and would allow unprecedented growth
 resulting in an ever increasing percentage of the earth's surface being
 covered up by solar arrays.  Assume for the moment that these arrays are
 90%efficient.  Now granted that the energy collected in this way would
 be used in processes that have their own efficiency numbers and some
 energy would always be lost as waste heat but since we are always
 striving towards higher efficiencies in all processes, assume as well
 that these energy consuming processes are quite efficient and that
 therefore only a small amount of this energy is released back into the
 environment as waste heat.  What effect could this have on the weather?

 Joe

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] BP loses money?? Yeah, right.

[dwoodard]

It's all part of the standard multinational corporation planning to move
the profits to the jurisdiction in which they are taxed least
(preferably not at all).

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Jerry Eyers wrote:

  Funny tidbit.  BP says they loose money on their gas stations, $100mil
 last
  year.  You refine it, you transport it, you store it, you delivery it, and
 you
  sell it.  How do you loose money when you control all aspects of it.  Just
 by
  vertues of econmies of scale you have to make money.


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Re: [Biofuel] Iran's Nuclear Program

[dwoodard]

Unfortunately we are no longer part of the most powerful empire on earth.
We will have to do something smarter than fight a war.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Wed, 24 Aug 2005, Joe Street wrote:

 I admit I don't know the exact number of aircraft in readiness status,
 who does? They do some funky stuff that the americans are embarrased and
 envious they didn't think of themselves like painting a mock canopy on
 the underbelly which fakes out the enemy and confuses the hell out of
 americans who can't decide which way they are turning in combat so maybe
 that counts as having two planes for every one?? They are still hanging
 on to a bunch of ancient junk as well like the sea king, but I do know
 that Canadian pilots take a tour flying a desk simply because there
 aren't enough planes to go around.  In comparison the US pilots have
 their names painted beside the canopy on 'their' machine.  What term
 would you use when comparing the number of servicable Canadian fighter
 aircraft to the number in the US arsenal?  They've got a ferkin desert
 full of almost servicable ones in reserve as well down in Tucson I've
 seen them.
 Sorry if I've offended any Canadians, I know our military is proud my
 father was air force and I also know that Canadian pilots regularly out
 'score' americans in training exercises but are you going to tell me we
 have any chance of even bluffing our way through a conflict with the US?
 Get real.

 J

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Re: [Biofuel] Large crops, less nutrients

[dwoodard]

Organically grown crops tend to have their nitrogen in complete proteins.
Plants grown with large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer tend to have a
certain content of free amino acids (the building blocks of proteins)
in the plant sap which the plant-eating (juice sucking) insects find very
convenient. It saves them considerable energy which they would otherwise
have to use to chew leaves etc. and digest proteins.

Doug Woodard
St. Catahrines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, Keith Addison wrote:

[snip]

 Anyway, when chemists look at plants and/or soil and start talking
 about nitrogen, beware!!! For a start, nitrogen may be a plant
 nutrient, but it isn't a people nutrient. Do you know how they
 measure protein content in crops? They don't, they measure the
 nitrogen content instead and multiply by, by what, 6.14, IIRC, the
 ratio of N in protein, and, hey, that's the protein content. Only it
 turns out that the more N in the form of NPK chemical fertiliser
 was used to grow the crop (or maybe just pump it up and paint it
 green) the more likely it is that a lot of the alleged protein
 content will be nitrates and nitrites and other semi-synthesised
 stuff that's not only not exactly nutritious it can be downright
 toxic. The N in your compost, however, is different: it doesn't
 deplete the soil O/M, it doesn't wreck the soil pH, nor the soil
 life, it doesn't make dead pools in the Gulf of Mexico or anything
 like that, it just steadily becomes available to the roots as the
 plants need it, and, along with all the other effects of your compost
 - primarily biological effects - it helps the plants build real
 protein. But the difference will not only not be apparent to said
 chemist, he'll probably deny it exists, thus flying in the face of a
 large amount of scientific evidence, and a vast amount of other
 evidence. Of course there are chemists and chemists, just the same as
 there are fertilisers and fertilisers.


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Re: [Biofuel] Iran's Nuclear Program

[dwoodard]

Iran has a relatively large population in proportion to its oil supplies.
Going back well into the Shah's time it professed to be worried about
eventually running out of oil, and was interested in using its oil
resources to build up a permanent energy supply through nuclear power.

