Global warming--solutions.

[MountainDon]

No, I wouldn't be surprised.   :-?  I have a multi branch automatic drip system for the city/suburban home. It's now used just for the 7 trees that normally wouldn't be able to survive in the desert heat/dryness without the watering. The natural undeveloped surrounding land doesn't support anything taller than a average sized Pinon Pine or a good sized Cholla's that almost throw their needles at you. We used to have more plants, bushes, that we also irrigated with the drip system. The results were phenomenal. Drip is the only way to go to make good effective use of your water. We tried a small veggie garden when we first moved here, but found the direct sun just dried the plants out so fast. I'd need a bunch of sunscreen or something to moderate the sun/heat. Or a greenhouse? My neighbor tried that and he quit after a couple years of toasting his plants.

However we redid the landscaping a few years back and now have fewer plants and those are native plants that can survive the 90 - 100 degree cloudless summer days. We have a virtual truckload of cacti. The temperature is bad enough but the direct sun is murder.  :'(  

[John_C]

Several yers ago I read an article that said the average potato in the supermarket had  travelled 500 miles to get there.  In my local supermarkets in N. Georia there are potatoes from Idaho and Maine.   A local farmer who grows superb potatoes can't get them in the stores because he is too small a producer for agribiz to bother with.  

Production aside, our distribution system leaves much to be desired.  But it puts more food in reach of the consumer than any other in widespred use.

Sort of like government.   Democracy is a terrible form of government, it's just better than the alternatives.   (Anyone remember who first said that?)

I, myself am from the Will Rogers school of government.  "Thank God we don't get all the government we pay for".

[Amanda_931]

Unfortunately it looks rather as though the traveling hundreds of miles to market is becoming the standard for "organic" products as well.

but....

Native foods can feed more people better than we think, according to Gary Paul Nabham in the book Why Some Like It Hot: Food, Genes, and Cultural Diversity.  Although maybe not Caucasians in the land of the Pima or Navajo.  Pima and Navajo, definitely.  And remember that there are pretty well founded rumors that the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas numbered many many more than what the old world settlers found as they headed west.  For instance, some damned virus shared with pigs probably took out many many people after the pigs escaped from the Spanish and proliferated.  I don't remember if this is in the book.

But it's a fascinating book.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Some-Like-Hot-Diversity/dp/1559634669

[Sassy]

Just "stumbled upon" this video - don't know how long ago it was produced - for alternative power
http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=hofol09py2

[MountainDon]

Interesting> The one detail they didn't talk about though, is how much electrical power is used to break down the water molecule into the 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. My understanding is that at present the cost of the electrical power is one of the hurdles. Hydrogen technology is perfectable IMO, it's where does the electrical power come from... has to be a renewable source to make any sense.

[MountainDon]

Hybrid Garbage Truck!!  Hydraulics, not electrics. Good idea for vehicles with lots of stop-n-go operation.

http://blogs.cars.com/kickingtires/2006/08/hybrid_garbage_.html

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/business/16667339.htm

[glenn-k]

I have seen one using a resonant frequency that makes much more hydrogen for less power input.  Long ago.

[Amanda_931]

The man from Knowledge Publications (and his mentor) seem to think that bad quality hydrogen is pretty easy to make, and will still burn very cleanly.  It's been a while since I've looked at his books on the subject--just got some more in, the biogas--mostly methane--one looks like even I could do it.  One 55 gallon drum, one a bit smaller, you know you're making gas when the second one floats.  It's reprint of two US government pamphlets aimed towards farmers in Africa.  (a lot of his books are--sometimes badly reprinted--reprints of older books, from the 1870's on), and sometimes both the old and the new ones are fascinating.

http://knowledgepublications.com/index.htm

[Amanda_931]

Wow, Peterbilt in the news for something other than trying to break its unions!  (I'm retired from them)

Even if it doesn't look like they developed anything, just adopted it.

