Waste Based Society

[jdwheeler42]

We are very probably already well past the point of preventing climate change, now it's a question of surviving it.

Just as we did during the LIA, the MWP, the Roman warming, and all the other warmings and coolings which came before.

You're absolutely right, except for one teensy little thing: THERE WEREN'T SEVEN FUCKING BILLION OF US at any of those times before.  (And the expletive is not superfluous; if 90% of the population were celibate I wouldn't be worried.)

It's not about logic, it's about mathematical expectation, ie, probability times results.  Human extinction is a pretty damn big negative result, so it doesn't have to be a high probability for me to want to try avoid it.  Then again I'm the kind of guy who packs up his valuables when it's been dry and he sees smoke on the horizon.  Maybe you like to wait until the fire is in your face.

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[agelbert]

Ice Caps Melt in the North Pole . . . Again      

Earth's coldest spot wilts after a superheated July.


GO AHEAD, MKing and Snowleapard, tell me I am exaggerating about global warming. That LIQUID WATER LAKE YOU SEE IS AT THE NORTH FUCKING POLE! Put THAT in your PIPE and SMOKE it!
Photo Credit: Courtesy North Pole Environmental Observatory
July 25, 2013

In what is proving to be a relatively annual occurrence, the North Pole's ice has melted, turning the Earth's northern most point into a shallow lake. The North Pole Environmental Observatory released a photo on July 24 that has many clamoring to push climate change to the forefront of national concerns. The ice began to melt, with the melted water resting above a thin layer of ice, on July 13 during a month of abnormally warm weather (LiveScience reports the temperatures have been 1 to 3 degrees Celsius higher then the Atlantic Ocean's July average).

With an Arctic cyclone on the way, the strong winds and rain are said to be on course to possibly loosen the ice coverage even further, thinning the water and potentially expanding the lake. This all falls within an undeniable rising of temperatures across the globe, with the Northern hemisphere finding itself particularly affected (thanks largely to an ever-depleting hole in the ozone layer). Though April featured the 9th highest snow storm on record, according to the Washington Post, May's snow cover ranked the third lowest since 1967, melting almost half of the ice caps' snowy layer. Many scientists and environmental activists and just plain sane people are heeding this as a warning to take environmental action, as an increase in sea temperature is largely considered to be contributing to melting ice caps the world over.

Rod Bastanmehr is a freelance writer in New York City with a passion for music, film and culture. Follow him on Twitter @rodb.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/ice-cape-melt-north-pole-again


Ban Fossil Fuel Burning NOW!

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[agelbert]

Straight from the sun: The renewables revolution has landed

By Mike Robbins on 19 July 2013

SNIPPET 1
Just after the latest round of climate change talks (in Bonn this time) had sort-of stalled, I took a walk to New York’s North Cove Marina.

The southern tip of Manhattan narrows to a point at its southern end and juts out into the broad expanse of New York Harbour. The Marina is on the lower West Side, far enough down for the famous landmark of Ellis Island to be clearly visible. Just beyond is the Statue of Liberty; it was a mid-June Monday and the statue was bathed in the bluish haze of a warm humid late afternoon at the end of spring. A few lazy sailboats drifted in front of it. Further away, the high, bright-orange superstructure of a Staten Island ferry passed in front of the Verrazano Narrows bridge, itself a tiny latticework on the horizon, spanning the channel between Staten Island and Brooklyn, and guarding New York’s gateway to the sea. Closer to the shore, the Circle Line sightseeing boat passed by, as did the odd ferry across the Hudson, carrying commuters home to the New Jersey shore a mile or so away across the river.





The Planet Solar (solar powered catamaran)

The Marina itself is tucked into the steel-and-glass canyons of modern Manhattan; over it looms the new Freedom Tower that has sprung from the ruins of September 11 2001. That afternoon the MS Tûranor Planet Solar had backed into her berth in the Marina after a long trip across the Atlantic to Florida and thence up the coast. The name Tûranor is taken from J.R.R. Tolkien; it is Elvish for Power of the Sun. They are not joking. Planet Solar is powered by an enormous solar array of about 5,600 square feet (519 sq m). Walking into the marina from the south, the 89-ton boat was instantly recognisable; she is actually a catamaran, with a totally flat superstructure bar a small blister for the bridge – the rest of her topside is solar cells.

The brainchild of Swiss eco-entrepeneur Raphael Domjan, in 2010-2012 she became the first solar boat to circumnavigate the globe. On this occasion, she had not come so far – across the Atlantic from La Ciotat on France’s Mediterranean coast. The trip had been accomplished solely on solar power; although she carries a back-up engine to recharge the batteries, she hadn’t needed it.

Planet Solar  had not come to New York just to prove a point. On board was a team from the University of Geneva, led by Martin Beniston, Professor of Climate Change at the University and also director of its newly-established Institute of Environmental Sciences. On the night the Planet Solar arrived in Manhattan, the Swiss Consulate arranged a cheerful informal reception on board, and I found Professor Beniston unwinding with some excellent Swiss wines and cheeses.

Although Swiss, Professor Beniston was born in the UK and did his first degree at the University of East Anglia, where I did my own PhD on climate change. The project, he explained, was to carry out research in the Gulf Stream into the mechanics of CO2 fluxes between the ocean and the atmosphere, and especially into the role of phytoplankton. “Because it’s a pollution-free boat, it will be ideal for the collection and analysis of samples,” he told me. “They won’t be contaminated.”

SNIPPET 2
Not long ago Škoda launched a new version of its popular Octavia model. I was very impressed with an early version that I hired some years ago, so I took a look. The car is available with an arsenal of equipment, including satnav, a digital radio, driver fatigue warning, dual-zone climate control and a box on the dash with a wireless connection for your mobile phone. Electronic stability control is standard, and one can specify a collision warning and even a system to apply the brakes if a collision seems likely. All in all, the car disposes of far more computing power than did the Apollo lunar module. Yet at its heart (and that of almost all cars) is a reciprocating engine not much different in principle from de Rivaz’s, and certainly not from that of the Benz Motorwagen of 1885.