Probably some of this was an excuse to start a militarily useful
nuclear program.

Iran does have the world's second largest reserves of natural gas (after
Russia) but even that will come to an end one day.

Remember that Iran was an empire 2500 years ago. They naturally think in
terms of power, industrial and political, for the long term.

They have large deserts suitable for generating solar power, but then so
does the U.S.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 23 Aug 2005, C. J. Thornton wrote:

[snip]

 What I'd like to know is - What does a country sitting
 on top of a sea of oil need with nuclear energy???


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Re: [Biofuel] Economist makes sense

[dwoodard]

For a good article on the limits of markets in anticipating resource
shortages, see
http://www.energycrisis.co.uk/reynolds/MineralEconomy.htm

Markets will react to resource shortages, but they cannot be relied upon
to anticipate them.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

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Re: [Biofuel] [Fwd: Economist make sense (except for Krugman)]

[dwoodard]

The problem is not that fossil fuels are costing more money, but that
they are costing more energy.

As the section of the economy devoted to extracting fossil fuels
consumes more of the yield of fossil fuels, there is less left
for consumption, to run the rest of the economy.

Now it's quite true that much of our current economy is low-value, but the
fact remains the the economy of the future is going to be structurally
different and will have less surplus over subsistence.

As renewable energy becomes more important and fossil fuels less available
and more expensive, stationary uses of energy will have an advantage over
transportation, which in turn will have implications for economic scale,
including the scope of international trade.

This economist seems never to have heard of net energy, but he will.

It's a typical fantasy of neoclassical economists that economics trumps
physics. Don't believe it.

Douglas Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sun, 21 Aug 2005, robert luis rabello wrote:



 My sister, the stockbroker, sent this message to me.  I thought I'd
 post it here for comment.


 http://www.freakonomics.com/blog.php


  Sunday, August 21, 2005


Peak Oil: Welcome to the media's new version of shark attacks

 The cover story
 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.htmlof the New York
 Times Sunday Magazine written by Peter Maass is about Peak Oil. The
 idea behind peak oil is that the world has been on a path of
 increasing oil production for many years, and now we are about to peak
 and go into a situation where there are dwindling reserves, leading to
 triple-digit prices for a barrel of oil, an unparalleled worldwide
 depression, and as one web page
 http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/puts it, Civilization as we know
 it is coming to an end soon.

 One might think that doomsday proponents would be chastened by the long
 history of people of their ilk being wrong: Nostradamus, Malthus, Paul
 Ehrlich, etc. Clearly they are not.

 What most of these doomsday scenarios have gotten wrong is the
 fundamental idea of economics: people respond to incentives. If the
 price of a good goes up, people demand less of it, the companies that
 make it figure out how to make more of it, and everyone tries to figure
 out how to produce substitutes for it. Add to that the march of
 technological innovation (like the green revolution, birth control,
 etc.). The end result: markets figure out how to deal with problems of
 supply and demand.

 Which is exactly the situation with oil right now. I don't know much
 about world oil reserves. I'm not even necessarily arguing with their
 facts about how much the output from existing oil fields is going to
 decline, or that world demand for oil is increasing. But these changes
 in supply and demand are slow and gradual -- a few percent each year.
 Markets have a way with dealing with situations like this: prices rise a
 little bit. That is not a catastrophe, it is a message that some things
 that used to be worth doing at low oil prices are no longer worth doing.
 Some people will switch from SUVs to hybrids, for instance. Maybe we'll
 be willing to build some nuclear power plants, or it will become worth
 it to put solar panels on more houses.

 The NY Times article totally flubs the economics time and again. Here is
 one example from the article: The author writes:

 The consequences of an actual shortfall of supply would be immense. If
 consumption begins to exceed production by even a small amount, the
 price of a barrel of oil could soar to triple-digit levels. This, in
 turn, could bring on a global recession, a result of exorbitant prices
 for transport fuels and for products that rely on petrochemicals --
 which is to say, almost every product on the market. The impact on the
 American way of life would be profound: cars cannot be propelled by
 roof-borne windmills. The suburban and exurban lifestyles, hinged to
 two-car families and constant trips to work, school and Wal-Mart, might
 become unaffordable or, if gas rationing is imposed, impossible.
 Carpools would be the least imposing of many inconveniences; the cost of
 home heating would soar -- assuming, of course, that climate-controlled
 habitats do not become just a fond memory.

