[biofuels-biz] Nuclear energy.
An other part of my article, Nuclear energy. Before we get into a discussion and evaluation of nuclear energy, I like to make my own position clear on this. I am against nuclear power. Not because any technical reason, but because I do not belive that any Nation can be trusted regarding nuclear weapons. When I say any, I mean any and without exceptions. This is not because I learned more about nuclear technology, but because I learned more about humanity. The only Nation that used nuclear bombs, have with the DU munition already proven that they could not refrain from using it in weapon technology again. The EU tried to do a cost evaluation of different energy sources, including the social costs of pollution etc. This cost exercise did not include accident costs since this would be a very elaborate and almost impossible calculation. A very interesting exercise that clearly show a very high cost for fossil oil products and nuclear end up to be a cheap fossil electricity source. Solar, wind and biofuels also come out as very economical , due to its lower social costs. We have somewhat more experiences than others of nuclear power plants. In the beginning of the 1970's, Theodore Rosenthal (co founder of Energy Saving Now web site) and I had the task to provide and manage an engineering group who did the piping stress control calculations on the two last built nuclear power plants in Sweden. It has been generally regarded as safe, from weapon point of view, to allow one stage nuclear power plants, although this idea have been challenged lately. If everybody was using only one stage power plants, the R/P value for nuclear resources is around 60 years. I can therefore see the commercial temptations of having two classes of users of nuclear power plants. The first being the one stage group and the second the trusted multistage group. The second one would then have an abundance of energy resources in what the first group consider as a nuclear waste problem. They would even be willing to pay to get it solved. Using multi stage technology will of course extend the R/P value with several multiples. If we want to be joking in a cynical way (black humor), we could see the DU munition as a disposal system, whereby the first group get back their refined nuclear waste. Hakan [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/9bTolB/TM -~- Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuels-biz] Energy Bill Bankrupts Our Future
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16226 Energy Bill Bankrupts Our Future By Charles Sheehan-Miles, AlterNet June 23, 2003 In what may be the worst piece of legislation the Senate has passed in decades (and they've had some whoppers), the Senate voted last week for a huge corporate boondoggle that will not only help bankrupt our country, but will guarantee long-term environmental damage, a rise in cancer rates and thousands of years of monitoring of toxic and radioactive waste. They did this without a single public hearing, without a debate, and without much of a conscience. The energy bill is a major attack on our country and our world's future. First, it authorizes the spending of taxpayer dollars to help build six or more new nuclear reactors - reactors that the utilities couldn't afford to build on their own. The utilities and proponents of nuclear power would have us believe that per megawatt, nuclear power is both the cheapest and the cleanest form of energy available. In fact, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the last five commercial reactors cost 11 times as much to build per kilowatt as natural gas plants. Furthermore, they aren't at all responsible for the cost of long-term storage of the nuclear waste they create - waste that will have to be stored, monitored and maintained for the next 100,000 years. Mind-boggling, considering that all of recorded human history is only a fraction of that time. Imagine your reaction if your annual tax bill carried a surcharge to maintain toxic waste left behind by Ptolemy II and Nebuchadnezzar. Worse, the bill indefinitely extends the Price-Anderson Act, passing on the liability for accidents at nuclear plants to the very people who will suffer the consequences - you and me. George Woodwell, one of the preeminent scientists in America today, recently pointed out that if it weren't for Price-Anderson, there wouldn't be a single commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S., because they couldn't afford the insurance. As it stands, reactor operators are required to carry $200 million of liability coverage per reactor; damages beyond that amount are passed on to the taxpayer. Ironically, in a 1992 study by Sandia National Labs, commissioned in the wake of the Three Mile Island near-meltdown, the cost of damage from a single nuclear accident is estimated to range as high as $560 billion in current articles. Who pays? We do. But that's not all. Behind curtain number three is a pilot pebble bed nuclear reactor. The utilities call pebble bed reactors inherently safe, because if they loose their coolant, they don't melt down. In fact, say the utilities, they are so safe that the engineers don't believe they need containment structures. Of course, if the graphite coatings on the pebbles are exposed to, say, oxygen, they'll catch on fire, which is precisely what caused most of the radiation exposure from Chernobyl. But don't worry, say the utilities - it's inherently safe. If so, why do taxpayers need to substantially bear the burden of liability in case of accidents? Let's not forget that if the 9/11 hijackers had taken a detour and crashed into the Indian Point cooling pool (they flew right over it), they would likely have killed 100,000 people instead of 3,000 if the wind was blowing in the right direction. Outraged yet? Keep reading. The bill, which must seem like a godsend to the utilities, authorizes the pilot construction of a nuclear plant to produce hydrogen for fuel cells. Forget that we can produce hydrogen with wind power at almost no cost; instead, the Bush Administration has in store a plan to build hundreds of nuclear plants to produce hydrogen. We'll have clean power for our cars, at the price of hundreds of millions of tons of nuclear waste spread all over the country. How helpful is that? In fact, this plan is simply a backdoor to build more nuclear plants while they posture at being environmentally friendly. This isn't just about us. It's about our children, and their children, going forward to all future generations. For some perspective, Julius Caesar was assassinated by disgruntled senators a mere 2,000 years ago. By law, we have to maintain and protect the waste produced by these plants for fifty times that. The entire sweep of human history pales in comparison to the time this stuff will be around, leaking into the environment, causing cancer and birth defects and possibly extinction. It won't reach its peak radioactivity for another 100,000 years. I hope those campaign contributions from the energy companies make the Senators who voted for this bill feel better, because countless future generations will be cursing them, giving this Senate its own brand of immortality. It's not a legacy I'd want to live with. Charles Sheehan-Miles is executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute and the author of Prayer at Rumayla: A Novel of the
[biofuels-biz] The Broken Promise of Bill Ford Jr.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16237 The Broken Promise of Bill Ford Jr. By Russell Long, AlterNet June 24, 2003 The honeymoon between environmentalists and Bill Ford Jr., the CEO of Ford Motor Company, just ended in a head-on collision. It was only three years ago that Mr. Ford pledged to increase the fuel mileage of Ford's SUV fleet by 25 percent. He garnered praise across the nation for his courageous acknowledgement of the auto industry's role in elevating greenhouse gases, and for his commitment to protecting the earth's fragile ecosystem. Not to be outdone, General Motors and the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler promised to match or exceed Ford in fuel mileage gains. Reduced fuel use from these voluntary pledges would have saved the nation three billion barrels of oil in the next few decades, potentially more than the extractable reserves in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. The media attention this garnered for the Ivy-educated, guitar-strumming great-grandson of the inventor of the Model T was well deserved. Environmentalists were dizzy with glee - it was a great start toward reducing the nation's oil addiction. Conservatives pointed to this as an example of how corporate America could solve the country's environmental problems without governmental regulations. Mr. Ford celebrated the company's 100th anniversary in Detroit last weekend. But there wasn't much to celebrate. Like other auto companies, profits are poor and executives are having trouble selling cars even with zero interest loans. Greenhouse gas pollution and smog from Ford vehicles, which threatens public health, are at an all-time high. And environmentalists, who only recently had been laudatory of Mr. Ford, were hanging banners and demonstrating against his company. How did this happen? The eco-friendly perception of Mr. Ford began to change last summer, when as part of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, he threatened to sue California over the nation's first-ever legislation to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. He damaged himself further when he personally lobbied Congress against increasing vehicle fuel mileage standards, and when he later reneged on his historic pledge to voluntarily increase the fuel mileage of Ford SUVs. With these actions, the environmental community began to see him not as a self-professed corporate steward of the nation's environment, but as just another swift-talking Detroit pitchman - one with a flair for eco-rhetoric - trumping up excuses to shirk his global environmental responsibilities. Ford blamed breaking the pledge on technological delays and a failure to obtain tax credits for hybrid vehicles in Congress, and spokespeople refused to make any further commitments. Even worse, backing off removed any obligation for the world's first and third largest automakers, General Motors and the Chrysler division, to reduce their own emissions. Industry insiders argue that Mr. Ford shouldn't have stuck his neck out in the first place, especially in a weak economy. But the fact is this - if the Big Three lobbied Congress to increase, rather than decrease fuel mileage, Ford, DaimlerChrysler and GM could improve mileage on a level field against each other and their Japanese counterparts without financial harm. Japanese vehicles are now almost as big as Detroit's, so the argument about losing jobs to Japan is moot. Furthermore, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists demonstrates that SUV mileage can be virtually doubled (from 16 to 29 mpg), without increasing the lifetime cost of the vehicle. Equally safe, higher mileage SUVs would cost about $900 more in the showroom but over 10 years, would save consumers $3,100 in fuel. So even in a weak economy, improved fuel mileage standards shouldn't harm automotive profits. Mr. Ford has long decried the traditional adversarial approach taken by the auto industry and the environmental community. The answer is this - if he is sincere about his environmental commitment, he should lock himself in a room with key environmental leaders, and together map out a creative plan that will over the long-term protect the health of the planet and Ford. As the study by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows, they're not incompatible. Russell Long, the executive director of Bluewater Network, conceived and drafted the California global warming law, which his organization sponsored, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles. Last week, Bluewater Network launched a national pledge drive to boycott Ford until the company builds cleaner vehicles. Take the pledge at www.bluewaternetwork.org. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/9bTolB/TM
[biofuel] Re: Biogas and glycerin - was To Chris problems sep. glycerine
