Re: [Biofuel] Chemical engineer's letter
Hey- I for one didn't percieve it as angry. It did, however, demonstrate a perception of reality that I don't particularly like either. It may not be the final destination that makes the trip enlightening.2gms worth- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2005 10:02 AM Subject: [Biofuel] Chemical engineer's letter HELP! How can I respond to the negative email below? It's from a chemical engineer friend researching ethanol from cellulose. I sent him some info from this list to help his research, and was surprised by the anger. Anyone have specific things I can say in response? The email: Hi Marilyn Those guys are out in left field. From my perspective -- having followed and evaluated various biomass gasification processes (technology and economics) for 27 years -- is that the Bioengineering Resources guys are opportunistic promoters -- looking for suckers (e.g., U.S. DOE or some naive investors with money to waste). The technology is neither prove nor economical. And who needs more vinegar (dilute acetic acid). Fermentation of synthesis gas to acetic acid is nonsense. Producing synthesis gas from biomass is itself unproven at any significant scale (not even in a decent pilot plant) -- and if it could be achieved, would be very expensive relative to other options for producing synthesis gas. FYI -- Synthesis gas is a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be reacted over various catalysts at elevated temperatures to produce many different products -- such as alcohols, hydrocarbons, and various oxygenated organic compounds. The synthesis gas first has to be purified (made extremely clean), and the H2/CO ratio also has to be adjusted for the specific application. After the synthesis, further processing is usually required. Most of these assorted biomass energy promoters (and I have seen many come and go over 27 years) don't understand chemical engineering, process economics, resource availability/supply/transportation economics, etc., etc. Yet every every 5-10 years a new generation of biomass advocates and promoters emerge (or are otherwise born into the light) who don't know their asses from first base -- but think that biomass will save the world -- and so promote all kinds of technically dumb and uneconomical ideas -- and make life miserable for the people who are doing reasonable work. They all stroke each other and keep each other going and feeling self-righteous. This whole business is too complicated and emotion-ridden for the biomass zealots (and apparently for me too) for me to begin discussing the many dimensions of it in an e-mail. I personally favor the idea of exploiting biomass (intelligently) as a renewable energy resource -- and think that we can be utilizing it. However, a lot has to change (mostly politically, socially, economically, educationally, etc.) for that to ever happen. The cause is not helped by promoters of dumb ideas. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] de-polymerizing cellulose not practical at this point
Brian- I'm new to the list and might reply to the group if I knew how. It sounds like your Pop is a good guy to know, especially since mine never got past eighth grade, but in some ways he was pretty smart too. One of the things he recommended was to get off the farm and stay there. My brothers did, and they made money and are still drinking it up. I had to be a grunt, failed, and had to go back to the farm for survival. I did get a forestry degree a few years back and now laugh to myself when I say I am a consultant. The present reality (although it might hopefully change) is that due to the high (IMHO) energy inputs, low value wood has no current uses that can make much money. But,and here's the big BUT, a review of history suggests to me a slightly different possible scenario. In that light, looking at the history of europe and asia, much environmental degradation has taken place, and I suggest for the same reason-energy. In my current situation, buying straw for bedding is impossible, but I have a glut of pine needles to rake up (like the leaves of forests in the dark ages). I can't afford steel,lumber or concrete, but I can build with sandstone andcordwood using chopped branches mixed with clay as a binder (cob). I can sell my hickoryand still heat my shack with the left over trash. Forest depletion then, can result again, and I might add, for the same reason-no-money, and thus no energy. If you read up on making charcoal, one glaring fact seems to stand out, and that is the loss of energy in producing it. I maintain that it is NOT lost, it is altered in a way that is not currently able to be captured. I suggest you read up on what is termed "the indirect method", in short it is heating the wood mass high enough to drive out the water, volitiles, and tars, with charcoal as the residual fuel. This process has two components. The first (heating the wood) takes heat (I use the branches), off-gassing (and burning the smoke) is highly exothermic and extremely clean-burning. Last winter, I built two 50gal drum-sized units from one of the plans on the net and put them inside the garage thinking it might help with the heat and found out that it really didn't. Not because heat wasn't produced, rather because I had to open all the doors and turn on the fans and blow the heat outside because I had too much. This, in a relatively cold Wisconsin winter. In forestry terms, this lets me use the entire tree less the roots, and as such, I use only low value trees which are by far more abundant and even then I am not required to cut near as many. Yesterday, I did a long read about the kalle charcoal gasifier and have read a lot of others before. This is an old technology that is well known to work. You give me the impression that it might be better to "just burn the wood" and I tend to agree. However, there seems, at least to me,to be a missing link somewhere. Like one to use the excess heat from the off-gassing of charcoal production for the distillation of ethanol, electricty production, and home heating/cooling/cooking. The nuts (maybe me) and bolts of the matter are beyond me, but maybe not your Pop. So, this e-mail is really a request for any knowledge he might posess on the subject and some sort of reply from you (+or-) on what you can dig up. Thanks Dale Original Message - From: Brian Rodgers To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2005 6:51 PM Subject: [Biofuel] de-polymerizing cellulose not practical at this point Thank you Tom, Robert, and everyone for the fantastic feedback. !--[if !supportEmptyParas]--!--[endif]-- I received an email from my Dad, the retired chemist. He suggests we move away from the idea of de-polymerizing cellulose as it seems out of our reach financially and technologically. I am happy to let the process of mycelium-rot to the fungi folks and let them see what they can do with it. Dad said he could find no serious research into cellulose breakdown by any of his friends at the university. Without the help of these academics, he believes we can not continue on our own. I told him we would continue to knock it around at the Biofuels email list. !--[if !supportEmptyParas]--!--[endif]-- !--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--!--[endif]-- I will continue to pursue the ethanol angle, but I will stick to conventional methods of fermentation. For instance, I will explore the naturally occurring sugar plants. A friend came by the other day
Re: [Biofuel] washing?
