tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82685517551235311512024-03-17T13:38:12.553-07:00Thoughts on the RoofEditorials on a variety of topics. Often taking the sceptical view. Often to do with New ZealandWilliam Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.comBlogger256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-84818254087885650632024-03-17T13:35:00.000-07:002024-03-17T13:37:39.586-07:00The criminal Supreme Court<br /><p>The decision by the supreme court to examine whether or not a president can be held criminally liable for 'Official acts' carried out while in office, is equivalent to Trump paying off a porn star. Both are designed to hide information from the American public that could well affect the way they vote and that is the least of it.</p><p> </p><p> The members of the supreme court should be charged with exactly what Trump was charged with when he paid off Stormy <i><u>plus</u></i> anti-democratic, anti-constitutional and anti-American activity.</p><p><br />The wording of the question that they are prepared to examine, the timing of when they are going to start deliberations, the verdict they will deliver and, most importantly, when they will deliver the verdict are all criminal activities.<br /></p><p><br />The Question they are prepared to examine is whether or not a president can be held criminally liable for 'official acts' carried out while in office. It is a trite question and just kicks the can down the road. Of course a president can not be held criminally liable for 'official acts'. The question then becomes what are official<br />acts. Is falsifying business records, not paying his taxes, paying off a porn star, threatening witnesses, fomenting insurrection and so forth - are they official acts. Of course not, so they are not affected by the question.</p><p><br />And it gets far worse. I will make a prediction. The Supreme court already knows <i>exactly</i> what they will find and when they will announce their verdict. That is why they phrased the question as they did.</p><p><br />They will release their findings a short time before the coming election in November and they will find that a president can not be held criminally liable for "Official acts". They will phrase their finding in all sorts of confusing legaleze gobledegook. But Trump supporters will crow from the roof tops "Trump Innocent" "Trump Exonerated" when the finding says no such thing. This will affect the way many people vote and especially amongst the large, politically ignorant portion of the American public.<br /></p><p><br />The Supreme court is corrupt far beyond anything exposed to date. Destroying democracy in America is far more serious than accepting bribes from rich donors.<br />Besides being fiscally corrupt, the four Republican members of the Supreme Court are anti-democratic, anti-constitution and anti-American.</p><p><br /><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-25175603837870083712023-12-15T20:39:00.000-08:002023-12-17T22:59:51.847-08:00Skylights<p> Skylights really annoy me. Not the having of them but the way they are integrated into a house. It's an engineering abortion. We are living in a house in which I built the sky lights. We are downsizing to a house that is being built for us. And we have 4 sky lights, bought a great expense with silly engineering.</p><p><br /></p><p>The bought sky lights stick up above the corrugated iron cladding so any rain that runs down the roof above the sky light wants to flow into the roof cavity. To avoid this you need some sophisticated flashing and lots of sealant. There is a far simpler and vastly cheaper option.</p><p><br /></p><p>The thickness from the cladding of a roof to the ceiling is typically about 6 inche-sometimes more. This is the width of the perlons (the horizontal boards which are laid on edge across the rafters). There are lots of other configurations but generally there is lots of space between the ceiling and the cladding. So what do we do. </p><p><br /></p><p>First build what is essentially a picture frame with dimensions to take a glass sandwich plus 5mm or so in both directions. This is built into the roof at the level of the ceiling.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>The glass sandwich you can get made up by any glazier. It consists of a lower sheet made of that safety glass which itself is a sandwich of plastic between two sheets of glass. If you ever have some sort of a disaster, this glass will ensure that no shards fall and hurt someone. </p><p><br /></p><p>The upper layer I would recommend be some sort of diffusing glass. Basically the sort of thing you would have in a bathroom window. You don't want a sharp edged beam of light with deep shadows around it but rather light that is dispersed over the whole room. The two sheets of glass are separated by an aluminum strip of around 5mm thickness. If you really want to get sophisticated, you can get the hollow between the layers of glass, filled with Argon.</p><p><br /></p><p>If you decide to seal this glass into the frame, make sure to use a thick layer of rubber or silicon sealer so the glass can expand and contract as it heats and cools without cracking the glass.</p><p><br /></p><p>So how about the rest of the sky light. Under a corrugated iron roof, you usually put a layer of tar paper or similar membrane to take any condensation drips from the iron, down toward the eves. At the location where you have the sky light, you use a layer of transparent polycarbonate instead. Then we only have to clad the roof. From the ridge down to the sky light (hang tough, I'll start from the eves). From the eves up to the bottom of the sky light is regular corrugated iron. This is overlapped by a sheet of corrugate transparent poly-carbonate over the glass, up to the top of the sky light and beyond a bit. From the top of the sky light to the ridge is another piece of corrugated iron. </p><p><br /></p><p>No way is this going to leak, it is cheap and simplicity itself to construct.<br /></p><p><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-38476990682446741322023-09-20T21:01:00.006-07:002023-10-21T03:55:27.909-07:00How to destroy China<p> It will take a little time but China should be gone as a major state in 50 to 100 years. And it is simple. Do you realize that, while Greece and Rome and many other empires rose and fell, China remained as an organized, prosperous country through it all. Greece and Rome destroyed their soils and fell. Rome ended up being dependent on countries in North Africa for her food. It was so extreme that it was a capital offense to interfere in any way with the transport of food to Rome from Africa. What we have to do to destroy China as a world power is to get them to destroy their soils. And it would be easy to do. Simply mock them about their use of human manure on their fields. Convince them that it is backward and yucky and the modern way is to use chemical fertilizers and to use flush toilets. Much more aesthetic and look at the great harvests America gets. (steer the conversation away from the destruction of American soils by using chemical fertilizers)..</p><p><br /></p><p>The reason that China has survived and prospered for some 5000 years is that they have always cycled every bit of organic material back into their soils. Stover (the part of the plant that we don't utilize) animal manure, human manure, waste wood - in fact anything that will compost is put back into their soils. And this has allowed them to maintain prosperity over such a long time. Sure they had floods and droughts and this caused severe social dislocation but over all, they bounced back based on a working agriculture.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>And if we get them to adopt flush toilets, it is a double (or triple) whammy. If they can be convinced to do only primary treatment or even secondary treatment and to pour the used water into their rivers, they will kill off the life in the rivers. In addition this added use of water for flushing, may tip them over the edge in some of the drier parts of China. Then when the river pours out into the ocean, it will likely result in an anaerobic area which trashes the fish and other marine life in the area. </p><p><br /></p><p>Then, of course, they will have to mine more phosporous, fix more nitrogen and obtain all the other elements that makes for good crops. All this will put more strain on their economy. Oh and convince them that the use of the plow is the formula for better crops. If they start using the plows extensively, for a short period, their crops will improve* while at the same time, destroying their soils. By the time they have woken up to the harm the plow does, it will be too late. With the very best of management it takes about three years to restore a soil to a passable level of production.</p><p>* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Using the plow is like taking the capital from your bank account rater than just using the interest. Over time you bank account falls to zero. </i></span><br /></p><p>And don't let them know about the <a href="https://www.milorganite.com/gardening/vegetables-fruit">sewage plants</a> that turn sewage into valuable fertilizer. </p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-89548589147719102272023-09-15T23:45:00.005-07:002023-09-26T02:17:30.330-07:00Batteries for Static Applications<p> To my way of thinking, we should try very hard to discontinue the use of batteries based on Li chemistry for static applications such as home batteries and grid storage. One reason for this is that doing so would reduce the demand for Li and reduce its price. This would bring down the price of Li batteries for mobile applications, reduce the price of EVs (Electric Vehicles) and hence widen the market for these cars and increase how fast we shift away from fossil fuels. </p><p> </p><p>Better still, some of the alternate chemistries produce batteries that are superior to Li batteries for static applications. The reason we stick with Li for mobile applications is weight. I'm not aware of any other battery that holds more power per kg(Kilogram) of battery than Li batteries. Weight is of very little significance for batteries which are used for static applications. So what other possibilities are there and how are they superior to Li batteries.</p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Liquid metal batteries </b></span><br /></p><p>Conceptually one of my favorite types is the liquid metal battery. These were developed by professor<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfJtKezS6jA"> Sadoway</a> and his team at MIT. His favorite comment when he is talking about his battery is that if you want a battery that is dirt cheap, make it from dirt. OK, it is not exactly dirt that is used but fairly close. His batteries are based on Ca(Calcium), Sb(Antimony) and a calcium chloride salt. They operate at about 500 degrees C(centigrade). And, many experiments are ongoing to use different <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/liquid-metal-battery">chemistries</a> that need lower temperatures.</p><p><br /></p><p>These batteries are kept molten by the electric current flowing through them during charging and discharging so there is some waste of power. The effectiveness of the insulation is of primary importance. When shipped the chemicals are simply dumped into the battery and the battery sealed. When they arrive at their destination, the chemicals are heated up until they melt, separate into their layers and the battery is ready to go. This sort of battery works well under heavy use but if left unused for some time, the components will eventually solidify and have to be melted again to regain function. If left fully charged, when the components solidify, the battery is fully charged and ready to go when melted. So what are the characteristics of these batteries.</p><p><br /></p><p>They can be cycled between 0 and 100% charge with no damage. This has a lot to do with their liquid nature. Because all the components are liquid, they can't form spicules which in other batteries, grow and short out the plates.<br /></p><p>They last far longer than Li batteries with no fade. In fact I am not sure if they have even found a limit to the number of times they can be cycled from 0 to 100% and back again, before they show some fade.<br /></p><p>They are completely safe to ship and so can be shipped by air, sea or land. Ingredients are solid, mixed and you could short out the terminals with no effect.<br /></p><p>They are made from elements which are readily available and cheap from multiple sources. Antimony is mainly from the sulfide mineral known as stibnite. It is not particularly expensive, ranging from US$2 to US$6 per pound at various times in the past. Calcium metal is obtained from the electrolysis of a calcium salt such a Calcium cloride.<br /></p><p>Liquid metal batteries operate under a wider range of external temperatures than Li batteries<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ZnBr Batteries</span></b></p><p>There are two types of ZnBr batteries. On is the flow/plating batteries. It is essentially a Zn electroplating unit. Zinc Bromide is dissolved in an aqueous solution and there are plastic horizontal 'shelves' in the battery dosed with C to make them conductive. Under charging, the Zinc comes out of solution and electro-plates the plastic shelves. The bromine which is heavier than the solution accumulates at the bottom of the battery. Under discharge, the Zn and the Br recombine and zinc bromide dissolves into the solution. It is not only possible but is recommended that the battery be discharged completely from time to time as this eliminates any build up of dendrites (spicules) that could short out the battery. Thus it is useful to have your battery pack operate in multiple stacks. One stack is completely discharged into the other pack on an established schedule.</p><p><br /></p><p>The other type of ZnBr battery is the gel battery. Instead of a solution, the electrolyte is in the form of a gel. From the outside, these batteries look very much like a Lead-Acid battery and in fact the manufacturing process is very similar. Apparently a Lead-Acid battery manufacturing plant can be converted to making ZnBr gel batteries with only modest modifications. Gel batteries also need to be completely discharged from time to time. To me they sound like a real winner since you simply stack them in series and parallel to get the voltage and capacity that you need. And there are no moving parts. It remains to be seen what their cost per kWh stored will be and what their working life will be.</p><p><br /></p><p>For their advantages, look back at the advantages of liquid metal batteries. They are the same.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Redox Batteries</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">These batteries are based on elements with two or more valence states. For instance Fe (iron) compounds exists in the Ferric (+3) state and the Ferrous (+2) state. You have two tanks, one with an iron salt in the +3 state and one in the +2 state. And you have a reactor through which these solutions flow separated by a membrane. What is notable about such batteries is that if there is a small amount of leakage through the membrane, it is of little consequence. It is still an Iron salt. If you were using two different elements, you could quickly contaminate your solution. If you want more capacity you simply need bigger tanks. If you want more power you need more reactors. I don't know how they get around the solubility problem. The ferric state is far less soluble than the ferrous state*.