Gas prices
 

Maxprop wrote:
"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


I was responding to Vito, not Thom.

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Vito wrote:

"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.

Well, what we are really talking about is the creation/emission of
nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (N02) and nitrous oxide (N2O), not
nitric acid (HNO3. The nitric acid thing happens in the atmosphere and
forms acid rain. After doing a little research you are basically
correct, the rate of formation of nitrogen oxides is related to
compression ratios, has to do with heat of the reaction and rate of burn
apparently.

Interestingly the catalytic converter which reduces NO and NO2, both
contributors to smog may actually increase the production of nitrous
oxide. Nitrous oxide is not regulated by the Clean Air Act as it is not
considered to contribute to smog formation. It is however considered to
be nasty greenhouse gas, over 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

Cheers
Marty

Gas prices
 

"katy" wrote
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.

There is some truth in this. FWIW circa 1968 I used "no-till" to grow corn for
my cattle. Plowing is for weed control, the freeze-thaw cycle naturally
prepares the soil for planting, and plowing is hideously expensive in fuel, time
and wear & tear on machinery. I'd spread rye grass seed on the snow followed by
manure. The manure sank through the snow carrying the seed with it. Come early
spring the rye grew knee high and kept the soil shaded and moist. Then I
poisoned the rye with a non-persistent herbicide and it lodged up into a mat
that allowed me to drive a flotation tired tractor over the very wet soft soil
pulling a light planter. After harvesting the corn in the fall, I'd disk the
stalks into the soil but never plow. Had the same or better yield/acre as
conventional plowing. I'd have loved to farm like the Amish but it would be
impossible to produce enough crops to feed our current non-farming population
today - let alone grow enough corn to make enough ethanol - using horse and
buggy technology. We'd have to force modern Americans off welfare and make them
(gasp) work like illegal aliens just to provide the manpower. Never happen!!

Gas prices
 

Vito wrote:
"katy" wrote
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.

There is some truth in this. FWIW circa 1968 I used "no-till" to grow corn for
my cattle. Plowing is for weed control, the freeze-thaw cycle naturally
prepares the soil for planting, and plowing is hideously expensive in fuel, time
and wear & tear on machinery. I'd spread rye grass seed on the snow followed by
manure. The manure sank through the snow carrying the seed with it. Come early
spring the rye grew knee high and kept the soil shaded and moist. Then I
poisoned the rye with a non-persistent herbicide and it lodged up into a mat
that allowed me to drive a flotation tired tractor over the very wet soft soil
pulling a light planter. After harvesting the corn in the fall, I'd disk the
stalks into the soil but never plow. Had the same or better yield/acre as
conventional plowing. I'd have loved to farm like the Amish but it would be
impossible to produce enough crops to feed our current non-farming population
today - let alone grow enough corn to make enough ethanol - using horse and
buggy technology. We'd have to force modern Americans off welfare and make them
(gasp) work like illegal aliens just to provide the manpower. Never happen!!


See? There are answers to this...ut's just that no one's willing to
implement them.
Those on welfare should have to go to a specific location every day
where work (farm or otherwise) is available. They would be provided
a chit for the days work to take back to the welfare office. if
they refused work (they would be permitted to allow for infirmities
and redirected into something they could do) their welfare is
decreased. Another good that would come out of this is that all
corn production (except for sweet corn for the table) would be
diverted to fuel. Corn meal is not a healthy whole grain and
Americans eat way too much of it. Corn syrup is added into most
processed foods as a sweetener. Divert to sugar beet for sweeteners
on a commercial basis. Sugar beet grows where corn won't and the
pulp is usable for feed lot filler.

Gas prices
 

"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 May 2006 13:24:50 -0400, katy
said:

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.

Katy, I grew up in farming country. Even in the 50s the 174 acre farm he
posits as the maximum size would never have been economically viable when
compared to those around it. There's a reason why the size of farms has
grown.

And that reason is lack of labor. We all know that slaves once provided it on
big plantations. Our dirty little secret is that one's own kids provided it on
"family farms". Every generation the farmer wore out several wives producing a
dozen or more kids who did the same work as slaves on 'massa's plantation for
the same wage. Every generation the eldest inherited the farm, married one of
the girls next door (or his half-sister) and began his own crop of slaves. These
displaced the farmer's siblings who ended up in city sweat shops where a few
lived to be as old as 30. That's one reason average life expectancy was so low.
Now we rely on machines instead.