 If oil prices rise, consumers of oil will be (a little) worse off. But,
 we are talking about needing to cut demand by a few percent a year. That
 doesn't mean putting windmills on cars, it means cutting out a few low
 value trips. It doesn't mean abandoning North Dakota, it means keeping
 the thermostat a degree or two cooler in the winter.

 A little later, the author writes

 The onset of triple-digit prices might seem a blessing for the Saudis --
 they would receive greater amounts of money for their increasingly
 scarce oil. But one popular misunderstanding about the Saudis -- and
 about OPEC in general -- is that high prices, no matter how high, are to
 their benefit.
 Although oil costing 

RE: [Biofuel] The New Blue States/Country

[dwoodard]

There may have been a misunderstanding in Baghdad. I suspect that the
people in Washington knew exactly what they were doing.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario


On Sun, 14 Aug 2005, Hakan Falk wrote:

 Iraq is the result of a misunderstanding, Saddam Hussein asked for
 the US permission to invade Kuweit and thought that he got it.

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Re: Re[2]: [Biofuel] The New Blue States/Country

[dwoodard]

I don't know enough to say, but my suspicion is that Saddam was encouraged
to overreact to Kuwaiti drilling into disputed areas, in order to

1. turn Saddam's Iraq from a client state into an enemy. The U.S. didn't
have enough enemies at the time to justify its national security apparatus,
which I suspect was felt in certain quarters to be a worthy end in itself.

2. introduce large U.S. ground and air forces into the Middle East with
the consent of Saudi Arabia and other countries.

3. stimulate the modernization of the U.S. military and its
supporting industry and provide some business for that industry.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sun, 14 Aug 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I read that G Bush Sr. did not plan to invade Iraq over Kuwait until
 he met with Maggie Thatcher and she told him how her
 popularity soared after the war she waged in the Faulklands, and
 this made him rethink his response to Saddam invading Kuwait.
 Is there any truth to this?
 Marilyn

 dbo There may have been a misunderstanding in Baghdad. I
 suspect that the
 dbo people in Washington knew exactly what they were doing.
 dbo Doug Woodard
 dbo St. Catharines, Ontario

 There   is   no   suspect  about it.  I heard the US ambassador
 tell
 Iraqi government officials that the US had no interest in the issue
 at
 all.   Twice.  Seems that many people who also saw that on the
 US news
 have conveniently forgotten it.  Our government suckered Iraq in
 order
 to  invade.   Period.Washington  was  fully  cognizant  of  Iraq's
 intentions  and  lied in order to have an excuse to invade.  Twice
 now
 we have done similar things.

 Happy Happy,

 Gustl

 dbo On Sun, 14 Aug 2005, Hakan Falk wrote:

  Iraq is the result of a misunderstanding, Saddam Hussein
 asked for
  the US permission to invade Kuweit and thought that he got it.



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Re: [Biofuel] The myths of Hiroshima

[dwoodard]

*Part* of the Japanese government was trying to find a way to surrender,
before the atom bombs.

Part of the U.S. Navy command held the view that no further military
operations were necessary and Japan would be compelled to surrender if
the Allies just waited. Most of the U.S. Army and government felt that an
invasion was necessary. It's not clear that the U.S. population would
have accepted just hanging around fully mobilized at war waiting for
six months or a year until the Japanese government nd army *as a whole*
concluded that it had no alternative to unconditional surrender.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Chris wrote:

 Japan was trying to surrender.  The bomb wasn't for Japan, it was to send a
 message to the other superpower, the Soviet Union.  It also was used in part
 to justify the largest military expense in the history of the nation.

 Chris K
 Cayce, SC

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RE: [Biofuel] The myths of Hiroshima

[dwoodard]

In 1920 both the U.S. and Japanese militaries considered that a war
between the two countries was possible, and many thought it ultimately
probable. For some time a major part of the Japanese government,
establishment and armed forces had been dedicated to building an
empire by force.

A large part of the Japanese reaction to Commodore Perry, including the
Meiji revolution, involved being the hammer instead of the anvil, and
doing it to the other guys instead of being the victim. From the 16th
century Japan (and long before) the Japanese establishment had looked on
the world as a battleground of aggressive empires, with some justice.
With the policy of isolation they tried to opt out, but in 1854 the
world came after them, so they felt obliged to participate. The notion of
a world of peaceful democracies as a desirable pattern of organization
was one to which Japanese society was less receptive than some foreign
countries. It was not universally popular elsewhere. In 1898 or
thereabouts a U.S. writer commented: The taste of empire is in the
mouths of the people, even as the taste of blood in the jungle.