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">The other element used so far is V(Vanadium) which has multiple valence states.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<span style="font-size: x-small;">By the way, this is why there are huge deposits of iron in some parts of the world. In the early years of the world there was no oxygen. The oceans were anaerobic. Iron was dissolved in the oceans in the soluble ferrous state. Then stromatolites developed. These are sort of like reef building algae that take in Carbon dioxide and put out oxygen. Apparently the oceans were full of ferrous iron. As oxygen was produced, the ferrous iron used up the oxygen, converting it to ferric iron which precipitated. Western Australia is a region where you can see this and in the shallow water there are still some living stromatolites.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b> </b></span></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Iron oxygen Batteries</b></p><p>These are also being worked on and apparently a <a href="https://innovationorigins.com/en/iron-air-grid-battery-is-going-to-make-real-impact-first-gigasite-under-construction/">very large one</a> is about to be built. As they discharge, iron is combined with oxygen producing rust. When charging the rust is converted back into Iron and Oxygen. An interesting aside here is that this is a way to produce iron from Iron ore which is essentially rust. This would be a carbon free method of refining iron ore. I have read speculation that you could put the oxides of other metals into the retort and produce alloys of iron such as stainless steel.<br /></p><p><b> </b><br /></p><p>I'll add more batteries as they are shown and described. So far it is hard to get reliable data on the longevity and other characteristics of these alternate batteries.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-42130562512562359852023-06-28T01:54:00.003-07:002023-07-07T00:33:04.237-07:00Inheritance (death) taxes<p>I tried to come up with a single word or phrase that describes Inheritance (death) taxes. Illegal doesn't work because what is illegal is whatever the government says it is. Immoral isn't quite right because it tends to refer to human relationships.... but it is closer. The best I could come up with is 'it just ain't right'</p><p> </p><p>Part of it has to do with one's world view. People who are for inheritance tax tend to look at a family as a mom and dad and their children. I look at a family and I see an extended family including the deceased great grand parents, the living grand parents, the current generation, their children and as time goes on, their children's children. All these element of a family are giving support to each other both up and down the generations in many ways both pecuniary and non-pecuniary. </p><p><br /></p><p>Lets take an example. A man working at a crap job has scraped and saved and can finally buy that farm he has dreamed about. Every cent he has earned, he has paid taxes on. Every bite of food he has put into the mouths of his family likewise. He has paid taxes on the fuel to get back and forth to his job and on the car he bought. If he has saved his money in a bank, the bank has paid taxes which reduced the return on his loan* to the bank. But finally he can buy the farm with the residual that has been left to him.</p><p>*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>That's right. When you deposit your money in the bank, you are loaning it to the bank. <br /></i></span></p><p><br /></p><p>He needs a place to live (more taxes on every bit of material to build the house) and with luck he is able to build his own house. Alternately, he gets a contractor to build his house. The contractor pays tax on everything he does and has to cover this by charging our farmer more for his construction work. He will spend more to have the municipality inspect every stage of construction. Then he needs machinery, seed, chemicals, fencing etc etc. The list is endless and you guessed it. Taxes on everything he buys. And his wife is probably working outside the farm to bring in needed funds to run the farm until it can stand on its own. More taxes. And every bite he buys outside to feed his family has been taxed<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>In the fullness of time the farm is successful but Dad is getting a bit long in the tooth by this time. He still does a lot around the farm but as his strength wanes, his sons and daughters take over more and more of the functions of the farm.</p><p><br /></p><p>One of his sons realizes that the model his father is using is destroying the soil with the plow and the chemicals dad uses and he begins to convert the farm to what is know as regenerative farming. This could show a constant bottom line but is more likely to have anything up to three years with the bottom line suffering. From then on he has greatly reduced input costs, has improved the bottom line and has made his farm much more resilient to vulgarities in the weather and crop prices. He has stopped polluting nearby streams and rivers, is helping to mitigate floods and is sequestering carbon. None of this is recognized by his government despite the fact that it decreases their expenses (cleaning water of pollution, compensating flood victums and paying for their carbon output).</p><p><br /></p><p>But it is actually a bit more complicated than this. Let's look at the customer who buys a loaf of bread made from the wheat our farmer grew in his field. The farmer sells his wheat to a mill. They pay a whole range of taxes and have to recover this when they sell the flour to the bakery. The bakery pays a whole range of taxes which they have to recover in the price of a loaf of bread. Each stage in an economic chain of this sort pays taxes and here is the rub. Some of the taxes are on the product they sell so they are paying taxes on the taxes from the former level. How does this concern the farmer. I puts considerable downward pressure on what he can charge for his wheat. Compound taxes make it so.<br /></p><p> </p><p>Now in a well run country, all these taxes are necessary. The infrastructure that only the government can implement is needed for all the enterprises of the country.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Then Dad dies.</p><p><br /></p><p>The one son or daughter that wants to remain on the farm has to buy out his siblings or split the revenue of the farm with them so he is faced with added expense. In a country that has death duties, the farmer then has to find as much as 40% of the value of the farm that he and his father have carved out of a virgin piece of land, greatly increasing its value, to pay the government. Not only has the family paid taxes on every single financial interaction throughout the life of the farm since his dad bought it but the value of the farm is mainly due to the blood, sweat and tears of his dad and his siblings. They have created this value and now they have to pay taxes. The more succesful they were, the greater their taxes.<br /></p><p> </p><p>Along comes the government evaluator. The farm is worth far more than the piece of land that Dad bought and the value is mainly due to the efforts of the family. The family now has to pay taxes on this added value that they created. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Like I said, it just ain't right. He will probably have to sell the farm - often at a loss, just to pay the death duties and this at a very stressful time when he has lost his dad. It just ain't right.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-31390582647376301032023-05-09T23:40:00.006-07:002023-05-22T01:43:15.254-07:00Blow out holes in the Arctic<p> Over the past few years, blow out holes have appeared in the Arctic. They are often many tens of meters diameter and many tens of meters deep. They are close to round in shape with more or less vertical sides.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Climate change may be behind the massive craters forming in Siberia | CNN" aria-hidden="false" class="r48jcc pT0Scc iPVvYb" src="https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/210215124739-01-siberian-craters-arctic.jpg?q=w_2126,h_1188,x_0,y_0,c_fill" style="height: 354px; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 2126px; width: 634px;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Typical blow out hole. The people give scale. </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p> </p><p>To my way of thinking, many of the commentators have got their wires crossed regarding how these features are formed. Let me run this by you. </p><p> </p><p>1/ Much of the Arctic has permafrost, some of it multi-kilometers deep but much of it much less thick. By definition, permafrost is soil that is frozen over the summer and on into the next winter. Some of it has been frozen for thousands of years. Now with the warming of the climate, it is melting, especially at its more southerly extent. Leave that aside for a moment.</p><p> </p><p> <img alt="Frozen Ground & Permafrost | National Snow and Ice Data Center" class="r48jcc pT0Scc iPVvYb" src="https://nsidc.org/sites/default/files/images/permafrost_distribution_in_the_arctic.jpeg" style="max-width: 772px;" /></p><p> <br /></p><p> </p><p>2/ When you mix methane with water, nothing happens. A very small amount of the methane dissolves in the water and the rest bubbles out. However cool the water to a few degrees above freezing and pressurize it to a pressure equivalent to about 250m deep in the sea or lake, and the methane combines with the water and forms an ice. It is called a methane ice, methane hydrate or Methane Clathrate*. A kg of water which is fully saturated with methane (forming an ice) can hold about 160liters of methane (measured at Standard Temperature and Pressure (STP)</p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">You can think of a Clathrate as a solid solution.</span></i><br /></p><p> <img alt="Gas Hydrate Formation Phase Boundary Behaviour of Synthetic Natural Gas System of the Keta Basin of Ghana ~ Fulltext" class="r48jcc pT0Scc iPVvYb" src="https://benthamopen.com/contents/figures/TOPEJ/TOPEJ-10-64_F3.jpg" style="max-width: 600px;" /></p><p> </p><p>In fact under greater and greater pressure the methane clathrate can form at a higher and higher temperature. Note that to a first approximation, one bar is equal to one atmosphere. As you dive down in the ocean, again to a first approximation, for every 10 meters you descend, the pressure increases by one atmosphere (or one Bar). If you look at the above graph, you can see that a clathrate will form at about 18<sup>0</sup>C at about 50 atmospheres(490m). This graph doesn't go far enough to the left but at a degree or two above freezing, a clathrate will form at about 25 atmospheres (Bar) or at about 250m*. Leave that aside for a moment.</p><p>*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Methane ice has been dredged from the bottom of the ocean. A piece left on the deck slowly melts into a puddle of water. You can light it on fire and it burns as it gives up its methane</i></span>.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="A GLOBAL OUTLOOK ON METHANE GAS HYDRATES" class="r48jcc pT0Scc" data-iml="34577" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTtl8Qh4f7aT0pTqcR8XJOhzEyYXfhnH2Gljw&usqp=CAU" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 908px;" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A piece of methane Clathrate burning.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><p>3/ When organic material is buried and especially if it finds itself at considerable depth where the heat of the earth is high*, the material breaks down into a range of hydrocarbons. It is basically a <a href="https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2019/09/pyrolysis.html">pyrolysis</a> process. Depending on the starting material you can produce shale, coal or liquid hydrocarbons (oil) but in all cases, methane is one of the products. Being a gas the methane will seep upwards until it either meets an impermeable layer or it vents into the atmosphere. The impermeable layer can be a geological layer such as a layer of clay, for instance, or can be permafrost. </p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">*The temperature in the earth is created by the decay of radioactive atoms and this heat slowly conducts and convects upwards to escape into the atmosphere. It is a minuscule amount compared to the heat we receive from the sun but since the earth is a great insulator, it accumulates and melts the center of the earth. As a rough rule of thumb, temperature increases about 25<sup>0</sup>C per km depth. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">4/ If the methane vents into the atmosphere, it comes into contact with OH (hydroxide) radicals and is slowly oxidized into Carbon dioxide and is incorporated into the biosphere. The half life of methane in the atmosphere is around 7 years. If it comes into contact with an impermeable layer, it accumulates. If there is moisture where it accumulates, if the pressure is sufficient, it forms a clathrate. A clathrate can form at much less than 250m depth if the impermeable layer confines the gas, like a pressure cooker lid. So let's put all this together.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Say you have a really solid, really cold impermeable layer of permafrost of 100m depth and somewhere below the permafrost there are layers of coal, oil or shale (or even a buried swamp or peat bog). They are venting methane but there is no geological impermeable layer between the hydrocarbon layers and the bottom of the permafrost. The bottom of the permafrost is at zero degrees C. If it was colder the permafrost would thicken (and there is moisture there). The permafrost acts like the lid of a pressure cooker and the methane begins to form a clathrate with the available moisture. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now we humans come along and start to warm the atmosphere. The permafrost begins to warm and weaken and the clathrate warms as well. Gas comes out of the 'solid solution'. Pressure builds up. As mentioned a kg of clathrate can hold as much as 160liters of methane. If the pressure becomes high enough it blows a hole through the permafrost.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">There is a corollary to this. Where we have continental glaciers, we should expect that there will be places where the glacier is underlying with coal, oil or shale. In such locations there should be a layer of methane clathrate at the bottom of the ordinary ice. The ice of a continental glacier can be a few km deep so the pressure is great and there are lakes under the ice of Antarctica. They remain liquid because of the heat seeping up from the earth and the insullating ability of the overlying ice. As the ice thins, the pressure decreases and so you would expect huge outputs of methane as the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica retreat.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Incidentally, I have heard some commentators say that the ignition of the methane is what blows out these holes. Completely impossible. Methane only burns or explodes when mixed with air or oxygen at certain ratios. For methane this is between 5 and 60% methane. More than 60% methane and the mixture will not burn. Below the permafrost there is no oxygen, it is pure methane (probably with some Carbon dioxide). Once it enters the atmosphere, it could ignite but would need a source of ignition to burn or explode*. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Owners of older style ICE (internal combustion engine) cars will be familiar with this. If you flood the engine the car will not start. You depress the accelerator, hold it there and try again. What you are doing is flushing out the excess fuel vapor. At too high a concentration it will not ignite. </span></i> </span><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-14856193370030720952023-03-04T16:33:00.005-08:002023-05-22T01:43:54.786-07:00The radioactive formula<p> The math for calculating how old something is from a study of it's radioactive elements is often presented in a very obscure fashion when it is really quite simple.</p><p>A formula is a mathematical expression or 'sentence' that describes some phenomenon in nature (or not in nature). There is a straight forward expression of any formula - the one that can be understood intuitively. Then you can rearrange the formula (solve for) to make any of the other factors in the equation the subject. These 'derived' formula are often less easy to understand intuitively. <br /></p><p>First, for any youngsters that haven't yet learned algebraic notation, let's divert for a moment. Skip this if you already know algebra.</p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Notation in Algebra</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">First why do we bother to make formulas with letters. Why not just put in the numbers. The reason is so that this gives us a general formula which can be used for the same phenomenon but for different numerical examples. Also with a different letter representing each different factor, it is much easier to make any one of the factors the subject of the formula.</span><b> </b></span><br /></p><p><b>ab</b> <br /></p><p>First what does it mean when two letters are presented beside and touching each other. For instance ab. </p><p>This means you are to multiply the value of 'a' by the value of 'b'. With letters, we don't separate them by a times sign such as axb because this can be confused for telling you to multiply a times x times b. On the other hand if you are using numbers you can include the times sign so 7 x 9. Alternatively, a dot is often used in algebra in the middle of the line like this 7<sup>.</sup>9. This notation says to multiply 7 by 9 while 7.9 with the dot at the bottom of the line means seven decimal (or point) 9 - nearly 8.</p><p> </p><p><b>3a</b> <br /></p><p>How about 3a. </p><p>This instructs you to multiply 'a' by 3 so it is the same as a+a+a.</p><p> </p><p><b>a<sup>3</sup></b> <br /></p><p>And then we have a<sup>3</sup>. </p><p>This tells you to multiply 'a' by 'a' by 'a' which is also called 'a' to the third power </p><p><br /></p><p><b>a<sub><span style="font-size: x-small;">3</span></sub></b><br /></p><p>We also have a<sub>3 also known as asub3</sub>. This isn't an operator. It doesn't tell you to do anything. Series are a powerful tool in math and this notation could mean the third 'a' in a series. You could also have a<sub>0</sub>. This could mean a at time 0. We will use this just now. Whatever the notation, generally we described what each of the factors in a formula means at the beginning of the calculation unless it is such a well known formula that an explanation is not needed<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Physical Situation</span></b></p><p>Math is used to describe something in nature. I fine it quite gob smacking that so many things in nature can be described by quite simple math. In our case we are looking at the breakdown of a radioactive isotope. Perhaps we should describe what an isotope is for the young ones. There are about 92 separate natural occurring elements on the periodic table and a whole bunch more that are artificially created. Their chemistry (how they react with other elements) and hence their identity is determined by the electrons whizzing about the nucleus and especially the outer shell of electrons. In the nucleus are positive particles called protons and the number of electrons in an uncharged atom* exactly match the number of protons. But there are also uncharged neutrons in the nucleus. They have almost the same mass as a proton. The sum of the protons and neutrons gives you the Atomic number of the element. The Electrons are very light compared to protons and neutrons. The number of neutrons approximately equal the number of protons but can vary quite a bit. The different forms of atoms of a given element, due to the different number of neutrons, are called isotopes of that element. All the atoms of a specific element contain the same number of protons but the neutrons can vary. Some of these isotopes are radioactive. All this means is that they break down spontaneously into simpler, lighter elements. They aren't stable. At break down, they give off alpha, beta or gamma radiation. I'll tell you about them in an appendix.</p><p>* <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Perhaps you have heard of ions and might confuse an ion with an isotope. An ion is an atom which is temporarily missing or has an excess of one or more electron. Ions have a very strong tendency to gain or loose electrons to bring them back into equilibrium. Actually ions have a part to play in the dating of radioactive isotopes as we shall see.</span></i><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Here is where we get to the critical observation about these isotopes which allows us to date them. Early researchers noted that if you observed a given radioactive element for a while, at some time in the future, half of it will be gone - changed into something else. Nothing surprising here. Then if you continued to observe this isotope, for the that same time period, half of what was left will be gone. Starting with some initial amount, each time, that particular period of time (which is unique for each different isotope) elapses, you would have half, then a quarter, then an eighth, then a sixteenth and so forth until there is too little to observe. This period has, not surprisingly, being called its half life. Half lives vary from milliseconds to millions of years for different isotopes.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Formula</span></b><br /></p><p>So we can start to build a formula. We will put each formula into words as well.</p><p>Suppose you know how much of a radioactive isotope you have today and want to know how much you will have after one 'half life' has gone by. </p><p>A<sub>1/2</sub> = 1/2A<sub>0</sub> In words, the amount after one half life is equal to one half times the amount at time 0. This is what we observed in the physical world. So far pretty simple - no? Remember for this problem we define A<sub>1/2 to mean The Amount after one half life. We could put 't' instead of 1/2 meaning the Amount after time t has gone by after the initial condition.<br /></sub></p><p><br /></p><p>Now suppose that two half lives have gone by. We have to multiply again by 1/2 so we have A<sub>t</sub> = (1/2)(1/2)A<sub>0</sub> Or we could write (1/2)<sup>2</sup>A<sub>0</sub>. ie. after two half lives one half squared times the Amount at time 0 which, of course, is one quarter as much as we started with.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>We could go on like this or we could put n (number of half lives) in the formula so it becomes A<sub>t</sub> = (1/2)<sup>n</sup>A<sub>0. In words, if you want to know how much of a radioactive element remains after a given time, raise 1/2 to the power of the number of half lives that have past and multiply this number by the original amount. <br /></sub></p><p><br /></p><p>Now we will have a short break and I'll ask you a question. Suppose we have some radioactive isotope that has a half life of 5 (h = 5)years and 15(t = 15) years have gone by. How many half lives have gone by and what fraction of the original isotope is left.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>If you have understood the concept, you calculated 3(n = 3) half lives and there is one eighth left of the original amount. Putting this into letters, n = t/h or the number of half lives that have passed equals the time elapsed divided by the half life. Since n= t/h we can put t/h where n appeared in our formula.</p><p>We now have<b><span style="font-size: medium;"> A<sub>t</sub> = (1/2)<sup>(t/h)</sup>A<sub>0</sub></span></b> and that is the whole radioactive formula. One of the main uses of this formula is to find t, the time that has elapsed since, say, Carbon 14 was incorporated into a plant or animal or perhaps the time since a rock melted and solidified and reset the clock. Below a quick description of what is meant and then we will learn how to rearrange the formula to make t or h or A<sub>0</sub> the subject of the formula instead of At<br /></p><p>Note that your little hand held calculator isn't bothered at all if 't' is not an even number of half lives. Not an easy thing to do by hand without another branch of math called logarithms but the calculator takes it in its stride. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The physical situation</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">There are two main fields where radioactivity is used for dating. First Carbon fourteen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Carbon 14 </b><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">The usual, (common) non-radioactive form of Carbon is Carbon twelve. This means that the sum of the number of protons plus the number of neutrons in the nucleus is 12. In this case the number of neutrons and protons are equal. That is to say, 6 of each. This sort of Carbon is stable, it is not radioactive. However, when high energy particles know as cosmic rays hit the atmosphere from outer space and high energy particles from the sun do likewise, some of the Nitrogen 14 is changed into carbon 14. and this diffuses into the atmosphere. It becomes part of the biosphere and any plant or animal takes up some of this radioactive Carbon along with the non-radioactive type. The quantities are very small but the methods of detecting the relative proportions of radioactive and non radioactive carbon in a plant or animal are very very accurate. I will describe them later. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">What this results in, is that any living animal or plant is more or less in equilibrium with its environment and to a close approximation all have the same proportion of radioactive carbon to non radioactive carbon in their bodies. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">However, when an organism dies, it is no longer taking up either form of carbon and the proportion of Carbon 14 begins to decrease as it changes back into N14. The half life of C14 is 5730 years and at a pinch, the amount can be measured with modern techniques to about 10 half lives. Of course the accuracy decreases, the older the sample<b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">but this takes us back to about 50,000 years. To put this into perspective, we can date materials back to half way into the most recent glacial period but not to the most recent interglacial, the Eemian which occurred about 125,000 years ago. <br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Rocks</b> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Rocks can also be dated using radioactive isotopes. Here you can do a wee experiment in your kitchen to illustrate the process. Get some Copper sulfate which is a blue crystal. Dissolve as much as you can in some water. Now add sugar and dissolve as much of this as you can in the same water. Pour off the clear liquid (colored blue) into a clean glass and suspend a piece of string that you have dipped in powdered crystals of both solutes. Watch what happens. The Copper Sulfate and the sugar will crystalize separately as the water evaporates so you will have sugar and copper sulfate crystals back again. The sugar crystalizes with the sugar and the Copper sulfate with the Copper sulfate. The same thing happens with rocks. If you melt them and let them cool and solidify, the separate mineral crystalize separately. Think of a granite rock. melting re-sets the clock. If there is a Uranium containing mineral in the melt, it will crystalize out separately. Then it will continue to break down and the final result of a series of radioactive decays is Pb (Lead). By measuring the relative proportions of U and Pb, you can date when the rock cooled from a molten state. However we need to re-arrange the formula to make 't' the subject of the formula. Let's do it.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Solving for 't' </b><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">We start with the basic formula </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A<sub>t</sub> = (1/2)<sup>(t/h)</sup>A<sub>0</sub></span></b> <br /></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> and we want to get 't' by itself and all the rest on the other side of the equation. This is called 'solving for t'. So let's divide both sides by A0. Remember, we can do anything we want to an equation as long as we do exactly the same to both sides. Of course, the trick is to choose the right thing to do.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><b><span style="font-size: medium;">A<sub>t/A0</sub> = (1/2)<sup>(t/h)</sup></span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><sup>This cancels out Ao on the right side and leaves it in the denominator (bottom) of the left side. </sup></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><sup>Now we need a wee log identity. I will give you a hint at the bottom of this blog of how logs work but for the moment, take my word for it that:</sup></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><sup>log<sub>a</sub>b<sup>c</sup> = clog<sub>a</sub>b </sup></span><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><sup> </sup></span></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Or in words, Log to the base 'a' of 'b' raised to the 'c'th power equals c times log to the base a of b. ie You can move the power to the front. I'll explain more about this in an appendix. Just remember that we can do anything to one side of an equation if we do the same to the other side. So the formula becomes.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">log At/A0 = log (1/2)(t/h) and this becomes</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">log At/A0 = (t/h)log(1/2)</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Oh, I nearly forgot to mention something. When you use the log function without any explanation, 'log' it always means to the base 10. If you want it to a different base, you must note it and ln is the natural log to base 2.718. Both Log and ln are on your computer.<br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now all we have to do is to divide both sides by log(1/2) to move log(1/2) to the other side and multiply both sides by h to move h to the left side. 