Hi Brian >Thanks for the forward. I find it disturbing that the article is >recommenting conversion to wood alcohol
Wood gas, not wood alcohol. Producer gas. Here: http://journeytoforever.org/at_woodfire.html#woodgas >as a potential energy >alternative, even to the point of giving recommendations on how to >cut down trees. Yes, trees are renewable, but not quickly. Our >tree reserve would fail even more quickly than our oil reserve, and >the consequences would be even more dire. > >Brian You're looking at the wrong paradigm, IMHO. I know it's hard, but we all have to get used to the idea of looking at familiar things in a different and unfamiliar light, in a different context, with different relationships among them, and between them and us. Going on and on playing the same old business-as-usual game with a few quick fixes and band-aids stuck on it isn't going to work. That's what's got us here now, and it's not at all where we're supposed to have been, to our great cost and everybody else's, including the not-yet born. This has all been known for 30 years, and until very recently we'd done NOTHING about it. The worst offenders have still done nothing about it. And we sneer at Nero and King Canute. Sorry to say all that, and this, but "our tree reserve" and "our oil reserve" are the wrong indicators. We can see all the projections being made, of growth in fossil-fuel use based on current use and recent rates of increase and projected economic growth and so on and so on, the US DoE forecasts that biodiesel will account for such-and-such a proportion of national fuel use in 20 years at current growth rates - it's not going to happen. One reason I forwarded this message from Tvo is that he's talking about what we often talk about here, many of us, when we discuss a rational and sustainable energy future and the role biodiesel and other biofuels can play in it. Mere substitution of fossil-fuel use by biofuel use is not an answer. It will take great reductions in energy use, great improvements in energy efficiency, and perhaps most important, decentralisation of energy supply to local level, along with the use of all available technologies in appropriate combination according to local conditions. Tvo is talking about that local level, on a homestead: how to power your homestead/farm. I've often discussed that here, and said a mixed, integrated, sustainable farm (likely to be a "small" farm) can supply its own fuel without any fossil-fuel inputs and without the use of much or any dedicated land, mostly or completely from an ever-changing variety of by-products, with probably an excess to supply to the community. A woodlot of some kind is an essential element in such a mixed, integrated, sustainable farm, better still with a lot more trees than just those in the woodlot. Trees and woodlots are very productive. This is not the monocrop slash-and-burn nightmare of the biomass plantations the central energy planners envision. These are multiple species of multi-use trees at many stages of growth. Tvo's scheme is completely feasible and he knows it, he's done it, and he's not the only one. He just posted this at that list, in a message in a different thread: "Large-scale, the charcoal market can be environmentally destructive, small-scale you can confine it to trash products in your woodlot that aren't even good as compost. And yes, homestead products CAN compete with industrial-scale products. You just have to be selective which products you produce and how they are distributed." Looked at from the central view, people throw up their arms in dismay at the idea of charcoal, and quite right too, the way they'd go about it. What isn't feasible, not even now, let alone when the crunch hits home, is the way the industrialised societies, especially the US, currently waste energy as if there's no tomorrow. Look at these figures: On a per capita basis, the US uses 5.4 times more than its fair share of the world's energy, the EU 2.6 times its share, Germany 2.6 times its share, France 2.8 times its share, Japan 2.7 times its share, Australia 3.8 times its share. India uses one-fifth of its fair share, Sudan less than one-fifth its share, Nepal less than one-fifth its share. The average American uses twice as much energy as the average European or Japanese and 155 times as much as the average Nepalese. In terms of production, Americans produce more per head than Europeans and about the same as Japanese, but they use twice as much energy as the Japanese to do it. With about twice the population of Japan, CO2 emissions in the US are nearly five times higher than Japan's. World energy use http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_404.html#energyuse World's top CO2 producers http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_404.html#co2 The last time I mentioned these figures here I was told this: "I don't have a fair share of fuel, I buy it. If only 4% of the worlds population is advanced enough to live an American life style, well, too bad for the rest." (That by the person who prompted you to sign yourself "the other Brian".) The reality is that those production figures above are not of prime importance, "unlimited economic growth" is something it's past time to forget about, and all the fuel- and energy-use projections with it. We're hitting the bottom of the barrel, and not just with oil. "Sustainability" isn't just a buzz-word, it means what we have to do so we can go on living. People and societies junked out on "business-as-usual" and "too bad for the rest" are deluded, it's a dinosaur's view, and the asteroid is to hand. Imagine 10 United States of Americas, with everybody eating food every day. Now if you had to use wood to cook all that food how many trees would it take? Could we grow enough trees? Wouldn't it wipe out "our tree reserve" and all the forests with it very damn' quickly? It's just not possible, right? Actually that many people or more, about three billion of them, cook their meals every day over woodfires, often rather inefficient woodfires, and though it often causes severe indoor air-pollution problems, it hardly ever wipes out forests. Generally woodfire cooking is not a major cause of deforestation, quite the opposite, the communities involved maintain the forests they depend on. How many Americans could do that? In fact quite a lot could, including Tvo. So, considering what the future holds in store for us, who's advanced, really? Best wishes Keith >--- In biofuel@yahoogroups.com, Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Fwd from Tvo at the Homestead list > > > > >From: Tvoivozhd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:02:29 -0700 > > >To: "Homestead mailing list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >Subject: Basic self-sufficiency is not just mildly desirable > > >List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > >For the common herd that cannot quadruple their income overnight. > > > > > >Anyone with a grain of sense can see this gasoline (and heating >oil) Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuel/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! 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