By 1920, Taiwan, Korea and the German Pacific possessions had been
annexed.

There is a book on U.S. war plans regarding Japan between the world wars,
War Plan Orange  which I have not yet read. Presumably plans included
a final invasion of Japan if war came, and regardless of who started it.
To the military mind it would have been the natural final step.

One thing the U.S. wanted was that China should remain independent
and open to American trade. See American Diplomacy 1900-1950 by George
Kennan, for more on the U.S. China policy. The direction of Japanese
policy was toward Japanese dominance over China, including its trade and
other aspects of its wealth. If Japan had succeeded in incorporating China
into its empire, ultimately Japan would have had the economic strength to
support a navy competitive with and perhaps superior to that of the U.S.
That prospect alarmed U.S. strategists. It would have alarmed me too,
given the structure of Japanese society and its ambitions at the time
and until 1945.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Sun, 7 Aug 2005, Chris Lloyd wrote:

 What puzzles me is that America had planned the invasion of the Japanese
 islands as far back as 1920. Why? What did they have that the US wanted?
 That?s probably the reason they did not want the Russians moving into
 that territory and moved quickly to end the war. Chris.

 Wessex Ferret Club  (http://www.wessexferretclub.co.uk)

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Re: [Biofuel] The myths of Hiroshima

[dwoodard]

Far from hating the United States, it appears that the Russian people were
very favourably disposed toward the U.S. at the end of World War II.
Allied aid, mostly from the U.S., was a crucial factor in enabling
the U.S.S.R. to stay in the war and defeat the Germans. Thousands of
Russian soldiers drove American trucks to supply the Red Army's offensive,
for example. I believe that Russians got to eat quite a lot of Spam.

George Kennan in his memoirs described a massive spontaneous demonstration
of friendship in front of the American embassy in Moscow at the end of
the war in Europe and speculated that it must have been very disconcerting
for Stalin and his henchmen.

The Japanese government was successful in making the surrender stick after
the atom bombs, but it wasn't a foregone conclusion. It would have been
very hard without the bombs. My guess is that in an invasion the Allied
dead might  have been only 100,000 or 150,000 or so, but the losses among
Japanese soldiers and civilians would have been several times that number.

It's clear that in August 1945 the Japanese would ultimately have been
compelled to surrender if the Allies had just waited, for perhaps a year.
But the civilians would have been extremely unwilling to wait, and the
Russians might have found the temptation to mount their own invasion
irresistible. A Russian invasion would likely have killed many more than
the atom bombs. The deaths among Japanese civilians on Okinawa caused
basically by Japanese forces in the grip of the Bushido cult were
considerable.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Fri, 5 Aug 2005, Garth  Kim Travis wrote:

 Greetings Tom,

 Yes, many of us would not be here.  Canadian forces were also training for
 that invasion.  I was always taught that it was the code of death before
 dishonor that made the bombing necessary.  I am not saying that is correct,
 but I wonder how scared of Russia anyone would have been by that time in
 the war.  As I understand it, one of the things the Russian people hated
 America for was the long wait before they joined, which allowed Russia to
 be seriously depleted.  I do understand that the Japanese were already
 commandeering cooking pots etc. for metal to make weapons, so they must
 have known the end was in sight, but that had been going on for long enough
 to scare many people into believing they would not surrender, period.

 It is easy to start myths during war time, people are so scared and the
 average person is not told much of the truth for good reasons, many
 times.  I see it today, so many people are so scared of terrorism and have
 no idea of how it started.  How does one educate a population that is now
 in it's second or third generation of ignorance of history, science, math,
 philosophy and common sense?

 Bright Blessings,
 Kim

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] Napier Deltic Engines

[dwoodard]

The Napier Deltic was based on the Junkers Jumo aircraft diesel engine
developed before World War Two. The Jumo had one bank of 6 cylinders
and two crankshafts, so the Deltic was much more economical of crankshafts
and crankcases. Apparently Napier took out a licence from Junkers before
the war and acquired the technology but didn't go into production.