't' remains in glorious isolation on the right side. It is conventional to put the subject of the formula on the left side so we can reverse them. After all if a = b then b = a</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Our formula for t then becomes</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">t = <u>(logA<sub>t</sub>/A<sub>0)</sub></u></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> (log1/2)</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><b>The Analysis System</b></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span> </span></span></span> I suppose one could extract the lead from a rock and the Uranium and weigh how much of each there was. These figures could be inserted into the formula to age a rock. But that wouldn't work with Carbon. You are comparing the amounts of Carbon fourteen with the amount of Carbon twelve and both have the same chemistry. There is a better and very sensitive method that works much like the first television sets. </p><p>In the early TV sets, the screen was one side of a large tube which tapered to the back behind the screen. At the back of the tube was a filament which, when heated, gave off electrons. These were accelerated in an electrical field and then passed through two sets of magnets oriented at right angles to each other. A charged particle moving through a magnetic field is bent. One set of magnets bent the beam of electrons back and forth horizontally and the other set up and down. The magnets were varied in such a way that the beam of electrons sped back and forth over the inside of the screen, causing the layer of phosphorescent material on the inside of the screen to light up. The electrical field was varied to give a stronger field which would provide a brighter point or less strong field which would give a darker point. The 'refresh' rate was so fast that you saw moving picture. </p><p><br /></p><p>A machine to measure, for instance, the relative amounts of Carbon 14 and Carbon 12 works pretty well the same way. The sample of carbon to be measured is heated so hot that charged atoms of carbon are produced. This can be done with a laser. The charged atoms are accelerated through an electrical field and then between electric magnets, one North and the other South. This bends the beam of Carbon atoms. The neat part is that the heavier atoms are bent less than the lighter atoms. Where the beams hit the side of the container are detectors and the electronics connected to them can measure individual atoms. The strength of the magnets can be varied to bend the beam more or less to ensure each beam hits a detector. Clearly, this is a very accurate method of measuring very tiny amounts of Carbon 14 and Carbon 12. The number of hits on each detector can be inserted into the formula.<br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><b>Logarithms</b></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">I promised I would try to explain logarithms. First a bit of notation. If you see a notation log1000 = 3, it is understood that this is the log to the base 10. If you use another base, you have to state it. There is another notation ln. It means the log to the base 'e'. e is the base of the natural logarithms, whatever that means. I don't understand it. e is 2.71828. It is known as Euler's number. If anyone out there has a good explanation for the natural logarithms, please put it in the comments. Anyway the two following notations are equivalent.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">10<sup>5</sup> = 100000</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">log 100000 = 5</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">You can see that the log of a number is the exponent that you have to raise 10 to in order to get the number. Note again that it is understood that if you use the term log, it is understood that it is to the base 10. You could also write it this way.</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">log<sub>10</sub>100000 = 5<br /></span></span></span></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-33472859988748155272023-02-02T18:30:00.005-08:002023-02-02T18:30:55.474-08:00Late Capitalism<p> All sorts of articles declare the demise of capitalism and call the state we are in at present 'late capitalism' as if this is it's final gasp. This could well be so but to my way of thinking it has little to do with capitalism itself. The problem is not capitalism, communism or any other 'ism'. The problem is the lack/demise of democracy and the uneven application of 'the rule of law'. Whatever system you introduce, there will be an attempt by some members of your community to subvert the system to their own ends and accumulate all the 'filthy lucre' and power in their own hands. In the extreme, the psychopaths rise to the top by trampling all in their way to get there and work hard to subvert the rule of law by the use of the wealth they have accumulated. Look at who heads major businesses.<br /></p><p>Look at our election systems as an example. We allow businesses and rich individuals to finance our elections and then are amazed that the resulting government does the will of these contributors. Stopping this nonsense would result in a better class of politicians, ones that are not primarily motivated by greed and make all the much needed reforms that much easier. Lets start with Communism.<br /></p><p> Communes could well have been a good solution to their economic woes in China and Russia but two sociopaths took over - Mao in China and Stalin in Russia. Both led to the deaths of millions of their own citizens and both suppressed the rule of law and any influence of their people in the running of their government.</p><p>Look, also, at the various religious communes that have sprung up over the years. They typically have a charismatic leader who seems to think that every attractive woman in the group should be his private hand maiden and the women, sensing the alpha male, go along with it. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing (or not much) wrong with a commune based on free love. Hypocrisy is the problem. The glorious leader preaches celibacy and abstinence for this flock while going full-licentiousness for himself and perhaps a couple of lieutenants. If the whole group agreed to 'willing partner' it would greatly reduce the tension.</p><p>One last example is the Kibbutz in Israel. This was true commune-ism. The difference was that it was fiercely democratic with decisions taken by all the members. Leaders of the various branches of the Kibbutz (fish ponds, dairy, factory, kitchen, horticulture, field crops) and of the whole kibbutz were changed around, typically, every three years as was the representative from the kibbutz to the central organization of that particular movement. It worked an absolute treat but I'm sad to say the system has collapsed. Reasons had to do with fiduciary responsibility and the desire of the women to have a larger part in the lives of their offsprings. Such a shame. The system worked very well. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p>And then we have America. It is highly questionable if she ever actually had a democracy but now it is going South at a rapid rate. We mock Russia with her oligarchy. If you think that is bad look at the way America is going. It is nothing that couldn't be cured by a strict following of 'one man one vote', a strict following of application of the rule of law evenly across all levels of society and the cessation of the system in which you allow corporations and rich individuals to finance elections, make politicians rich while they are in office and give them sweet jobs when they retire. Such simple solutions but Republicans would completely loose control of their sphincters if anyone proposed such a solution. Capitalism is not the problem but the corruption of one man one vote and the application of the rule of law.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-67360074854983374462022-12-03T11:45:00.009-08:002023-05-22T01:45:21.633-07:00The Red Sea - Dead Sea project<p> For decades a proposal was being considered by Israel to bring Mediterranean sea water through canals and pipes to the Dead Sea but the project has been scrapped due to political problems and the worry that the sea water might contaminate the ground water of the West Bank. Now there is a proposal by Jordan to bring <i>Red Sea water</i> to the Dead Sea, mainly by canal. This project would be all in the territory of Jordan, traveling through a desert area along the Eastern side of Wadi Araba. What benefits could accrue from such a project. First a little background.</p><p> </p><p> <img alt="Atlas of Jordan - Topography and Morphology - Presses de l'Ifpo" class="r48jcc pT0Scc iPVvYb" src="https://books.openedition.org/ifpo/docannexe/image/4859/img-1.jpg" style="max-width: 1200px;" /></p><p><br /></p><p>The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Dead-Sea">Dead sea</a> is about 430m (1412ft)below sea level. It is in a desert area and is fed from the Jordan river which flows down the rift valley from the Sea of Galilee (Kenerit) to the North and from many small streams that come down from the ridge of mountains which Jerusalem is located on to the west. When the Jordan river flowed unhindered, the amount of water entering the Dead Sea more or less matched the water evaporating from it's surface but since much of this water is now extracted for agriculture, the Dead Sea is falling year by year. <a href="https://www.aiche.org/resources/publications/cep/2015/october/israels-chemicals-industry-desert-dead-sea">Chemical plants </a>at the south end of the Dead sea operate evaporation-ponds to extract the solids from the water and refine them into a number of valuable products*. This is also contributing to the lowering of the Dead Sea. The salinity of the Dead Sea is about 10 times the salinity of the open ocean. This will become quite important as we go through the benefits of the Red-Dead project. So what benefits could result from the project.</p><p>* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>MgCl, NaCl, KCl, CaCl2, NaOH</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span> <br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> Benefits from a Red Sea - Dead Sea Canal</span></b></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b><br /></p><p><b>Production of fresh water</b></p><p>The go-to method of producing fresh water from sea water is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVdWqbpbv_Y">reverse osmosis</a>. It is energetically more efficient than Multi-stage flash distillation methods that require heat and vacuum pumps but still takes a lot of energy. Ocean water is pressurized to about 30 atmospheres and pressed against membranes that allow water molecules to pass but not salt molecules. Essentially, on a micro scale, you are sieving the salt out of the ocean water. Incidentally, you can also use brackish ground water and sieve the solutes out of it. Whatever the source of water, you are left with fresh water and a concentrated salt solution (brine). The brine is sent back to the ocean or can be evaporated in ponds to obtain the salts dissolved in the brine.<br /></p><p>Since the Dead Sea is 430m below sea level, water piped from the North end of the canal to the Dead Sea will have a pressure of 43 Atmospheres if you drop the ocean water in a pipe to the Dead Sea, that is more than enough for reverse osmosis. In fact, you could produce the fresh water higher up on the slope of the Dead sea and have 'head' to pipe the fresh water to a wide area. Clearly there will be energy costs in bringing the water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea but once the water is at the North end of the canal, there are no added energy costs to operate a reverse osmosis plant. The brine which is the waste product, can be allowed to flow into the Dead Sea with none of the ecological problems of returning this waste product to the ocean. As a matter of fact, it will have the benefit of slowing down or reversing the falling level of the Dead Sea.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Production of Electricity</b></p><p>Dropping this water through turbines will create massive amounts of electricity. Some of the energy could be used to bring the water from the Red Sea and the rest will be available to the people of Jordan at very reasonable costs. Actually, the whole area is so sunny that the cost of running a power line from the generators back south along the Arava Valley to the Red Sea could probably be avoided by installing solar panels on every house in Aqaba and some more on the desert to the East. Also, at the Aqaba end there is a very dependable North prevailing wind which could power a wind turbine. In the rare times when the wind is not blowing from the North, it is coming from the South. The combination of solar panels and wind turbines might be less expensive than a high voltage power line all the way from the Dead Sea to Aqaba. A pond at the North end of the canal would serve as an 'energy storage' device to average out any variability in the power source.<br /></p><p><b> </b><br /></p><p><b>Vegetable production</b></p><p>From 300m down the slope, to the shore of the Dead Sea, vegetables can be grown using the fresh water produced, with no pumping costs for the fresh water produced. It will flow by gravity. I say half way down because that is the highest point that fresh water can be produced using the 'head' of the water from the North end of the canal. (30 atmospheres of pressure = 300m). Of course the fresh water could be pumped uphill to access more land or even pumped to the rest of Jordan for domestic use.<br /></p><p><b> </b><br /></p><p><b>Sea food production</b></p><p>The research station in Elat run by the <a href="http://www.ocean.org.il/Eng/ResearchInstitutesAndInfrastructure/NationalCenterToSeaAgriculture.asp">Oceanographic and Limnological Research Company</a> has done years of research growing fish, crustaceans and <a href="https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2008/03/growing-oysters-in-outflow-of.html">oysters</a> in the waters of the Red Sea - mostly in ponds but also in other growing systems. Marine algae would be an easy addition to this package. The whole package has been worked out and is available and the relations between Jordan and Israel are pretty good for a couple of Middle East countries*. The Palestinian people are known for their enterprise and capability. They would take to growing such products for the European market like, well, fish to water.</p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hard to believe but there is more stress between Arab countries than between Israel and Arab countries. </span></i><br /></p><p><b> </b><br /></p><p><b>Production of more fresh water and/or more electricity.</b></p><p>I have never understood how this works but if you have water of two different saltines you can use them in a device that <a href="https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2014/Jun/Salinity_Energy_v4_WEB.pdf">produces electricity</a>. Or, using a three cell system, you can produce fresh water instead. The waters from the Red and Dead seas with their different salinities should be ideal for such a <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/salt-power-energy/">system</a>.</p><p><b> </b><br /></p><p><b>Producing yet more electricity</b></p><p>There is a system using '<a href="https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Solar_pond">solar ponds</a>' to produce electricity. This one is much easier to understand.<br /></p><p>You set up ponds with a salinity gradient from low salinity at the top to high salinity at the bottom. With the Red-Dead project we have three sources of water of different salinity. Ponds are a few meters deep. You have to keep any algae from growing in the upper water and regular swimming pool technology is used here. Think how clear the water is in a hotel swimming pool. Sun light, which shines for approximately 364 days of the year in this region, goes straight through the upper layers without being absorbed and heats up the bottom of the pond which heats up the lower layers of water. Because of the salinity gradient, convection does not occur and the heat stays in the lower levels. The bottom layers get really really hot.