Greetings Peggy,
I admire your enthusiasm, but please don't leave us to starve on empty food
calories while you make fuel. Your cat tail project is great. Your
produce ideas are terrible. All the organic waste needs to be returned to
the land that grew it. Chemical fertilizers are killing us. Our food has
about 60% of the nutrients that it had a mere 40 years ago. Food waste
needs to be returned to the farmer, composted and returned to the
land. Any other plan for food wastes mean that eventually we will
starve. This is the real problem with biomass projects. Biomass competes
with healthy soil, and of the two, we need healthy soil more than we need
energy.
We need to re-evaluate what resources we have. Many people do consider
valuable items garbage and yes that does need to change. Invasive plants
are not all bad. Take our stickle trees here in Texas. Most people resort
to tactics like gasoline to get rid of them. Me, I grow them as coppice
wood. Bags of trash are building materials. Lots can be done, but not by
robbing the land of what it needs to produce healthy food.
Bright Blessings,
Kim
Hello Jonathan,
People (and most especially biased government reporting done for the
benefit of big business) underestimate biomass potential. Anything that
was ever green and growing or in other words anything with a cellulosic
base is feedstock for fuel ethanol. Our current campaign includes
forest slash, produce distribution center waste, food processing waste,
and we also have a proposal before the army to process their nondairy/
non-meat food scraps, paper, and cardboard waste. The city of San
Antonio food produce terminal produces 20,000 to 40,000 pounds of waste
every day. The numbers for the tonnage of waste for the army alone can
produce a great deal of fuel ethanol. And yes, throw in your lawn
trash, farmer's harvest leftovers, invasive aquatic plants, and more.
Just the roots of the rhizomes of cattails can produce 1000 gallons of
fuel ethanol per acre. We have not yet calculated total biomass
production which can greatly increase the production quantity. If
cattail beds are set up to also remediate rivers (diversion techniques),
at the edge of confined animal feed areas, and at the end of municipal
wastewater treatment plants, then we can quickly increase our ethanol
fuel production. Granted, we will also need to hone our technologies to
be more energy efficient as well and include more and better green
building in consumer's demands. There are so many creative ways to
solve the problems exclusive of government intervention. You as an
individual CAN make a difference. Rather than discussing what is wrong,
how about brainstorming some additional bootstrapping scenarios. Then
support those that even have a small beginning from which bigger and
better things can be achieved. I have preached cattails to ethanol and
remediation for over seven years. I have a hand full of excellent
support letters from government and public service entities. Still, no
one has offered to set up a cattail bed as an exemplary project.
Well, at least, the fuel ethanol projects are beginning to take shape,
especially with forest slash. Right now many national forests are in an
emergency situation and in dire need of thinning to reduce fire danger,
protect watershed conditions, and promote "Big Tree" growth. It is such
a natural fix to convert the millions of tons of slash to fuel ethanol.
And the real key to success is SMALL COMMUNITY PROJECTS that come from
coalition development and rural economic development. If you want to
know more about helping your individual community develop their innate
assets, you can write off list for specifics. For the above-mentioned
list of available and neglected resources, I'll bet that you can find
several potential projects that can apply. So get out of a seated
position to learn what bootstrapping is all about, People, and make it
happen!!! Discussions should serve as encouragement to spark your
individual creativity. Now that you are inspired, start something
positive!!!
Best wishes,
Peggy
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