Gas prices
 

Scotty wrote:
.

They use pull horses around here. Only pollution from them
is recycled into fertilizer.

The tree huggers won't leave them in peace either, they claim that
"bio-gasses", (animal farts for the normal folks) are a major source of
green house gasses. Some even say that the dinosaurs killed themselves
of in a bath of intense UV radiation caused by an ozone layer depleted
by uncontrolled reptilian flatulence! Probably smelled about as bad as
the interior of Boobie's wife's Benny after he's spent a night onboard
with the hatches battened down with the AC running while safely tied to
the dock!

Cheers
Marty

Gas prices
 

Scotty wrote:
"Vito" wrote in message
...
"Thom Stewart" wrote
Pipelines are problem but not as much a problem as Crude
by Tankers, all
the way from the Middle East. The raw material for
Ethanol can be
transported by open bed Trucks (Even Horse and wagon) to
the
fermentation stations. They can be harvested with out
high pressure
wells and transported without fear of explosion and a
spill of a load of
Corn doesn't damage the environment like a tank truck
rollover, or a
ship running aground or a pipe line braking. Trade off
seems to favor
Ethanol. Don't you think?
Transport is only part of the picture. Growing and
transporting enough corn to
make a gallon of ethanol, then actually making it,
consumes mucho energy
itself - some claim it takes more energy to produce than
we can get back out of
it. I don't know if that's true but I do know that a
tractor plowing a field,
or even just disking and planting "no-till" corn uses more
fuel than most folk
can imagine. The exact figures escape me but maybe one of
y'all know. Also,
farming is about as dangerous as mining.


They use pull horses around here. Only pollution from them
is recycled into fertilizer.


--
Scott Vernon
Plowville Pa _/)__/)_/)_


They did a study of the Amish farmers in the southern Michigan and
northern Indiana area and found that for small farms, those under
300 acres, that Belgian horses were more efficient than tractors.
One of the factors was that a horses weight on the soil does not rip
it up like the heavy tread of a tractor.

Gas prices
 

Martin Baxter wrote:
Scotty wrote:
.

They use pull horses around here. Only pollution from them
is recycled into fertilizer.

The tree huggers won't leave them in peace either, they claim that
"bio-gasses", (animal farts for the normal folks) are a major source of
green house gasses. Some even say that the dinosaurs killed themselves
of in a bath of intense UV radiation caused by an ozone layer depleted
by uncontrolled reptilian flatulence! Probably smelled about as bad as
the interior of Boobie's wife's Benny after he's spent a night onboard
with the hatches battened down with the AC running while safely tied to
the dock!

Cheers
Marty
Ya know, I can't help but wonder that if the "treehuggers" (not
those who are genuinely concerned and looking for reasonable
answers) don't martyr themselves for the cause, do themselves in,
and release the world from their misery.

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote
OzOne wrote:
scribbled thusly:
So, Mr. Doom and Gloom...there's no answer in fossil fuel...and
there's no answer in vegetable fuel. Are you going to be the first
to offer yourself up in sacrifice or do you just advocate sitting
around watching as humanity collapses?

Worth a read.
http://www.issues.org/18.2/lave.html


Yep....good article. India is capturing methane ....

But methane has the same problems as ethanol.

I'll no doubt quit "emitting" long before you do. Meanwhile, I'm going to watch
humanity collapse whether you or I like it or not. You see the gas shortage
and the problem Oz mentions, and 1000 others, are only symptoms. The real
problem is literally too many f'ing people!

If the world's population had not *doubled* since *1963* - just 43 years - we
would have NONE of these problems. There was no gas shortage or smog problems in
the US back in 1950 when our population was 151 million - but now it's 298.6
million and guess what - there isn't enough oil or clean air or clean water for
the extra 147 million fools and Oz is justifiably bitching about our excess
carbon emissions.

And yet we still encourage people to breed like cockroaches by giving tax breaks
and welfare payments when we ought to quit subsidizing foreign countries and
sterilize everybody with 2 or more kids.

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldpop.gif

That's why I'm Mr. Doom and Gloom. Sure, we can switch to ethanol and methane
and even reduce our carbon emissions a bit - but only if we are willing to
accept burning eyes and rotting fabrics (sails) from the extra nitric acid that
will entail. Or we could switch but keep low compression and accept even more
carbon emissions.

These may seem like reasonable tradeoffs but neither one will help a bit by the
time they can be implemented unless we also adopt strict population controls.
Suppose we could reduce both oil consumption and carbon emissions by 25% by
2020 - an extremely optimistic estimate. By 2020 world population will have
grown from 6 to 7.5 billion (25%), negating even that optimistic gain! Then the
population will double again and the world will be even worse off than now!!
Meanwhile people will be seeking more magic band aids just like y'all are doing
now. Eventually the whole Earth will become another Easter Island, not because
we cannot prevent it but because we are too superstitious to admit the real
problem or do anything about it. So either pray for a plague or spend your
energy lobbying for population control instead of band aids!