<br /></p><p>We actually experienced this in a natural pond just south of Elat. On the west shore of the Red Sea just south of Elat, there is a pond and when the tide is high, sea water can flow through the gravel into the pond. When the tide goes out, the algae mats seal the pond. This has resulted in a salinity gradient. You can swim in the upper layers and it is sometimes quite cool, but hang vertically in the water and lower your feet down and it is too hot to tolerate. </p><p>Anyway, you install metal pipes in the lower part of the pond and bring them up to the surface through a lagged (insulated) pipe to an electrical generator. You use a refrigeration fluid in the pipes. The fluid is boiled in the pipes at the bottom of the pond and powers the generator above the pond and the condensed working fluid flows back down to the pipes in the bottom of the pond. Such a system was run many decades ago at one of the hotels on the western side of the Dead Sea. If memory serves me right, it was a 7ha pond. <br /></p><p> </p><p><b>And still more electricity</b></p><p>There is a possibility that over time as you allow more and more water of less salinity than the Dead Sea into the Dead Sea that the whole Dead sea might become a solar lake with the deeper water heating up and the heat held there by the salinity gradient.</p><p><b> <br /></b></p><p><b>Reducing the cost of the chemical extraction factories.</b></p><p>It is getting more and more expensive to pump the Dead Sea brine into evaporation ponds as the surface of the Dead Sea goes down. This source of water should halt and even reverse this tendency. If the surface of the Dead Sea gets high enough, water would flow by gravity into the evaporation ponds. Of course you would still have your pipes going down into the Dead Sea water since there is where the valuable chemicals are.</p><p> <img alt="Dead Sea factories" class="image-zoom" data-src="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/dead-sea-factories-israel-june-plant-producing-mineral-fertilizers-magnesium-bromine-76037135.jpg" id="image-item" itemprop="image" src="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/dead-sea-factories-israel-june-plant-producing-mineral-fertilizers-magnesium-bromine-76037135.jpg" style="height: 530px; max-width: 100%; width: auto;" /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Reversing the damage to the shore</b></p><p><b> </b>Pot holes are appearing all over the shore of the Dead Sea, often under the road along the West side of the sea. This is caused because as the level of the sea falls, small fresh water streams underground are dissolving away the high concentrations of salt in the soil. With the level of the sea back up, this would cease.</p><p><img alt="624 Sea Potholes Images, Stock Photos & Vectors | Shutterstock" class="r48jcc pT0Scc iPVvYb" src="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/near-ein-gedi-dead-sea-260nw-1245350071.jpg" style="max-width: 347px;" /></p><p>The Red-Dead project would not only be an economic boon to Jordan but would probably engender another layer of cooperation between Israel and Jordan which has to be a good thing. <br /></p><p><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-79221467674523040282022-10-05T11:38:00.004-07:002023-05-22T01:46:43.220-07:00Regenerative Agriculture<p> What is Regenerative Agriculture? In a word, it is a combination of various agriculture techniques that restore the fertility of the soil. That is it in a nutshell.</p><p><b>There are a whole raft of benefits that flow from adopting the techniques of Regenerative Agriculture. In no particular order:</b></p><p>* Water which falls on the land is retained to a large extent in the soil where it is available for the crops. There is less evaporation and less flow of water through the soil and into the ground water. Irrigation demands are reduced during dry periods and less water flows off the farm during wet periods.<br /></p><p>*The carbon content of soils increases, sequestering significant carbon from the air.</p><p>*Nitrogen in the form of nitrates and Ammonium compounds are very soluable. When applied as simple, chemical fertilizers, they dissolve in soil water and are easily washed out of the soil and into nearby streams. Nitrogen in soils in farms practicing regenerative agriculture are held in slow-release form which are made available over the growing season to the crop.</p><p>*Costly inputs to the farm, including feed, fossil fuel, herbicides and pesticides greatly decrease, resulting in an improved bottom line for the farmer. After a few short years using regenerative farming methods, productivity equals or exceeds what we now call conventional (commercial fertilizer driven) farming.</p><p>*Regenerative agriculture often involves more than one crop unlike some chemical farming that is a often a monoculture or sometimes an alternation between a couple of different crops. This increases resilience to market fluctuation.<br /></p><p>*Farming becomes much more resilient to changes in markets and weather.</p><p>*Possibly of greatest importance, farming becomes much more interesting as the farmer uses knowledge and smarts rather than expensive inputs to run his farm. There is no way to become depressed or worse when your bottom line improves and you are in control rather than at the mercy of outside influences.</p><p><b>In order to understand regenerative agriculture, there are a whole bunch of natural phenomenon that must be understood. Again in no particular order:</b></p><p>*There ain't no sunshine underground. Pretty obvious, no? All the energy to support the underground beasties comes ultimately from photosynthesis by some plant the lived above ground. </p><p>*Soil organisms are really really good at scavenging all the phosphates, nitrates, sulphates and other 'ates' in their vicinity. All they need is a source of energy in the form of plant material, which was grown on the surface. But if you mix-in a whole bunch of straw, sawdust etc, your plants will starve. The soil beasties will have taken up all the goodies. <i>So whada you wanda do. I don't know. Whada you wanda do </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(The vultures in <i>The Jungle Book</i>). <span style="font-size: small;">You put the plant material on the surface. There it is taken into the soil in a more gradual rate and has other benefits.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Bare soil, when hit by great big summer rain drops, puddles the fine particles in the soil and the soil surface becomes impermeable to water. The water runs off, taking soil with it. Rain drops hitting organic material are stopped in their tracks and seep into the ground. When the sun comes out and dries the surface. It is a great insulator and shields the ground below from the heat of the sun. The soil has absorbed more water and it retains it. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">*Rich organic soil is a great sponge. It holds lots of water. The deeper the rich organic layer, the more water it can hold. Pure mineral soil, if fine, doesn't absorb water. In coarse,gravely soils the water simply flows through it into the water table below - often out of the range of the roots of the plants. If a coarse soil has been filled with organic material, there is a sponge between the coarse particles of the soil to retain water.</span></span><br /></p><p><b>*</b>Most plants exude up to 30% of the energy that they collect from the sun through their roots in the form of energy rich compounds. They don't do this out of the goodness of their non-existent heart. This behavior wouldn't have evolved if it wasn't worth-while for the plant. The soil organisms use these compounds and, in return, provide a range of benefits for the plant. In the case of funguseseses, they exchange mineral nutrients which are either locked away chemically from the plant or are beyond the root zone of the plant in exchange for these energy rich compounds. P is particularly important in this context.<br /></p><p>*The mass of the part of a plant that is above ground is more or less equal to the part that is below ground. When you harvest/crop/graze a plant, some of the roots die back to balance the reduced above-ground part. Think of this as the insertion of organic material deep down where it is utilized by the soil beasties and ultimately becomes humus. Some plants have roots that reach meters into the soil so this process can be building a very deep layer of top soil.<br /></p><p>*Organic material which is laid on top of the soil as mulch, has all the well known benefits such as reducing evaporation, stopping rain drops from disrupting the soil and causing crusting and thereby causing more run off across the soil. Over time. Mulch is incorporated into the soil by a number of organisms such as beetles, earth worms and fungus which live at the boarder between the mulch and the soil.</p><p><br /></p><p>*Fungus in the soil is your greatest ally in growing crops. Fungus accesses nutrients in two ways and transfers these nutrients to the roots of plants in exchange for the energy rich exudates from the plant roots. First, fungus can liberate nutrients that are fixed in the soil and that plant roots can not liberate. Phosphorous is notable in this context. Some soils fix P in compounds that are not available to plant roots. Secondly, the mycellea of funguses extend far beyond the root zone of plants. They can mobilize and transfer nutrients to the plant from far and wide.</p><p><b>So what are the principles of regenerative farming.</b></p><p>There are a few main principles and lot's of scope within these principles for some fascinating innovation. </p><p><b>* </b>All the stover is left on the surface of the soil. Stover is all the parts of the plant that are not utilized by us. If you have planted corn, stover includes all the stalks, leaves and if it is possible, the cobs. If you chop it up while harvesting, so much the better.<br /></p><p>* Stop plowing. It disrupts the funguseseses which are the farmer's little helpers. If you plow a field regularly, you will be hard pressed to find a worm in the soil. If that isn't an indication of a sick field, I don't know what is. If you have to seed the field, either use direct drilling or open a small trench of the desired depth and drop the seeds into it. </p><p>*Never leave the soil bare. Plant a cover crop. Legumes are a great choice as they fix mega-bucks worth of N into the soil. All farmers have heard of N-P-K (Nitrogen, Phosphorous Potassium). It is not accidental that they are in this order. N is the nutrient needed in the greatest quantities by plants. And it doesn't have to be a sacrifice crop. Plant soy beans, alfalfa or other cash crops that fix nitrogen from the air into the soil. Nothing new here. Thousands of years before the chemistry/biology was known, farmers knew to do this. We seem to have to relearn everything every generation.</p><p>*Rotate your crops in as random a schedule as possible, leaving as long as possible between the same crop. Pests just can't stand this.<br /></p><p>*If you are grazing, put the animals into a field at such a concentration that they graze down the sward in one day while trampling some of the plants into the ground and defecating and urinating on the field and then move them to a new place. You probably have to use electric fences for this due to the cost of permanent fencing. Let the plants recover before putting the grazers back on to the area but don't allow the plants to go senescent (old and woody). Over-grazing and under-grazing are equally detrimental.</p><p>*Don't be bashful about putting chemical nutrients on your fields. If a soil analysis shows that you are missing, for instance, Zn, Co, Se, Cu or whatever, apply it. You can't grow healthy animals without the necessary macro and micro-nutrients. Regenerative farming isn't some sort of religion. It is farming with smarts as much as possible, replacing un-needed, costly inputs. Oh! and when you get a soil analysis, get Total X rather than Available X done. Once you have a vibrant rhizosphere# plus all the other wee beasties in the soil, they will mobilize what is in the soil. You achieve this beatific situation by not plowing and by applying lots of organic material on the surface of your soil to power the soil ecology. </p><p># <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">funguseseses</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Some interesting books</span></span></p><p><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i>By David R Montgomery</b></p><p><u><i>Dirt</i></u></p><p><u><i>The Second Half of Nature</i></u></p><p><u><i>Growing a Revolution</i></u></p><p><u><i>What Your Food Ate</i></u></p><p><b> By Michael Pollan</b><br /></p><p><i><u>The Omnivore's Dilemma</u></i><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-62354221470569302912022-10-03T12:26:00.006-07:002023-05-22T01:48:10.897-07:00Omega 3 and 6 Fatty Acids<p>This is a book review of a small part of a book, <u><i>What Your Food Ate</i></u>, by David R Montgomery and Anne Bikle. It is the most recent (2022) in a series of books including:</p><p><i><u>Dirt</u></i> - what happens to a civilization that treats its soil like dirt</p><p><u><i>The Second Half of Nature</i></u> - what goes on in a rich organic soil</p><p><u><i>Growing a Revolution</i></u> - how to restore degraded soil, from the top, in one to three years - a process that nature takes centuries to restore, working from the bottom up.<br /></p><p> </p><p>This essay is on fatty acids which is only a very small part of the book, which is jammed packed with information on the food-value of foods grown in rich organic soil, compared with foods grown in degraded soils, using chemical nutrients. The difference is significant. So what is a fatty acid. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p>A fatty acid is a chain of carbon atoms with three hydrogen atoms attached to one end and a OOH at the other end. All the other carbon atoms in the chain have 2 hydrogen atoms attached to it. An omega three fatty acid has one H atom missing from the third carbon from the three-hydrogen end. And as you might guess an Omega 6 fatty acid has one H atom missing from the 6th carbon atom from the three hydrogen end. Seems like a pretty minor difference, No? This results in a double bond at the location in question. Actually, if I remember Organic chemistry correctly, the double bond flashed back and forth between the carbon in question and the two adjacent carbons but don't take my word for it. My Organic chemistry is pretty rusty.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Both types of fatty acid are necessary for human health. The Omega6 fatty acid play a role in inducing inflammation. Inflammation is part of the defense of the body against viral and bacterial invaders. Omega 3 fatty acids play a role in shutting down the inflammation when it is no longer needed. The ideal ratio of these fatty acids in the body is 1:1. If there is an excess of Omega6s, inflammation may carry on and this can lead to auto-immune conditions and even cancers. </p><p><br /></p><p>Humans and many animals can not manufacture these fatty acids. The ratio in your body reflects the ratio in the food you eat. This is the same for livestock and if you eat meat that has a 1:1 ratio, you will tend toward a 1:1 ratio*. </p><p>*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Of course you don't only eat, say, beef. The rest of your diet also contributes to your 3-6 ratio.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The milk, butter and cheese of a dairy cow will also reflect the 3-6 ratio in the feed of the cow. </span><i> <br /></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cattle that eat pasture plants will have the ideal 1:1 ratio of fatty acids in their meat. Cattle that eat concentrate, especially concentrate that is heavily based on corn, will have highly excessive Omega 6 fatty acids in their meat. If a cow has been raised all her life on pasture and then 'finished' in a feed lot, it only takes a month or two for her fatty acid ratio to reflect her new feed.