Re: [biofuel] Back Online
On Sun, 24 Nov 2002 17:24, you wrote: Hello Everyone! There's a lot of ignorance about energy issues out there. I suppose people in forums like this one have a LOT of educating to do. . . robert luis rabello Totally agree. I built my own house (with the help of contractors) from dry stacked Hebel blocks (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) My house is designed on solar principles: correct orientation, extra roof insulation, but in our climate cooling is more important than heating. The dry stack system uses threaded rod to hold the blocks together - there is about 2Km of threaded rod in our house (7500 sq foot house on 4 levels) regards Doug Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- áFREE Health Insurance Quotes-eHealthInsurance.com http://us.click.yahoo.com/1.voSB/RnFFAA/46VHAA/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] Back Online
I am not arguing that in some parts of the US, pallets may be a one time use, but in my part of Texas, there is a $10 deposit per pallet on hardwood pallets. You can still scrounge good pallets, but it is getting harder. I have a floor made of OSB on pallets, works great. [temporary living quarters due to tornado damage.] I did not think of the idea myself, but read about it in a straw bale building book. HAHSAs were designed to burn pallets whole without having to take them apart, and make real good use of the heat generated. I also know of a man who make really nice furniture from hardwood pallets, so at least some Americans are trying to use the wood, not landfill it. The newest thing we are seeing here is plastic pallets. These are made from recycled plastic bags. Perhaps a glimmer of hope. Bright Blessings, Kim Hakan Falk wrote: Only in America!!! I was not aware of that US made pallets of hardwood and did not think that it could ever be a stupid luxury consumption like this. I can see reason for some pallets to be made of hardwood, but they should be guarded and reused. But this irresponsible behavior cannot be excused. Six pallets of hardwood per American in land fills, give me a break! I am of the opinion that it is almost a sin to use hardwood for pallets in the first place. How can you use types of trees that take 50 to 100 years to mature for purposes like this. Hardwood is also very stupid to put in landfills, because of the long time it takes to disintegrate. If you really need to waste hardwood, effective burning is probably the best. Compared to the pallets we mostly use in Europe, made of pine tree, hardwood take 4-8 times longer to mature. Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hardwood is mostly a tropical or sub tropical tree and how can US use this for pallets and at the same time be upset about the deforestation of the remaining oxygen suppliers of the world. The hardwood of Europe was by tradition the property of the Kings, wherever it was rooted, because of its value for building ships and as structural building material. In this case oak was a strategic defense material. Oak used as structure for buildings, was inherited and reused for new buildings. The value of oak was almost comparable to gold a few hundred years ago. Hakan At 07:25 AM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Keith Addison wrote: Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. snip Indeed! I used to collect hardwood pallets, cut them up and burn them. Over the course of the average winter, my family burned 8 tons of wood like this. We hadn't paid for heat in years! Making the leap back into fossil fueled residential heating was a hard decision for me. I like the automaticity of our natural gas boiler, but we haven't received a bill yet . . . I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development. snip I've been lamenting about this for at least 30 years. That's one of the reasons I'm here. robert luis rabello Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT http://rd.yahoo.com/M=234081.2677558.4057087.1925585/D=egroupweb/S=1705083269:HM/A=1327985/R=0/*http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;4870024;7586687;x?http://www.ameriquestmortgage.com/welcome.html?ad=Yahoo01 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service 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/
Re: [biofuel] Back Online
Hello Robert! Welcome back. I hope you're receiving messages okay now. Please let me know if you have any problems. Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. During 1991, Ohio produced about 32 million pallets. Hardwoods make up 72 percent of the total production, softwood 15% and mixed 13%. One-third of the pallets were constructed for reuse and two-thirds of the pallets were one-way, or disposable pallets. Only 7.5 million pallets were repaired or recycled. The study estimates that disposing wood from pallets into landfills claims the equivalent of the saw timber on more than 18,000 Ohio acres each year. Eventually, a substantial quantity of wood pallets enter landfills, thus rendering this valuable resource useless. http://www.epa.state.oh.us/opp/recyc/pallet3.html Pallet Management Guide :-( There's a lot of ignorance about energy issues out there. I suppose people in forums like this one have a LOT of educating to do. . . Yes... and a LOT of learning to do too. At least I feel that way, though I'm very impressed with the knowledge of many members of this group and others. I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development. -- From Slouching Toward Johannesburg: U.S. Sustainable Development Policies, by John Dernbach, law professor at Widener University. http://www.fpif.org/progresp/volume6/v6n23_body.html#slouching No need to pick on the US though, in particular, no country is doing very well at this. The US is indeed the most profligate with energy, and much else, but compared with the distance left to travel, the differences among the industrialized countries are small. The governments aren't doing too well, no use relying on them. Hassle them about it, sure, but... DIY. Like your house! Congratulations, quite a feat - I hope you'll be comfortable and happy there. Regards Keith Hello Everyone! It's been five months since I've been able to post here. My wife and I have built a new house, and not only have I learned a lot about the building process, I've been astonished at how much waste and inefficiency goes into putting up a home. 1. Builders love concrete. We used WAY more concrete than I believed we would when we first considered this project. I'm not certain we could have done much better than we did because our property slopes considerably, but concrete manufacturing is VERY energy intensive and next time we'll have to be more careful about property selection. Any ideas about alternatives out there? 