This will not do. Consider the number of moving surfaces in such a unit. Each piston begins its cycle by sucking in fuel on a downward (intake) stroke, compressing it on the upward (compression) stroke, being driven down by combustion on the next stroke and then expelling the waste gases on its next upward travel (the exhaust stroke). With four such pistons, there are one hell of a lot of moving surfaces, especially given that only one cylinder of the four will be on the combustion stroke, and providing power, at any one time. Moreover, besides the major moving parts – the cylinders, the connecting rods from them to the crankshaft and the crankshaft itself – there are a mass of others; belts or chains from the crankshaft will drive the shafts that open and close the valves at the top of the cylinders, and will also turn the water pump that cools the engine and will drive the alternator that provides electrical power. Thus the one cylinder that is firing at any one time moves a large surface area that constantly changes direction, meaning that it must also accelerate and decelerate a great deal of mass as the pistons pass the tops and bottoms of their stroke.

In short, the modern car engine is an archaic, demented Heath Robinson device that flies in the face of physics, the sort of nightmare of moving parts an incompetent child might make with a Meccano set. Why do we still tolerate it in our digital world? Science fiction fans may remember a short story by John Wyndham, Chocky, in which the eponymous hero is an alien that communicates with a child; when the child explains that his father’s new car has gears, Chocky cannot hide his contempt.

SNIPPET 3
But another answer has been staring us in the face for over 100 years. In 1899 the Belgian engineer Camille Jenatzy broke the world land speed record and also exceeded 100KPH for the first time, using a torpedo-shaped vehicle called the Jamais Contente. It too still exists and is on display at the Château de Compiègne not far from Paris, but I wouldn’t mess with the Jamais Contente either; it is rather tall, and the driver sat on top of it, making it look dangerously top-heavy. Jenatzy will not have been scared.

He went on to a distinguished motor-racing career at a time when the sport was horrifically dangerous. He told friends that he would die in a Mercedes, and oddly enough he did; to amuse guests on a hunting trip, he hid behind a bush and imitated a wild boar, whereupon his friends shot him. He died in the ambulance.

What intrigues about the Jamais Contente. , however, is that it was electric. There is nothing new about electric cars at all. In the early days of motoring they were common, especially for town use. The relative lack of moving parts reduces friction, while the simplicity of their action mean that changes in velocity do not mean changes in multiple piston speeds. The Jamais Contente did not even have a transmission – even a simple transfer gear; the motor and wheels turned on the same shaft. The limiting factor, so far, has been battery technology and inadequate range. Jenatzy himself seems to have abandoned the technology for that reason.

That is changing. Tesla Motors claims that its Model S will manage 300 miles at 55MPH. The range of an electric vehicle is highly variable depending on temperature and usage, but the US Environmental Protection Agency apparently does accept that the Model S car will do 208-265 miles, depending on battery pack.

The Morris Minor I drove in my youth had a range of only about 260 miles. True, that was an era when there were many more fuel stations; but building charging stations for electric cars should be a simpler matter. In fact a recent article on the website of the Rocky Mountain institute (Is the End of EV Range Anxiety in Sight?, June 20 2013) suggests a number of possibilities, including increases in the number of charging stations, mobile emergency chargers and a 500-mile vehicle through developments in lithium-air batteries.

SNIPPET 4
Why use combustion of fuel to heat a separate substance to induce motion, when you can do so directly from the fuel itself? As the Institute National de Science realised, that was what the Niépce brothers had done. Meanwhile de Rivaz used the piston to convert that process into rotary motion.

But that was 200 years ago. It’s time to move on again. It’s the same process that led the replacement of the piston aero-engine by the turbine and then the jet, a profound simplification; and to the clean shapes of modern aircraft in place of the string-and-fabric birdcages that followed the Wright Brothers.

In the late 1960s a motoring magazine persuaded the 80-year-old W.O. Bentley to give his thoughts on modern technology. It took him to Fairford to see the British prototype of Concorde, then under construction. “Now we’re back to the dug-out canoe,” he snorted.

But perhaps that was the point. Good technology is ultimately a process of understanding how to use one’s environment, rather than confront it. To confront is a process of complication, of evasion; progress is simplification, cutting the distance between the source of energy and the outcome for which it is needed.

But there is a flaw in this argument. Electric cars are not fuel-less vehicles like the Planet Solar. They do not generate their own electricity. There have been experiments with solar vehicles, but they have yet to pass the proof-of-concept stage. Far from converting fuel directly into motion, electric vehicles must take their charge from power stations that may generate it from fossil fuel. If the power were generated from renewables, of course, this objection would be overcome.

SNIPPET 5
This is all quite logical. Just as de Rivaz’s engines bought the power source right into the piston chamber, so renewable energy sources – especially solar – bring the sun’s energy direct to where it is needed.

By contrast, the use of oil and gas requires the sun to shine on a plant, the plant to grow, the plant to die, the dead plant material to become buried, and for it to work its way deeper underground until it is crushed by the weight of the earth above. It is then necessary to wait 500 million-odd years before it is ready to burn. At that point, it must be brought back to the surface and transported to where it is needed, sometimes with pollution and loss of life.

Examples include the BP explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and – less discussed, but possibly worse – the environmental damage done for many years in the Niger Delta.

This is not new. I am old enough to remember the disastrous 1967 oil spill after the shipwreck of the 120,000-ton oil tanker Torrey Canyon on the Seven Stones off south-west England.

Many will also remember the 167 deaths in the explosion of the Piper Alpha gas platform in 1988. Just this week, it is reported that at least 35 people have died in a dreadful accident involving an oil train at Lac-Mégantic in Quebec.

As for nuclear energy, it is scarcely a simpler process, and requires huge infrastructure projects with a limited working life. Moreover, while it has a better safety record, the accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima have reminded us that it is potentially even more dangerous.

Why on earth not just harvest the wind and the sun?

This may seem glib. It is not so simple, of course. Fossil fuels let us use the energy produced through photosynthesis at a far higher rate than it is produced. (But is that a good idea?

We have unbalanced the global carbon cycle in the process.) And as the Germans are finding, for renewables you need to fix the grid first. Yet there is an inescapable logic to the direct use of energy, and as the Planet Solar and the Solar Impulse have shown, one day we may be able to use it more directly still.

