Hi Greg >If I am remembering my chemistry correctly, TNT stands for >Trinitratrotoluene or toluene ( which is a benzene ring of 6 carbon >atoms in a ring, and each carbon atom has a hydrogen atom to the >outside, with a CH3 structure hanging on to the ring ) that has been >treated with nitric acid, adding 3 NO2 structures to it.
You can remember all that? >If this bug can neutralize TNT, then it should have no problem >dealing with and neutralizing benzene pollution from gasoline leaks. > >If you are correct in that the bug may eat the nitrogen, this may be >a interesting way to make fertilizer from explosives, a real swords >to plowshares project. That's more or less how it happened in the first place. Nitrogen-fixing hit the big-time in WW1, to make explosives for the military. Then peace broke out, the market evaporated. The day was saved via an unholy marriage of the work of chemists Fritz Haber and Baron Justus von Liebig - turn the bomb factories to making fertilizer. And so an awful lot of today's farmland is, well, dead. As if a bomb hit it: "Global Agricultural Survey Shows Nearly Half of Farm Soil 'Seriously Degraded'" -- Associated Press, May 22, 2000. Detailed satellite photos of the Earth's land mass and other data are helping scientists at the UN-affiliated International Food Policy Research Institute determine the state of global agriculture. Their conclusion: nearly 40% of farmland is seriously degraded. Soil erosion, loss of organic matter, hardening of soil, chemical penetration, nutrient depletion, excess salinity and other damage have left much of the world's potential and previous agricultural land unusable. The research covers only human-induced degradation. See Land Degradation In The Developing World: Issues and Policy Options for 2020: http://www.ifpri.org/2020/briefs/number44.htm The 1999 report on the University of Wisconsin-Madison's ongoing 37-year project monitoring the effects of nitrogen fertilisers in the US concluded that agriculture's continuing overapplication of nitrogen fertilizers is causing irreparable damage to the soil. It said US farms have "a 50% applied nitrogen efficiency rate" -- only half the nitrogen applied to the soil is actually used by the crop. The other half becomes harmful nitric acid. They said three decades of such overuse of nitrogen has destroyed much of the soil's fertility, causing it to age the equivalent of 5,000 years. -- "Acidification From Fertilizer Use Linked To Soil Aging": http://www.cals.wisc.edu/media/news/03_99/acid_soil.html On the other hand, if you make your compost pile well, you'll probably end up with up to 25% more nitrogen than you started off with, via the action of bugs that eat nitrogen, such as Azotobacter sp. et al. Ain't nothing new. But I think they don't eat nukes. Or TNT. But they won't nuke your farm either. Best Keith >Greg H. > > > --- Greg and April <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >wrote: > >--------------------------------- > >I wonder were the Nitrogen goes? > > Maybe they eat it? Dunno... I was wondering about the connection > between TNT and many Energy Department waste sites. Peculiar form of > energy, TNT. > > Regards > > Keith ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark Printer at MyInks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511 http://us.click.yahoo.com/mOAaAA/3exGAA/qnsNAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/index.php?list=biofuel Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