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">You see where we are going with this. I always thought that the "Pasture Fed" advertising was just a marketing gimmick. Apparently not. It really is far better to eat pasture fed meat than feed lot meat. I suppose the same would apply to animals which are hunted such as deer, pigs, birds in comparison to the same animals, raised on concentrate. One wonders if feed lots explains the preponderance of auto-immune type conditions that seem to be increasing just as we have pretty well conquered diseases caused by micro-organisms. This seems to be particularly so in America where it seems that any prepared food you eat contains corn.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">By the by, what foods besides pasture raised meat are rich in Omega3 fatty acids. It included many nuts such as walnuts, oily fish at the bottom of the food chain, Other fish - especially wild caught ones, flax seeds, chia seeds, cold pressed Olive oil, pumpkin seeds, soy beans, eggs if fed on Omega3 rich food, spinach, papya and Brussle Sprouts.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I would heartily recommend getting the four books mentioned at the start. They explain so much. By the way, there are no references in <i><u>What Your Food Ate.</u></i> Including them would have increased the size of the book by 50 pages so the authors put the references on line. The URL, if you want to have a look at them is www.dig2grow.com </span><i> </i></span></p><p><br /></p><p>There is much more information on fatty acids in What Your Food Ate and on the nutrient quality of food grown on rich organic soil compared with food grown on degraded soil with the nutrients provided from chemical fertilizer. In a sentence, the concentrations of minerals, vitamins and phytochemicals in plants grown in rich organic soil are considerably higher. <br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-41813212072524710862022-10-02T12:15:00.001-07:002023-05-22T01:51:05.380-07:00My Nissan Leaf<p>I love my Leaf. I have never been a petrol-head, even as a teenager. I just wanted a car to get me from A to B (and of course with my girl friend by my side). But my electric Leaf is something else again. I'm a very conservative driver and drive gently but when I want to get out into traffic or pass someone with limited space to do it, man! does my Leaf get up and go. It's a real jack rabbit. I can understand why some electric car owners have to change their tires more often than when they drove and ICE car. </p><p>And while we are at it, let's look at the cost of driving compared to an ICE car. My Leaf has a range of 300km (actually more like 350 but let's keep the numbers simple) with a 60kWh battery. Dividing 300 by 60, we see that I can drive 5km per kWh or for the sake of comparison, 10km per liter of petrol. Now here a kWh cost me 25c so I pay 50c per 10km. (actually I have solar panels but that is another story). </p><p>A similar size ICE car gets about 10km per liter of fuel. Here a liter of fuel costs $2.50. Ergo, it costs me a fifth as much on electricity than it would on fossil fuel. Add to that, that I hardly ever use my brakes and have no oil to change. On the other side, I think I may need a new set of tires more often with my Leaf.<br /></p><p>I think the Leaf could become the iconic car of this century. That is if they changed their business model. For me, at least, their car is excellent and is all the car I will ever need or want but their business model doesn't put the customer first.</p><p>For instance, if you have one of the early 24kWh (kilowatt hour) batteries, the battery is probably getting a little tired by now and you won't have the range you once had. If you can fine a wrecked Leaf with a 24, 30 or 40kWh* battery, it is a matter of about an hour's work to change out your battery for the one in the wrecked Leaf. Suddenly the range of your Leaf has jumped way up. And the chemistry back then was not what it is now. Your new (used) battery is likely to last longer than the original. </p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A 60kWh battery is apparently a real hassle to fit to the earlier models. Possible but Quite difficult.</span></i><br /></p><p>But the Nissan company doesn't make it easy to buy a new, higher capacity battery for your Leaf. In fact, at least here in New Zealand it is virtually impossible. This is not a company thinking of the best interests of her customers.</p><p>My second gripe is about the temperature control of the battery. Apparently, too high or too low temperatures are bad for the battery and cause the battery to degrade more quickly. Nissan should start to put temperature control around her batteries.</p><p>So what could Nissan do, even now, 22 years into this century, to make her car the iconic one instead of Tesla. Actually, she would only make the Leaf iconic for one portion of the market but I suspect this is a huge percent of the market. There will always be people who want the latest with all the bells and whistles. Here is Nissan's advantage. A whole bunch of us don't want this. We want a reasonable looking car with very good range, ease of repair, nice handling but most of all a low price tag. How does Nissan achieve this and still make a great profit.</p><p>1/ Keep the leaf the same from now on. The only innovations should be ones that make the car cheaper or with better battery chemistry. </p><p>2/ Decrease the cost of manufacture by, for instance, adopting Elon's mega-casting machines. With the way you have your battery in the Leaf, you might be able to cast the whole chassis in one go, unlike Tesla that does it in two parts. And while you are at it, make the underneath of the car flat. At the back is a hollow that probably held the spare tire when they used the frame from one of their ICE cars for the Leaf. If the bottom of the car was flattened out, there would be a huge increase in the trunk space. An added advantage is that apparently a flat under side of a car improves its streamlining.<br /></p><p>3/ Keep all the controls tactile. No touch screens. The radio in my Leaf is great. It has a knob on the left for tuning and one on the right for volume and turning on. Also there are volume control buttons on the steering wheel. I never have to take my eyes off the road to operate my radio. All controls should be similarly tactile.</p><p>4/ Produce a van for the 'tradie', the plummer, electrician, builder and so forth. Provide a 220V AC outlet that the tradie could use and lots of attachment points inside the van for attaching shelves and things. Make it with two sliding doors. Adopt every bit of kit possible from the Leaf. Only innovate when necessary for the function of a van.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-36104060134990559142022-09-26T12:19:00.011-07:002022-11-18T10:23:29.270-08:00Autumn melt spikes on Greenland<p>I'll go out on a limb and make a prediction. The Autumn melt spike on Greenland that we saw this year (End of September 2022) will become the normal situation as the years go by. So what is the reasoning behind this prediction.</p><p> </p><p>First let's look at the normal (usual up till now) situation with the Hadley Cells. The equatorial Hadley cell is powered by the heating of land and sea around the equator. Let's keep it simple and ignore various finer grained effects involving, for instance latent heat. The air is heated from below by the warm surface of the earth, rises and flows North and South at altitude.</p><p> </p><p>The Polar Hadley cell is powered by the air radiating heat into space, becoming dense and sinking. It is not heated from below because the snow and ice over the Arctic Ocean reflects most of the radiation falling on it back into space. Besides, much of the year, in winter, there is virtually no radiation falling on the land, and ice covered sea.</p><p> <img alt="Hadley circulation" class="n3VNCb KAlRDb" data-noaft="1" src="http://www.daviddarling.info/images/Hadley_cells.gif" style="height: 318px; margin: 0px; width: 390px;" /></p><p>Consider for a moment what would happen if these two cells met at 45 degrees North (Let's ignore the Southern Hemisphere for now). Air at 45 degrees north is trying to both rise and fall with the Arctic Hadly cell air warming as it flows southward and 'wanting' to rise. Air from the Equatorial Hadley cell, flowing northward at altitude cools by radiation and wants to descend, Instead what happens is a third cell, the Ferrel cell is induced. </p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span></p><p>This third cell, the Ferrel Cell acts like an idler wheel in an engine (the one that keeps your fan belt tight, for instance) ((if you are still driving an ICE dinosaur))</p><p><br /></p><p>Incidentally, jet streams occur, at altitude, where Hadley cells meet<br /></p><p> </p><p>Now we throw a spanner in the works.</p><p> </p><p>We add greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere and this results in the melting of more and more floating ice on the Arctic Ocean. Radiation that falls on this open water over the summer penetrates the water and is absorbed, heating the water. This results in more melting ice and more heat absorption. The sensible heat of water is high (one Calorie* per kg of water) and the heating is over a considerable depth so a lot of heat is absorbed with a modest increase in temperature. </p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A large <u>C</u>alorie as opposed to a small <u>c</u>alorie (which will heat one gram of water one degree C).</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the mean time, the land is heating up. The land only heats up at the surface; say a foot in depth or so and the sensible heat of land is less than water so the same amount of heat will raise the temperature of land more than water. It can become quite hot on land, in the Arctic, in summer. This induces an onshore wind. The air over the ice-covered ocean is cold and flows toward the land which is warm. (Air rising, over land, sucking air from the ocean) With Coriolis, you have the polar Nor-Easterlies (Air flowing toward the South West). So now we get to what is likely to happen in the fall.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The land has warmed much more than the ocean, but not absorbed much heat and it cools off quickly as solar radiation decreases. Not so the sea and the open water that increases year by year. It cools more slowly. In addition, when it cools enough to freeze, it gives off latent heat of crystallization which slows the cooling. The effect I'm talking about, namely autumn melting spikes, will occur more and more as we see increased open water during the summer.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">With the land around the Arctic cold and the ocean still relatively (to the land) warm, you should have off-shore winds. In fact you may even induce a 4 Hadley cell system for a while*. And when the Arctic really gains power due to much more open ocean, holding much more heat, eventually, you should actually suck the whole system northward and have a two Hadley cell system. A good indication that we have reached this situation will be when the Polar Jet Stream disappears. Jet streams occur where Hadley cells meet. So now, how about Green land melting.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">* <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Since jet streams occur where Hadley cells meet, you might even observe an extra jet stream for a short time. <br /></span></i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Air flowing off the land will be warming and becoming humid as it flows across an ever more open ocean and will tend to form counter-clockwise systems due to Coriolis. This warm moist air will impinge on Greenland where not only will there be rain but a kg of moisture condensing out of the air onto the ice, releases enough heat to melt 5 or 6 kg of ice*. (For water the latent heat of evaporation/condensing is 6 times as much as the latent heat of melting/crystallization). Another couple of effects may come into play here.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Heat of crystallization/melting is 80Cal per kg. Heat of evaporation/condensation is 540Cal per kg. <br /></i></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">If one of these low pressure area sidles up to the West coast of Greenland, on its northern side it will be sucking air down the slope and on the southern side pushing air up the slope. Lets look at the North side. When air flows down a slope, it heats up by 9.8 degrees C per km fall. This warming air will melt ice if it reaches and exceeds 0 degrees C.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">On the Southern side it is pushing humid air up the slope and, depending on exact conditions, may be causing rain which melts the ice. And if the humidity in the air flow is condensing on the ice, <i>it</i> will be melting ice due to the latent heat effect described above. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">There is another possibility. If the air is simply flowing toward Greenland, (atmospheric river?) it will come into contact with the ice and condense, causing melting as described above. This will make the air dense and it may be full of droplets of water (fog) making it effectively even more dense and it will flow down slope to the sea. We have the adiabatic melting effect described above, and may form sort of a miniature Walker cell between the ice and the sea. Convective processes are much more effective at transferring heat than conductive or radiative effects and this could melt the ice at a shocking rate. Essentially, heat is being transferred to the ocean from the huge store accumulated all summer in the ocean .<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">(<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Read <u>Plains of Passage</u>, by Jean Auel - chapter 41 or so. The book is a novel but Jean did her homework and described what happens when Foen winds occur over ice), The resulting <a href="https://www.eskp.de/en/natural-hazards/piteraqs-downslope-wind-storms-in-southeast-greenland-935818/">Peteraqs </a>are intense. Classic Peteraqs are typically well below 0 degrees but the atmosphere is warming. Imagine one of these density winds that is above the freezing point, blasting across the ice.</i></span><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then, if all that wasn't enough, there are storms that come up the East coast of North America. If the water they flow over is cold, they loose their umph but as the water becomes ever warmer, they can travel further North. We have another mechanism for putting a storm up against Greenland with the same results as above.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Even a high pressure area sitting beside Greenland can do the same as long as the winds it creates are blowing across a warm ocean. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">If these storms sidle up to the <i>East</i> coast, the same as above applies except the rain will be induced at the northern edge and the adiabatic melting at the southern edge of the storm.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">So in conclusion, I think it is quite likely that we will see melting spikes in the fall just like the one this year. </span></span><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></i> They will occur in years in which the sea has accumulated a lot of heat and will happen as the land cools off, resulting in a strong pressure gradient from the land to the sea. The strength of off-shore winds around the Arctic Ocean will signal the start of this process and how strong the melting is likely to be in any year. As the sea freezes over, and especially if it acquires an insulating layer of snow, the process will stop. Initially we may see a short-lived, extra jet stream but eventually as the Arctic ocean gains power, the northern-most jet stream will likely disappear in the fall.