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Safe Trip to Eden: Ten Steps to Save Planet Earth from the Global Warming Meltdown David Steinman See book keywords and concepts

The new system will efficiently create and use a free biofuel? digester gas produced from grease—and increase the amount of "green power" generated by the cogeneration plant by 40 percent. The electricity generated from so-called waste actually reduces the city's requirement for about 1.5 million kilowatt-hours from the local utility each year. Of course, this in turn reduces everybody's dependency on oil.

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet Mark Lynas See book keywords and concepts

It would take hundreds of cider-drinking human harvesters using muscle power to do the work of one oil-drinking combine harvester using mechanical power (cider was surely the ultimate sustainable biofuel!). Still more oil is used in processing raw materials into edible foodstuffs, packaging them, and trucking the finished products to market. The system by its nature uses vastly more energy than a pre-industrial one, and is also very inefficient: far more calories of energy from fossil fuels are put in than we get out as calories of food.

Other biofuel advocates point to waste straw or wood chippings as a way to manufacture ethanol from cellulose, perhaps using genetically engineered enzymes. This seems to hold more potential in terms of carbon displacement, as it could be far more efficient than producing ethanol from food crops. However, the techniques are still being developed, and would take years to scale up enough to make any serious dent in emissions.

Maryland Health Officials Who Coerce Vaccinations Qualify as "Terrorists" Under New Senate Legislation Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

We can do this the easy way or the hard way... What's clear about all this in the United States today is that the U.S. government believes it has the right to use terrorist tactics on the People in order to achieve its political goals. The gunpoint medicine policy of forced vaccinations in Maryland is a recent outgrowth of this dangerous belief. It is the kind of belief that lets you know right away just how quickly this country is headed towards police state fascism.

Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century Alex Steffen See book keywords and concepts

The algae produce biodiesel effectively enough (a single acre of algae ponds can produce 15,000 gallons [56,781 liters] of biodiesel) that full conversion to biofuel for transportation might be achievable. Berzin's company, GreenFuel, has multiple test installations under way, and expects to have a full-scale plant up and running by 2008 or 2009.

Of course, the carbon dioxide doesn't just magically go away—it is released when the cars burn the biofuel —but Berzin's process does transform C02 that would otherwise simply be pollution into a (temporary) resource, at least making the carbon dioxide perform double-duty. And being half as bad to the climate would be a whole lot better than the status quo. JJF & j: Bioplastics wmmm Experimental corn-based plastics have been around since the 1930s, but industry has found it difficult to make plastics that are easily extracted from and returned to the natural ecosystem without harm.

Fast-forward thirty years and Malaysia is the world's largest producer of palm oil—and is offering West Africa advice on how to upgrade its palm-oil industry, including how to produce the oil as a biofuel. One of the best ways to facilitate these collaborations is to progressively introduce them into both traditional and evolving media gateways—from newspapers and television to solar-powered radio stations and cell phones.

Though widespread application of these solutions won't be possible for some time, a Brazilian company has manufactured a crop-duster plane that runs on ethanol, and the University of North Dakota's Energy and Environmental Research Center recently developed a carbon-neutral biofuel that could be suitable for aircraft use —in some respects, it's actually better than kerosene, which jet fuel is traditionally made from. This fuel will potentially cost less than petroleum-based aviation fuel.

The Great Book of Hemp: The Complete Guide to the Environmental, Commercial, and Medicinal Uses of the World's Most Extraordinary Plant Rowan Robinson See book keywords and concepts

Why not leave the forests out of the equation and use an annual farm crop as a biofuel source? In that case, the best option is hemp. There are two major sources of biofuel to be derived from hemp: the seed oil and the stalk. We will consider each of these in turn. HEMP SEED AS AN ENERGY SOURCE Vegetable oils are superior to petroleum on several counts, and hemp seed produces one of nature's finest oils. It is also easily converted into diesel fuel. Since the oil is not intended for human consumption, rancid oil can be used.

One deterrent to using hemp as a biofuel is that it is so valuable for its other uses. In the course of processing hemp into fiber or cel-lulosic pulp, however, a significant amount of waste is produced that has value as an energy-feed stock. If a manufacturer has an integrated system that utilizes all parts of the plant, this approach becomes a moot point because there is no waste. Hemp's Practical Fuel Potential All things considered, it appears that hemp does have good potential as a biofuel resource.

All in all, the benefits of biofuel greatly outweigh its disadvantages. And once the feed stock has been converted into fuel, it fits right into the entire currently existing infrastructure of distribution and use: tankers, freight cars, pipelines, storage facilities, and so on. As time goes by, more and more of the energy industry is realizing that biomass is not just an option—it is the future. Biomass can be processed into a wide variety of liquid, solid, and gaseous fuels, which in turn can be used to produce electricity.

There are two major sources of biofuel to be derived from hemp: the seed oil and the stalk. We will consider each of these in turn. HEMP SEED AS AN ENERGY SOURCE Vegetable oils are superior to petroleum on several counts, and hemp seed produces one of nature's finest oils. It is also easily converted into diesel fuel. Since the oil is not intended for human consumption, rancid oil can be used. Chemical extraction processes can increase the overall oil yield to 40 percent of the seed volume. This fuel oil has traditionally been thinned and used in lamps, as well as for cooking and heating.

Hemp's Practical Fuel Potential All things considered, it appears that hemp does have good potential as a biofuel resource. In most cases, the value of the crop's fiber and seed will be greater than the value of energy it would produce. But waste produced at any point in the chain of production can be converted into fuel and utilized to offset the cost of buying energy. By using hemp as a fuel source, energy companies may achieve significant savings in the installation and operation of pollution-control equipment.

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