That is why a move to renewables is inevitable.


SNIPPET 6
As we left Hangar 19 at JFK last weekend, I turned for a last look at the strange aircraft behind me, and just for a moment I did think of a world where there would be no polluted Niger delta, no terrible Piper Alpha or Lac-Mégantic, no Fukushima; just solar boats that move quietly through clean water and, far above, a magic aeroplane stays aloft forever, soaring and wheeling with kestrels and kites.

Full article here

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/straight-from-the-sun-the-renewables-revolution-has-landed-98340

Agelbert NOTE: The author believes the climate problems will not force the transition but, rather the superior and clean Renewable Energy technolgy will do it. I disagree. The fossil fuel industry will not go quietly; it must be forced out! Other than that disagreement I have on what will motivate the transition, this article is a historical gem about our machines and energy use. 

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[agelbert]

Benjamin Cole, a spokesman for American Energy Alliance told Politico in October 2012 that, "Our [American Energy Alliance] goal is to make the United States Wind Energy Policy#Wind Production Tax Credit so toxic that it makes it impossible for John Boehner to sit at a table with Harry Reid and say, ‘Yeah, I can bend on this one.’”




No reply.

But how many of these faux "research" institutes can their money stand up?

Great find! Thanks giving it to the propagandist with both barrels.

And great question. I'll bet you they are bleeding money pretty badly. Those wind turbines disturb the fossil fuelers far more than than PV panels because they are SO VISIBLE! Remember these fossil fuel ghouls are basically a public relations propaganda outfit. Their glorified R & D has been mostly smoke and mirrors for half a century so the petroleum refining chemistry and infrastructure, with the exception of deep drilling technology is about as dynamic as a bump on a log.

No, big oil is all about propaganda. Propaganda needs symbols like flying horses, tigers in gas tanks and cute dinosaurs to keep people snowed. These wind turbines with their quick EPBT (energy pay back time) sprouting all over the place in some rather traditionally republican areas of the country are a threat to the pro-oil voting structure in this country.Yes, I know a lot of democrats are bought and paid for but they won't be able to hide when everybody and his mother wants cheap renewable energy and won't take no for an answer.

If I had a young child now, I would recommend he become a wind turbine maintenance technician. That will be, like most renewable enrgy devices like PV, tidal power and geothermal, is a stable source of employment for an lifetime career.
 

The counties like the one I wrote about in Oregon with high wind resources are raking it in and the word is going out through word of mouth, something no Fox news or propaganda campaign can counter. Even some Tea Partiers are wanting some Renewable Energy action in Georgia recently. The wind turbine money isn't just talking, it's waking people up to the sheer stupidity of fueling a generator or power plant for 20 or thirty years when you can get the energy without fossil fuels.

Have you noticed you NEVER see a cost chart of how much it costs in gasoline to run a car for 20 years that gets 20 mpg and drives 12,000 miles a year?

Total of 240,000 miles @ 20 mpg = 12,000 gallons @ $4 a gallon = $48,000!

This in the face of a GUARANTEED 60 to 70 mpg (EPA equivalence numbers for EVs) for an electric car.

The KICKER is that the "gallon" of "electric fuel" the EV gets is FIXED NOW at about $1.18 a GALLON. No wars or price shocks can jack up the electricity from renewable energy price and the price contracts go at 10 year intervals (not like night to day gasoline station price gouging).

SO, the EV getting 62 "mpg" at $1.18 a gallon costs $4,567.75 in 20 years excluding maintenance and battery costs which ARE MUCH CHEAPER than maintenance and emissions inspection costs for 20 years on an internal combustion engine).

Total of 240,000 miles @ 62 mpg = 12,000 gallons @ $1.18 a gallon = $4,567.75 !
 That's a savings of around $2,171 A YEAR WITHOUT POLLUTION!

People are waking up and doing the numbers. Big Oil KNOWS the numbers and HATES to see that symbol of CHEAP ENERGY, the wind turbine, in everybody's face out there because they KNOW how the human mind works and they KNOW that people are going to want a piece of that.

SO, big oil goes after the wind turbines. They are going to lose this one. 

Money talks and every time a town manager or a rancher or farmer sees 20 mph of GOLD going by his house, he's going to say, HEY, let's get some of that! FUCK the fossil fuels!. I'll make all my town or farm machines electric and fuel them RIGHT HERE! I might even get my neighbors that don't have as much wind as I do to go electric and buy their "fuel" at my place!

I'm glad the Koch reptiles and big oil are so sold on propaganda instead of facts and logic.  In fact, a lot of the people on their payroll probably know it's a losing battle but are hanging on for the swag as long as they can.  Good. Let big oil bleed lots of money playing whack-a-mole with the multiplying positive message of renewable energy. I hope it bankrupts them!   

Fun times ahead for us tree huggers regardless of the arrogant, puffed up, murderous fossil fuel defenders. THEY ARE GOING DOWN ALONG WITH THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE! 


Here Lies Internal Combustion Engine FRED. A great big Wind Turbine fell on his HEAD.

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[agelbert]

New Community Projects Provide Solar Energy in Minnesota
 
Christopher Minott
July 25, 2013

Construction of Minnesota’s first community solar project finished last week and is expected to be up and running by the end of July.

Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association, through a partnership with Clean Energy Collective, has found a way to provide residents in Rockford, Minn., with solar energy for their homes without the stress of construction and maintenance and having panels atop their roofs.
The company completed its first community solar project, often called a solar garden, this month. The 170-panels were installed July 17, said Kristina Moritz, communications specialist with the company. The project is expected to be running the last week of July.

The project is located on Wright-Hennepin’s property in Rockford. The company takes care of construction and maintenance. People can buy power from the project, reserving as many panels as they want, Moritz said. Some people reserved enough to power their entire home, while others wanted to just supplement their power source, she said.