That still leaves the glycerinwhich, by the way and for purposes of this and future conversations, we need to adequately define, label and perhaps rename so as to not create confusion between the glycerin/soap/alcohol/catalyst cocktail and the recovered glycerin from the FFA recovery process. I've been referring to the glycerin/soap/alcohol/catalyst cocktail as by-product, and when I mean glycerine I say separated glycerine - which could be a bit ambiguous, it could be confused with separating the by-product (the cocktail) from the ester at the end of the biodiesel production process. I guess we'll just have to make ourselves clear each time. I've been calling it 'acidulated glycerine byproduct' (which I've been told is what the industry calls it) and calling the ffa recovery process 'chemical purification of glyceine' or 'acid purification of glyceine' to make it clear. Most people (including me!) were confused by the 'ffa recovery' name at first. By the way I still think the 95% figure isn't right on the purity of the acidulated stuff... I think people have found WAYYY more water in it than that implied 5%. The figures I've heard from the lab people were more like 80% acidulated, 40% crude. mark Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Re: Glycerol Separation Problem
Very interesting thread here! i've been looking into the sodium issue with composting glycerine byproduct. It's OK for small scale production, but it does build up over time and someone composting huge amounts of the stuff might want to acidulate the glycerine first and get rid of the salts (I guess?). Or, as Todd does, start using KOH instead of sodium hydroxide... or use acid-base process where you might not use as much NaOH (I hope!). My experience trying to find buyers of this stuff was with approaching several of them with a couple of options- the crude as well as the acidulated, and telling them we'd have 275 gals (one IBC tank, somewhere around a thousand liters) or double that (two IBC's) a month. Which is a large amount for a homebrewer to handle but miniscule and completely uninteresting to a glycerine buyer. I got some figures on what kinds of quantities they'd be interested in- the figures I was quoted were from Bob Clarke of Imperial Western Products- IWP is our biodiesel commercial supplier out here- who said that until you produce a couple of railcars a month (46,000 gallons a month) the glycerine refiners don't want to deal with you. He said that it was a problem for IWP to get rid of theirs until their plant was running at higher capacity. As far as producers and glycerine, and the market for it- I looked at some figures for producers and where their profits come from. Interestingly the profit from biodiesel sales was sometimes a rather low and RISKY part of the equation. Sales of glycerol and salts (fertiliser) were sometimes a huge part of making a plant profitable, which is quite in line with what todd's saying below aobut business and competition. It goes along with what anotehr one of my biodiesel 'industry' friends says about the fact that we're busting into an existing industry- rendering- and there's already an established order and a commerce to it which is about to get turned upside down in California (because oour primary feedstock for biodiesel is yellow grease rather than new oil, in this state). Though of course the glycerol refiners didn't want our 275 gallons a month only because it's more trouble than it's worth, not because the Greater Berkeley Area Disunited Homebrewers are some sort of threat to their profit margin or anything. mark ps have any of the rest of you worked with acidulating using sulfuric? I think sulfuric works in odd ways since it burns (??) organic compounds. So it sounds to me that the sulfuric could be a problem, just as someone just mentioned. also, what are the figures on how much concentrated sulfuric you should use, based on how much initial ffa you 'soaped out' into the glycerol? --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Appal Energy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Cristopher, Not a problem. Still waiting to see if Pieter had any better fortune after starting again from scratch. Something is slightly awry with the volumes of acid he is adding. He'll get there. There's really not that much that can go wrong with the process, at least to my knowledge. In the interim, there are still thousands of home brewers that face the glycerin cocktail dilemma on a daily or weekly basis - or choose to ignore it. Until homebrewers get the alcohol, FFA, caustic and glycerin recovery processes down in their own micro-environments there will remain the threat that state, county, city, borough or federal (not to mention private) interests will shift increasingly towards efforts of shutting such endeavors as micro-point sources of pollution. Most of these problems can be overcome by recovery, recycling and treatment. About the only hang up left is best disposal method of the recovered glycerol. The FFAs can become fuel. The catalyst can become fertilizer. The alcohol can be re-used. Even the magnesium or aluminum soap scum from treated wastewater can be used as a solid fuel. But the glycerol remains a bit of a conundrum. Hence the need to go a bit more in depth of its effects on a composting effort after alcohol, caustic and soaps have been removed. Sure, it can be refined. But think about this for a moment: The original question is how do I get rid of the glycerin (in a principled manner). Even if the production of glycerol is sufficient to warrant tens of thousands of dollars on refining equipment to get 99.9% pure glycerol, the glycerol still needs to be gotten rid of. One still has to have the glycerol analyzed on a regular basis to guarantee whatever certification is sought, carry liability insurance for this product and develop a clientele that will consume the product as fast as it's produced at a price that justify the expenditures. And all that still does virtually nothing to help the little guy and probably not even producers of as much as 300 gallons of biodiesel day (~8,650 gallons of ~95% glycerol each year). Frankly it's also quite possible that
[biofuel] Re: Biogas and glycerin - was To Chris problems sep. glycerine
Discussing the glycerol disposal 'problem' in class this weekend, we also wondered if it could be used to lubricate forms for pouring cement. I believe I was told that this is sometimes done commercially (I've never seen it myself) with purchased glycerine. This seems like a much better way to get rid of a huge quantity of the stuff than soapmaking for instance. Any ideas, anyone? I'd acidulate it first if I tried it. mark --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, pan ruti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello , dear and respected KEITH and TODD Well Thank you all, bringing the composting or biodigestion problems of cock tails or purified glycerin.I am pesonaly against treating glycerin as waste, but need to be treated as raw material for making soap, making polishing adhesivos pastes with glycerinated starch, cosmetics formulations after simple seperations outlined by Keith . These are possible to arrive at local market before thinking of disposal as waste . Our biofuel group need to also have think of bioproducts as future vision. Thus this liquid waste can be the raw material for the production of hih value biosurfactant and high valued yeast products Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] 'tailgate titration' 101 and DIY balance scale Re: First attempt,
Here are some Titration 101 instructions that I wrote in response to an SVO'er asking about free fatty acids content and how to look for it. Since I was talking to someone who was NOT going to make biodiesel but was instead going to use straight vegetable oil, this was very crude and simple equipment recommendatinos. but they're fine for making your first liter batches and doing your first titration if you don't yet have better equipment. If you make biodiesel, just be careful with your mesaurements, but the equipment advice is all the same: Tailgate Titration 101: I do a titration when I drive around looking for oil to dumpster-dive in an unfamiliar city. Or better yet, when I bike around first to scope out the oil dumpsters. That way I don' t haul home 40 gallons of high-ffa oil and find myself disappointed that it was the bad stuff. It's easier than it probably sounds, and takes about 1 minute once you have all your materials organized. I have a 'titration kit' in a small toolbox that keeps it organized. The titration is cheap no matter what you do, normally the expense is in lab glassware. Fortunately for a really crude titration you need gear that only costs a few dollars at the drug store (assuming you're in a country that calls it dollars and drug store!) get: -jug of distilled water ($1), -a can of 100% lye (Red Devil drain opener in the US, nothing like 'Liquid drano, New improved recipe, or 'crystal foaming' nothing- has to be 100%, dry lye). you'll only use 1/510 of this can, so just beg some from your biodieseler friend if you have the choice! keep it tightly sealed. ($4.50/ a 510-gram can here) -two eyedroppers graduated in 1 milliliter fractions, or some equivalent device- a syringe, a pipette, etc.. I suggest using one eyedropper and one syringe, so that you don't mix up the one you use for oil and the one you use for your lye/water reference tester. Both eyedroppers and syringe bodies are under $2 at the 'giving medicine to babies' section of the drugstore, so don't worry, you don't have to scare the pharmacist asking for syringes that could be used for IV drugs or whatever. -a little bottle of phenol red from the pool/spa/hot tub supply store or hardware store. This is good enough for a crude rough titration. Better yet for actual biodiesel making, get phenolpthaleine, or a pH meter, or pH strips. But the phenol red is $1.50 a bottle and the phenolpthaleine or pH strips is more like $14 sometimes. Phenol red and most of the other stuff has a liimited shelf life and gives less accurate results after a while and if broken down by sunlight. Usually when it fails it first starts to give a much fainter color which is your indication to replace the bottle. Dig deep and spend another dollar fifty. -isopropyl rubbing alcohol, preferably 99% pure. It is more common in 70%, but if you look around you can find at least 91%. It'll even work with 70%, but isn't as accurate. -some way to measure 1 liter. I used a Nalgene sports drinking water bottle once, it should be easier for y'all in Metric using countries. -some way to measure 10 mililiters/ this could also be another syringe body from a drug store. -a small jam jar to use as your titration vessel -a well-labeled bottle that seals tightly to store 1 liter of lye/water reference tester in. -a way to measure 1 gram of lye accurately, just one time for making your reference tester solution. Ask your kids' science teacher... or make the Paper Cup Balance Beam (*see below) -a second little jar to dispense your lye/water into, so that you never have to dip your eyedropper into your clean liter of reference tester. tips: Any of the 1 ml or 10 ml measuring devices are much more accurate the thinner they are. So don't use your 250 ml graduated cylinder to try and measure out 10 ml. Also, don't try and draw up 1 ml only into an eyedropper and then squeeze like hell trying to get all the liquid out- it's more accurate to draw up 2 ml and then dispense out 1 ml of that. the process: First time you do this, make a reference tester by dissolving 1 gram of lye in 1 liter of water. Store tightly capped, you'll use this liter for months and don't want to contaminate it. -When you're ready to do a titration, pour out some reference tester into the lye/water jar so that you don' t have to dip into or knock over and spill the main liter of it. -Measure out 10 ml of isopropyl, and add to titration vessel (a small jar) -Measure 1 ml of oil into this titration vessel. Swirl the stuff around until the oil dissolves. It'll be harder in 70% than in 99%, and it'll be harder in cold weather than at warm temperatures. It should be milky and not have little beads of oil in the bottom of the jar. -add 2 or three drops of phenol red or phenolpthalein. The exact amount doesn' t matter. Swirl and look at color. It'll probably be yellowish. Then start adding with the second eyedropper/pipette, a
Re: [biofuel] The Hydrogen hype, the scam artists at work.