2. The amount of waste generated by a building is simply astonishing! I own a Ford Ranger with a short wheelbase and a small box. I filled the thing 4 times with dimensional lumber cut too short for use, and hauled all of it out to my father in law so that he could mix it with his firewood this winter. (Generally speaking, dimensional lumber is so dry that it burns too quickly for a clean fire and therefore produces excessive smoke.) Surely gasification or clean pyrolysis would be much better alternatives than the landfill, where all of our oriented strand board, drywall, carpet scraps and other waste ended up. What's worse, is that our tradesmen kept saying that we actually had very little waste. . . Some of the houses going up around here have huge dumpsters that get filled more than once during the building! (I had asked the architect who drew our plans to minimize waste by making room sizes as close to standard dimensions as possible. We ended up with a bigger house for less money that way. Strange, isn't it?) 3. There's a certain momentum in doing things the conventional way. The lender at our credit union looked at me as if I was crazy when I said I wanted solar hot water. The builders simply didn't understand why I was so particular about southern orientation, minimizing north facing window sizes (our view is to the north, so I lost on that one. . .), and people scratched their heads when I specified a relatively small electrical panel (just 100 amps of service!) and high efficiency lighting. We argued about extra insulation in the ceiling, heat in the floor and the tiny size of our natural gas boiler. There's a lot of ignorance about energy issues out there. I suppose people in forums like this one have a LOT of educating
Re: [biofuel] Back Online
Hi Robert, Building houses is always a special experience. I always said that if your marriage survives a building project, it survives almost anything. I inserted some comments, At 10:24 PM 11/23/2002 -0800, you wrote: Hello Everyone! It's been five months since I've been able to post here. My wife and I have built a new house, and not only have I learned a lot about the building process, I've been astonished at how much waste and inefficiency goes into putting up a home. It is a wasteful and conservative Industry and it is even more astonishing if you look on the energy waste to live in it. You can have differences of 2-3 times in energy use, for no apparent reasons other than ignorance. 1. Builders love concrete. We used WAY more concrete than I believed we would when we first considered this project. I'm not certain we could have done much better than we did because our property slopes considerably, but concrete manufacturing is VERY energy intensive and next time we'll have to be more careful about property selection. Any ideas about alternatives out there? The problem here is Building Codes and standards, that regulate the quality and security. You can always do special stress calculations, solutions and design of the house. It will in many cases use less concrete, but it will be more expensive. 2. The amount of waste generated by a building is simply astonishing! I own a Ford Ranger with a short wheelbase and a small box. I filled the thing 4 times with dimensional lumber cut too short for use, and hauled all of it out to my father in law so that he could mix it with his firewood this winter. (Generally speaking, dimensional lumber is so dry that it burns too quickly for a clean fire and therefore produces excessive smoke.) Surely gasification or clean pyrolysis would be much better alternatives than the landfill, where all of our oriented strand board, drywall, carpet scraps and other waste ended up. What's worse, is that our tradesmen kept saying that we actually had very little waste. . . Some of the houses going up around here have huge dumpsters that get filled more than once during the building! (I had asked the architect who drew our plans to minimize waste by making room sizes as close to standard dimensions as possible. We ended up with a bigger house for less money that way. Strange, isn't it?) Your instructions to the architect was a clever thing and it is obvious if they only thought about it. 3. There's a certain momentum in doing things the conventional way. The lender at our credit union looked at me as if I was crazy when I said I wanted solar hot water. The builders simply didn't understand why I was so particular about southern orientation, minimizing north facing window sizes (our view is to the north, so I lost on that one. . .), and people scratched their heads when I specified a relatively small electrical panel (just 100 amps of service!) and high efficiency lighting. We argued about extra insulation in the ceiling, heat in the floor and the tiny size of our natural gas boiler. You managed to catch some very important principles, that should be standard for any construction industry. At the same time you developed to be an understanding supporter of what we try to preach at http://energysavingnow.com/ . 1. It is no reason why the worlds population should not cover 70-80% of the domestic hot water needs with passive solar panels. It is economically feasible and advantageous. It pays back in 3 to 5 years and last for 15-20 years before replacement is needed, it is difficult to find a better and more secure investment. 2. Heated floors gives you a radiant low temperature system, that are low consumption and flexible in choice of alternative heating sources. Properly done, it is more comfortable at lower temperature and therefore a large energy saver. 3. The extra insulation in the ceiling is also a very good investment, the extra cost probably paid back in 1-2 years for a new house. 4. Anything else than high efficiency lightning should be a crime. 5. The smaller size boiler will save you a lot, especially with the storage capacity of the concrete in combination with heated floors. If it is half the size of what is normally suggested, you are alright. In 10 years, you might have 4-5 weeks of extreme weather conditions and a capacity problem. I hope that you do not have a control system with outside sensors, because this will be wasteful and create some problems of comfort. See the article about 0 degree mystery on our web site. If you have a comparable house nearby without your considerations, you will find that their energy consumption is around double of yours. Congratulations to your new house. There's a lot of ignorance about energy issues out there. I suppose people in forums like this one have a LOT of educating to do. . . robert luis rabello Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