Some people hope to build up their solar supply, buying a panel or two at a time, instead of having to pay a large lump sum at once for a full installation on a home. People who buy into the project get a credit on their electric bill, she said. Each panel cost $869. Seventeen customers signed up, buying between one and 36 panels each. Each panel is 190 watts. The project is already sold out, but the response was so great from the community, Wright-Hennepin is planning another community solar project of the same size to be built this fall and is taking reservations for those panels. (Only Wright-Hennepin customers are eligible to buy panels). It too will be situated on Wright-Hennepin’s property.

While this is the first project the company has built, Moritz expects the community method to become a common way to provide people with energy while alleviating the burden of construction and installation and maintenance. It’s a way to reap the benefits of solar power, without the hassle.

While there are similar community projects elsewhere in the country, such as in Colorado, New Mexico and Maryland, the Wright-Hennepin project is the first member-owned solar community project in Minnesota and the first in the nation to incorporate solar energy with battery storage which allows the company to store power produced during the day to be used in the evening when energy demand is highest.

Wright-Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association was founded in 1937 and is one of Minnesota’s largest member-owned electric utilities. It distributes electricity to more than 46,000 homes, businesses and farms.

This article originally appeared on CleanEnergyAuthority.com on July 25, 2013

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2013/07/new-community-projects-provide-solar-energy-in-minnesota?cmpid=SolarNL-Saturday-July27-2013

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[agelbert]

Thailand Solar FiT Rates Announced For Another 1,000 MW Of Solar PV           

July 27, 2013 Nathan

This article was first published on CleanTechnica sister site Green Building Elements.
The government of Thailand has announced plans to spur another 1,000 megawatts (MW) — or 1 gigawatt (GW) — of solar photovoltaic projects in the country. Feed-in Tariff (FiT) rates will be offered for 200 MW of rooftop solar and 800 MW of community-owned ground mounts.

Systems will be guaranteed the new FiT payments for a 25-year period, instead of the previous 10 years.


Image Credit: WatChaiwatthanaram via Wikimedia Commons

The approval for the new plans were announced by Thailand’s National Energy Policy Commission (NEPC) on Tuesday, raising the country’s goal for solar energy to 3 GW. The FiT rates will be awarded to 100 MW worth of rooftop solar photovoltaic installations of up to 10 kW in size, and to a further 100 MW worth of PV systems in the 10-250 kW and 250 kW-1 MW ranges. FiT rates will also be awarded to 800 MW worth of “ground-mounted, community owned solar, to be allocated as 1 MW per tambon, or local government sub district.”

PV Magazine has more details: “The smaller systems will be paid THB6.69/kW (US$0.22/kW) over 25 years with mid size rooftops earning THB6.55/kW and the largest domestic systems guaranteed THB6.16/kW. To qualify, rooftop systems have to be installed by December.

The community FIT rate is also for 25 years but will have a built-in regression with systems earning BHT9.75/kW for years one to three, BHT6.5/kW in years four to ten and BHT4.5/kW for years eleven to 25. To qualify, the community systems must be installed by December 2014.”

The national Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is currently in the process of drafting the implementation regulations for the new legislation.

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/07/27/thai-government-announces-fit-rates-for-further-1-gw-of-solar-pv/#bZ4m14TClu6htwRl.99

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[agelbert]

Subverting Wind Power

On May 8, 2012, the Guardian posted a confidential memo prepared by a fellow of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) that advises how to build a national movement of wind farm protesters. Among its main recommendations, the proposal calls for a national PR campaign aimed at causing "subversion in message of [wind] industry so that it effectively becomes so bad that no one wants to admit in public they are for it." It suggests setting up "dummy businesses" to buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a "counter-intelligence branch" to track the wind energy industry. It also calls for spending $750,000 to create an organisation with paid staff and tax-exempt status dedicated to building public opposition to state and federal government policies encouraging the wind energy industry.

The proposal was discussed at a meeting of self-styled 'wind warriors' from across the country in Washington DC in February 2012. Participants included members of conservative groups such as Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and Tea Party Patriots.

The proposal was reviewed by John Droz Jr., a senior fellow at ATI, for discussion at the Washington meeting, which he also organised. ATI's executive director, Tom Tanton, told the Guardian that Droz had acted alone on the memo, although he remains a fellow at ATI. Droz is a longtime opponent of wind farms, arguing that the technology has not yet been proven and that wind technology should not receive government support. He claims 10,000 subscribers to his anti-wind-power email newsletter. In a telephone interview, Droz said the Washington strategy session was his own initiative, and that neither he nor any of the participants had been paid for attending the session.[3]

More FASCINATING Koch Corruption DIRT here:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Tradition_Institute

And you know these crooks aren't content to just spend money to subvert Renewable Energy Technology or deny climate change. Oh, NO! They want every penny they use to bribe a university to teach lies, a politician to vote a certain way or some big oil front group "Institute" registered as a non-profit Pushing Anti-Renewable Energy propaganda to be TAX DEDUCTIBLE!  Yeah, it's all part of PHILANTHROPY, don'tcha know? NOT!

The point is to move the money through real charitable sounding non-profits and then on to the target. It's pretty slick (and sickening  ) to watch the maneuvers these bribers, MOSTLY LIBERTARIANS passing themselves off as Republicans, will go through to get YOU AND ME to subsidize coercive bribery that undermines good government and sound energy policies.

From Dark Money:

The total amount raised by WTP, now known as American Tradition Partnership, was not large, compared to the tens of millions of dollars dark money groups like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity have collected in the 2012 election cycle.

But the details available on WTP, which has worked to elect conservatives in Montana and Colorado and has won national attention for a lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to apply its Citizens United ruling to states, are striking.

The bank records highlight WTP’s ties to groups backing libertarian Ron Paul. The Conservative Action League, a Virginia social welfare nonprofit run at the time in part by John Tate, most recently Paul’s campaign manager, transferred $40,000 to WTP in August 2008, bank records show. Tate was also a consultant for WTP. In addition, WTP gave $5,000 to a group called the SD Campaign for Liberty, affiliated with Paul and the national Campaign for Liberty.

The bank records also illustrate how cash passes between dark money groups, further obscuring its original source: $500,000 passed from Coloradans for Economic Growth to WTP to the National Right to Work Committee, over a few days in October 2008. Coloradans for Economic Growth and the National Right to Work Committee are social welfare nonprofits that don’t have to disclose their donors. Tate and others paid by WTP were also once associated with National Right to Work.