Hey- Good job!! Politics, definition: poli=many, tics=blood-sucking parasites. D.- Original Message - From: Tom Irwin To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2005 7:01 AM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] washing? Hi all, Well said, Keith. You might mention that most people in the U.S. don´t read on a regular basis. They get most of thier info from television or daily newspapers (mostly the sports section for men, fashion for women). Now there´s a great source for unbiased truth. ;- Keith you definitely have a way with words when you have the time to string some together. But tell us the truth, you really like the short quick bark deep down? It´s a good stress reliever, no? Big Smile, Tom Irwin From: Keith Addison [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.orgSent: Sat, 13 Aug 2005 06:56:38 -0300Subject: Re: [Biofuel] washing?Greetings skapegoat I could be wrong, but I wonder when Joshua last made biodiesel. Have a look at this: http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg35652.html Re: [biofuel] Best ProcesserOkay then, here's a question. Why don't you write a book? I mean you're a journalist, and journalists write things.I write things every day, but I do a lot of other things every day too, 15-hour days seven days a week at Journey to Forever. Writing a book is a lot of work! I'm just too busy.And right or wrong, most people give more credibility to books than the internet.Indeed, the authority of print. It's always been a fraud, print has no more intrinsic authority than gossip does, or indeed the Internet, and no less either. Much the same issues apply, for all the obvious differences. It's just that most people are living in the past. How many people really know how to handle information effectively amid the sheer glut of the stuff in this "Age of Information" we're supposed to be living in? Information is just that, mere content, good, bad or indifferent. In other words, it's the Age of Spin too. IIRC there are 20,000 more PR professionals than journalists working in the US today, with an annual budget of $35 billion, which is just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of people just naturally assume they're proof against it, but PR pros or journos could tell them that's what they're meant to think. Funny, isn't it, that they just don't teach this stuff in schools. A lot of people (sometimes the same people) haven't discovered how to copy and paste yet.So much for print. Either way, you reach some people and you don't reach others, same as any medium you use. What sort of book would you have to write (and publish) to equal the kind of traffic that the Journey to Forever website gets every month? I'm not sure offhand what proportion of total visits the Biofuels section gets, it's probably about half the total, let's say, which would give it 108,000 visits and 300,000 page views last month. Some book.But which market segment, if you want to call it that, is better, book readers or Internet readers? Better for what? Our website and this mailing list are very effective in helping thousands of people, more than thousands, worldwide, to make their own biofuels. They're quietly making and using millions of gallons every year, and it's growing fast. It's a revolution in the doing, not just in the making as proposed in another thread, and I think it's too late to stop it. When people get empowered that way it leads them to other things. So who is more likely to be at the forefront of a revolution for a sustainable future, people like these or people who're living in the past and fumble with computers and the Internet? Of course that's not a real question, there's no either/or, rather both/and, inclusive not exclusive. But it's a reason I don't get to write books these days.Though I was disparaging above about spin and everyman, I don't believe that's as important as the rapidly growing number of people all over the world who're using the Internet in such creative ways. That's also too late to stop. Have a look at this for instance:THE ENEMY IS EVERYWHEREhttp://www.prandmarketing.com/legalpr/news_virtualomnipresent.htmlThe Legal PR Bulletin has posted an article by Richard S. Levick ofLevick Strategic Communications on how companies can defendthemselves against online critics, titled "A Virtual OmnipresentEnemy." Levick warns: "It is only a matter of time before blogsbecome commonplace weapons allowing
Re: [Biofuel] The myths of Hiroshima
Hey- Let's all hope the day never comes where our emporer has to be dug out of his fortified underground bunker by the Asian-Russian liberators. D.- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 6:33 PM Subject: Re: [Biofuel] The myths of Hiroshima Far from hating the United States, it appears that the Russian people were very favourably disposed toward the U.S. at the end of World War II. Allied aid, mostly from the U.S., was a crucial factor in enabling the U.S.S.R. to stay in the war and defeat the Germans. Thousands of Russian soldiers drove American trucks to supply the Red Army's offensive, for example. I believe that Russians got to eat quite a lot of Spam. George Kennan in his memoirs described a massive spontaneous demonstration of friendship in front of the American embassy in Moscow at the end of the war in Europe and speculated that it must have been very disconcerting for Stalin and his henchmen. The Japanese government was successful in making the surrender stick after the atom bombs, but it wasn't a foregone conclusion. It would have been very hard without the bombs. My guess is that in an invasion the Allied dead might have been only 100,000 or 150,000 or so, but the losses among Japanese soldiers and civilians would have been several times that number. It's clear that in August 1945 the Japanese would ultimately have been compelled to surrender if the Allies had just waited, for perhaps a year. But the civilians would have been extremely unwilling to wait, and the Russians might have found the temptation to mount their own invasion irresistible. A Russian invasion would likely have killed many more