The Jumo by report was suited for running at a constant throttle setting
but couldn't take the variations in power needed for most military
operations. Apparently the piston which governed the exhaust ports and the
cylinder area around it tended to get too hot. It was used in the Junkers
JU 86 bomber-transport (and in the JU 86P high altitude reconnaisance
version where the suitability of the diesel for turbosupercharging
came in extremely handy; Paul Wilkinson's Aircraft Engines of the World
for 1944 says it could maintain sea level power to 32,000 feet) and in
Dornier patrol flying boats.

I've read casual references to the Deltic having maintenance problems.

There is a British book on the history of Napier (The Napier Story?)
which may have more information.

L. J. K. Setright's Some Unusual Engines may have something on it; my
copy is long gone and my memory is dim.

British engineering journals of the 1950's will likely have information
about the Deltic.

Before the war Napier was apparently badly managed; this caused problems
with the Sabre aircraft engine. During the war the company was taken over
by Rolls-Royce due to the need to get the Sabre in reliable service and in
production. I've read that Napier had lathes at the time that were 100
years old. After the war Napier dissipated a lot of effort on the Nomad
compound diesel aircraft engine (which never went into production or
flew in a prototype aircraft) and the Eland gas turbine propeller engine
which saw very limited but not satisfactory service, and the Naiad
helicopter gas turbine, which I don't think went into production. I get
the impression that bad management continued, at least as far as
management focus went.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada



On Fri, 1 Jul 2005, Greg  Harbican wrote:

 Today while researching PT boats of WW2 and their younger cousins, the PTF's 
 of the 1960's, I came across a engine called the Napier Deltic.

 I was very intrigued with the idea of a high speed 2 cycle diesel, that used 
 opposed pistons.

 http://www.ptfnasty.com/ptfDeltic.html
 http://www.ptfnasty.com/ptfdelticoperation.htm
 http://www.intertrader.net/ptfdeltic.htm


 If I understand correctly, they may be a bit more efficient than standard 
 diesels, but, because they were so unorthodox they are somewhat obscure.

 Does anyone have any knowledge of, or first hand experience with these 
 engines?

 Greg H.


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Re: [Biofuel] Electromagnetic Pulse Alert

[dwoodard]

That strikes me as too elaborate and expensive for a strictly private
terrorist organization. However, it would be just the thing for
a hostile state that wanted to terminate the Project for a New American
Century and/or the consumer of 1/4 of the world's oil, and could figure
out how to do the job anonymously.

Al Queda is not unreservedly hostile to infidels; they have their uses
as subservient suppliers of manufactured goods, and purchasers of oil at
preferably US$144 per barrel, or so Osama says. I suspect that cheap
oil for China is not one of their goals.

Regarding possible perps, it's true that China wants oil, but they also
want markets. What to do, what to do...

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario



On Fri, 1 Jul 2005 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 In a message dated 7/1/05 1:26:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 writes:

  On C-SPAN, June 21 2005, I saw a fascinating account on how a terrorist
  nuclear attack can disable/destroy all our electronic devices:
  computers,PDAs, cellular phones, TVs, TIVOs, pagers, even many cars,
  trucks and RVs. All of these devices dead, made inoperable,useless, so
  many doorstops and paperweights created by a terrorist nuclear
  bomb/missile's ElectroMagnetic Pulse (EMP). EMP can disable electronics
  as far away as 3700 miles. Roscoe Bartlett's presentation on C-SPAN
  showed that such an attack can disable the american economy for a long
  time, set it back at least a hendred (100) years and create millions of
  casualties.

[snip]

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Re: [Biofuel] maximum MPG

[dwoodard]

Doug, there are about 20,000 BTUs in a pound of gasoline, about 6 pounds
to the U.S. gallon. A high school physics text and Marks' Handbook for
Engineers (in the reference section of most larger libraries) will
contain a lot of the information you might need.

A text on internal combustion engines that is about as clearly and simply
written as any such text can be is The High-Speed Internal Combustion
Engine by Ricardo and Hempson, 5th edition 1956or 1957, publisher
Blackie of Edinburgh. There are earlier editions by Ricardo alone.

Recovering exhaust and coolant heat tends to be complicated and
expensive. It's best not to lose it in the first place, but there are
practical limits.

Diesels have a definite advantage over conventional spark ignition
gasoline engines in maximum efficiency, because they can operate at
higher compression and therefore expansion ratios. However, where
Diesels really shine is part load efficiency; gasoline engines suffer
badly at part load.