An other part of my article, Nuclear energy. Before we get into a discussion and evaluation of nuclear energy, I like to make my own position clear on this. I am against nuclear power. Not because any technical reason, but because I do not belive that any Nation can be trusted regarding nuclear weapons. When I say any, I mean any and without exceptions. This is not because I learned more about nuclear technology, but because I learned more about humanity. The only Nation that used nuclear bombs, have with the DU munition already proven that they could not refrain from using it in weapon technology again. The EU tried to do a cost evaluation of different energy sources, including the social costs of pollution etc. This cost exercise did not include accident costs since this would be a very elaborate and almost impossible calculation. A very interesting exercise that clearly show a very high cost for fossil oil products and nuclear end up to be a cheap fossil electricity source. Solar, wind and biofuels also come out as very economical , due to its lower social costs. We have somewhat more experiences than others of nuclear power plants. In the beginning of the 1970's, Theodore Rosenthal (co founder of Energy Saving Now web site) and I had the task to provide and manage an engineering group who did the piping stress control calculations on the two last built nuclear power plants in Sweden. It has been generally regarded as safe, from weapon point of view, to allow one stage nuclear power plants, although this idea have been challenged lately. If everybody was using only one stage power plants, the R/P value for nuclear resources is around 60 years. I can therefore see the commercial temptations of having two classes of users of nuclear power plants. The first being the one stage group and the second the trusted multistage group. The second one would then have an abundance of energy resources in what the first group consider as a nuclear waste problem. They would even be willing to pay to get it solved. Using multi stage technology will of course extend the R/P value with several multiples. If we want to be joking in a cynical way (black humor), we could see the DU munition as a disposal system, whereby the first group get back their refined nuclear waste. Hakan [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Biodiesel conversion for boilers
Kent, B-100 will run with no conversion in distillate fuel oil and waste motor oil fired boilers. Todd Swearingen - Original Message - From: essentialkent [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 8:20 PM Subject: [biofuel] Biodiesel conversion for boilers Hello, Just joined the group. My name is Kent McKay, and I am a distiller of organic essential oils in Costa RIca and Canada. I also build stills for other eco based projects and have been asked to put a quote together for a Mayan community still in Guatemala. They are interested in using biodiesel for the boiler. Guatemala apparently has quite a movement in biodiesel. I have some exposure to the use of biodiesel as I work with permaculture projects and have seen different bus conversions, but no experience with boiler conversions. Have searched the archives a bit here, and have seen some discussions back in 2001 in the group. Searching the web has been somewhat frustrating on an info level for boilers. Does anyone have knowledge of a company I could contact for professional conversion, or any boiler manufactuers that are now able to provide this conversion with their equipment?? Any leads would be most helpful and appreciated to try and get this worthwile project of the ground. Thanks in advance Kent Essential Aura Aromatics Artisan Distillers of Organic Essential Oils http://www.essentialaura.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Re: Touchless process vessels, do you need to clean
The guy who built that one stopped using it for washing, and started using a separate wash tank like the rest of us do. He had trouble getting rid of all the water after washing, and otherwise decided that he was trying to do too many things in one machine. Otherwise it's a good design! mark --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Stanley Baer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Another question, this time about Touchless Processors I have read about on the web. If you use a process vessel such as an old hot water tank how do you clean it between the process stage anf the wash stage? stan Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Re: Source for Sulfuric Acid?
I have bought some from places like Home Depot as sulfuric acid drain cleaner. It comes in a variety of purities, and it's hard to know exactly what you got. It's in a quart bottle for $7. I have made two- stage acid base with it and have had some OK results and some not-so- OK results. I used titration after (and during) the acid stage and that made it possible to know when it wasn't 'working' as well as expected, which is a fixable problem (fixed by using more lye in the base stage in my case). You're better off with sulfuric of known purity, but I certainly have had it work out sorta allright with Bull Dozer drain cleaner and another brand. mark --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does any one know where I can get small quantities of sulfuric acid in the Southeast U.S.? I live in Tallahassee Florida. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Nuclear energy.
An other part of my article, Nuclear energy. Before we get into a discussion and evaluation of nuclear energy, I like to make my own position clear on this. I am against nuclear power. Not because any technical reason, but because I do not belive that any Nation can be trusted regarding nuclear weapons. When I say any, I mean any and without exceptions. This is not because I learned more about nuclear technology, but because I learned more about humanity. The only Nation that used nuclear bombs, have with the DU munition already proven that they could not refrain from using it in weapon technology again. The EU tried to do a cost evaluation of different energy sources, including the social costs of pollution etc. This cost exercise did not include accident costs since this would be a very elaborate and almost impossible calculation. A very interesting exercise that clearly show a very high cost for fossil oil products and nuclear end up to be a cheap fossil electricity source. Solar, wind and biofuels also come out as very economical , due to its lower social costs. We have somewhat more experiences than others of nuclear power plants. In the beginning of the 1970's, Theodore Rosenthal (co founder of Energy Saving Now web site) and I had the task to provide and manage an engineering group who did the piping stress control calculations on the two last built nuclear power plants in Sweden. It has been generally regarded as safe, from weapon point of view, to allow one stage nuclear power plants, although this idea have been challenged lately. If everybody was using only one stage power plants, the R/P value for nuclear resources is around 60 years. I can therefore see the commercial temptations of having two classes of users of nuclear power plants. The first being the one stage group and the second the trusted multistage group. The second one would then have an abundance of energy resources in what the first group consider as a nuclear waste problem. They would even be willing to pay to get it solved. Using multi stage technology will of course extend the R/P value with several multiples. If we want to be joking in a cynical way (black humor), we could see the DU munition as a disposal system, whereby the first group get back their refined nuclear waste. Hakan [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] No need for conservation?