WTP’s biggest donation that wasn’t simply a pass-through, for $110,000, was from the Spur Education Fund, an obscure nonprofit with no website, about which little information is available. Incorporated in June 2010, out of the same Denver law firm address as Coloradans for Economic Growth, the fund transferred money to WTP four times between July and September 2010.

More DIRT here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/big-sky-big-money/dark-money-groups-donors-revealed/

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[agelbert]

Graph Proves People Love Solar & Wind, Not Coal & Nuclear

     
This article first published on RenewEconomy

Today’s graph of the day comes courtesy of The Climate Institute, and its new publication, Climate of the Nation. The results are from a poll of 1,009 Australians (over 18) taken in the first week of June.

Solar and wind are by far the most popular, and wind gained the most support from the previous year, jumping from 59 per cent to 67 per cent. Coal and nuclear were the least popular, with nuclear falling from 20 per cent to 13 per cent. No fossil fuel gained more than 28 per cent approval, and geothermal and ocean energy have yet to capture the imagination.
But while this graph is self explanatory, there were some interesting findings along gender lines.




The Climate Institute said the poll found that solar and wind were both more popular among women than men. Indeed 93 per cent of women voted for solar among their top three preferred energy sources, compared to 80 per cent of men. A similar difference was detected in wind, which attracted 73 per cent support from woman and 60 per cent support from men.

The other big variation along gender lines was for nuclear, which got a vote from 22 per cent of men and just 5 per cent of women.Nuclear gained most approval among older men, but not at all by the younger generation.
Geothermal energy also seemed to be a man-thing, with 28 per cent of men nominating the technology, but only 19 per cent of women.
Wind energy, incidentally, was more popular in regional areas (70 per cent) than it was in the cities (65 per cent
The other interesting graph was this one below, which will come as a crushing disappointment to the Coalition hardliners who think that a campaign against renewable energy sources might be a popular thing.). Nearly half of those surveyed reckoned the renewable energy target should be higher than its current minimum level of 20 per cent, a further 29 per cent believed the target was about right and only 9 per cent thought it should be lower.



                                                               
         

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/07/19/graph-proves-women-prefer-solar-old-men-love-nuclear/

It's time for the old farts that love nuclear poison piggery to move to the nuclear waste storage areas! After all, nuclear waste is only dangerous for a few hundred thousand years...   That's nothing to those UBERMENSCH among us who "think big" about energy harvesting from dyson spheres  and who's minds aren't "limited" to "unsustainable gimmiks"    like wind turbines and PV  panels...

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[agelbert]

Monsta666 said,

I still maintain that even if we replaced all fossil fuel infrastructure with renewable energy systems we would still face collapse due to resource depletion and likely pollution that has already been emitted from burning fossil fuels and other related economic activities such as cutting forests etc.

It is a given that, any time human existence (e.g. Easter Island) resulted in outstripping resources needed to perpetuate the species, a collapse took place.

Sure, the big GHG PUNCH coming our way is still in the dugout but I'll give just ONE example of how solvable a lot of these supposedly intractable problems, like all those forests getting chopped down, are.

Forests equal wood products + paper, right? Have you ever heard of CHEMURGY? IT is a REAL branch of science that was developed in the 1920s and 1930s.

CHEMURGY is the theory (that was conclusively proven in the 1930s!) that, if you can make PLASTICS, PHARMACEUTICALS, LUBRICANTS and FUEL from HYDROCARBONS, you can make all that stuff from CARBOHYDRATES as well.

Henry Ford used a sledge hammer on a car fender made of plant based plastic that was both lighter and 10 times stronger than steel in 1941 to prove how tough this new material was! WTF HAPPENED?

DuPont, leading maker of leaded gasoline additive,  the SEVEN SISTERS (Rockefeller Big Oil Bitches) AND William Randolph Hearst's VAST forest holdings targeted for paper mill profits IS WHAT HAPPENED!

* In 1916, the U.S. Government predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down. Government studies report that 1 acre of hemp equals 4.1 acres of trees. Plans were in the works to implement such programs; Department of Agriculture

* Quality paints and varnishes were made from hemp seed oil until 1937. 58,000 tons of hemp seeds were used in America for paint products in 1935; Sherman Williams Paint Co. testimony before Congress against the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act.

* Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.

* Hemp called 'Billion Dollar Crop.' It was the first time a cash crop had a business potential to exceed a billion dollars; Popular Mechanics, Feb., 1938.

* Mechanical Engineering Magazine (Feb. 1938) published an article entitled 'The Most Profitable and Desirable Crop that Can be Grown.' It stated that if hemp was cultivated using 20th Century technology, it would be the single largest agricultural crop in the U.S. and the rest of the world.[

Hemp cultivation and production do not harm the environment.

The USDA Bulletin #404 concluded that hemp produces 4 times as much pulp with at least 4 to 7 times less pollution. From Popular Mechanics, Feb. 1938:

'It has a short growing season...It can be grown in any state...The long roots penetrate and break the soil to leave it in perfect condition for the next year's crop. The dense shock of leaves, 8 to 12 feet above the ground, chokes out weeds.
...hemp, this new crop can add immeasurably to American agriculture and industry.'

In the 1930s, innovations in farm machinery would have caused an industrial revolution when applied to hemp. This single resource could have created millions of new jobs generating thousands of quality products. Hemp, if not made illegal, would have brought America out of the Great Depression.

William Randolph Hearst (Citizen Kane) and the Hearst Paper Manufacturing Division of Kimberly Clark owned vast acreage of timberlands. The Hearst Company supplied most paper products. Patty Hearst's grandfather, a destroyer of nature for his own personal profit, stood to lose billions because of hemp.

In 1937, Dupont patented the processes to make plastics from oil and coal. Dupont's Annual Report urged stockholders to invest in its new petrochemical division. Synthetics such as plastics, cellophane, celluloid, methanol, nylon, rayon, Dacron, etc., could now be made from oil. Natural hemp industrialization would have ruined over 80% of Dupont's business.

GET IT?

