Re: [Biofuel] Kyoto- termites CH4-and messing with the natural order of things
Thank you. I couldn't remember if it was just bacteria or a combination of bacteria and termites. I don't follow the sealed container. How did he renew the material in the container? Was the pile around the container just to supply heat for the process or was it fed into the container somehow? Thank you again, Rick Keith Addison wrote: Hello Rick Dear John, This is not so wild an idea as you suggest. I remember reading a few years back about a fellow in France who piled up a huge mound of waste wood chips and drove a pipe into the center of it. Jean Pain: France's King of Green Gold http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library.html#pain See also previous messages on this subject: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/?keywords=%22Jean+Pain%22time=6 monthsusertime=2002-12-31 As the termites went to work in the pile as well, Did they? I suppose, as bacteria, Termites are not bacteria. the methane they generated escaped through the pipe and was captures in inter tubes which would be inflated from the pressure of the gas. He claimed to be able to collect enough gas from this rather primitive system to supply his cooking stove. He supplied much more than that, including fuel for a car. I don't think it's a primitive system. Best wishes Keith Addison Journey to Forever KYOTO Pref., Japan http://journeytoforever.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Kyoto- termites CH4-and messing with the natural order of things
Dear Keith, Thank you. I couldn't remember if it was just bacteria or a combination of bacteria and termites. I don't follow the sealed container. How did he renew the material in the container? Was the pile around the container just to supply heat for the process or was it fed into the container somehow? It seems quite clear to me Rick. Did you just read the abstract? It's linked to the full article, here: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/methane_pain.html ... What I see is a mound, three metres high and six across, made of tiny pieces of brushwood. This vegetable cocktail, Pain explains, made of tree limbs and pulverized underbrush, is a compost, much like the pile of decaying organic matter that people build in their gardens, using food scraps and leaves. Buried inside the 50-ton compost, he says, is a steel tank with a capacity of four cubic metres. It is three-fourths full of the same compost, which has first been steeped in water for two months. The tank is hermetically sealed, but is connected by tubing to 24-truck-tyre inner tubes, banked nearby in piles. The tubes serve as a reservoir for the methane gas produced as the compost ferments... The compost heap continues fermenting for nearly 18 months, supplying hot water at a rate of four litres a minute, enough to satisfy the central heating, bathroom and kitchen requirements. Then the installation is dismantled and a new compost system is set up at once to assure a continuous supply of hot water. The hot compost around the tank maintains the anaerobic methane-producing process within the tank at the right temperature. Thank you again, You're welcome. Best wishes Keith Rick Keith Addison wrote: Hello Rick Dear John, This is not so wild an idea as you suggest. I remember reading a few years back about a fellow in France who piled up a huge mound of waste wood chips and drove a pipe into the center of it. Jean Pain: France's King of Green Gold http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library.html#pain See also previous messages on this subject: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/?keywords=%22Jean+Pain%22time =6 monthsusertime=2002-12-31 As the termites went to work in the pile as well, Did they? I suppose, as bacteria, Termites are not bacteria. the methane they generated escaped through the pipe and was captures in inter tubes which would be inflated from the pressure of the gas. He claimed to be able to collect enough gas from this rather primitive system to supply his cooking stove. He supplied much more than that, including fuel for a car. I don't think it's a primitive system. Best wishes Keith Addison Journey to Forever KYOTO Pref., Japan http://journeytoforever.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Kyoto- termites CH4-and messing with the natural order of things
imagine whole plants full of farting cows and termites harnessed to generate the worlds energy! imagine the smell! it would have to be constructed in new jersey, it already stinks there anyway. on another note: I was just in Hawaii where they have a huge problem with mongoose, they were brought there in the hopes that they would control the rat population that came as stowaways on ships, instead they eat bird eggs. oops. will we ever learn? John Keith Addison wrote: Hi Kirk http://yosemite.epa.gov/OAR/globalwarming.nsf/UniqueKeyLookup/SHSU5BU M9T/$File/ghg_gwp.pdf Nice discussion re most aspects. Since CH4 may be 50 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas it seems termite management might be useful. It depends what termite management turns out to mean. If it means destroying termites on a large scale, and I'm not sure how else you could control their methane emissions, that might not be such a good idea. Most (70%?) of the world's wood goes through termites on its way back to the soil, to give rise to more wood and much besides. Removing the termites from the equation would seem an ideal case for the unexpected consequences we're by now so famous for when we fiddle about with the biosphere with all eyes on the desired result rather than the one and only law of ecology, that everything is connected to everything else. Disrupting wood growth in some unforeseen way will not