Re: [biofuel] Back Online
I have found statistics that say for every three new houses built, one goes in the landfill, labor being more expensive than materials. This being true, many of us have figured out how to build with the landfill materials. There is a list dedicated to this topic, [EMAIL PROTECTED] One man has started a movement to use landfill rescue to build homes for low income working families using minimum wage help. His crew are usually young men that were at risk and after a year or two with him, they get hired by the big contractors. His web site is phoenixcommotion.com Congratulations on trying to reduce the waste and build sensibly, not an easy task with building codes, banks and insurance companies involved. Bright Blessings, Kim robert luis rabello wrote: Hello Everyone! It's been five months since I've been able to post here. My wife and I have built a new house, and not only have I learned a lot about the building process, I've been astonished at how much waste and inefficiency goes into putting up a home. 1. Builders love concrete. We used WAY more concrete than I believed we would when we first considered this project. I'm not certain we could have done much better than we did because our property slopes considerably, but concrete manufacturing is VERY energy intensive and next time we'll have to be more careful about property selection. Any ideas about alternatives out there? 2. The amount of waste generated by a building is simply astonishing! I own a Ford Ranger with a short wheelbase and a small box. I filled the thing 4 times with dimensional lumber cut too short for use, and hauled all of it out to my father in law so that he could mix it with his firewood this winter. (Generally speaking, dimensional lumber is so dry that it burns too quickly for a clean fire and therefore produces excessive smoke.) Surely gasification or clean pyrolysis would be much better alternatives than the landfill, where all of our oriented strand board, drywall, carpet scraps and other waste ended up. What's worse, is that our tradesmen kept saying that we actually had very little waste. . . Some of the houses going up around here have huge dumpsters that get filled more than once during the building! (I had asked the architect who drew our plans to minimize waste by making room sizes as close to standard dimensions as possible. We ended up with a bigger house for less money that way. Strange, isn't it?) 3. There's a certain momentum in doing things the conventional way. The lender at our credit union looked at me as if I was crazy when I said I wanted solar hot water. The builders simply didn't understand why I was so particular about southern orientation, minimizing north facing window sizes (our view is to the north, so I lost on that one. . ..), and people scratched their heads when I specified a relatively small electrical panel (just 100 amps of service!) and high efficiency lighting. We argued about extra insulation in the ceiling, heat in the floor and the tiny size of our natural gas boiler. There's a lot of ignorance about energy issues out there. I suppose people in forums like this one have a LOT of educating to do. . . robert luis rabello 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- ·FREE Health Insurance Quotes-eHealthInsurance.com http://us.click.yahoo.com/1.voSB/RnFFAA/46VHAA/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] Back Online
Keith Addison wrote: Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. snip Indeed! I used to collect hardwood pallets, cut them up and burn them. Over the course of the average winter, my family burned 8 tons of wood like this. We hadn't paid for heat in years! Making the leap back into fossil fueled residential heating was a hard decision for me. I like the automaticity of our natural gas boiler, but we haven't received a bill yet . . . I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development. snip I've been lamenting about this for at least 30 years. That's one of the reasons I'm here. robert luis rabello [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- ·FREE Health Insurance Quotes-eHealthInsurance.com http://us.click.yahoo.com/1.voSB/RnFFAA/46VHAA/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] Back Online
Only in America!!! I was not aware of that US made pallets of hardwood and did not think that it could ever be a stupid luxury consumption like this. I can see reason for some pallets to be made of hardwood, but they should be guarded and reused. But this irresponsible behavior cannot be excused. Six pallets of hardwood per American in land fills, give me a break! I am of the opinion that it is almost a sin to use hardwood for pallets in the first place. How can you use types of trees that take 50 to 100 years to mature for purposes like this. Hardwood is also very stupid to put in landfills, because of the long time it takes to disintegrate. If you really need to waste hardwood, effective burning is probably the best. Compared to the pallets we mostly use in Europe, made of pine tree, hardwood take 4-8 times longer to mature. Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hardwood is mostly a tropical or sub tropical tree and how can US use this for pallets and at the same time be upset about the deforestation of the remaining oxygen suppliers of the world. The hardwood of Europe was by tradition the property of the Kings, wherever it was rooted, because of its value for building ships and as structural building material. In this case oak was a strategic defense material. Oak used as structure for buildings, was inherited and reused for new buildings. The value of oak was almost comparable to gold a few hundred years ago. Hakan At 07:25 AM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Keith Addison wrote: Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. snip Indeed! I used to collect hardwood pallets, cut them up and burn them. Over the course of the average winter, my family burned 8 tons of wood like this. We hadn't paid for heat in years! Making the leap back into fossil fueled residential heating was a hard decision for me. I like the automaticity of our natural gas boiler, but we haven't received a bill yet . . . I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development. snip I've been lamenting about this for at least 30 years. That's one of the reasons I'm here. robert luis rabello Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- ·FREE Health Insurance Quotes-eHealthInsurance.com http://us.click.yahoo.com/1.voSB/RnFFAA/46VHAA/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] Back Online
