[Bioconversion] Conserve -- Even the Air Force Wants to Cut Oil's Role

Tue Jun 19 16:47:31 CDT 2007

In response to Geoff's discussion of the carbon cycle and renewable energy:

Some factors I like to consider in the issues of the carbon cycle -both
natural and human-induced- is time travel and overpopulation:

>   It's the ancient carbon from fossil fuels -which has no natural place in
today's world- which that is overwhelming the biosphere which is made to
handle today's carbon.

>   And overpopulation (in addition to our naive use of fossil fuels) is
reducing the biosphere's machinery for handling both the ancient carbon and
today's carbon, through our destruction of the green mantle, and further
exacerbated by too many of us doing this. 

As triage for an overloaded atmosphere we humans can actually reduce the
natural carbon load in effect by creating a greater preponderance of
carbon-fixing machinery to carbon-releasing natural processes, by planting
trees which have a much greater carbon absorption efficiency than grasses,
and the tree will not release this carbon for many years, and at a slow
rate, when it finally dies.  

And at the same time we can reduce our carbon emissions by freeing renewable
energy from many of our life-support services so it can be used to produce
high-embodied energy goods and services.  We can obtain these necessary
goods and services with less or no power, through efficiency, and manual or
passive methods:   heating and cooling our built environment by passive
solar and earth-sheltering, convective ventilation and thermal mass; passive
food preservation by root-cellaring, solar food-drying, and Intermittent
Solar Ammonia Absorption Cycle frig-ice maker; human and animal mobility and
transport; cooking with methane and concentrated solar energy.

The human species whose knowledge and technology and lack of wisdom caused
the problem of global warming /biosphere stress, now has the knowledge and
technology and wisdom and heart to do the opposite:  heal and cultivate the
Earth, and so fulfill our natural role as stewards of life --benign creators
and guardians.  This will be a great source of happiness and quality of life
for us too, naturally, and will help bring about the maturity and
fulfillment of the human being.

Phil 

-----Original Message-----
From: bioconversion-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:bioconversion-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Geoff Thomas
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 11:58 PM
To: Discussion of biological conversion to fuels and chemicals
Subject: Re: [Bioconversion] Conserve -- Even the Air Force Wants to Cut
Oil's Role

Hi all, ranting is fine, but it has to be correct ranting.
In 2005, according to a study done by the Australian CSIRO. a conservative
scientific research
organisation, the human race managed to throw 8 billion tons of carbon
dioxide into the
atmosphere, 2 billion tons more than 1995, - seems pretty grim eh, but in
context, the natural
world, the world of the plant kingdom, cycles 100 billion tons between the
atmosphere and the
land vegetation.
Every Year.
Now this is the natural cycle, plants grow, taking carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, turning
into cellulose erc, then die or lose leaves and that material falls on to
the ground, breaks down
into compost/mulch, is eventually eaten by worms or bacteria and the carbon
dioxide returns to
the atmosphere, 100 billion tons per year.
By diverting  some of that carbon through gasifiers, wood stoves, methane
digesters, charcoal
fuel cells, various fermentation techniques and others I may not know of in
such a way as to save
electricity generated by fossil fuels, we reduce that 8 billion tons while
not significantly
interfering with the natural cycle.
Of course any re-newable energy generated also helps greatly ( for example
the wind industry
currently generates more than 1% of the worlds elctricity, and is expanding
at 30% per year, - if
you do the figures, cumulative 30%, in 15 years wind energy alone will be
generating all the
current world electricity requirement) as does conserving energy and
avoiding usage such as
wasting fossil fuels on trivia, - we need to make every front a winner!
However the point is that there is 100 billion tons going up every year, a
lot to work with, and
much woody mass can be heated to give off it's flammable gases, used to
provide energy, and the
rest of that mass turned into charcoal which is far more effective than
mulch or compost at
helping plants grow, and that charcoal will last at least 7000 years in the
soil, - compost in
the soil here in far north Queensland lasts a year if you are lucky.
With the help of nature and our creative faculties we have the tools to turn
around global
warming and indeed even claw back out of the atmosphere the extra 240
billion tons currently
"surplus to requirements'  we might say.
100 bilion tons is a hell of a weapon, 6.5 billion aware and caring human
beings is a hell of a
weapon wielder, that is all we need.
Cheers,
Geoff Thomas.
Advanced Wind Technologies.
Australia

> G'day All,
>
> Biomass can't replace existing energy use (well, not with growing food
> as well, let alone conservation of forests etc!) so how is it going to
> provide the extra energy needed for all these conversions?
>
> Any conversion of energy is inefficient, so wastes our precious
> bioenergy - we just have to think of things other than driving cars
> everywhere, let alone flying! We have been far too inefficient with past
> "conversions" and wasted too much fossil fuel on trivia.
>
> Gaseous fuels are best suited to stationary applications and any liquid
> fuel will be needed for "emergency" uses.
>
> I think that's enough ranting for now,
> HOOROO
>
> Dick Glick wrote:
>>
>> Hello --
>>
>> It's time for renewable natural gas produced from biomass -- it can't be
done inexpensively --
>> that is to convert methane to diesel fuel for planes and vehicles, but
the technology is long
>> known -- the German's used a version of the technology -- first in WW I
than WW II -- to
>> produce liquid fuels -- from coal.
>>
> SNIP
> --
> Mr. Paul Harris
> Room G8, Leske Building
> Faculty of Sciences,
> The  University of Adelaide, Roseworthy Campus, AUSTRALIA 5371
> Ph    : +61 8 8303 7880
> Fax   : +61 8 8303 7979
> mailto:paul.harris at adelaide.edu.au
> I now use "MailGuard" - if you do not get a reply please make contact
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>
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