That's why I oppose magic band aids. They'll cost me but in 20 years.we'll be
worse off than now anyway and I'll likely be dead. So it's "What? Me worry?"
for me.

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote ...
Vito wrote:
"katy" wrote...
Huh? Thom, I totally believe in switching to veggie based fuel, not
only ethanol but soy-derived diesel. .... The specious argument
that switching won't work because vehicles will lose mileage and
create smog is ridiculous. ....

These arguments are hardly specious or ridiculous, they are factual.

Nitric Oxide does not come from gasoline, it come from air,

So you're saying we don't have the technology to do something about
that? Or is it the cost? ...

I'm saying that there is no such technology. If we switch to methanol in
today's engines mileage will perforce suffer and carbon emissions will be even
worse. If we instead raise compression ratios to efficiently burn ethanol then
mileage won't suffer as much nor will carbon emissions be worse BUT we will have
much more nitric acid in our air. We could even continue to burn gasoline but
use less of it if we accepted more acids. These are the trade offs. Believe
what you like but I know of no magic "scrubbers" that will "eat" the nitric
oxide and we already have catalytic converters so it's simply a question of how
we'd rather have our kids and grandkids die - their lungs eaten by acid or drown
due to global warming. Maybe better that some of them not be born? Huh? Huh?

Gas prices
 

"Martin Baxter" wrote
Hmmm, not sure about your chemistry here Vito, Nitric acid, HN03, you
need hydrogen too, and that's not coming from the air.

Ah, but it is - in the form of water vapor (fog) which mixes with the nitric
oxide to mke acid.

Gas prices
 

A guy down the road from me uses 12, side by side ( single
row) for plowing. Looks cool!


--
Scott Vernon
Plowville Pa _/)__/)_/)_

"katy" wrote in message
...
Scotty wrote:
planting "no-till" corn uses more
fuel than most folk
can imagine. The exact figures escape me but maybe one
of
y'all know. Also,
farming is about as dangerous as mining.


They use pull horses around here. Only pollution from
them
is recycled into fertilizer.


--
Scott Vernon
Plowville Pa _/)__/)_/)_


They did a study of the Amish farmers in the southern
Michigan and
northern Indiana area and found that for small farms,
those under
300 acres, that Belgian horses were more efficient than
tractors.
One of the factors was that a horses weight on the soil
does not rip
it up like the heavy tread of a tractor.

Gas prices
 

Dave wrote:
On Thu, 04 May 2006 10:44:19 -0400, katy
said:

They did a study of the Amish farmers in the southern Michigan

Never trust anything called a "study," particularly if it's by someone
called "they." Study" is the current word for a propaganda piece dressed up
to in academic clothes.
The study I referred to was written a ways back, I think in the
"Draft Horse Journal" or some other trade publication at the time.
I tried to find it online but was unable to. I did find this,
though, and many other articles and articles like it.

http://www.ruralheritage.com/back_fo...ics_career.htm

Academic? There's plenty of valid literature out there regarding
small agribusiness (the family farm) and how worthwhile it would be
to pursue maintaining and increasing small farms. Do a Google
search....

Gas prices
 

"Thom Stewart" wrote

Transport is only part of the picture. Growing and transporting enough
corn to
make a gallon of ethanol, then actually making it, consumes mucho energy
itself - some claim it takes more energy to produce than we can get back
out of
it.

Who could that be. Could it be . . . oh, I don't know . . . maybe . . . BIG
OIL??!!!

I don't know if that's true but I do know that a tractor plowing a field,
or even just disking and planting "no-till" corn uses more fuel than most
folk
can imagine. The exact figures escape me but maybe one of y'all know.
Also,
farming is about as dangerous as mining.

Well, maybe we should be harnessing cow farts in order to offset the expense
and grave danger of raising corn.

Katy wrote:

So, Mr. Doom and Gloom...there's no answer in fossil fuel...and there's no
answer in vegetable fuel. Are you going to be the first to offer yourself
up in sacrifice or do you just advocate sitting around watching as
humanity collapses? Nah...don't answer that. I already know your answer.

Thom, the retired oil refinery worker, might be a bit biased, Katy. Then
again, he's maybe just counting on the fact that he won't be around to see
the disaster that dwindling petroleum reserves will eventually be for our
ancestors.

Max

Gas prices
 

OzOne wrote in message ...
On Wed, 03 May 2006 10:34:51 -0400, katy
scribbled thusly:


So, Mr. Doom and Gloom...there's no answer in fossil fuel...and
there's no answer in vegetable fuel. Are you going to be the first
to offer yourself up in sacrifice or do you just advocate sitting
around watching as humanity collapses? Nah...don't answer that. I
already know your answer.

Worth a read.
http://www.issues.org/18.2/lave.html

Noteworthy is that we passed the $2.70 per gallon barrier earlier this year.
A smart society or government would consider adopting a program of
progressive ethanol replacement, but my guess is that it's going to take a
miracle of some sort to convince our government to act. And of course we
face the constant barrage of lobbying and disinformation by Big Oil. Money
talks, logic walks.

Max