Tim, Your original question was Do these simple numbers look right.? But your premise was peppered with numerous areas where no consideration was given. And now, rather than adapting some of those responses to your premise and recalculating, you would prefer to modify or elaborate upon the original question and attempt to discount some of the largest variables that you didn't include in your calculations in the first place? How is it that you expect to be a change agent but would prefer to work under the present day constrictions of the dominant paradigm - ignoring all things obvious and laying directly within your grasp, if not already in application? Simply? Some of your arguments are a bit bogus. Sunflower, soy and other oilseed meal is food, as easily processed to human grade as animal. Approximately 42 pounds of every 60 pound bushel of soy is solid food, every bit as edible, even more nutitious, with every bit as unique and enjoyable a taste as wheat, oat, corn, rice or potato flour. But you would wrongly down grade and then discount billions of pounds of a food supply simply because it may need to be refined, no matter that every other flour and meal in the world is also refined? Your question revolved around food production. So did the answer. And then there's this: There are, and have been for years, many small farm cooperatives a la http://www.csacenter.org/index.html people can participate in, but THEY DON'T. That's absolutely incorrect. They do work, for those people with backbone and savvy enough to work, rather than plumping up in front of the boob tube eating chips and swilling beer. You cannot accurately assess failure on a food supply system and discount the land mass associated with it simply because people are too foolish or lazy to capitalize on them. The system and resources exist, even if more dormant than preferred. Commercially farmed land is not the only arable land on the face of the earth. (Give people the first opportunity to start going hungry and you'll see just exactly how quickly and universally such systems do work.) And your side bar on barbed wire? What does that have to do with sufficient food production to feed a global population? Barbed wire doesn't keep keep the first deer, rabbit or whistle pig in or out of a garden or field. Nor does it affect your original or modified premise. It's meant to control the roaming nature of large ruminants, which oddly enough happen to be one of the biggest consumers of global food supply, ergo tieing up unimaginably enormous amounts of land, in turn giving even greater falseness to a treatise that there isn't enough land to produce fuel and food - that the world can have one or the other but not both. Civilized societies don't want to give up their beef, or at least modify their intake of meat and dairy? Fine. Then maybe each person who so chooses should be forced to witness morning noon and night the writhing misery of the 10-12 starving children who could have lived quite well off the grains and other food resources that went into that steady diet of oppulence and excess. Shackle their hands to a post and force them to gnaw through their own wrists to get away if they don't like the extended reaility of their choices once set before them. What is a bit odd with some of your counter arguments is that on the one hand you intimate that change is necessary in order for beneficial change to occur. Yet on the other hand the appearance is that you would like for there to be beneficial change without changing anything (or some things). Perhaps the most revealing reality in the matter and what is found in your juxtapositioning can be summed up as In order for beneficial change to occur, people need to feel as if no change has taken place. That's not a problem. Todd Swearingen - Original Message - From: Tim Castleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 11:02 PM Subject: [biofuel] No need for conservation? First off, many thanks for the correction on the capacity of a barrel, which in fact could be anywhere from 31 to 42 gallons liquid, but then even that actual amount could change somewhat if we consider Imperial gallons rather than US. There is a variety of barrels established by law or usage. For example, federal taxes on fermented liquors are based on a barrel of 31 gallons; many state laws fix the barrel for liquids at 31 ¸ gallons; one state fixes a 36 gallon barrel for cistern measurement; federal law recognizes a 40-gallon barrel for proof spirits; by custom, 42 gallons comprise a barrel of crude oil or petroleum products for statistical purposes, and this equivalent is recognized for liquids by four states. ( http://www.apparelsearch.com/capacity_volume.htm ) However, other than pointing out my error, that contribution doesn't do much to help answer the question, which was, do we have enough farmland to produce enough biofuel, without reducing
[biofuel] Re: Source for Sulfuric Acid? and Merk chemical database
Hello Mark. You wrote about sulfuric acid sulfuric acid drain cleaner. It comes in a variety of purities, and it's hard to know exactly what you got. The concentration of the sulfuric acid could be determinated in a symple way using its density. A volumetric flask, a single decimal balance and a calculator will do the job or for a fast response, an specific gravity hydrometer graduated for the range you are intersted in and a themometer, they are cheaper and safer to avoid any dangerous drop. Tritation will tells you about its concentration as well. Some density and concentration from Merk of the shelf reagens: Density Concentration Merck article number 1.18 Kg/litre = 25%100716 1.30 Kg/litre = 40% 209286 1.82 Kg/litre = 90-91%100729 1.84 Kg/litre = 96% 100714 Sulfuric acid fuming with 30% SO3 for sulfonation synthesis 1.94 Kg/litre = over 100% 100721 96 - 98% is the range of maximun concentrations normally abailable. Lots of physical and chemical data on Merck products at: http://www.merck.de http://www.chemdat.de They also provide free of charge (gratis) the ChemDAT - The Merck Chemical Database - on CD-ROM, full of usefull data on physical, chemical, safety, toxicological, prices, etc. I got mine recently.(it sounds like I were a salesman from that company, but I am not). Regards Juan -Mensaje original- De: girl_mark_fire [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Enviado el: Martes 1 de Julio de 2003 09:12 AM Para: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Asunto: [biofuel] Re: Source for Sulfuric Acid? I have bought some from places like Home Depot as sulfuric acid drain cleaner. It comes in a variety of purities, and it's hard to know exactly what you got. It's in a quart bottle for $7. I have made two- stage acid base with it and have had some OK results and some not-so- OK results. I used titration after (and during) the acid stage and that made it possible to know when it wasn't 'working' as well as expected, which is a fixable problem (fixed by using more lye in the base stage in my case). You're better off with sulfuric of known purity, but I certainly have had it work out sorta allright with Bull Dozer drain cleaner and another brand. mark --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Mark [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does any one know where I can get small quantities of sulfuric acid in the Southeast U.S.? I live in Tallahassee Florida. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Biodiesel conversion for boilers
Hi Kent- Oil-fired boilers use pressure-atomizing burners with high pressure pumps. These pumps have rubber seals. Those rubber seals will likely eventually leak with 100% biodiesel. We have seen this with 3 pumps on our home heating oil furnace. The seal leaking might not be a problem depending on the type of burner. With our Riello burner it was---it still slightly drips from the shaft seal, but fortunately, the Riello shaft doesn't connect directly to the fan as older burners did, so at least the dripping doesn't hit the fan and blow all over the air tube and turbulator. Our main problem was nozzle drip due to the biodiesel eroding the pump stop seal or thermal expansion or whateverwe reduced this somewhat by retrofitting a drip slide so this drippage would be carried away to the bottom of the turbulator and not blown into it and caking on its face. Finally, by installing a Hago EcoValve and Nozzle, we've eliminated the dripping problem. Finally, low-temps (50deg in our case) increase the viscosity of the biodiesel and were causing failed heater starts, or sporatic ones. You shouldn't have that problem in Costa Rica. We finally decided to go with a 50/50 biodiesel blend on our oil heating system fuel to make it so we don't need to worry about failed cold starts. On a boat here in Portland, we've been successfully burning 100% biodiesel in an oil-fired industrial 200psi Bryan boiler. No problems over the past couple years so far---might be nozzle drip or seal leakage, but we haven't checked and haven't had any burning problems. In case this helps- -Myles Twete, Portland, Or. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Re: Source for Sulfuric Acid? and Merk chemical database
Thank you very much for this suggestion, Juan! mark --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Juan Boveda [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello Mark. The concentration of the sulfuric acid could be determinated in a symple way using its density. A volumetric flask, a single decimal balance and a calculator will do the job or for a fast response, an specific gravity hydrometer graduated for the range you are intersted in and a themometer, they are cheaper and safer to avoid any dangerous drop. Tritation will tells you about its . Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] The Hydrogen hype, the scam artists at work.