Bring hemp back and the forests can be left alone and increased vastly in size as well. WHY? Because all that 97% or so of the corn we grow now, not for food, but for low EROEI ethanol with fossil fuel based fertilizers AND fossil fuel powered machine plowing that degrades the top soil AND the fossil fuel based pesticides can ALL BE DEEP SIXED by planting HEMP.

HIGH EROEI ethanol, bio-diesel, plastics, textiles, medicines, paper, ETC. can ALL be made from hemp  WITHOUT chemical fertilizers OR pesticides.

And you know those MILLIONS of acres of NON-arable land all over the planet just sitting there? A lot of it can be covered with shallow duckweed ponds (Lemna minor) that DOUBLES its mass every 24 HOURS, grows in stagnant water with pig shit as fertilizer and can be used to RAPIDLY sequester carbon as well as making renewable energy pelletized fuel.

And GET THIS, Duckweed is EDIBLE so you can use it as animal feed for the hogs that you need to provide the fertilizer.

It is edible for humans as well and has a wealth of vitamins in it. Since it grows so fast (NO OTHER PLANT GROWS FASTER) it can be used as a nutrition staple for the poor. There are several other plants out there like sugar cane and switchgrass that also grow quickly that can be raw material for chemurgy products.

WE DO NEED, however, to STOP burning fossil fuels. The collapse you are anticipating is GUARANTEED, not if they disappear, but IF THEY AREN'T REPLACED! I know that sounds counterintuitive to you but you KNOW they are poisoning us.

After reading the above history you also KNOW that we have ARTIFICIALLY FORCED HEMP OUT of the market so forests could destroyed for profit and big oil and chemical corporation profits from fossil fuels wouldn't be affected. It's a giant fucking scam!

We don't need those fucking vampires forcing us to use their poisons and despoiling nature cutting forests while they make competitors illegal with wild stories about the danger of (aided and abetted by the Hearst Empire) "marijuana", a deliberately INVENTED pejorative name (associated with blacks and Mexicans) for cannabis (which means CANVAS because canvas and paper were made from it), a prescribed medicine the AMA didn't complain to congress about (the bill to ban it) because the doctors had never heard of "marijuana" (see Anslinger point man lackey for hemp prohibition)!

And the confusion between low THC hemp and marijuana was DELIBERATE AS WELL BECAUSE HEARST, DU PONT and ROCKEFELLER didn't want their profits crushed. Old man Rockefeller died at 97 in 1937, the year hemp was made illegal. I guess he wanted to bury another competitor like he did to ethanol in Prohibition before heading for his home in HELL.

So, yeah, it will be HARD, but we have the tools and the knowledge to run our civilization sans fossil fuels.

You want to go to a lower level of consumption. I'm all for it. But first we should USE fossil fuel SUBSIDIES to  set up a CHEMURGY Renewable Energy based economy for all the stuff we previously got from fossil fuels (or less if necessary) and THEN PROHIBIT the extraction, burning or use IN ANY FORM of fossil fuels.


Teachin' Em' YOUNG, who the REAL ENEMY IS!

WE GET RID OF FOSSIL FUELS OR THEY GET RID OF US, PERIOD.
 

Details

   
CO₂ STAYING POWER         

STEP ONE FOR SURVIVAL:
USE FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDIES TO BUILD THE RENEWABLE ENERGY REPLACEMENT ECONOMY ON A LOWER PER CAPITA CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY BASIS.

Nothing else will stop the collapse. So if you WANT a collapse to occur, just avoid taking big oil's subsidsy swag and giving it to chemurgy, PV, WIND TURBINES, SMART GRIDS AND other renewable energy devices. You'll get your giant fucking collapse and die off. At least you won't have to worry about overpopulation any more...

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[WHD]

Bring hemp back and the forests can be left alone and increased vastly in size as well. WHY? Because all that 97% or so of the corn we grow now, not for food, but for low EROEI ethanol with fossil fuel based fertilizers AND fossil fuel powered machine plowing that degrades the top soil AND the fossil fuel based pesticides can ALL BE DEEP SIXED by planting HEMP.

Such a transition would be problematic, but a SERIOUS attempt to avert the otherwise inevitable collapse. I'm all for trying.

What is the law of the land? Deliberately plant hemp and law enforcement can confiscate EVERYTHING you own, including the land.

Anyone want to argue that we are NOT living in a fascist police state?

WHD

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[agelbert]

Anyone want to argue that we are NOT living in a fascist police state?

Not me. 

But you know, all this was pretty much of a done deal as far back as Prohibition. Then all that planned obsolescence, deliberately lowering the quality of things and dumbing down the education, the nuclear madness, the CIA, the contrived wars and oil shocks, etc. It's like the NAZI's won WWII!

Nevertheless, I am certain that hemp is off and running along with duckweed, switchgrass, sugar cane and a lot of other rapid growing crops not requiring plowing and chemical fertilizers that ARE being developed in Canada, South America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

They just aren't talking a lot about it.

WE really ARE behind the times and locked in an oil oligarchy that keeps us in fossil fuels for our detriment. I just read Sao Paulo is updating it's renewable energy target to 70% instead of 55% by 2020. That's HUGE. We are being left behind because of the oil oligarchs in power. 

LONDON -- The largest state in Brazil plans to generate almost 70 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2020.

The government of Sao Paulo has launched an energy plan which roadmaps the development of the state’s energy mix and highlights how it plans to utilise more renewables.

The plan sees the state’s share of renewable sources rise from the current 55 percent to 69 percent by 2020 – a target which is in line with the state’s climate change policy.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/07/sao-paulo-sets-70-percent-renewables-target

Sometimes I feel like we are the new North Korea - STUCK in the PAST and REFUSING to MOVE FORWARD. Yeah, we ARE putting in a LOT of Renewable Energy but when I look at Norway, I KNOW we COULD be doing it 10 times faster. It's depressing.



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/UTwqkl8BqSc#&fs=1" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/UTwqkl8BqSc#&fs=1</a>

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[agelbert]

Harnessing the Power of a Humble Plant Duckweed, the world’s smallest flowering plant, makes its home in still or slow-moving water, from the brackish to the fresh. You’ve probably seen it. It is found worldwide, from Siberia to the tropics, and looks like a green carpet resting on the surface of a body of water.