Designing the transmission and suspension (including tires) for comfort,
handling and performance involves major losses. Opportunities for
reducing aerodynamic losses involve belly pans (maintenance problems?)
and attention to the flow from the belly to the sides. It seems that the
flow separation at the rear can be reduced, but the vehicle may look odd.

If you are near a university which has a mechanical engineering
department, browsing the archive of the Journal of the Society pf
Automotive Engineers might interest you. There is a British equivalent;
if memory serves thirty years ago it was the Journal of the Society of
Chartered Mechanical Engineers.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, des wrote:

 I've read of some really fantastic claims of MPG in vehicles that are
 either proposed or promised, and my curiosity has been piqued.  The
 question I have in mind that is bothering me is this:

 Let's say for a minute that we're developing a vehicle that doesn't use
 any fuel when it's not moving, the heat from its combustion is
 reclycled, (radiators being a waste of energy, blowing heat ...AKA
 energy you paid for... into the atmosphere) and the energy used to go up
 a hill is reclaimed when going down the other side, (like the hybrids
 do...) and, just for the numbers we'll design it to weigh 1000 pounds.
 (not much luxury or padding on this vehicle.)

 How might one figure the maximum MPG on this vehicle, considering the
 amount of energy stored in a gallon of gas (or diesel) and if all the
 energy in this gallon were to be used in propelling the vehicle
 forward?  Assuming that none of this fuel is used to run headlights,
 charge battery, run a heater, air conditioning, or radio?  I understand
 that friction is a reality, but for this thought experiment, let's
 assume friction free bearings, and 100% transfer of power from tires to
 asphalt also.

 Wish I could recall all the physics I learned in high school, but back
 then we were still trying to make an ark float.

 If someone could point me in the right direction for the formula for the
 amount of energy in a gallon of fuel and how far it could possibly push
 a specific mass in a perfect (theoretical) world, I would appreciate it.

 In the way that the Carnot cycle has its limits, I want to know what the
 limit for fuel efficiency on an infernal combustion engine is.

 Anyone?

 Thanks,

 doug swanson

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[Biofuel] Off-topic but useful: New web-site for policy wonks

[dwoodard]

Thanks to Jack Stilwell of leftbio.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

-- Forwarded message --

Congressional Policy Briefings Available Online

It's a bit like Napster -- but for policy wonks. A Washington research group
has created a Web site where the public can read, submit and download the
difficult-to-find public policy briefs members of Congress use to get up to
speed on issues.

This is a newspaper article about the new website and the circumstances
surounding it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062701509.html?referrer=email

and this is the website itself:
http://www.opencrs.com


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[Biofuel] Re: Environmentalism is dead. What's next?

[dwoodard]

It seems to me that this environmentalism is dead movement is
setting up a straw man and then knocking it down.

It defines environmentalism as a set of isolated responses to isolated
symptoms, and then says that because the symptoms are not being cured,
the response to them is futile. The solution is said to be action in a
larger context, which is said to be the nature of human society and its
economy; the relations among humans. Environmental problems are regarded
as a subset of human problems.

I think this is a subtle and destructive perversion of the real situation.

To me the problem is fundamentally the relation between humans and the
Earth, and especially though not entirely, the community of life on Earth.

We need to recognize that humans are an inseparable part of the community
of life on Earth, and that when, as now, we are capable of damaging that
community, we have to limit the size of our population and our impact
on the whole community to preserve the whole community of life and our
means of subsistence.

We also need to adapt the human economy over several generations to a
consumption of mineral resources which can be sustained indefinitely and
which will amount on a planetary scale over a long period to a recycling
economy similar to that of the community of life in which plant roots
and phytoplankton take minerals from the more or less evenly distributed
supply in the soil and the sea and make them available to the rest of
the community of life.

We need to stay focused on the relationship between humans and living
nature. It's not an I-it relationship nor even one of I-thou, it's
a relationship among the parts of one body.

Struggles to preserve parts of the body of Gaia are not just tools to
organize the public. The body of Gaia is changeable, but no part is
expendable.

