Again, here is another bogus argument for legalization. I happen to have earned a degree in geography with an emphasis on economice geography. In two classes, we focused on biomass for energy and the facts are that NO plants including hemp that are going to be able to compete with other fuel and energy sources, the main expense is capital equipment costs and the amount of biomass is not even the second largest cost... its labor. I met Jack Herer once and pointed out what I considered an error in his thinking about methenol. It appears to me that he assumes that a gallon of methenol is equal to a gallon of gasoline (octane). However, octane is about twice as energetic as mentenol by mass and volume (which are nearly one to one). He said he would check once he got back to CA but I never heard from him again. Methenol is no pollution salvation either, what you make up in CO2 scrubbing in growing hemp is lost by the production of NOx and carbon monoxide in the tailpipe. Right now, petroleum is selling for about 15 dollars per 50 gallon barrel, which means a synthetic version would have to sell for the same to be competive. When the United States tried to develop a synfuel industry based on coal in the early 80's, they found that to be competive oil would have to be about 50 dollars a barrel or higher. With coal you already had a concentrated supply of organic material and the industry couldn't make against low priced oil. Besides, there is a lot of biomass for the taking out there it is called "municipal waste sludge" and does have porperties similar to peat. Dollar for dollar. If I was in charge of investing to create alternative energy sources, I would never put money into biomass. Solarvoltiac and wind power would give a higher (positive at least) return. The fact is that plants in general are very inefficent at capturing the energy in sunlight. Even in the best conditions, plants can only utilize about 2% of it. Chlorophyll is specific to about 630nm (nanometers) wavelengths of electromagnetic energy (light), whereas solarvoltaics as efficent as 15% have recently been developed in australia and relatively cheap one at 10% are now available. I would suggest reading a magazine called "Independent Energy" if one is interested in the professional thinking among those actually puttting money into new sources of energy. Biomass is not a big topic there. Cogeneration, solar, wind and hydro are. I think that industrial arguments are never going to sway someone who already thinks the smoking marijuana is a bad thing to do. It has not work well outside the hemp community itself. To me, a picture of a seventy year old man in prison for the rest of his life for a marijuana only charge is much more persuasive. -Paul Just to make things clear, I think hemp for fiber and paper are good arguments, technically. But still lack the kind of emotional pull that a human rights argument has. ============================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 10:32:13 -0400 Message-Id: From: Sol Lightman To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: biomass fuel???? On Sat, 8 Jul 1995 Gaian@aol.com wrote: > again here is another bogus argument for legalization. I happen to have > gotten a degree in geographer with an emphasis on economice geography, in two > classes i took we focused on biomass for energy and the facts are that NO > plant including hemp is going to be able to compete with other fuel and > energy sources, the main expense is capital equipment costs and the amount of > biomass is not even the second largest cost, its labor. There are those people, rather well qualified, who would disagree with you here. Folke Dovring points out in his book, "Farming for Fuel" that fossil fuels are actually heavily subsidized through United States DoD funding. When this cost is factored in, methanol is roughly competitive to current oil prices, per BTU. > mentenol is no pollution salvation either, what you make up in CO2 scrubbing > in growing hemp is lost by the production of NOx and carbon monoxide in the > tailpipe. Properly built and tuned methanol engines do not do this. South America's formaldehied problem could be cured overnight by a massive campaign of auto mechanics. > the fact is that plants in general are very inefficent at capturing the > energy in sunlight. even in the best conditions plants can only utilize about > 2% of it. clorophyll is specific to about 630nm(nanometers) wavelengths of > electromagnetic energy(light) whereas solarvoltaics as efficent as 15% have > recently been developed in australia and relatively cheap one at 10% are > available now. .. with a *much* higher initial investment, and without the advantages of a liquid fuel (unless you want them to pay for the technology to produce hydrogen, too.) Even relatively cheap ones are beyond the means of most farmers. Keep in mind that it is very inexpensive to cover acres and acres of land with hemp plants. Energy companies are currently burning *trees* as a source for electric power. I can see a clear demand for hemp biomass here. > i think that industrial arguments are never going to sway someone who already > thinks the smoking marijuana is a bad thing to do. it has not work well > outside the hemp community itself. to me, a picture of a seventy year old man Agreed. > just to make things clear i think hemp for fiber and paper are sound > arguments technically but still lack the kind of emotional pull that a human > rights argument has. Agreed, and it is these industries which will bootstrap the biomass fuel industry by producing enough spare feedstock to develop a technologically advanced pyrolytic fuel reactor. Brian -- The University of Massachusetts | _________,^-. Cannabis Reform Coalition ( | ) ,> C.A.O. Box #2 (Room 413) \|/ { 415 Student Union Building `-^-' ? ) UMASS, Amherst MA, 01003 |____________ `--~ ; Tel. 1(413)545-1122 Email verdant@twain.oit.umass.edu \_,-__/ FAX 1(413)545-4751 Home URL ==========================finger for public key=============================== === Still stuck on e-mail? To find out about our on-line library, mail a === === message with the pattern "[[[readme]]]" contained IN THE SUBJECT LINE. === ============================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 12:37:38 -0400 Message-Id: <950709123135_111005445@aol.com> From: Gaian@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: for alan, biofuels i work for a publisher of scholarly journals and one of my favorites is called the journal of non-renewable resources. in an article that addresses your question, petroluem supplies could last forty years or longer. depending on if you project increasing consumption, new proven reserves, currently non-economic deposits( for example there is a lot of oil under ohio but it is in micro-field that would warrant a well) the figure could stretch out to about seventy years. in addition to that there are tremendous supplies of natural gas and coal in the world as well tremendous potential in wind and solar power. just because something is technically feasible does not mean it is economically practical. as an enviornmentalist i am hopeful for a completely non-carbon based fuel system for cars, hopefully electric, even burning compressed or liquid hydrogen creates NOx compounds because nitrogen in the atomosphere is still in the combustion chamber. ============================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 12:37:48 -0400 Message-Id: <950709123155_111005577@aol.com> From: Gaian@aol.com To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: for brian, biofuel depending on what costs you allow and what you don't you can make almost anything seem competive on paper, but the proof is in the pudding right, in the countries that we are now importing hemp fiber from are they using leftovers? it is really doubtful that if the united states was self-sufficent in hydrocarbons that the priorities of the military would change much, although we have made a point of using our military in the persian gulf we would have still had those "assets" in any case, the united states forces doctrine decrees that the U.S. should be prepared to fight two general wars (viet nam or persian gulf scale) at the same time. i heard the argument before about how oil really costs but those stats were figured over that years exports, if you take the 60 bil. spent on the gulf war by the allies and divided over the proven reserves that were in kuwait it comes out to about 55 cents a barrel it is a practical impossiblity to keep nitrogen oxides form forming in enclosed combustion chambers regardless of the fuel even if it is hydrogen, and formaldhyde is not what i was talking about, it is an organic molecule. i have heard about the electricity from wood chips, there is a 7 megawatt plant in maine that burns leftovers from a lumber plant, it is actually paid by the lumber folks to burn what had been a waste that they had to landfill. and of course it had already been collected in one place. james carville focused the clinton campaign with IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID i think a similar focus should be kept by us. the human suffering caused not by drugs but by there opponents policies should be first on are lips to whomever we meet. we should shame those DA's and lammakers and police with the reality of the lives that they have ruined. ============================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 09:49:33 -0400 Message-Id: From: Sol Lightman To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: for brian, biofuel On Sun, 9 Jul 1995 Gaian@aol.com wrote: > depending on what costs you allow and what you don't you can make almost > anything seem competive on paper, but the proof is in the pudding right, in > the countries that we are now importing hemp fiber from are they using > leftovers? Noone has gotten that far -- all the countries with a hemp industry older than a deacade have little in the way of technology. China is the most advanced. However, they may have started a pilot project to burn raw hemp feedstock in Australia in the generation of electricity. > it is a practical impossiblity to keep nitrogen oxides form forming in > enclosed combustion chambers regardless of the fuel even if it is hydrogen, > and formaldhyde is not what i was talking about, it is an organic molecule. Formaldehyde is what concerns the South American countries with methanol vehicle fleets. They don't seem too concerned with Nitrogen compounds. There are a whole host of environmental problems with electric cars, mainly in the manufacture of the parts especially the batteries, which you fail to mention. Internal combustion is still a superior technolgy for small passenger vehicles, though hybrid models show some promise of increased efficiency. > i have heard about the electricity from wood chips, there is a 7 megawatt > plant in maine that burns leftovers from a lumber plant, it is actually paid > by the lumber folks to burn what had been a waste that they had to landfill. > and of course it had already been collected in one place. No, power companies are actually growing trees to burn instead of coal. They have developed fast growing pines that even rival hemp for biomass production. These are whole-tree harvested and used for nothing but fuel. Something you also neglect to figure in are all the useful industrial byproducts of the pyrolytic process. > the human suffering caused not by drugs but by there opponents policies > should be first on are lips to whomever we meet. we should shame those DA's > and lammakers and police with the reality of the lives that they have ruined. Agreed. Brian Revised by Red on 12/29/03. Man, corrected punctuation, capitalization and other errors on some of the paragraphs but I could'nt finish. Too high. Hheellllllppp Mmmeeee!!!!!