<br /></p><p><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-38687676767608003352022-09-06T12:33:00.002-07:002022-09-06T12:33:47.367-07:00The anthropocene<p> First let's define a couple of terms. We are at present in an ice age. We are in a warm period within this ice age which is, so far, 2.75million years old. Within this ice age there have been many warm periods. At the beginning of this ice age, the cycle period was about 41,000 years. Now, and for the last half, it has been about 100,000 years. Our present warm period has been called the Holocene and started about 20,000 years ago. The previous warm period is called the Eemian. The start of the Holocene is defined by when the most recent Glacial (or glacial period if you like) was at it's maximum and then began to decline. It may be more useful to define the start of the Holocene at about 12,000 years ago when melting really got under way.</p><p>Now we are arguing that we are in a new period, called the Anthropocene because man has taken control of the climate. Using the word control may be a little optimistic. We have changed the climate and are going to change it much more but it is actually completely out of our control. We could control the climate and many important innovations, which would be sufficient to do so have been put into place but our politicians, who have to do the heavy lifting, have been fighting such moves, screaming and shouting and dragging their heels ever since it has become apparent that we are not going to like the results from climate change.</p><p>In the past, the change from one geological period* to the next has been defined by geology. When the assemblage of animals in a continually deposited stack of sedimentary rocks changes we define a new period. A well known example is the K/T boundary - the change from the Cretaceous to the Tertiary. Below this we have fossils of dinosaurs and other organisms, above this, no dinosaurs and a change in the assemblage of other organisms.<br /></p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">I use the word 'period' to avoid having to define epochs, ages, eras, eons and so forth. Even using the term 'period' is problimatic as it is sometimes used in formal geology.<br /></span></i></p><p>We are now arguing about when the Anthropocene started with the consensus seeming to be a little after the Second World War, when we started to have an effect on the climate. </p><p>The change from using the assemblage of animals in the fossil record to a using change in climate to define a new period is probably due to the belief that the past changes in animal assemblages was due to climate change. So is it justified to say we have changed the animal assemblages that could become fossilized just after the 2nd world war. (then we will examine the climate change argument).</p><p>Well, No. Depending on which continent you look at, the animal assemblages changed in the blink of a geological eye some time ago. The process took, at most, one or two thousand years. In North and South America it happened about 12,000 years ago. In Australia, about 50,000 years ago and in New Zealand, about 700 years ago. In every case it occurred following the discovery of these areas by the "First People" who wiped out every animal that their existing technology was capable of killing and eating. The above are just commonly known examples. The same thing happened everywhere man first arrived. So how about us having an effect on the climate.</p><p>There is an excellent book called <u><i>Plows Plagues and Petroleum</i></u> by Ruddiman that argues otherwise. Let's go back to the glacial periods. When you look at ice cores from both Greenland and Antartica, ocean bottom cores and some other proximal indicators, it becomes clear that when a glacial period ends, temperatures rise and ice disappears to a minimum amount and then an pretty well immediate a slide begins back toward a glacial period. In fact the slide starts to occur a little before minimum ice as you would expect*. It takes time for snow to accumulate and glaciers to form and for the temperature and Carbon dioxide to decrease but the slide is immediately apparent. This is very apparent in the graphs of the most recent 4 or so glacial-interglacial cycles. All but the most recent one.</p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Carbon dioxide levels are a good indicator of when the slide starts but it is still warm enough to melt more ice so the slide toward the next glacial (glacial period) begins a little before minimum ice. </span></i><br /></p><p>About 8000 years ago (6000BP), we started to reverse the slide of Carbon dioxide and about 5000 years ago (3000BP) we started to reverse the slide of methane, just as man reached a population and a technology capable of doing so. So what were we doing. We started agriculture, using the plow which releases carbon from the soils, used fire to clear areas and started to grow rice in ponds which as with any swamp, releases methane. We didn't reverse the slide into the next glacial but considerably slowed down the slide.</p><p>In fact, despite our effect on climate, we just reached the tipping point in which continental glaciers began to from. Ruddiman's book says two factors tipped us over into this situation. First there was the Black Death in the 'Old World' which again and again wiped out around a third of the population. Huge areas which were under cultivation, reverted to forests, sucking carbon out of the air and cooling the climate.</p><p>The other event was the arrival of European man in the Americas. We brought with us a whole range of diseases that the indiginous population had had no contact with and hence no immunity to these diseases. Recent archeology has made it clear that the indiginous population was far larger than we thought. For instance, in the jungles of the Amazon, vegetation rapidly took over and made it very hard to see traces of earlier civilizations. With the advent of methods to look down with Lydar from aircraft, we see the remains of human activity in areas completely vegetated today.</p><p>In places like Virginia, the first Europeans reported stepping off their boats into fields of pumpkin, corn and beans. 50 years later this was all forest. The people had disappeared and the forest had taken over. All this sucked carbon out of the atmosphere and tipped us over into the accumulation of snow from year to year.</p><p>This can be seen around the high lands of Baffin Island. In North America, this is where the snow begins to accumulate. There is a ring of dead lichens around this area. Despite their hardiness, the one thing lichens can't survive is a lack of light. They are a symbiosis between a fungus and a photosynthetic organism.</p><p>Following this we were entering into an industrial revolution and reversed the fall of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the snow melted back and we were off toward too much of a good thing which we are in today. Releasing just enough carbon that is sequestered under ground to hold off the next glacial is probably a good thing. After all, a new glacial would bulldoze New York and other cities into the sea. But we have gone overboard and New York is likely to be drowned instead. <br /></p><p><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-84119712764005214112022-07-30T19:31:00.004-07:002022-08-12T13:24:09.384-07:00Conserving our Planet<p> Why bother. Well, some of us would like to pass on a planet which is better than the way we found it. If we are Christians, we know that dad (The Father) passed on his business to us his children. It says so in the first book in the bible. Just judging from human dads who have passed on their businesses, that they created, they would be much happier if their children improved the business and kept it going for <i>their</i> children. I think that God would like this too. </p><p>To those of us who are not religious, the world is a pretty amazing, fantastic, beautiful place. Such a shame not to preserve all this wonder for our children. I've never understood why the religious amongst us want to drill, mine, clear fell and fish out all the fishes in the sea while us atheists are desperately trying to preserve the earth.</p><p>Much later</p><p><i>I may have thought of a reason. You notice how so many religions, at least the many Christian varieties, emphasize the end of worlds and seem to lust after it happening in their time. I think the thought of the world carrying on for generation after generation after generation makes them feel somehow insignificant. Somehow they gain status or importance by being the last generation. Well, the way we are treating the earth, this may 'come to pass'. <br /></i></p><p><i> </i></p><p>Whatever!! It is all academic anyway as long as we have our present systems of government. Have you ever wondered why politicians, are not trying to help. In fact they are actively blocking us from taking the measures needed. We are continually fighting an uphill battle against them. No-where is the old adage <i>"Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune</i>", more true than in politics. As long as the rich and companies with vested interest are allowed to support the election campaigns of politicians, to somehow make them rich while in office and to take care of them with sweet jobs when they leave politics, this uphill battle will continue.</p><p> </p><p>So the following is just a check list of what we could be doing if we could stop vested interests financing politicians. We, the people, will eventually succeed but how much more damage will be done in the mean time. We might actually be able to save us from our sorry selves if we could get the politicians on side.</p><p><i> </i></p><p><i>In no particular order </i><br /></p><p> </p><p><b>Basic Conservation </b></p><p>Generation after generation has shown that we, as a species, are not capable of conserving our planet, either on land or at sea. Every generation thinks they know what to do and each generation fails. The level of Hubris is unbelievable. There is one and only one way that works and that is to set aside large areas both on land and at sea that we don't interfere with. Leave it alone. Nature has done a far better job for far longer so get off the Hubris wagon and let nature do her thing. We made a valiant stab at it with national parks but let's admit it. They are inadequate. They aren't big enough and not wild enough. Fortunately, some of them have preserved remnant populations that could spread out if given space.</p><p>Likewise at sea, our small marine reserves are great but think how much more effective large areas would be. In fact there are a few being established but the problem is the policing. If successful not only will they seed adjacent fished areas with larval marine organisms but with adults as well who are looking for more leibenstraum. And fishing in the permitted areas will be so good that we could abandon destructive fishing methods such as drift nets and bottom trawls. </p><p>The only way to save our oceans is to set aside large parts of it and ensure that no human activity except for tourism happens there.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Forestry</b></p><p>In the protected areas, of course we leave well enough alone and let nature take her course. If we insist on running sheep in these areas, as they do in the UK, we must also put in wolves or mountain lions. But how about where we plant trees for lumber. Timber plantations can make a great contribution to getting Carbon dioxide out of the air.<br /></p><p>We must grow our lumber trees in fairly crowded conditions so that they self prune and shoot for the sky, making fine grained, straight lumber with large inter-node spaces (the distance between side branches) and few knots. If we plant them with greater spacing, we must put lifts* on the trees. We must then build this timber into engineered wood. Engineered wood is essentially ply wood but in the form of beams and posts. This sort of lumber is dimensionally very stable and tends to be built into quality, long lasting single and multi-story buildings. Thus we sequester lots of carbon. Dry wood is about 50% carbon so for every kg of wood used for construction, we sequester 12+16+16** = 4.4 X 1.2 = 2.2kg of Carbon dioxide. Better still, engineered wood, while more expensive than sawn lumber, is easier and quicker to work with. It saves on labor costs. It can also be delivered, already cut to the needed lengths. It might be that the use of engineered wood for simple one story houses would be less expensive, despite it's greater cost, than sawn lumber.<br /></p><p>* <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The process of cutting off the branches flush with the trunk over the bottom half, or so of the tree. This is typically done 3 times for fast growing lumber trees such as <u>Pinus</u> <u>radiata</u>. It results in an increased proportion of knot free wood. </span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">** The atomic weights of C and O. </span></i><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>We don't stop there. We pyrolyze (gassify) all the off-cuts and sawdust unless there is some more profitable use for these materials. This produces a range of fuels such as 'natural gas', gasoline, diesel, airline fuel and right on up to tar. This is completely green fuel and displaces crude oil we have to extract from the ground but (in the words of Dr Seuss) <i>'that is not all, no that is not all</i>'. The by product of the pyrolysis of wood is charcoal. This we incorporate into agricultural soils. It serves almost the same function as humus and sequesters more carbon - long term. Charcoal is very refractory (hard to break down) in soil but fills many of the functions of humus.<br /></p><p>Last but not least, single and multistory buildings built from engineered wood are very very earth quake resistant and displace concrete, itself a major source of Carbon dioxide. </p><p><b>Recycling</b></p><p>The ongoing effort to recycle must continue. Note that any organic material for which there is not a more profitable second life can be pyrolyzed (see above). Thus we should never have a mountain of used tires or plastic, pools of used engine oil, discarded electronic equipment (mostly plastic) and so forth.</p><p>As for batteries, once there are enough of them to make it worthwhile we can recycle the minerals they contain. I can't believe it is more difficult to separate out the metals contained in solar panels, batteries and wind turbine motors than to separate the metals from ore which in addition to various other metals, contains gangue (waste rock). </p><p>I've recently read that the problem with recycling solar panels is that they are lasting longer than was expected when they were installed so the volume of used solar panels is still relatively low. <b> <br /></b></p><p><b>Nodule Mining</b></p><p>Of course we must mine mineral nodules from the ocean's abyss. They are needed for our transition to a fossil fuel free society. But whether we create another mess or do it responsibly depends on the details of how we do it. Nodule mining is not like bottom trawling for marine life. First of all, it can only be done once. It will be many thousands of years before Nodules have grown there again and by that time, we may have knocked ourselves back into the dark ages or even a new stone age.