- Original Message - From: Hakan Falk To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 3:37 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] Back Online snippo Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hakan, hardness has nothing to do with whether a tree is a hardwood or a softwood, this is really a misnomer. Balsa wood is a hardwood. It is all related to whether the tree is pored or nonpored. With hardwoods being pored. In fact the correct terminology is Angiosperm, seeds in fruit, broadleaves, pored timber (hardwoods) and Gymnosperms, naked seeds in cones, usually narrow leaves, non pored timber (softwoods) Neil Canberra snippo Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 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] Back Online
Niel, I thought by translation from Swedish that it is usually direct related to the size of the yearly addition of thickness and the age of the tree. This does not necessary translates to the hardness of the wood, but in many cases it does. What it does translate to is the time it takes for the tree to grow. Teak, Oak, Jacaranda, Balsa, etc is hardwood and Pine is softwood. I doubt that the American pallets are made of Balsa, but if they are it is equally wrong and also totally useless. Maybe it is a translation error here and then I apologize. The point was the time it takes to produce the wood, not the hardness. If American pallets are made of a fast growing hardwood, I must have made a mistake. Hakan At 07:17 AM 11/25/2002 +1100, you wrote: - Original Message - From: Hakan Falk To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 3:37 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] Back Online snippo Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hakan, hardness has nothing to do with whether a tree is a hardwood or a softwood, this is really a misnomer. Balsa wood is a hardwood. It is all related to whether the tree is pored or nonpored. With hardwoods being pored. In fact the correct terminology is Angiosperm, seeds in fruit, broadleaves, pored timber (hardwoods) and Gymnosperms, naked seeds in cones, usually narrow leaves, non pored timber (softwoods) Neil Canberra snippo Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 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 -~-- ·FREE Health Insurance Quotes-eHealthInsurance.com http://us.click.yahoo.com/1.voSB/RnFFAA/46VHAA/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] Back Online
Just went to the seminar with Ianto Evans promoting his book The Hand Sculpted House and it was excellent. He showed pics of what a stick frame built house looks like after mother nature takes over and what a cob structure looks like (very organic, mud back to mud). I started reading some of the book when I got home because his talk was so engaging. A very humane way to build!! I am hoping to go to one of the workshops in the future. http://www.deatech.com/cobcottage/ http://www.deatech.com/cobcottage/handsculpt.html http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1890132349/002-7931199-6777645 http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1890132349.01.LZZZ.jpg I heard it noted recently that Californians spend almost 80% of their time indoors. Interesting since the climate out here is one of the best in the US. James Slayden On Sun, 24 Nov 2002, Kim Garth Travis wrote: I have found statistics that say for every three new houses built, one goes in the landfill, labor being more expensive than materials. This being true, many of us have figured out how to build with the landfill materials. There is a list dedicated to this topic, [EMAIL PROTECTED] One man has started a movement to use landfill rescue to build homes for low income working families using minimum wage help. His crew are usually young men that were at risk and after a year or two with him, they get hired by the big contractors. His web site is phoenixcommotion.com Congratulations on trying to reduce the waste and build sensibly, not an easy task with building codes, banks and insurance companies involved. Bright Blessings, Kim robert luis rabello wrote: Hello Everyone! It's been five months since I've been able to post here. My wife and I have built a new house, and not only have I learned a lot about the building process, I've been astonished at how much waste and inefficiency goes into putting up a home. 1. Builders love concrete. We used WAY more concrete than I believed we would when we first considered this project. I'm not certain we could have done much better than we did because our property slopes considerably, but concrete manufacturing is VERY energy intensive and next time we'll have to be more careful about property selection. Any ideas about alternatives out there? 