No matter how nostalgic one wishes to wax, the case for the small family
farm is based on emotion, not economics.

And misguided emotion at that. Check out some old family graveyards. You'll
find a father then his son then his son, and so on. In between each one you'll
find 3 or 4 wives plus some kids, worked to death. Then wonder what happened to
the dozen or so kids each generation who are not buried there. I'll take a
tractor and combine over that any day! Folks who yearn for the family farm have
never put up hay grin.

Gas prices
 

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

12 horses to plow a single row gives one an idea of how much fuel a tractor uses
to plow an acre for corn, and why ethanol may take more energy to produce than
it can yield back.

Gas prices
 

"Maxprop" 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 . . . . BIG OIL??!!!

That doesn't make it false. Do your own math. Google up how much fuel it takes
to grow a bushel of corn then ferment it then distill off the ethanol and how
many gallons we get per bushel.

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

And after doing that look up the accident & death rate from farming.

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.

That'll be a minor annoyance compared to what'll happen if our population keeps
growing.

Gas prices
 

"Maxprop" wrote
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.

A bit over a year ago I went to the MD with a sore throat that turned out to be
cancer, but the MD screwed around trying to lower my blood pressure until his
medicines gave me heart trouble. By the time I quit taking his prescriptions
and got a different MD a few month later I only had a 1 in 5 chance of survival.

Fretting over oil and ethanol is like worrying over minor hypertension while
your patient dies of cancer. Our cancer is overpopulation. Cure it and all our
other problems become manageable. Ignore it and we face a global Easter Island
disaster whether we switch to ethanol or not.

Gas prices
 

Dave wrote:
On Fri, 5 May 2006 12:54:33 -0400, "Vito" said:

I'd have loved to farm like the Amish but it would be
impossible to produce enough crops to feed our current non-farming population
today - let alone grow enough corn to make enough ethanol - using horse and
buggy technology.

Katy's argument, of course, is that that type of farming would be as
efficient as the type that now prevails.


http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo...m/art2570.html

Gas prices
 

Vito wrote:
"Dave" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 May 2006 13:24:50 -0400, katy
said:

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.
Katy, I grew up in farming country. Even in the 50s the 174 acre farm he
posits as the maximum size would never have been economically viable when
compared to those around it. There's a reason why the size of farms has
grown.

And that reason is lack of labor. We all know that slaves once provided it on
big plantations. Our dirty little secret is that one's own kids provided it on
"family farms". Every generation the farmer wore out several wives producing a
dozen or more kids who did the same work as slaves on 'massa's plantation for
the same wage. Every generation the eldest inherited the farm, married one of
the girls next door (or his half-sister) and began his own crop of slaves. These
displaced the farmer's siblings who ended up in city sweat shops where a few
lived to be as old as 30. That's one reason average life expectancy was so low.
Now we rely on machines instead.
No matter how nostalgic one wishes to wax, the case for the small family
farm is based on emotion, not economics.

And misguided emotion at that. Check out some old family graveyards. You'll
find a father then his son then his son, and so on. In between each one you'll
find 3 or 4 wives plus some kids, worked to death. Then wonder what happened to
the dozen or so kids each generation who are not buried there. I'll take a
tractor and combine over that any day! Folks who yearn for the family farm have
never put up hay grin.



Most often the wives died of puepheral fever (childbed fever) and
the children of measles, mumps, etc. You have a very jaded view of
family farm life. My family farmed. No one died of slave labor.
My paternal grandmother not only raised 5 kids (4 college graduates)
but also was the church organist. The kids were required to work,
sure. Did it do them any har,? Guess not, since they were a;l
successful in later life and had an excellent work ethic. Their life
was hard. We grew up hearing the stories about the Depression. The
saving grace was that they were farmers, so at least had food on
their table and a roof over their head. On the other side, my
maternal grandfather came from a plantation in Missouri. They freed
their slaves when the Emancipation Proclamation was published. The
farm is still being farmed (dairy and wheat) and the family
graveyard stills stands in tribute to my ancestors. Your
interpretation of the family farm smacks of revisionism.