Duckweed: Environmental Star     
Duckweed, the world’s smallest flowering plant, may blossom into the next big thing for earth’s environment. Working to make that happen are plant biologist Eric Lam, an expert on the small but plentiful pond denizen, and his Rutgers team.

A Green Fuel Solution?     
Eric Lam first came across duckweed as a graduate student at the University of California–Berkeley in the 1980s. Using this simple plant, he studied how chloroplasts capture light energy.

Lam, a professor of plant biology in the Department of Plant Biology and Pathology in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, joined the Rutgers faculty in 1989. In the following decades he advanced the study of chromatin and programmed cell death in plants, knowledge that could help develop crops that better survive diseases and environmental stressors. For his work, he received the prestigious 2011 Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in the category of molecular biology.

In the midst of this research, three years ago, a great conversation brought his attention back to tiny duckweed.

“Todd Michael [then an assistant professor at Rutgers’ Waksman Institute of Microbiology and working on a team to sequence the duckweed genome] discussed with me duckweed’s potential as an attractive biofuel crop,” recalls Lam.

The diminutive plant, which grows quickly on the surfaces of ponds from Siberia to the tropics, helps purify wastewater because it thrives on nitrogen and phosphates, pollutants found in such common products as fertilizers and detergents. It also has a high starch content, a key attribute for a potential biofuel.

“The prospect of coupling wastewater remediation with biomass production made so much sense that I picked up this research again after 30 years,” Lam says.


What’s So Great about Duckweed     
What has Eric Lam and other Rutgers researchers so excited?

Scientists view duckweed as

1. • A natural wastewater treatment option. The plant feeds on nitrogen and phosphate organic pollutants, the very stuff treatment plants aim to remove from wastewater. 

2. • The world’s “greenest” feedstock.
 Fast growing, high in protein and dietary minerals, and easily harvested, the plant is cultivated as a feed supplement for chicken, livestock, and farmed fish, especially in developing countries.

3. • An inexpensive, earth-friendly source of the biofuel ethanol.  Unlike corn, duckweed requires minimal human-made energy to grow and it doesn’t deplete the world’s food supply.

4. 5. 6. 7. -100. !    • A cleaner fuel. While duckweed-produced ethanol, like other plant-based fuels, releases some carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the plant also absorbs CO2 as it grows.


Test Run: Wastewater Treatment to Ethanol     
After much preparation in the spring of 2011, Lam launched a pilot project to demonstrate how duckweed treats wastewater and is simultaneously harvested as a biomass for producing ethanol. To help run the wastewater-treatment-to-fuel demonstration project, Lam enlisted the assistance of graduate students Philomena Chu and Thomas Maloney, recent graduate Ryan Integlia, and undergraduates David Byrnes, Deepak Khanna, and Jessica Kretch.
"We want to create a working pipeline from wastewater to fuel. That’s key to catching the interest of commercial world and government agencies to this renewable fuel," Lam says.
http://www.rutgers.edu/about-rutgers/duckweed-environmental-star

CHEMURGY, the ANTIDOTE to the WASTE BASED SOCIETY, is making a COMEBACK to save the BIOSPHERE and Homo SAP!

CHEMURGY is the practical application of the FACT that ANYTHING you can make from HYDROCARBONS can ALSO be made BETTER and with LESS WASTE from CARBOHYDRATES - THAT IS: PLANT TISSUE! 

promoted by the Chemurgic Council.
George Washington Carver was one of the most famous scientists of this field. In the Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver titled "My Work is that of Conservation" author Mark D. Hersey writes, "Thus, although he accepted the honorary mantle of "the first and greatest chemurgist," he was hardly in its mainstream. On the contrary, Carver often misconstrued the movement's aims, imagining they fell more in line with his own than in fact they did.

Because Carver had devoted his energies to improving the lives of impoverished black farmers, he saw chemurgy as a field in which scientist addressed "a great human problem."

His 1936 injunction to "chemicalize the farm" sprang from his abhorrence of waste rather than a desire for profit, let alone an affinity for chemical pesticides and fertilizers. He wanted "waste products of the farm" to be used for making "insulating boards, paints, dyes, industrial alcohol, plastics of various kinds, rugs, mats and cloth from fiver plants, oils, gums and waxes, etc."

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



Yes, fellow Doomstead Diners, Carver, the man that may go down in history as the GREATEST AMERICAN SCIENTIST and INVENTOR, because of his contributions to Chemurgy in the 1930s (that may save our collective behinds NOW), had a bit of a PROBLEM in the 1930s.  THAT PROBLEM was that Rockefeller, DuPont and Hearst KNEW DAMNED GOOD AND WELL WHAT THAT ETCETERA of farm products would mean to their fossil fuel and forest killing profits. And we know what those evil bastards DID! Don't let them DO IT AGAIN!   From Hemp to Duckweed we now have ALL the scientific tools and knowhow pioneered by Carver to CHEAPLY and RENEWABLY make ANYTHING that is now made from HYDROCARBONS producing toxins and pollution, INSTEAD from CARBOHYDRATES RENEWABLY and pollution free!   Spread the word. We DO NOT NEED FOSSIL FUELS unless we want slow SUICIDE!   

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[Surly1]

Chemurgy a new term to me. Makes me realize I know so little about Carver's work, aside from myth and folklore... And duckweed looks promising.

In other news, wherethehell is everyone?

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[agelbert]

Chemurgy      

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chemurgy is a branch of applied chemistry that is concerned with preparing industrial products from agricultural raw materials. The word "chemurgy" was coined by chemist William J. Hale and first publicized in his 1934 book The Farm Chemurgic,[1] the concept was mildly well-developed by the early years of the 20th century.

For example, a number of products, including brushes and motion picture film, were made from cellulose. Beginning in the 1920s, some prominent Americans began to advocate a more widespread link between farmers and industry. Among them were William J. Hale and agricultural journalist Wheeler McMillen.
Contents     

1 The Soybean Car
2 Worths
3 Downhill
4 Substitutions
5 See also
6 Notes


Henry Ford takes an ax (with a rubber tip on the business end) to plant derived plastic rear deck lid (the same material used in to build the soybean car) to demonstrate that it was, not just lighter than steel, but 10 times stronger as well.