2. The amount of waste generated by a building is simply astonishing! I own a Ford Ranger with a short wheelbase and a small box. I filled the thing 4 times with dimensional lumber cut too short for use, and hauled all of it out to my father in law so that he could mix it with his firewood this winter. (Generally speaking, dimensional lumber is so dry that it burns too quickly for a clean fire and therefore produces excessive smoke.) Surely gasification or clean pyrolysis would be much better alternatives than the landfill, where all of our oriented strand board, drywall, carpet scraps and other waste ended up. What's worse, is that our tradesmen kept saying that we actually had very little waste. . . Some of the houses going up around here have huge dumpsters that get filled more than once during the building! (I had asked the architect who drew our plans to minimize waste by making room sizes as close to standard dimensions as possible. We ended up with a bigger house for less money that way. Strange, isn't it?) 3. There's a certain momentum in doing things the conventional way. The lender at our credit union looked at me as if I was crazy when I said I wanted solar hot water. The builders simply didn't understand why I was so particular about southern orientation, minimizing north facing window sizes (our view is to the north, so I lost on that one. . ..), and people scratched their heads when I specified a relatively small electrical panel (just 100 amps of service!) and high efficiency lighting. We argued about extra insulation in the ceiling, heat in the floor and the tiny size of our natural gas boiler. There's a lot of ignorance about energy issues out there. I suppose people in forums like this one have a LOT of educating to do. . . robert luis rabello 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Shawn Zenor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sunday, November 24, 2002, at 06:37 AM, Hakan Falk wrote: Only in America!!! snip Hardwood is mostly a tropical or sub tropical tree and how can US use this for pallets and at the same time be upset about the deforestation of the remaining oxygen suppliers of the world. The hardwood of Europe was by tradition the property of the Kings, wherever it was rooted, because of its value for building ships and as structural building material. In this case oak was a strategic defense material. Oak used as structure for buildings, was inherited and reused for new buildings. The value of oak was almost comparable to gold a few hundred years ago. Hakan I reuse as many of them as I can for building furniture or small projects- I'm sorry to say that you really can find some fine woods in pallets- cedar, walnut, cherry, almost anything... it's crazy. I seeing a few businesses in New Mexico that used reclaimed pallet wood for furniture too. As far as Americans being concerned about deforestation- clearly they are not. Look who 'we' voted into the white house Shawn (waiting for Hawai`i to secede) Volkswagen camper rentals in Hawaii Hawaii÷Oahu÷Maui Imua Camper Company http://www.imua-tour.com 45 Shipman Street, Hilo HI 96720 Reservations: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -or- 1(877)773-4682 Hilo office (phone/fax) 1(808)935-6241 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: Re: [biofuel] Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Neoteric Biofuels Inc [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There was a local guy recycling wood here for a while - he got some great stuff from pallets. One was a valuable African hardwood, prized by instrument makers. That one piece, from a pallet he got for free, was worth a few hundred dollars to the right buyer. It was very dense hardwood - can't recall the type. He was shocked and amazed at his find. There is some pallet reuse and recycling going on, but not enough. The fellow I mention is out of business here, and working in an oil resource town now. Edward Beggs On Sunday, November 24, 2002, at 12:17 PM, Neil and Adele Craven wrote: - Original Message - From: Hakan Falk To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 3:37 AM Subject: Re: [biofuel] Back Online snippo Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hakan, hardness has nothing to do with whether a tree is a hardwood or a softwood, this is really a misnomer. Balsa wood is a hardwood. It is all related to whether the tree is pored or nonpored. With hardwoods being pored. In fact the correct terminology is Angiosperm, seeds in fruit, broadleaves, pored timber (hardwoods) and Gymnosperms, naked seeds in cones, usually narrow leaves, non pored timber (softwoods) Neil Canberra snippo Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] 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/ --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: RE: [biofuel] Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], harley3 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Mr. Falk: Your information was exaggerated and dated. The hardwood pallet made in the U.S., are reused. Most of the wood pallets have been replaced with a longer life plastic pallets of one design or another. When wood pallets where in use, they where constantly reused, until breakage. If broken they where rebuilt, and used again. Until they where beyond repair. Then usually someone would take them home, and burns them to heat their house. It was more cost effective to use a low quality hardwood for pallets because they would last long than using a softwood. It use to save money and trees to use hardwoods in pallet construction. That is until a long life plastic pallet became more cost affective. Only in America! Harley Fellion -Original Message- From: Hakan Falk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 10:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [biofuel] Back Online Only in America!!! I was not aware of that US made pallets of hardwood and did not think that it could ever be a stupid luxury consumption like this. I can see reason for some pallets to be made of hardwood, but they should be guarded and reused. But this irresponsible behavior cannot be excused. Six pallets of hardwood per American in land fills, give me a break! I am of the opinion that it is almost a sin to use hardwood for pallets in the first place. How can you use types of trees that take 50 to 100 years to mature for purposes like this. Hardwood is also very stupid to put in landfills, because of the long time it takes to disintegrate. If you really need to waste hardwood, effective burning is probably the best. Compared to the pallets we mostly use in Europe, made of pine tree, hardwood take 4-8 times longer to mature. Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hardwood is mostly a tropical or sub tropical tree and how can US use this for pallets and at the same time be upset about the deforestation of the remaining oxygen suppliers of the world. The hardwood of Europe was by tradition the property of the Kings, wherever it was rooted, because of its value for building ships and as structural building material. In this case oak was a strategic defense material. Oak used as structure for buildings, was inherited and reused for new buildings. The value of oak was almost comparable to gold a few hundred years ago. Hakan At 07:25 AM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Keith Addison wrote: Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. snip Indeed! I used to collect hardwood pallets, cut them up and burn them. Over the course of the average winter, my family burned 8 tons of wood like this. We hadn't paid for heat in years! Making the leap back into fossil fueled residential heating was a hard decision for me. I like the automaticity of our natural gas boiler, but we haven't received a bill yet . . . I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development. snip I've been lamenting about this for at least 30 years. That's one of the reasons I'm here. robert luis rabello Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: Re: [biofuel] Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Hakan Falk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Robert, Keith talked about hardwood pallets in US land fills as six per American. This means nearly 2 billion hardwood pallets in land fills. The shear size of this made me quite upset. I know that the Americans are second best in the world after the Canadians, in wasting energy resources. But dumping 2 billion hardwood pallets in landfills takes the price. Here is at least one who see the light, Shawn Zenor from http://www.imua-tour.com , Hawaii wrote: snip I reuse as many of them as I can for building furniture or small projects- I'm sorry to say that you really can find some fine woods in pallets- cedar, walnut, cherry, almost anything... it's crazy. I seeing a few businesses in New Mexico that used reclaimed pallet wood for furniture too. snip Hakan At 03:25 PM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Hakan Falk wrote: Only in America!!! Actually, I live in Canada. . . The pallets I used to cut up and burn came from Quebec. The hardwood baseboards we've just installed in our house came from Chile. It's not only a shame that hardwood is misused this way, but also that it has to be shipped (at great energy cost) across the continent or the oceans to get here. In defense of the industry, however, there are some pallets that require hardwood because of the nature of the materials shipped upon them. The stuff I used to collect for burning carried huge spools of aluminum that would break a softwood pallet. It's what we do with them afterwards that's a bigger shame. robert luis rabello 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/ --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: RE: [biofuel] Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Hakan Falk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Harley, If you are right, I will sleep better. Knowing that the landfill now is long life plastic pallets. At least it is dumped in American land fills. Something for future Archeological excavations, if some one is left to do such activities. Hakan At 03:32 PM 11/24/2002 -0600, you wrote: Dear Mr. Falk: Your information was exaggerated and dated. The hardwood pallet made in the U.S., are reused. Most of the wood pallets have been replaced with a longer life plastic pallets of one design or another. When wood pallets where in use, they where constantly reused, until breakage. If broken they where rebuilt, and used again. Until they where beyond repair. Then usually someone would take them home, and burns them to heat their house. It was more cost effective to use a low quality hardwood for pallets because they would last long than using a softwood. It use to save money and trees to use hardwoods in pallet construction. That is until a long life plastic pallet became more cost affective. Only in America! Harley Fellion -Original Message- From: Hakan Falk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 10:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [biofuel] Back Online Only in America!!! I was not aware of that US made pallets of hardwood and did not think that it could ever be a stupid luxury consumption like this. I can see reason for some pallets to be made of hardwood, but they should be guarded and reused. But this irresponsible behavior cannot be excused. Six pallets of hardwood per American in land fills, give me a break! I am of the opinion that it is almost a sin to use hardwood for pallets in the first place. How can you use types of trees that take 50 to 100 years to mature for purposes like this. Hardwood is also very stupid to put in landfills, because of the long time it takes to disintegrate. If you really need to waste hardwood, effective burning is probably the best. Compared to the pallets we mostly use in Europe, made of pine tree, hardwood take 4-8 times longer to mature. Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hardwood is mostly a tropical or sub tropical tree and how can US use this for pallets and at the same time be upset about the deforestation of the remaining oxygen suppliers of the world. The hardwood of Europe was by tradition the property of the Kings, wherever it was rooted, because of its value for building ships and as structural building material. In this case oak was a strategic defense material. Oak used as structure for buildings, was inherited and reused for new buildings. The value of oak was almost comparable to gold a few hundred years ago. Hakan At 07:25 AM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Keith Addison wrote: Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. snip Indeed! I used to collect hardwood pallets, cut them up and burn them. Over the course of the average winter, my family burned 8 tons of wood like this. We hadn't paid for heat in years! Making the leap back into fossil fueled residential heating was a hard decision for me. I like the automaticity of our natural gas boiler, but we haven't received a bill yet . . . I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development. snip I've been lamenting about this for at least 30 years. That's one of the reasons I'm here. robert luis rabello Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions
Fwd: Re: [biofuel] Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], James Slayden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Interesting I was just thinking about this while up in Berkley and seeing all the lonely pallets just lying around. It's a shame. I don't know home much of the industry still contiunes to use hardwood pallets, but there is a growing number of softwood pallets that several of the companies I have worked for seem to have shipped stuff on. Anyway one looks at it the pallets could be utilized for something other than being thrown away. I have 3 pallets framing my compost pile which is great use. I wonder if the folks at Arkenol have done some studys with old pallets, or even Dynamotive. Seems that the reclaimed pallet market would be HUGE for making fuels!! James Slayden On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Hakan Falk wrote: Robert, Keith talked about hardwood pallets in US land fills as six per American. This means nearly 2 billion hardwood pallets in land fills. The shear size of this made me quite upset. I know that the Americans are second best in the world after the Canadians, in wasting energy resources. But dumping 2 billion hardwood pallets in landfills takes the price. Here is at least one who see the light, Shawn Zenor from http://www.imua-tour.com , Hawaii wrote: snip I reuse as many of them as I can for building furniture or small projects- I'm sorry to say that you really can find some fine woods in pallets- cedar, walnut, cherry, almost anything... it's crazy. I seeing a few businesses in New Mexico that used reclaimed pallet wood for furniture too. snip Hakan At 03:25 PM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Hakan Falk wrote: Only in America!!! Actually, I live in Canada. . . The pallets I used to cut up and burn came from Quebec. The hardwood baseboards we've just installed in our house came from Chile. It's not only a shame that hardwood is misused this way, but also that it has to be shipped (at great energy cost) across the continent or the oceans to get here. In defense of the industry, however, there are some pallets that require hardwood because of the nature of the materials shipped upon them. The stuff I used to collect for burning carried huge spools of aluminum that would break a softwood pallet. It's what we do with them afterwards that's a bigger shame. robert luis rabello 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 the Yahoo! Terms of Service. --- End forwarded message ---
Fwd: RE: [biofuel] Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], James Slayden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm sure that reclaimation of the landfills will happen well before Archeologists have a chance to study it. ;-) Someone will realize that mining the landfills produces much wealth. James Slayden On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Hakan Falk wrote: Dear Harley, If you are right, I will sleep better. Knowing that the landfill now is long life plastic pallets. At least it is dumped in American land fills. Something for future Archeological excavations, if some one is left to do such activities. Hakan At 03:32 PM 11/24/2002 -0600, you wrote: Dear Mr. Falk: Your information was exaggerated and dated. The hardwood pallet made in the U.S., are reused. Most of the wood pallets have been replaced with a longer life plastic pallets of one design or another. When wood pallets where in use, they where constantly reused, until breakage. If broken they where rebuilt, and used again. Until they where beyond repair. Then usually someone would take them home, and burns them to heat their house. It was more cost effective to use a low quality hardwood for pallets because they would last long than using a softwood. It use to save money and trees to use hardwoods in pallet construction. That is until a long life plastic pallet became more cost affective. Only in America! Harley Fellion -Original Message- From: Hakan Falk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 10:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [biofuel] Back Online Only in America!!! I was not aware of that US made pallets of hardwood and did not think that it could ever be a stupid luxury consumption like this. I can see reason for some pallets to be made of hardwood, but they should be guarded and reused. But this irresponsible behavior cannot be excused. Six pallets of hardwood per American in land fills, give me a break! I am of the opinion that it is almost a sin to use hardwood for pallets in the first place. How can you use types of trees that take 50 to 100 years to mature for purposes like this. Hardwood is also very stupid to put in landfills, because of the long time it takes to disintegrate. If you really need to waste hardwood, effective burning is probably the best. Compared to the pallets we mostly use in Europe, made of pine tree, hardwood take 4-8 times longer to mature. Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hardwood is mostly a tropical or sub tropical tree and how can US use this for pallets and at the same time be upset about the deforestation of the remaining oxygen suppliers of the world. The hardwood of Europe was by tradition the property of the Kings, wherever it was rooted, because of its value for building ships and as structural building material. In this case oak was a strategic defense material. Oak used as structure for buildings, was inherited and reused for new buildings. The value of oak was almost comparable to gold a few hundred years ago. Hakan At 07:25 AM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Keith Addison wrote: Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. snip Indeed! I used to collect hardwood pallets, cut them up and burn them. Over the course of the average winter, my family burned 8 tons of wood like this. We hadn't paid for heat in years! Making the leap back into fossil fueled residential heating was a hard decision for me. I like the automaticity of our natural gas boiler, but we haven't received a bill yet . . . I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development. snip I've been lamenting about this for at least 30 years. That's one of the reasons I'm here. robert luis rabello Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
Fwd: RE: [biofuel] Back Online