I might even want an Expedition if it got 27 mpg in the city--but only if the country mpg was comparable, which it won't be.  Just like the electrics, these get a lot better fuel mileage in the city.  And I don't live in the city anymore.

[MountainDon]

LED light bulb advances
It's only equivalent to a 40 watt incandescent at present, but who knows where it will lead.
http://www.sys-con.com/read/281703.htm
I found that the power company in The Netherlands is selling them at about $10 each (in a pack of 4)
http://www.oxxio.nl/Oxxio/Thuis/Producten/Lamp/LampTarieven

[glenn-k]

I've been almost tempted to buy one of the shop worklights with a ton of them in it but a bit high yet.  We bought one earlier but the switch went out so took it back to Costco.  
Someday soon though...

[Amanda_931]

If you've got a steam engine, (stationary, railroad, Stanley steamer) running on coal, it might well be cost-effective (carbon-effective? maybe) to use the heat that you're not using to generate hydrogen--and then use that along with your burning coal for whatever you're using your steam engine for.  This seems to be the answer from the Knowledge publication books.  But I haven't looked all that far.

Bio-gas (methane) might be a better idea for home use.  I'd wondered about Jean Pain's system--does he deplete his woods of nutients in order to make his methane.  Still don't know.  

But there are ridiculously simple methane producers (two drums--one a bit bigger than the other, with the smaller one set upside down in the larger--the smaller one rises as methane is produced, can be used directly, or  put into an innertube).  Not great for vehicle use, though.

[glenn-k]

Even more than global warming, the stuff you just talked about is good for being ready in case of a burp in the system.  Our blundering leaders cannot indefinitely keep the system operating in spite of their greed and mismanagement so it will pay to be prepared.

Note the big red steam engine in the snow picture in front of my RV garage.  It's an 8x8 vertical. It is in working condition, but I think I am going to try making a propane expander next.  It gets power by transferring pressure from a heated propane tank to a cooled one then switching running a generator as the gas moves from tank to tank.  It only uses the pressure and does not use up the propane.

[MountainDon]

Note the big red steam engine in the snow picture in front of my RV garage.  

I saw that and wondered about it; some kind of a pump I thought....

Propane expander sounds interesting   :-/

[glenn-k]

That engine ran the drapers and driers at the SunMaid raisin plant in Fresno around 1900.  An old fellow came up to me at the Fair in Fresno years ago when I showed it - so excited he could hardly stand himself.  He was around 80 to 84 then and said he used to run them at the plant.  He said there were about 20 of them there.

The expander is made from a Sanden air conditioning compressor with the check valve removed.  It will then run backward expanding the propane into the empty tank becoming a motor and charging the batteries with a generator.  I have read about it here

http://www.redrok.com/engine.htm but I haven't tried it yet.  I have concerns that the expanding propane may freeze the compressor/expander but maybe the heat in it will stop that from happening.  I just got a compressor to play with a few weeks ago but am currently busy working on the shop and equipment when I have enough excess energy to do anything.

[Amanda_931]

Awfully handsome red steam engine in the snow!

It really is a nice picture.

[glenn-k]

Thank, Amanda.  I fire it up on air once in a while to get it all oiled up.  It's about time I did it again I guess.

[MountainDon]

I have concerns that the expanding propane may freeze the compressor/expander but maybe the heat in it will stop that from happening.  

Whether or not that becomes a problem probably depends on how fast the propane exits the high pressure tank, and maybe upon how large the tank is. I remember something about tank size and flow rate affecting freeze ups on high capacity propane fueled construction type heaters. (wish I recalled what exactly   ) ... something about flow rate (BTU's).... over a certain number you had to use larger tanks (100#)instead of smaller (20 - 40#)... ring any bells? make any sense?  :-?