do the carbon sink side of the equation a lot of good, for one thing. I'm not sure controlling termites would even decrease the methane output that much, at least some of the wood will still decay anaerobically. And I don't think methane's only function in the atmosphere is as a greenhouse gas. This is different to taxing farmers for their cow and sheep farts - the cows and sheep wouldn't be there but for the farmers, nor have they usually replaced other, wild farters. Usually the pasture has replaced trees. So this would probably qualify as man-made GG emissions. But looking to curtail the biosphere's normal production of GGs seems everywhere likely to backfire - trust us, we're experts. Um... nope. DB wrote: that global warming is real. It matters not whether it is man made or a natural occurence. Just as when the house is burning down you must first put out the fire. Then you can figure out It does matter whether it is man made or a natural occurence. The only sane way to go about controlling it is to mitigate what's caused it - not the natural emissions, which haven't increased, and which are everywhere a part of complex sets of interactions. It's only by controlling the manmade emissions, which have increased grossly, that we're likely to be able to ditch the bathwater and still keep the babies. The other aspect of this and other such suggestions is that it smacks so much of a drug addict flailing about in a desperate search for an alternative to cold turkey. It's not alcoholism that's the problem, we should be focusing on putting more resources into finding a cure for cyrrhosis. Right. Our wasteful, gas-guzzling, energy-spendthrift living style in the industrialised countries has to go. Regards Keith Kirk --- Keith Addison keith at journeytoforever.org wrote: Hello Rick Dear DB, I liked your response. Partly, I suppose, because it accords with my own thoughts. There is no doubt at this point that global warming is occurring even among some republicans. There's no doubt even among some republicans or it's occurring even among some republicans? The first, cause to rejoice (though that's been the case for awhile I think), if the second, depending who they are, if they're becoming prone to spontaneous combustion should we shed tears or consider them as an alternative energy source? (Sorry!) What drives it it the question. There are no shortage of non man made effects that could raise the global temperature. Methane produced by termite colonies world wide is more abundant than any man made green house gas. And it plays an important and complex role in the climate andd the upper atmosphere. The main problem with this sort of argument though, apart from the now-massive body of science that debunks it, is that the termites have not been working more and more overtime for the last 200 years to account for the rising temperatures. The lead contender for that, by a whole bunch of lengths, is CO2 produced by us. It seems apparent to me that what ever the cause the effect is not stoppable at this point. There is just no time left to turn the battleship before it hits the pier. How do you know that? A very premature conclusion, with little to support it that I know of. Again, at the Kyoto Protocol celebrations in Kyoto on Wednesday the speakers were talking of the need for 60-80% CO2 cuts, and these people were mostly being placatory, not provocative. Such figures have been making it into
Re: [Biofuel] Kyoto- termites CH4-and messing with the natural order of things
This is not so wild an idea as you suggest. I remember reading a few years back about a fellow in France who piled up a huge mound of waste wood chips and drove a pipe into the center of it. As the termites went to work in the pile as well, I suppose, as bacteria, the methane they generated escaped through the pipe and was captures in inter tubes which would be inflated from the pressure of the gas. He claimed to be able to collect enough gas from this rather primitive system to supply his cooking stove. Rick John Guttridge wrote: Ahh, perhaps we could collect the methane and use it as fuel!!! imagine whole plants full of farting cows and termites harnessed to generate the worlds energy! imagine the smell! it would have to be constructed in new jersey, it already stinks there anyway. ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
Re: [Biofuel] Kyoto- termites CH4-and messing with the natural order of things
Dear John, This is not so wild an idea as you suggest. I remember reading a few years back about a fellow in France who piled up a huge mound of waste wood chips and drove a pipe into the center of it. Jean Pain: France's King of Green Gold http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library.html#pain See also previous messages on this subject: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/?keywords=%22Jean+Pain%22time=6 monthsusertime=2002-12-31 As the termites went to work in the pile as well, Did they? I suppose, as bacteria, Termites are not bacteria. the methane they generated escaped through the pipe and was captures in inter tubes which would be inflated from the pressure of the gas. He claimed to be able to collect enough gas from this rather primitive system to supply his cooking stove. He supplied much more than that, including fuel for a car. I don't think it's a primitive system. Best wishes Keith Addison Journey to Forever KYOTO Pref., Japan http://journeytoforever.org/ Rick John Guttridge wrote: Ahh, perhaps we could collect the methane and use it as fuel!!! imagine whole plants full of farting cows and termites harnessed to generate the worlds energy! imagine the smell! it would have to be constructed in new jersey, it already stinks there anyway. ___ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