than the atom bombs. The deaths among Japanese civilians on Okinawa caused basically by Japanese forces in the grip of the Bushido cult were considerable. Doug Woodard St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada On Fri, 5 Aug 2005, Garth Kim Travis wrote: Greetings Tom, Yes, many of us would not be here. Canadian forces were also training for that invasion. I was always taught that it was the code of death before dishonor that made the bombing necessary. I am not saying that is correct, but I wonder how scared of Russia anyone would have been by that time in the war. As I understand it, one of the things the Russian people hated America for was the long wait before they joined, which allowed Russia to be seriously depleted. I do understand that the Japanese were already commandeering cooking pots etc. for metal to make weapons, so they must have known the end was in sight, but that had been going on for long enough to scare many people into believing they would not surrender, period. It is easy to start myths during war time, people are so scared and the average person is not told much of the truth for good reasons, many times. I see it today, so many people are so scared of terrorism and have no idea of how it started. How does one educate a population that is now in it's second or third generation of ignorance of history, science, math, philosophy and common sense? Bright Blessings, Kim [snip] ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/ ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
Re: [Biofuel] The Culture Wars and Racism
Let's see, How many Muslim extremists killed ten million native north and south americans in the name of freedom of religion ?- Original Message - From: Michael Redler To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 7:01 PM Subject: [Biofuel] The Culture Wars and Racism Hi everyone, Earlier this week, I receivedsome obnoxious chain mail. I became so incensed by it, that I felt a need to respond - especially since ithad a cc list and a way to counter the hate that was being spread. One of the people on the list, a woman who I never met,took exception to my response andsent her own reply. In my opinion, this email could not do a better job to reveal a popular misunderstanding of the culture from which Islam comes. It also demonstrates the feelings of someone who considers herself benevolent but, is so scared that she absolutely insists that someone should be punished. Ifound it to be a frightening example of a person in transition from caring to hating. Although I'm not a sociologist or a mental health professional, it was apparent to me that the email I received, was from a women filled with contradictions and uncertainty. Someone at the beginning of becoming a racist. I wouldn't send such a long email if I didn't think it wasrevealing. If you want to follow the whole exchange, start at the bottom. I suspect that you will also find the chain letter to be divisive and one that plays onfear. Mike ___ Michael,The fact that numerous religions have perpetrated acts of violence and hatred towards others throughout the ages DOES NOT negate the fact that horrible things are being done in the world today in the name of Islam. It is the only religion in the world today (as far as I in my ignorance know) that is FORCING people to convert to it with devastating consequences/death if they don't. Women ARE being forced to live in subservience and suffer inhumane treatment at the hands of a religion that hands all authority to men (I understand that this is not true in every Muslim country, and I understand that there are other cultures that promote the same treatment... but it DOES NOT negate the fact that Islam is doing this also). Christian and Animist women and girls in Africa, in the Sudan, are being kidnapped and being forced to become slaves and sexual slaves to Muslim men, even being forced to undergo female circumcision, in the name of Islam, because they are infidels. People in Africa and Indonesia, Asia, and other places are being killed, or threatened with death for not converting to Islam. Young boys are being forced to fight brutal wars in the name of Islam. Young men, and now young women, are being brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers and blowing up innocent people in restaurants, buses, trains, etc. by instilling in them a hatred of anything that is western and not Islamic. Authors ARE being killed, or threatened with death for expressing an opposing viewpoint. This IS all happening today in the name of Islam. I understand that our country has killed thousands of innocent people in wars that promote our own agenda, but that also DOES NOT negate the fact that people are doing these things in the name of Islam. I wonder if we are getting a balanced report of what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. To be sure, the media is not making up the number of deaths and the number of bombings, but I cannot believe that a vast majority of the people in those countries are excited at the prospect of freedom and opportunity and the hope of living free of persecution. It is not the moderate Muslims that are ruining our country's effort to restore peace, to rebuild the infrastructure, to rebuild schools, improve the water and electrical systems to better than what it was, etc.No one is ever justified in forcing one person to accept a belief by force. No one is ever justified in torturing people or killing them in the name of a religion. It is shameful to me that people like Timothy McVeigh call themselves "Christians" and believe they are acting in the name of God. David Koresh, the Guyana tragedies, etc etc etc -- all twisted cults doing things in the name of Christ or Christianity. Those men are wrong, just as these Muslim extremists are wrong. They take writings that DO exist in the Koran, and take them to the extreme, believing they are doing the right thing and will receive glory from Allah in the hereafter. If they are right, that's one scary religion. If they are wrong, then they deserve to be condemned for their actions.So basically I