Darryl McMahon wrote: Still late, but gaining. robert luis rabello wrote: The ugly secret of electric vehicles is that battery replacement is roughly equivalent to the fuel cost of a comparable gasoline model over a three or four year period of time. (This I discovered by comparing the battery replacement costs of an electric Mazda B 2000, which is essentially the same truck I own, after having a long talk with its owner.) Well, amongst EVers, this is no secret. The rule of thumb for lead-acid batteries is that the cost of battery depreciation/replacement plus electricity will roughly equal the cost of gasoline at Cdn$0.70/liter for the same mileage covered over the life of the battery pack. Yes, that's about right. Gasoline has been slightly cheaper than this now that my country has stopped dropping bombs on Iraq, but I also know a place where I can get traction batteries for a fairly good price. Battery costs are higher than the electricity costs. YMMV. Savings to be had in the EV are in maintenance avoided due to the simpler and more reliable power system. Reliable figures are not in yet for other battery chemistries in on-road EVs, although NiZn appears to be more economical over their life-cycle, but have a significantly higher initial price. Ditto for NiCd and NiMH. Maintenance is not really that expensive for automobile engines anymore. Aside from the occasional oil and filter change, the rest of what we used to replace regularly (spark plugs, wires, air filters, etc.) will easily last as long as the battery pack on a well used EV. I don't dispute your contention that the power train on an EV is simpler. For some of us who remain in the dark ages of internal combustion, the control electronics for EVs are pretty scary! This does not include any costs associated with replacing parts to avoid hydrogen embrittlement in the engine or fuel delivery system. Are the NG tanks, regulators and injectors rated for long-term exposure to hydrogen? Embrittlement isn't as big a problem as some people make it out to be. Ferrous metals will embrittle with long term exposure to hydrogen at pressures exceeding 3 000 psi. Even in a natural gas style conversion, the only items that see that kind of pressure are the fuel tanks, and these are generally NOT made of ferrous metals, and the pressure regulators. As for the regulators, the high side of the initial (there should be two!) pressure regulator is designed to handle this problem. I know of steel cylinders from the turn of the last century that have handled hydrogen at pressures exceeding 1 000 psi with no problems. robert luis rabello The Edge of Justice Adventure for Your Mind http://www.1stbooks.com/bookview/9782 Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[biofuel] Energy Bill Bankrupts Our Future
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16226 Energy Bill Bankrupts Our Future By Charles Sheehan-Miles, AlterNet June 23, 2003 In what may be the worst piece of legislation the Senate has passed in decades (and they've had some whoppers), the Senate voted last week for a huge corporate boondoggle that will not only help bankrupt our country, but will guarantee long-term environmental damage, a rise in cancer rates and thousands of years of monitoring of toxic and radioactive waste. They did this without a single public hearing, without a debate, and without much of a conscience. The energy bill is a major attack on our country and our world's future. First, it authorizes the spending of taxpayer dollars to help build six or more new nuclear reactors - reactors that the utilities couldn't afford to build on their own. The utilities and proponents of nuclear power would have us believe that per megawatt, nuclear power is both the cheapest and the cleanest form of energy available. In fact, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the last five commercial reactors cost 11 times as much to build per kilowatt as natural gas plants. Furthermore, they aren't at all responsible for the cost of long-term storage of the nuclear waste they create - waste that will have to be stored, monitored and maintained for the next 100,000 years. Mind-boggling, considering that all of recorded human history is only a fraction of that time. Imagine your reaction if your annual tax bill carried a surcharge to maintain toxic waste left behind by Ptolemy II and Nebuchadnezzar. Worse, the bill indefinitely extends the Price-Anderson Act, passing on the liability for accidents at nuclear plants to the very people who will suffer the consequences - you and me. George Woodwell, one of the preeminent scientists in America today, recently pointed out that if it weren't for Price-Anderson, there wouldn't be a single commercial nuclear reactor in the U.S., because they couldn't afford the insurance. As it stands, reactor operators are required to carry $200 million of liability coverage per reactor; damages beyond that amount are passed on to the taxpayer. Ironically, in a 1992 study by Sandia National Labs, commissioned in the wake of the Three Mile Island near-meltdown, the cost of damage from a single nuclear accident is estimated to range as high as $560 billion in current articles. Who pays? We do. But that's not all. Behind curtain number three is a pilot pebble bed nuclear reactor. The utilities call pebble bed reactors inherently safe, because if they loose their coolant, they don't melt down. In fact, say the utilities, they are so safe that the engineers don't believe they need containment structures. Of course, if the graphite coatings on the pebbles are exposed to, say, oxygen, they'll catch on fire, which is precisely what caused most of the radiation exposure from Chernobyl. But don't worry, say the utilities - it's inherently safe. If so, why do taxpayers need to substantially bear the burden of liability in case of accidents? Let's not forget that if the 9/11 hijackers had taken a detour and crashed into the Indian Point cooling pool (they flew right over it), they would likely have killed 100,000 people instead of 3,000 if the wind was blowing in the right direction. Outraged yet? Keep reading. The bill, which must seem like a godsend to the utilities, authorizes the pilot construction of a nuclear plant to produce hydrogen for fuel cells. Forget that we can produce hydrogen with wind power at almost no cost; instead, the Bush Administration has in store a plan to build hundreds of nuclear plants to produce hydrogen. We'll have clean power for our cars, at the price of hundreds of millions of tons of nuclear waste spread all over the country. How helpful is that? In fact, this plan is simply a backdoor to build more nuclear plants while they posture at being environmentally friendly. This isn't just about us. It's about our children, and their children, going forward to all future generations. For some perspective, Julius Caesar was assassinated by disgruntled senators a mere 2,000 years ago. By law, we have to maintain and protect the waste produced by these plants for fifty times that. The entire sweep of human history pales in comparison to the time this stuff will be around, leaking into the environment, causing cancer and birth defects and possibly extinction. It won't reach its peak radioactivity for another 100,000 years. I hope those campaign contributions from the energy companies make the Senators who voted for this bill feel better, because countless future generations will be cursing them, giving this Senate its own brand of immortality. It's not a legacy I'd want to live with. Charles Sheehan-Miles is executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute and the author of Prayer at Rumayla: A Novel of the
[biofuel] The Broken Promise of Bill Ford Jr.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16237 The Broken Promise of Bill Ford Jr. By Russell Long, AlterNet June 24, 2003 The honeymoon between environmentalists and Bill Ford Jr., the CEO of Ford Motor Company, just ended in a head-on collision. It was only three years ago that Mr. Ford pledged to increase the fuel mileage of Ford's SUV fleet by 25 percent. He garnered praise across the nation for his courageous acknowledgement of the auto industry's role in elevating greenhouse gases, and for his commitment to protecting the earth's fragile ecosystem. Not to be outdone, General Motors and the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler promised to match or exceed Ford in fuel mileage gains. Reduced fuel use from these voluntary pledges would have saved the nation three billion barrels of oil in the next few decades, potentially more than the extractable reserves in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. The media attention this garnered for the Ivy-educated, guitar-strumming great-grandson of the inventor of the Model T was well deserved. Environmentalists were dizzy with glee - it was a great start toward reducing the nation's oil addiction. Conservatives pointed to this as an example of how corporate America could solve the country's environmental problems without governmental regulations. Mr. Ford celebrated the company's 100th anniversary in Detroit last weekend. But there wasn't much to celebrate. Like other auto companies, profits are poor and executives are having trouble selling cars even with zero interest loans. Greenhouse gas pollution and smog from Ford vehicles, which threatens public health, are at an all-time high. And environmentalists, who only recently had been laudatory of Mr. Ford, were hanging banners and demonstrating against his company. How did this happen? The eco-friendly perception of Mr. Ford began to change last summer, when as part of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, he threatened to sue California over the nation's first-ever legislation to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. He damaged himself further when he personally lobbied Congress against increasing vehicle fuel mileage standards, and when he later reneged on his historic pledge to voluntarily increase the fuel mileage of Ford SUVs. With these actions, the environmental community began to see him not as a self-professed corporate steward of the nation's environment, but as just another swift-talking Detroit pitchman - one with a flair for eco-rhetoric - trumping up excuses to shirk his global environmental responsibilities. Ford blamed breaking the pledge on technological delays and a failure to obtain tax credits for hybrid vehicles in Congress, and spokespeople refused to make any further commitments. Even worse, backing off removed any obligation for the world's first and third largest automakers, General Motors and the Chrysler division, to reduce their own emissions. Industry insiders argue that Mr. Ford shouldn't have stuck his neck out in the first place, especially in a weak economy. But the fact is this - if the Big Three lobbied Congress to increase, rather than decrease fuel mileage, Ford, DaimlerChrysler and GM could improve mileage on a level field against each other and their Japanese counterparts without financial harm. Japanese vehicles are now almost as big as Detroit's, so the argument about losing jobs to Japan is moot. Furthermore, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists demonstrates that SUV mileage can be virtually doubled (from 16 to 29 mpg), without increasing the lifetime cost of the vehicle. Equally safe, higher mileage SUVs would cost about $900 more in the showroom but over 10 years, would save consumers $3,100 in fuel. So even in a weak economy, improved fuel mileage standards shouldn't harm automotive profits. Mr. Ford has long decried the traditional adversarial approach taken by the auto industry and the environmental community. The answer is this - if he is sincere about his environmental commitment, he should lock himself in a room with key environmental leaders, and together map out a creative plan that will over the long-term protect the health of the planet and Ford. As the study by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows, they're not incompatible. Russell Long, the executive director of Bluewater Network, conceived and drafted the California global warming law, which his organization sponsored, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from passenger vehicles. Last week, Bluewater Network launched a national pledge drive to boycott Ford until the company builds cleaner vehicles. Take the pledge at www.bluewaternetwork.org. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM
[biofuel] Downsizing in Disguise