[glenn-k]

Yeah, it makes sense.  I know the tank itself will go to freezing as the propane boils off - maybe that will be the only place there will be a freezing problem and the expansion in the expander will not get that much colder as the tank will have expanded  the liquid to a gas.  They could be heated by solar or solar heated water to prevent them from freezing and keep pressures up.  Then some kind of teeter totter or movable shade will switch to change the heated tank to the cooled tank that the gas will be condensed back into.

I have froze up many a 5 gallon tank with a weed burner for pre-heating welds.

[Sassy]

Electricity from the Sea

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wave11mar11,0,2922563.story

[Sassy]

Science turns sun, surf into green energy

[benevolance]

Well this would be great for california....Oregon and Washington....

They already desperately need to be pumping in seawater for all of california's needs...It is cheaper to pump and distill than pipe from the colorado

On top of the need to use sea water for california's water needs if they had a  seawater network along the coast inland they could tap the seawater to produce energy in the desert...Just inland from Los Angeles or wherever...Plenty of hot flat desert land out there.

And the hydrogen could be used for automobiles.

The process itself would go a long long way towards getting the hydrogen car of the ground...This would make a plug in refill station a reality for everyone wanting one...

Get a hydrogen car and buy a self charging unit for the car at walmart...

Methinks that something will happen in the next 5 years to prevent this from maturing...I mean the government cannot charge taxes on sunlight...They do not under any circumstances want us to be able to fill our fuel tanks on sunlight and water....

[Sassy]

A friend of ours stated the other night that he had a brother who had invented an engine that ran on hydrogen - basically just used water - I can't remember all the details - anyway, he said his brother tried to sell his invention on several occasions but no one would buy & he refused to give it to the gov't as he didn't want it buried... I'll have to find out more.  

[benevolance]

Sassy

There are several people that have successfully had engines run on alternative fuels...There is the guy in the 50's that converted everything he had to run on Methane...I think he was in England...Just had a massive compost pile in the backyard with leaves trash and he hosed it down every couple of days....Geared up a compressor and some old oxygen tanks...And compressed the methane the compost pile was venting off into the tanks and he ran his car, his cimpressor (to fill the tanks)..Everything to Run off the fuel the garbage pile was making.

The car ran perfectly...And this was 50 years ago....No computers or high tech gizmos...

Point is I am sure that human ingenuity and clever minds all over have come up with viable ways to harness things like Methane, Hydrogen and the power of the sun.

But as Glenn says to me all the time...Follow the money...The government does not want you powering your automobile with the power of the sun...And they do not want people with a compost pile in their backyards making their own methane ....Where is the ability to control us with taxation in that?

If Everyone started composting and using the methane in their automobiles the government would ban compost piles and there would be new evidence found that composting was bad for the environment.

I personally love the idea of pumping salt water inland all along the coast of all the continents....We have all this seawater and we can use it to replenish the water table of the world. We can fight rising sea levels as well

Nobody thinks about how precious pure water is...And how much of it we waste as a species flushing the damned toilet.

Almost every single massive population centre in the world lies along the coastline region of the continents...Meaning that the logistics for using seawater are simplistic.

I would be happy if we simply just started using seawater to replace the water we flush the toilets with...If we recycled all the raw sewage in the world and used that for irrigation...And allowed rivers and water tables to return to their normal levels.

We have water shortages in the world...Despite there being an overabundance of water worldwide... We just waste so damned much of it.

The electricity from Sea water would be a paradigm shift....meaning that the world could power itself from sea water and do it without creating pollution...

It would be huge for the planet.

We already have a fair bit of hydro, solar and wind power generated on the planet...If we just replaced 10% of the coal fired electricity with green energy the reduction in pollution would be staggering.

Greenpeace and activists would have to learn to cook and play pool because they would be out of a job.

[glenn-k]

Interesting video from 1995 on Hydrogen experimentation and some who have done it.  Where did they go?  50 minutes

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=zyxso48t7j
StumbleVideo - Equinox - It Runs on Water (Free Energy - 1995)