Focusing on core American values and even core human values is not
a solution. The solution is incorporating in core human values - our
operationally defined human values, displayed in our behaviour - the
realization that humans are a part, and even an ephemeral and
replaceable part, of something more fundamental and more important, the
community of life on earth. That realization includes the awareness that
human welfare not only requires integration with the rest of the community
of life, but that integration requires *limits* to human numbers and the
scale and character of the human impact on the rest of the commuity of
life.

Mr. Werbach talks about environmentalism as a liberal social movement.
I think he's wrong. Liberalism doesn't seem to have included any limits
to human power and the exercise of that power, or human freedom from
contingencies related to the earth or other people. It does seem to have
included an assumption that humans were capable of godlike perfect
understanding suited to the wielding of any amount of power over the
earth, its creatures and each other, something analogous in Christian
terms to Lucifer's sin of pride.

The key lesson of human ecology is that all things are connected to the
Earth.

Now it's true that the source of our problems in our relationship with
the Earth lies in our relationships with each other. However the problem
comes from the fact that our relationship with the Earth has been
subordinated to our relationships with other humans. More of this disease
is no cure. The cure will come from measuring relationships among humans
by the standard of our relationship with the Earth, that is, by the
standard of survival.

It is still possible for the success of individuals within human society
to occur at the expense of the community of life. When it is not
possible, we will be on the way to solving the environmental problem
and likely a lot of strictly human problems as well.

It has been suggested that much of the success of geniuses like Isaac
Newton lay in their power of continuously bearing in mind what they
needed to know, including the imperfections of their current
understanding. This involves a certain tolerance of mental strain, not
to say pain.

As a society and as a species we need to continuously bear in mind what
our relationship with the Earth needs to become, and the current
imperfections of that relationship.

At present nothing can be progressive that does not have a
constructive or neutral effect on the relationship betwen humans and
the Earth, and we can't spare much attention for things that don't have
a positive effect.

The most constructive change needed is an end to the growth of the
human population and its impact on the earth, and then a shrinkage to a
level that can be sustained in health. That is what's progressive,
and it's attractive to individual humans because it leads to an
improvement in the quality of life for individual humans.

As David Suzuki said, It's a matter of survival.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario

-- Forwarded message --

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2171/
In These Times
June 21, 2005

Re: [Biofuel] Re: Environmentalism is dead. What's next?

[dwoodard]

Non-American corporations are not any better than American corporations,
but

1. in the past there have been more American corporations operating
overseas.

2. the U.S. government has been pretty ruthless operating in the support
of U.S. corporations, and to promote its Cold War objectives. The U.S.
has acted in oposition to the peoples of many countries, in favour of
pliable elites in those countries.

Guatemala and Iran in the 1950's, the massacres of Chinese in Indonesia
in the 1960's, the Greek colonels, the Pinochet coup in Chile, are some
incidents that come to mind.

Other capitalist countires have not had the opportunity to act in
support of their corporations, except the British to a degree.

The fact that U.S. people are by and large much nicer than their corps
and government doesn't cut much ice with foreigners who have to deal
with U.S. corps and government, and can't communicate with the U.S.
people.

So until the U.S. people manage to get their government until control
they will have to live with a frequent foreign atitude that (to
paraphrase a 19th century French anarchist) there are no innocent
Americans.

It's sad but that's the way it is.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Thu, 23 Jun 2005, Hakan Falk wrote:


 Chris,

 Doug's writing and references represent a clear overview of only a small
 part of American policies and relations to towards the global environment.
 It is a good explanation on why so many hate Americans, which is in
 reality their representatives (political and business) squandering of
 resources and disrespect for environments that are not theirs. US
 corporations have during many years raped developing countries on their
 wealth, by using all the tricks in the book, to get resource cheaply,
 making huge profits and destroying environments along the way.

[snip]

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RE: [Biofuel] Brazil's ethanol effort

[dwoodard]

Assuming that the problem in cool conditions is fuel vapourization and
mixture formation, I expect that inlet injection (fairly common now)
would work, and that if it didn't, direct injection would work.

I don't know how ethanol and injection pumps get along, but I think that
if there is a problem it could be beaten.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


On Wed, 22 Jun 2005, DERICK GIORCHINO wrote:

 I have recently done some reading on the ethanol as a fuel of choice. But it
 seems that those in tropical climates have an advantage. It seems that gas
 engines run better and start in a hotter climate. And those of us that live
 in a varying climate could have some difficulty with ethanol in the colder
 time of year. Do you think I am wrong? What is you opinion.

[snip]

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