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Hakan Falk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: James, You are probably right :-( . With current oil depletion it will be very high value. No proof left of our generations stupid behavior. Hakan At 04:07 PM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: I'm sure that reclaimation of the landfills will happen well before Archeologists have a chance to study it. ;-) Someone will realize that mining the landfills produces much wealth. James Slayden On Mon, 25 Nov 2002, Hakan Falk wrote: Dear Harley, If you are right, I will sleep better. Knowing that the landfill now is long life plastic pallets. At least it is dumped in American land fills. Something for future Archeological excavations, if some one is left to do such activities. Hakan At 03:32 PM 11/24/2002 -0600, you wrote: Dear Mr. Falk: Your information was exaggerated and dated. The hardwood pallet made in the U.S., are reused. Most of the wood pallets have been replaced with a longer life plastic pallets of one design or another. When wood pallets where in use, they where constantly reused, until breakage. If broken they where rebuilt, and used again. Until they where beyond repair. Then usually someone would take them home, and burns them to heat their house. It was more cost effective to use a low quality hardwood for pallets because they would last long than using a softwood. It use to save money and trees to use hardwoods in pallet construction. That is until a long life plastic pallet became more cost affective. Only in America! Harley Fellion -Original Message- From: Hakan Falk [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 24, 2002 10:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [biofuel] Back Online Only in America!!! I was not aware of that US made pallets of hardwood and did not think that it could ever be a stupid luxury consumption like this. I can see reason for some pallets to be made of hardwood, but they should be guarded and reused. But this irresponsible behavior cannot be excused. Six pallets of hardwood per American in land fills, give me a break! I am of the opinion that it is almost a sin to use hardwood for pallets in the first place. How can you use types of trees that take 50 to 100 years to mature for purposes like this. Hardwood is also very stupid to put in landfills, because of the long time it takes to disintegrate. If you really need to waste hardwood, effective burning is probably the best. Compared to the pallets we mostly use in Europe, made of pine tree, hardwood take 4-8 times longer to mature. Even the fast growing teak, developed mainly in central and south America, takes at least 2-4 the time to mature as pine trees and it is questionable if it is still hardwood. The fast growing teak is softer, but still have the natural defense against humidity and insects. Hardwood is mostly a tropical or sub tropical tree and how can US use this for pallets and at the same time be upset about the deforestation of the remaining oxygen suppliers of the world. The hardwood of Europe was by tradition the property of the Kings, wherever it was rooted, because of its value for building ships and as structural building material. In this case oak was a strategic defense material. Oak used as structure for buildings, was inherited and reused for new buildings. The value of oak was almost comparable to gold a few hundred years ago. Hakan At 07:25 AM 11/24/2002 -0800, you wrote: Keith Addison wrote: Re wasted wood, I picked this up somewhere or other, for the US, not Canada: In 1999, for instance, 7.5 million tons of wooden pallets - platforms associated with shipping - went into the solid waste stream, accounting for over 60 percent of all wood waste. And: There are an estimated 6 hardwood palletts in landfill for every resident of the US. snip Indeed! I used to collect hardwood pallets, cut them up and burn them. Over the course of the average winter, my family burned 8 tons of wood like this. We hadn't paid for heat in years! Making the leap back into fossil fueled residential heating was a hard decision for me. I like the automaticity of our natural gas boiler, but we haven't received a bill yet . . . I just posted this somewhere else: ... the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward
[biofuel] Back Online
Hello Everyone! It's been five months since I've been able to post here. My wife and I have built a new house, and not only have I learned a lot about the building process, I've been astonished at how much waste and inefficiency goes into putting up a home. 1. Builders love concrete. We used WAY more concrete than I believed we would when we first considered this project. I'm not certain we could have done much better than we did because our property slopes considerably, but concrete manufacturing is VERY energy intensive and next time we'll have to be more careful about property selection. Any ideas about alternatives out there? 2. The amount of waste generated by a building is simply astonishing! I own a Ford Ranger with a short wheelbase and a small box. I filled the thing 4 times with dimensional lumber cut too short for use, and hauled all of it out to my father in law so that he could mix it with his firewood this winter. (Generally speaking, dimensional lumber is so dry that it burns too quickly for a clean fire and therefore produces excessive smoke.) Surely gasification or clean pyrolysis would be much better alternatives than the landfill, where all of our oriented strand board, drywall, carpet scraps and other waste ended up. What's worse, is that our tradesmen kept saying that we actually had very little waste. . . Some of the houses going up around here have huge dumpsters that get filled more than once during the building! (I had asked the architect who drew our plans to minimize waste by making room sizes as close to standard dimensions as possible. We ended up with a bigger house for less money that way. Strange, isn't it?) 3. There's a certain momentum in doing things the conventional way. The lender at our credit union looked at me as if I was crazy when I said I wanted solar hot water. The builders simply didn't understand why I was so particular about southern orientation, minimizing north facing window sizes (our view is to the north, so I lost on that one. . .), and people scratched their heads when I specified a relatively small electrical panel (just 100 amps of service!) and high efficiency lighting. We argued about extra insulation in the ceiling, heat in the floor and the tiny size of our natural gas boiler. There's a lot of ignorance about energy issues out there. I suppose people in forums like this one have a LOT of educating to do. . . robert luis rabello 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/