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030623s=klein column | Posted June 5, 2003 LOOKOUT by Naomi Klein Downsizing in Disguise The streets of Baghdad are a swamp of crime and uncollected garbage. Battered local businesses are going bankrupt, unable to compete with cheap imports. Unemployment is soaring and thousands of laid-off state workers are protesting in the streets. In other words, Iraq looks like every other country that has undergone rapid-fire structural adjustments prescribed by Washington, from Russia's infamous shock therapy in the early 1990s to Argentina's disastrous surgery without anesthetic. Except that Iraq's reconstruction makes those wrenching reforms look like spa treatments. Paul Bremer, the US-appointed governor of Iraq, has already proved something of a flop in the democracy department in his few weeks there, nixing plans for Iraqis to select their own interim government in favor of his own handpicked team of advisers. But Bremer has proved to have something of a gift when it comes to rolling out the red carpet for US multinationals. For a few weeks Bremer has been hacking away at Iraq's public sector like former Sunbeam exec Chainsaw Al Dunlap in a flak jacket. On May 16 Bremer banned up to 30,000 senior Baath Party officials from government jobs. A week later, he dissolved the army and the information ministry, putting more than 400,000 Iraqis out of work without pensions or re-employment programs. Of course, if Saddam Hussein's henchmen and propagandists held on to power in Iraq it would be a human rights disaster. De-Baathification, as the purging of party officials has come to be called, may be the only way to prevent a comeback by Saddam's crew--and the only silver lining of George Bush's illegal war. But Bremer has gone far beyond purging powerful Baath loyalists and moved into a full-scale assault on the state itself. Doctors who joined the party as children and have no love for Saddam face dismissal, while low-level civil servants with no ties to the party have been fired en masse. Nuha Najeeb, who ran a Baghdad printing house, told Reuters, I...had nothing to do with Saddam's media, so why am I sacked? As the Bush Administration becomes increasingly open about its plans to privatize Iraq's state industries and parts of the government, Bremer's de-Baathification takes on new meaning. Is he working only to get rid of Baath Party members, or is he also working to shrink the public sector as a whole so that hospitals, schools and even the army are primed for privatization by US firms? Just as reconstruction is the guise for privatization, de-Baathification looks a lot like disguised downsizing. Similar questions arise from Bremer's chainsaw job on Iraqi companies, already pummeled by almost thirteen years of sanctions and two months of looting. Bremer didn't even wait to get the lights back on in Baghdad, for the dinar to stabilize or for the spare parts to arrive for Iraq's hobbled factories before he declared on May 26 that Iraq was open for business. Duty-free imported TVs and packaged food flooded across the border, pushing many stressed Iraqi businesses, unable to compete, into bankruptcy. This is how Iraq joined the global free market: in the dark. Paul Bremer is, according to Bush, a can-do type of person. Indeed he is. In less than a month he has readied large swaths of state activity for corporate takeover, primed the Iraqi market for foreign importers to make a killing by eliminating much of the local competition and made sure there won't be any unpleasant Iraqi government interference--in fact, he's made sure there will be no Iraqi government at all while key economic decisions are made. Bremer is Iraq's one-man IMF. Like so many Bush foreign policy players, Bremer sees war as a business opportunity. On October 11, 2001, just one month after the terror attacks in New York and Washington, Bremer, once Ronald Reagan's Ambassador at Large for counterterrorism, launched a company designed to capitalize on the new atmosphere of fear in US corporate boardrooms. Crisis Consulting Practice, a division of insurance giant Marsh McLennan, specializes in helping multinationals come up with integrated and comprehensive crisis solutions for everything from terror attacks to accounting fraud. Thanks to a strategic alliance with Versar, which specializes in biological and chemical threats, clients of the two companies are treated to total counterterrorism services. To sell this sort of high-priced protection to US firms, Bremer had to make the kinds of frank links between terrorism and the failing global economy that activists are called lunatics for articulating. In a November 2001 policy paper titled New Risks in International Business, he explains that free-trade policies require laying off workers. And opening markets to foreign trade puts enormous pressure on traditional retailers and trade
[biofuel] Re: The Broken Promise of Bill Ford Jr.
On Wed, 2 Jul 2003 01:24:21 +0900, you wrote: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16237 The Broken Promise of Bill Ford Jr. By Russell Long, AlterNet June 24, 2003 The honeymoon between environmentalists and Bill Ford Jr., the CEO of Ford Motor Company, just ended in a head-on collision. It was only three years ago that Mr. Ford pledged to increase the fuel mileage of Ford's SUV fleet by 25 percent. At the time, I did the math and I thought this 25% pledge pretty much fit in with the bare minimum they'd be required to meet under CAFE's schedule. Bill Ford's pledges to better mileage are meaningless, and have been for years. With his false promises he has bought the company valuable time so that they weren't spoken of as badly as GM. The only thing GM did worse was rip the EV1s out of the hands of owners, but in order to do that they had to produce the EV1 in the first place, something Ford never did. Bill and his company have played the PR game admirably. I notice that the Ford Think City EV is not even mentioned in this article, though Ford needlessly cancelled it. It may not have been an EV1, but it seems to have been well-regarded by some who leased it. Ford seemed to make every effort to make the program fail, even though many dealers reported some enthusiastic response. Ford would have closed the factory costing jobs, instead of selling the company, if we hadn't raised such a stink throughout California and elsewhere. Many of us had to donate a lot of time and effort. I see no mention, anywhere, of including EVs in fleet-wide mileage calculations, even though they can get utterly superb mileage. A pity. If a small percentage of highway capable vehicles worldwide were EVs, we might get a lower use of energy, overall, and build some momentum toward a diversity in the sourcing of energy for transportation. Yet, none of the CAFE debates have ever seemed to involve any mention of EVs, and no supposed effort at better Detroit Fuel Economy seems to take into account the superb mileage of them. MM He garnered praise across the nation for his courageous acknowledgement of the auto industry's role in elevating greenhouse gases, and for his commitment to protecting the earth's fragile ecosystem. Not to be outdone, General Motors and the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler promised to match or exceed Ford in fuel mileage gains. Reduced fuel use from these voluntary pledges would have saved the nation three billion barrels of oil in the next few decades, potentially more than the extractable reserves in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. The media attention this garnered for the Ivy-educated, guitar-strumming great-grandson of the inventor of the Model T was well deserved. Environmentalists were dizzy with glee - it was a great start toward reducing the nation's oil addiction. Conservatives pointed to this as an example of how corporate America could solve the country's environmental problems without governmental regulations. Mr. Ford celebrated the company's 100th anniversary in Detroit last weekend. But there wasn't much to celebrate. Like other auto companies, profits are poor and executives are having trouble selling cars even with zero interest loans. Greenhouse gas pollution and smog from Ford vehicles, which threatens public health, are at an all-time high. And environmentalists, who only recently had been laudatory of Mr. Ford, were hanging banners and demonstrating against his company. How did this happen? The eco-friendly perception of Mr. Ford began to change last summer, when as part of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, he threatened to sue California over the nation's first-ever legislation to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions. He damaged himself further when he personally lobbied Congress against increasing vehicle fuel mileage standards, and when he later reneged on his historic pledge to voluntarily increase the fuel mileage of Ford SUVs. With these actions, the environmental community began to see him not as a self-professed corporate steward of the nation's environment, but as just another swift-talking Detroit pitchman - one with a flair for eco-rhetoric - trumping up excuses to shirk his global environmental responsibilities. Ford blamed breaking the pledge on technological delays and a failure to obtain tax credits for hybrid vehicles in Congress, and spokespeople refused to make any further commitments. Even worse, backing off removed any obligation for the world's first and third largest automakers, General Motors and the Chrysler division, to reduce their own emissions. Industry insiders argue that Mr. Ford shouldn't have stuck his neck out in the first place, especially in a weak economy. But the fact is this - if the Big Three lobbied Congress to increase, rather than decrease fuel mileage, Ford, DaimlerChrysler and GM could improve mileage on a level field against each other and their
[biofuel] (fwd) Press Release: The Air Car is one step closer
This press release came in email. I am not endorsing it or something (I think several important criticisms could be made of this company), just passing it along to those who might find it of interest. The original html was harder to pass along, so, here is the text. --- Dear Friend, As someone interested(*) in MDI's new compressed-air motor technology, we are sending you an advance copy of the press release that we are transmitting to journalists and media across the world. It will include the latest news of this zero-pollution, compressed-air engine and of MDI's recent success in international markets. We look forward to your continued interest and thank you for your attention so far. Kindest regards, Miguel Celades Rex Official Representative for MDI in Spain, Portugal, Latin America, United Kingdom and Canada PRESS RELEASE THE AIR CAR IS ONE STEP CLOSER ANOTHER PRODUCTION LICENCE FOR MDI'S AIR CAR HAS BEEN SIGNED A production license for MDI's compressed-air vehicles has recently been signed in Nice, for markets in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Panama. The signatory, MDI Andina S.A is a group of business entities from the Columbian private and public sector. After a thorough examination of the technical and financial aspects of MDI's business, the new associates travelled to Spain to meet MDI's existing licensees. Representatives of MDI Andina S.A. met official representatives of MDI management in Barcelona to negotiate the contract, then travelled to France to sign the agreement. With this additional sale there are now 50 fabrication and distribution licenses signed in the world, from a total of 400 available. Some of the countries that have signed agreemen ts include France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, New Zealand, Israel, South Africa, etc. As fees for production rights are the only source of financing for the inventor, Mr. Guy Ngre, this new contract, worth almost 10 million Euros, is another major step in bringing MDI's Zero Pollution car closer to production. TWO YEARS DELAY The question we are most frequently asked online at www.TheAirCar.com, is When will your car be on the street?. Although a number dates have been released to the media in the past, the programme required some more time to complete. Developing and productionising automobiles is at best a complex, expensive and time consuming exercise. Guy Negre and his team of dedicated engineers have effectively reinvented the wheel wit hin the last 5 years and with the development and introduction of all of this ground breaking and new technology, some delays were inevitable. Starting factory production of cars that are based on a major technological advance is not easy, and has been made still harder by lack of external financing. So far, the institutions MDI has presented this project to were unprepared to invest in the initial phase of development, while showing great interest in doing so once a car was on the road. Delay in developing this technology has resulted largely from lack of public investment, which has compelled MDI to turn to private investors. Despite this, the project has made considerable commercial and technological progress. The technology has been shown in London, with the support of the Department of the Environment, and in Sao Paulo, to an audience of over 600. Negotiations are now taking place with investors from all five continents. The first production plant in France is now complete and Guy Ngre's latest model, the MultiCAT's, applies the technology in a new direction: commercial and public service vehicles for public and freight transportatio n. NEW MODELS, NEW APPLICATIONS: The MiniCAT's prototype is featured in the latest edition of the 'Salon Mondial de l'Automobile Paris 2002'. This model is as ecologically sound as its predecessors and has equally low fuel consumption; one tank of air is enough for 200 km, at a cost of only 2 Euro. Like its sister vehicles, the MiniCAT's emits only clean air at a temperature of -20¼C. A main innovation is that with 2.65 meters in length, and with a three seat configuration (the driver is in the center) the boot is as capacious as a conventional family saloon. Guy Ngre has also designed a dual-energy vehicle for longer distances, which works on compressed-air in the city, and air/petrol on motorways. This vehicle (the RoadCAT's) can travel more than 2000 km on 100 m3 of air and 50 litres of petrol, so can be u sed for long journeys and is not an exclusively urban vehicle. Other applications of the technology include power generation, compressing air as a means of storing energy, and powering boats. MDI also presented the MultiCAT's concept of a zero pollution urban transportation system which incorporates several important economic advantages. Consisting of a Driver module and up to 4
[biofuel] New application for glycerin waste ?