The Soybean Car     

Automaker Henry Ford began to test farm crops for their industrial potential around 1930, and soon settled on the soybean as particularly promising (the famous Soybean Car). The Ford Motor Company used soybeans in such parts as gearshift knobs and horn buttons.

In 1935, the Farm Chemurgic Council (later renamed the National Farm Chemurgic Council) was formed to encourage greater use of renewable raw materials in industry. In its early years, the Council received substantial publicity. It was perceived by the Roosevelt Administration as a political threat, since Council leaders questioned U.S. Department of Agriculture policies.

First placing much of its emphasis on demonstrating the benefits of Agrol (a line of blended motor fuels that included ethanol), the Council drew strong opposition from the petroleum industry.

The Agrol pilot plant, which also experienced management and financial difficulties,   shut down in 1938.

Wheeler McMillen, who had become president of the Council the previous year, decided to distance the chemurgy movement from ethanol, mend fences with the petroleum industry, and place the Council on a more cautious course.

The Council’s cause received an unexpected boost when Theodore G. Bilbo, a U.S. senator from Mississippi, sought a means to promote new uses for his region’s surplus cotton. To make his goal more politically attractive, he supported a broader research program. In the end, four regional U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratories, dedicated to finding new uses for farm crops, were authorized under the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938.

The labs were established in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania; New Orleans, Louisiana; Peoria, Illinois; and Albany, California. Over time, their research agendas expanded, and they became less focused on chemurgy.

Nevertheless, their involvement in that field was symbolic of the chemurgy movement’s transformation from a cause associated with Roosevelt Administration critics to one with clear support from that administration.


Worths     

Chemurgy demonstrated its worth during World War II, particularly in alleviating the rubber shortage caused when Japan cut off most of America's supply.

Corn was used as raw material in much of the synthetic rubber produced during the war. Various other plants, including guayule and kok-saghyz (Russian dandelion), were investigated as rubber sources.

In the American Midwest, school children were encouraged to gather milkweed floss, previously considered a nuisance but now valued for a new role as a filler in military life jackets.

A priest in Iowa even made news by urging congregants to grow hemp, whose previous reputation as a drug hazard yielded to military requirements for rope and cordage.


Downhill       

Prospects for chemurgy appeared promising into the 1950s. An article in the December 3, 1951 issue of Newsweek, for example, said "“the flood of chemurgy seems to be swelling.”"

But as uses of agricultural raw materials advanced, so did uses for petrochemicals, and non-renewable materials eventually won out in a number of markets.   

For example, petrochemical detergents were widely used in place of agriculturally derived soaps, and petrochemical plastic wrapping material largely replaced cellophane.

The Chemurgic Council went through a period of decline and finally closed its doors in 1977.
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in chemurgy, although the word itself has largely fallen out of usage. In 1990, Wheeler McMillen then 97 years old, addressed a national conference of latter-day chemurgic enthusiasts in Washington, DC. The conference served to launch the New Uses Council, which seeks to further the cause formerly promoted by the Chemurgic Council.

George Washington Carver was one of the most famous scientists of this field. In the Environmental Biography of George Washington Carver titled "My Work is that of Conservation" author Mark D. Hersey writes, "Thus, although he accepted the honorary mantle of "the first and greatest chemurgist," he was hardly in its mainstream. On the contrary, Carver often misconstrued the movement's aims, imagining they fell more in line with his own than in fact they did. Because Carver had devoted his energies to improving the lives of impoverished black farmers, he saw chemurgy as a field in which scientist addressed "a great human problem."

His 1936 injunction to "chemicalize the farm" sprang from his abhorrence of waste rather than a desire for profit, let alone an affinity for chemical pesticides and fertilizers. He wanted "waste products of the farm" to be used for making "insulating boards, paints, dyes, industrial alcohol, plastics of various kinds, rugs, mats and cloth from fiver plants, oils, gums and waxes, etc."


Substitutions      

Kenaf for jute (rope)
castor oil for petroleum-based oil (lubrication)


See also     
Decorticator


Notes     

Hale, William Jay (1934). The Farm Chemurgic: Farmward the Star of Destiny Lights Our Way. University of California: The Stratford company. p. 201.[/b]

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


           GET IT?

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[agelbert]

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

 
Duckweed as future biofuel source

The global biomass industry is constantly searching for new cheaper and more sustainable biomass sources. One of the possible candidates is also said to be duckweed, the fast-growing floating plant that gives ponds and lakes green color.

The researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences claim that duckweed is almost ideal as a raw material for biofuel production. The main advantages of using duckweed as new source for biofuel production are:

  - fast time of growth

 - it thrives in wastewater that has no other use,

 - it does not impact the food supply like the first generation of biofuels

 - can be harvested a lot easier than algae and other aquatic plants

Only a handful of studies on using the duckweed as a raw material for biofuel production have so far been done, and there is of course the need for further research on this matter.

This latest study done by Chinese scientists describes
four different scenarios for duckweed refineries, all of which using existing technologies to produce gasoline, diesel and kerosene. The end results showed that

small-scale duckweed refineries would be able to produce cost-competitive fuel when the price of oil reaches $100 per barrel and that

oil would have to cost only about $72 per barrel for larger duckweed refiners to be cost-competitive.

 There could certainly be lot more to duckweed than previously thought.

http://bioenergytalk.blogspot.com/2013/04/duckweed-as-future-biofuel-source.html

July 30, 2013 Crude Oil price per barrel =  $103.07 

Expect some news from the media or fossil fuel energy experts wailing and moaning about how duckweed has a "low" EROEI (NOT!) or the "dangers of mosquito vector diseases" (NOT!) from duckweed ponds or, if that propaganda effort fails, Promoting legislation to prohibit the growing of duckweed for plant based oil, fuel, plastics and pharmaceuticals because, because... "it's associated with DRUGS somehow" - Everyone knows druggies love duckweed!  It's a danger to our children! 

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