Hi All, First let me do a quick introduction of myself: -new to this forum but not unfamiliar with small scale biodiesel production (been brewing and improving for 1.5 years now, currently using base/base method). -first name is Peter, most friends know me as roughscience.. Now to the glycerin: In winter I do not have a glycerine waste problem: a glycerin/sawdust mixture makes excellent fuel in a wood stove ! In summertime however the amount of our dark glycerin/soap mix keeps piling up. Last weekend I was looking into a table with physical properties of glycerin: m.p. = 292 K and 'melting heat' = 175000 J/Kg (anyone able to convert these values to Fahrenheit and Btu/Gal ?). This means that glycerin is able to store a significant amount of heat when it melts, this energy is released again when the glycerin solidifies. Example: the amount of heat released when 1 kg of glycerin solidifies is sufficient to increase the temperature of the same amount of water by more then 40 K. These physical properties theoretically make 'biodiesel-waste' -grade glycerin an interesting heat-storage medium in a solar heating system. I intend to test this idea in the course of this summer. In the meanwhile I would welcome any comments, concerns, additional ideas etc. Met vriendelijke groeten, Peter. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers?CATCH 22
CATCH 22 only 1/3 of the petroleum drawn is used as fuel; 5/12th is used as fertilizer, other fractions as lubicants, chemicals,dyes, explosives, plastics, etc bio diesel can solve some of the transport probs but we need the fertilizer to grow BIODIESEL. ---Original Message--- From: Tim Castleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 06/30/03 01:17 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers? Can I get some help with these simple calculations? US petroleum consumption is 19.65 Million Barrels per day, or about 7 Billion barrels per year. (http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2002/htm l/table_04_01.html) If we could get 2 barrels (88 gallons) of biofuel from each acre of farmland, we would need 3.5 Billion acres to meet our demand. We only have 335 Million acres of Farmland in the US. (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/land/meta/m5970.html) That means that even if we stopped growing food entirely, we would still come up over 3 BILLION acres short. If we find a way to get 10 barrels from each acre (440 gallons), we could nearly cover our consumption, but would have no place to grow any food. If we find a way to get 20 barrels per acre (880 gallons), we could do it with about half of the farmland available. Do these simple numbers look right? Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers?CATCH 22
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: CATCH 22 only 1/3 of the petroleum drawn is used as fuel; 5/12th is used as fertilizer, other fractions as lubicants, chemicals,dyes, explosives, plastics, etc bio diesel can solve some of the transport probs but we need the fertilizer to grow BIODIESEL. Nonsense. Keith ---Original Message--- From: Tim Castleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 06/30/03 01:17 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers? Can I get some help with these simple calculations? US petroleum consumption is 19.65 Million Barrels per day, or about 7 Billion barrels per year. (http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2002/htm l/table_04_01.html) If we could get 2 barrels (88 gallons) of biofuel from each acre of farmland, we would need 3.5 Billion acres to meet our demand. We only have 335 Million acres of Farmland in the US. (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/land/meta/m5970.html) That means that even if we stopped growing food entirely, we would still come up over 3 BILLION acres short. If we find a way to get 10 barrels from each acre (440 gallons), we could nearly cover our consumption, but would have no place to grow any food. If we find a way to get 20 barrels per acre (880 gallons), we could do it with about half of the farmland available. Do these simple numbers look right? Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] New application for glycerin waste ?
kelvin (K) the fundamental SI unit of temperature, previously called the degree Kelvin (¡K). One kelvin represents the same temperature difference as one degree Celsius. In 1967 the General Conference on Weights and Measures defined the temperature of the triple point of water (the temperature at which water exists simultaneously in the gaseous, liquid, and solid states) to be exactly 273.16 kelvins. Since this temperature is also equal to 0.01¡C, the temperature in kelvins is always equal to 273.15 plus the temperature in degrees Celsius. The kelvin equals exactly 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. The unit is named for the English mathematician and physicist William Thomson (1824-1907), later Baron Kelvin; he is remembered for his pioneering work on the physics of heat. Your temperature of interest is 292K or about 15C or Fahrenheit 59F -Original Message- From: roughscience [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 12:30 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: [biofuel] New application for glycerin waste ? Hi All, First let me do a quick introduction of myself: -new to this forum but not unfamiliar with small scale biodiesel production (been brewing and improving for 1.5 years now, currently using base/base method). -first name is Peter, most friends know me as roughscience.. Now to the glycerin: In winter I do not have a glycerine waste problem: a glycerin/sawdust mixture makes excellent fuel in a wood stove ! In summertime however the amount of our dark glycerin/soap mix keeps piling up. Last weekend I was looking into a table with physical properties of glycerin: m.p. = 292 K and 'melting heat' = 175000 J/Kg (anyone able to convert these values to Fahrenheit and Btu/Gal ?). This means that glycerin is able to store a significant amount of heat when it melts, this energy is released again when the glycerin solidifies. Example: the amount of heat released when 1 kg of glycerin solidifies is sufficient to increase the temperature of the same amount of water by more then 40 K. These physical properties theoretically make 'biodiesel-waste' -grade glycerin an interesting heat-storage medium in a solar heating system. I intend to test this idea in the course of this summer. In the meanwhile I would welcome any comments, concerns, additional ideas etc. Met vriendelijke groeten, Peter. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.489 / Virus Database: 288 - Release Date: 6/10/2003 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] The Hydrogen hype, the scam artists at work.
Darryl McMahon wrote: Sorry to be late in on this, but I'm playing catch-up and could not resist the invitation in this post. I have tried to get more information on Stuart's claims. I am not completely clear on all the details yet, but my understanding so far is that they require some very specific conditions, including that the hydrogen be accepted at high pressure and that heat produced by the process be counted as a productive output and not waste heat. That's not what they claim. They're saying that their new, multi kilowatt electrolyzers are better than 90% efficient at converting current into hydrogen gas. Here's a blurb from their web site: Energy efficiency (low power consumption) depends upon reducing the voltage needed to pass the current between the electrodes. This is accomplished by reducing the resistances to current flow, through employing advanced design features such as electro-catalysts, high surface electrodes, close electrode spacing, more conductive internal current paths and using materials capable of accepting higher operating temperature. Electrolysis at 1.48 volts (corresponding to 3.5 kWh per normal cubic metre of hydrogen) would be 100% efficient in the conventional sense. Practical electrolysers today achieve efficiencies of over 90% on this basis, electricity to hydrogen; in an energy sense, electrolytic hydrogen can therefore be regarded as a storable form of electricity. That's a pretty loud claim from an important company. Commercial electrolysis production today appears to be in the order of 50 to 60% efficiency (measured as energy embodied in the hydrogen produced relative to the electrical energy used to produce it). These figures do not include energy used to deliver water to the facility, or compress or liquify the hydrogen for storage or handling. I'm not referring to water delivery or liquefaction in my discussion. I can make hydrogen from rain water if I have enough electrical current, and I would never think to liquefy the stuff. The safest way to store hydrogen is in an intermetallic hydride, and in that case, compression is unnecessary. For less than the cost of a new SUV, I could do this. People my age are plunking down $50 000 for their new diesel powered trucks. I could completely convert my Ranger to run on hydrogen using a hydride tank for storage for a LOT less than this. Once every cost is considered, however, an electric vehicle beats a hydrogen conversion hands down. You and I both know this. Hydrogen does not contain as much energy as gasoline by volume, even in liquid form. The Stuart process does not produce liquid hydrogen, and liquifaction appears to consume the equivalent of about another 40% of the energy embodied in the liquid hydrogen, starting from hydrogen at atmospheric pressure. I'm measuring hydrogen by the kilogram, because doing so roughly equates to the energy in a gallon of gasoline. Many people in this forum understand that measure. Liquid hydrogen may be great for the space shuttle, but wouldn't want it anywhere NEAR my children! (In fact, the high pressure natural gas tanks are scarier than I want to contemplate!) Right you are. If we are talking conversions, then the ICE engine will have be completely rebuilt to use parts which are not subject to hydrogen embrittlement. Nonsense! I know a teacher in Arizona who has been running hydrogen in a high school shop class pickup truck for about 15 years without any embrittlement problems. Embrittlement is a factor in ferrous metals exposed to hydrogen at 3 000 psi or more. The engine in the average car would grenade at those kinds of pressures! This problem is WAY overstated. Energy density and exergy concerns are much more serious issues. Effectively, a whole new engine, fuel delivery system, fuel storage system and refueling infrastructure. I think the Big Boys will push to install reformers in gas stations. They will use methane from the natural gas infrastructure, or truck in methanol and store it in standard, underground tanks to make the hydrogen available at the pump. I think the infrastructure can develop much like the propane infrastructure has matured in Western Canadian service stations. Perhaps, here in Canada where electricity is cheap, electrolyzers will have a niche market. The hydrogen produced by these means will be expensive--that's why the Big Boys are so intent on pushing fuel cells. It remains to be seen whether or not this will actually happen. If we are talking clean-sheet, ground-up builds, then an advanced battery EV will be a clear winner over a hydrogen-fueled vehicle (ICE or fuel cell) on initial cost, efficiency and cost of operation. You and I are in complete agreement here. Hydrogen will not be a cheap fuel. Much better to use the source electricity (via grid transmission and distribution) to charge
Re: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers?CATCH 22
The transportation sector relies heavily on oil, accounting for two-thirds of U.S. petroleum use in 2000. This level of consumption is expected to continue through 2020 (EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2002 Figure 82). http://www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels/energy_security.html Two thirds of the oil used in the United States is for transportation. http://www.nesea.org/greencarclub/03_afvs_security.pdf More than two-thirds of the oil consumption in the United States is used in transportation, mostly to power cars, trucks, and buses. Aircraft account for about 14% of transportation oil consumption, while locomotives and ships are the chief consumers of the remaining 5%.5 Annual oil use in the transportation sector alone has surpassed total domestic oil production every year since 1986.6 http://solstice.crest.org/repp_pubs/articles/issuebr7/issuebr7b.html - Original Message - From: Irwin Levinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 2:41 PM Subject: Re: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers?CATCH 22 CATCH 22 only 1/3 of the petroleum drawn is used as fuel; 5/12th is used as fertilizer, other fractions as lubicants, chemicals,dyes, explosives, plastics, etc bio diesel can solve some of the transport probs but we need the fertilizer to grow BIODIESEL. ---Original Message--- From: Tim Castleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 06/30/03 01:17 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers? Can I get some help with these simple calculations? US petroleum consumption is 19.65 Million Barrels per day, or about 7 Billion barrels per year. (http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2002/htm l/table_04_01.html) If we could get 2 barrels (88 gallons) of biofuel from each acre of farmland, we would need 3.5 Billion acres to meet our demand. We only have 335 Million acres of Farmland in the US. (http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/land/meta/m5970.html) That means that even if we stopped growing food entirely, we would still come up over 3 BILLION acres short. If we find a way to get 10 barrels from each acre (440 gallons), we could nearly cover our consumption, but would have no place to grow any food. If we find a way to get 20 barrels per acre (880 gallons), we could do it with about half of the farmland available. Do these simple numbers look right? Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Re: Biogas and glycerin - was To Chris problems sep. glycerine
Hi Maria, You bet I have some ideas on that thought. It wouldn't take much to put a few 5 gallon pails of the acidulated glycerin in the hands of some concrete finishers around here, some who still do wall pouring with wooden forms. A lot more attractive than watching them coat forms with fossil oils. Todd Swearingen - Original Message - From: girl_mark_fire [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 6:44 AM Subject: [biofuel] Re: Biogas and glycerin - was To Chris problems sep. glycerine Discussing the glycerol disposal 'problem' in class this weekend, we also wondered if it could be used to lubricate forms for pouring cement. I believe I was told that this is sometimes done commercially (I've never seen it myself) with purchased glycerine. This seems like a much better way to get rid of a huge quantity of the stuff than soapmaking for instance. Any ideas, anyone? I'd acidulate it first if I tried it. mark --- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, pan ruti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello , dear and respected KEITH and TODD Well Thank you all, bringing the composting or biodigestion problems of cock tails or purified glycerin.I am pesonaly against treating glycerin as waste, but need to be treated as raw material for making soap, making polishing adhesivos pastes with glycerinated starch, cosmetics formulations after simple seperations outlined by Keith . These are possible to arrive at local market before thinking of disposal as waste . Our biofuel group need to also have think of bioproducts as future vision. Thus this liquid waste can be the raw material for the production of hih value biosurfactant and high valued yeast products Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers?CATCH 22
You don't need petroleum fertilizer, that's what the chemical / fertilizer companies want you to think. In a sustainable situation, you can compost the glycerin, with the woody crop debris, and use green manures and cover crops and fertilize with that just fine. Think about it, 5/12ths of the petroleum is not really needed, and can actually cause more problems than it solves. The micro flora and fauna, in the soil, is for the most part harmed by the repeated application of such fertilizer made with petroleum. Without the micro flora and fauna, the soil structure collapses, have you ever heard of the term salted the soil of their enemies ? They were killing the micro flora and fauna of the soil, and made it hard to grow anything for a number of years after that causing famine and hard times. And to think that the petrochemical companies have most farmers convinced that the only way to survive is to kill the soil even further. Haven't you ever wondered why the amount of petroleum fertilizer that has to be applied to get the same yields get's higher and higher? The stuff is the equivalent of candy to humans. Yes, it gives energy, but, no real long term nutrition. My back yard hasn't seen a drop of petroleum fertilizer, a little wood ashes, and some dried molasses, compliment the clover that was seeded 3 years ago, and I have grass and clover 12 -18 inches high except were I cut it from time to time to provide mulch for my garden. I haven't used any thing in the garden but compost, wood ashes, dried molasses, and the grass clippings. While some of my corn isn't doing so well, the rest of the corn is and the squash, beans, pumpkin, onions, and garlic is doing great, it's been a little to cool this year for good results with tomatoes, but, the few short season tomatoes that have made it so far, already have blooms on them * less than a month after putting them in *. I going after the thistles and morning glory with a hoe, with a vengeance, but, I interplanted buckwheat in my garden to draw in bees ( something else that is being killed off with the petro/agriculture going on now ), and I'm letting it and the rest of the weeds grow as a green mulch ( I haven't had to water the onions or garlic but maybe 2 or 3 times in the last 1 1/2 - 2 months ) and next spring, I'm going to till it all in. Please tell me how much we really need all of that so called fertilizer, because that is the stuff, that really fertilizes. Greg H. - Original Message - From: Irwin Levinson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 13:41 Subject: Re: [biofuel] Help with some simple numbers?CATCH 22 CATCH 22 only 1/3 of the petroleum drawn is used as fuel; 5/12th is used as fertilizer, other fractions as lubicants, chemicals,dyes, explosives, plastics, etc bio diesel can solve some of the transport probs but we need the fertilizer to grow BIODIESEL. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