</p><p>We must not mine the whole area. Untouched areas must be left to seed the mined areas</p><p>The crawlers that move along the bottom must be designed so that all the organic 'snow' that they raise is sucked to the surface and not allowed to smother un-mined areas. </p><p>Bottom water with it's dissolved nutrients and bottom 'snow' must be sprayed over the surface of the ocean and not released in a solid plug that will plunge back down to the bottom.</p><p>Note that there may be some rather surprising benefits from nodule mining besides the obvious access to minerals needed for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. In places in the world where bottom water is pulled up naturally into the photic zone, such as off the coast of Peru, we see incredible productivity resulting from the minerals dissolved in the bottom water. The same will likely be the case when we spray the water, which is brought up with mineral nodules, over the surface of the ocean. In addition, the organic particulate material entrained in the bottom water will likely feed surface filter feeders. </p><p>The ocean surface, above areas where there are mineral nodules are usually marine nutrient-deserts and a mining operation will likely become a nutrient-oasis in the ocean desert. One other aspect is worth mentioning. </p><p>Climax ecologies are often less varied in terms of the species composition than disturbed ecologies*. Mined areas could well provide a nitch for pioneer species, enriching the ocean bottom biodiversity.</p><p>*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>A tree falls in the jungle </i></span><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Fishing the Oceans</b></p><p>Of course we are going to continue to fish the oceans and once we have set aside huge areas where no fishing is allowed, the fishing in the rest of the ocean will be fantastic. We may not reach the populations that occurred before the advent of commercial fishing but we will be well on the way in that direction. Best of all, with fishing so good, we can abandon destructive fishing methods such as drift nets and bottom trawling. Fishing will be so good with purse seines and long lines that those destructive methods will not be necessary.</p><p>However, we need a 'wee tweak' in our attitude to fishing. Just imagine when the first people of South America were eating Teosinte, the precursor of our magnificent corn plants and they started to grow it. Imagine if they always ate the biggest and best cobs and planted the seeds from the scrubby little cobs. Fortunately they instinctively recognized that <i>like begets like</i> and saved the best cobs for seeds. Now, unless you are a trained biologist, you would have a hard time recognizing the original Teosinte plant that gave rise to corn. </p><p>We need to adopt such an attitude to our commercial fishing. It won't be easy. After all, it is easier to sift out the biggest fish, scallops, clams or prawns with a net, allowing the small ones to escape through the mesh. But we have seen how an attitude based on the simple premise that <i>like begets like</i> has resulted in pretty well all our agricultural animals and plants today. We could actually be improving the oceans fauna instead of degrading it. Considerable human ingenuity in each branch of fisheries will be necessary.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Fish Farming</b></p><p>Fish farms are not farms at all. They are feed lots. The feed for the fish is not grown on the farm but is harvested from other places such as the up-welling areas of the ocean and the soy fields on land. And one of the main areas growing soya are cleared areas of the Amazon jungle!!! <br /></p><p>Salmon farming, in particular, has to be the the most egregious example of our stupidity. If we were to take care of our rivers, we would only have to wait until the salmon returned each year, harvest most of them and allow the best to continue upstream to spawn. What a waste of effort to compensate for our lack of ability to care for our rivers.<br /></p><p><b> </b><br /></p><p><b>Soil Restoration</b></p><p>Since the invention of the plow a few thousand years ago, many soils have lost most of their carbon content*. It all ends up in the air where some of it is sucked back into plants. This process has accelerated up to the present. Soils have been lost at one two and even three orders of magnitude greater than they are produced in nature from the bottom up (10,100 or 1000 times faster). America has been one of the most egregious examples with the whole eastern seaboard degraded, followed by the central great plains but it didn't start there. The Greeks and Romans now farm barely weathered rock instead of the rich soils that existed thousands of years ago. Fortunately, soils can be build up from the top down with appropriate farming methods and the carbon put back into them. And it greatly improves farming while lowering input costs.</p><p><b> </b></p><p><b>*</b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Read <i><u>Growing a Revolution</u> </i>by David R Montgomery</span><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></b>and <span style="font-size: x-small;"><u><i>The Omnivore's Dilemma</i></u> by Michael Pollan</span><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><b>Educate Women </b></p><p>Never mind that it is totally unfair for one half of the population to dominate the other half. Never mind the fact that we aren't unlocking the potential of half of our people. The overarching most important reason to educate women is that they stop having so many babies and, on average, have them later. In most of the countries where woman are educated, the birth rate has fallen below the magic 2.1 births per woman which is just enough for replacement. </p><p>In these countries the population will stabilize and begin to decline in the very near future. In fact, if you ignore immigration, it is already happening. We run our countries as a ponzi scheme in which we always have to be increasing our GDP. Well guys, we are just going to have to learn how to run our economies with less people and economic contraction.<b> </b>A good start would be fair taxation. </p><p>With our global companies they are able to pull all sorts of nonsense so that they pay very little tax. With the increase in automation, for the manufacture of many goods we need fewer and fewer people. The decreasing population will help with this since there will be fewer and fewer people needed in factories but at the same time there will be fewer people to buy the goods from these factories. We need a far more even distribution of the wealth of the world and at some point a universal pension will probably be needed. This isn't possible unless all people and businesses pay their fair taxes.</p><p>To be continued:<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-83183168716722295672022-07-11T14:35:00.004-07:002022-07-13T13:45:13.090-07:00Atrial Fibrulation<p>This is a transcript of a talk given by Dr Andria Coley, CardioThorasic surgeon from the University of Texas, Cardiology Institute. It deals with the present knowledge of Atrial Fibrillation as of 2022. <br /></p><div dir="ltr">Here is the URL if you prefer to watch the Video.</div><div dir="ltr"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SWiGsBYqw&t=2072s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-SWiGsBYqw&t=2072s</a></div><div dir="ltr">The transcript can serve as a useful check list. <br /></div><div dir="ltr"><br /><div>1/
For decades the medical profession have had the impression that A-Fib
is really not that serious. You have an episode, get over it and carry
on.</div><div> </div><div>2/ From studies, following up on people with A-Fib it became clear that A-Fib is a serious problem
and it is becoming more and more common. Recently a great deal of
research has been carried out on A-fib, on its prognosis and how to
treat it.</div><div> </div><div>3/ People with A-Fib have a 5 times greater chance
of a stroke, three times greater chance of heart failure and twice the
chance of early cardiac caused death.</div><div> </div><div>4/ A 5 year study of a
group of patients who had A-fib for the first time, which was serious
enough for them to be hospitalized, showed a huge increase in a whole
range of conditions over the following years. These included a high
rate of heart failure, high rates of stroke, heart attacks, bleeding
problems from being on blood thinners, and most serious, just under half
of these patients passed away within the 5 year study period.</div><div> </div><div>5/
A-Fib is 2 to 3 times as prevalent in the USAas in other 'western'
countries. She puts this down to the American diet, way of life and
other medical problems that are common in America.</div><div> </div><div>6/ There are a number of new options for sorting out A-Fib.</div><div> </div><div>7/
In the healthy heart, the Sinus Node at the top of the Left Atrium starts the pulse. The
pulse is picked up by the AV node which sends it to the Ventricles.</div><div> </div><div><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Note: the blood enters the Atriums which pumps it to the ventricals which pumps it to the body (0ne side of the heart) or to the lungs (the other side).</span></i><br /></div><div> </div><div>8/
When a group of rogue cells 'decides' to send a false signal, it causes the
Atrium to fibrillate - a little like the twitch you get in your eye
sometimes.</div><div> </div><div>9/ If this rogue signal hits the AV node it causes
Rapid Ventricular Response. ie. The heart speeds up. This is when
people typically feel A-Fib. When the Atrium is in A-fib, it can happen
without the person being aware. What we feel consciously is the
ventricle pulsing away at a rapid rate. The complications (see below)
from A-Fib occur even when only the Atrium is involved <u>(even <i>without</i> the rapid Ventricular pulsing).</u></div><div><u><br /></u></div><div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><b>The Pathopysiology of A-fib</b></h2></div><div>1/ AF is refractory (hard to treat).</div><div> </div><div>2/
AF can cause heart scarring. Electrical signals are transmited through
muscle, not through scar tissue. Scar tissue can disrupt normal signal
transmission but can also be used by a surgeon to stop abnormal signal transmission.</div><div> </div><div>3/
AF can cause the heart to stretch, further disrupting normal signalling
leading to more A-Fib, leading to more stretching (and scarring). A
really bad cycle.</div><div> </div><div>4/ Early A-Fib is called paroxysmal (comes
and goes), usually from one wee cluster of cells that has gone rogue.
Usually this is on the back of the left Atrium where the veins from the
lungs enter the Atrium.</div><div> </div><div>5/ About 6 months after this first
stage, if it hasn't been taken care of, things change. Scarring and
stretching begins to occur, messing up the signaling and starting what
the Electro-Physiologists call a rotor. This causes non-paroxysmal, or
prolonged AF. At this stage the new treatments that are coming on line,
are useful. <u>The old methods can't cure A-Fib at this stage in the
progress of the disease.</u></div><div> </div><div>6/ AF is responsible for a fifth of the strokes in the USA.</div><div> </div><div>7/
The Atrial Appendix is one spot particularly indicated in forming clots
since the blood tends to pool there, especially in someone who has AF
and hence does not have a completely one-way flow of blood.</div><div> </div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Note: The Atrial Appendix is a wee pocket in the wall of the heart of no known use. A surgeon can put a plug in it if he is inside the heart or a clamp, if outside the heart. This gets rid of the main source of blood clots. If a clamp is used, the wee pocket dies and ceases to be a problem.</i></span><br /></div><div> </div><div>8/ Of particular concern, as the
heart stretches, it pulls the sides of the vales apart and the valve can
no longer close completely. This allows back flow of
blood and increases the chance of a clot forming and hence stroke.</div><div> </div><div>9/ This whole process of stretching and scarring leading to more AF is a vicious downward cycle.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><h2><br /></h2></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h2><b>What can be done (in increasing order of intervention)<br /></b></h2></div><div>1/
As has been done for some time, anticoagulants are taken to avoid
stroke. Much better choices than Aspirin are available these days.
Aspirin only affects the platelets and stops them clotting. The
medicine must be taken continually since one can not tell when one is in
A-Fib if it doesn't trigger off the AV node, (causing the Ventricle to
speed up). Clots can form within 5 minutes of A-fib starting.</div><div> </div><div>2/
Some people can not tolerate being on thinners. For these folks a
surgeon will often either block off or pinch off the Atrial Appendage/appendix
since this is where 95% of the clots are created. The AA isn't needed
for proper heart function.</div><div> </div><div>3/ <u><i>Beta blockers are meant to stop the Ventricle from racing but they don't stop A-Fib or the complications that come with it.</i></u></div><div> <br /></div><div>4/
Other medications such as Amiodarone HCl are sometimes tried to
re-establish normal cardiac rhythm but If AF continues, they can make
one feel pretty bad. These medicines can also affect the liver.</div><div> </div><div>5/
Resetting the heart with a shock. If you already have an advanced AF,
the reset from a shock, likely won't last. Shock is more effective in the very early
stages of AF.</div><div> </div><div>6/ Ablation(1), using scar tissue to stop bad
signals. Done by an Electro-Physiologist with a probe inserted through a vein in the groin. This is for the paroxysmal (early) AF in which the rogue
signal is being generated where the veins enter the Atrium from the lungs. If AF is
caught early, it is highly effective. When done for a later, more advanced case, success is only about 35%.</div><div><br /></div><div>7/
Ablation (2) (when the surgeon is in your chest), She scars a maize
over your heart which only allows the good signals to propagate. Even
for the really difficult cases, this technique is effective in 85 - 90%
of cases.</div><div> </div><div>8/ The best system - the Hybrid maze.</div><div>Cardio-surgeon
goes in through a small incision just below the breast bone, and with a probe goes up to the heart and scars
the appropriate part of the outside of the heart. A few days later the
electropysiologist goes in through a vein in the groin and finishes the
job from inside. Success is around 80%.<div class="yj6qo"></div><div class="adL"><br /><br /></div></div></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-62282170490274085022022-04-19T21:19:00.004-07:002022-04-24T12:31:25.356-07:00The Hauraki Gulf<p>Article in the New Zealand Press on April 19, 2022, p6, titled <u><i>We're Eating the Hauraki Gulf to Death </i></u></p><p><u><i> </i></u></p><p></p><p>Of course we are destroying the fisheries of the Hauraki Gulf along with the fisheries resources of many other areas around New Zealand, just as we (humanity) has destroyed every other fisheries of the world. <br /></p><p> </p><p>One of the most egregious, previous examples of destroying a fisheries resource
was on the Grand Banks off the East Coast of Canada. There is no one in Fisheries that isn't aware of that legendary fishing ground. It was managed by
the Canadian Fisheries Department, one of the most scientifically
competent well funded fisheries departments of the world. They allowed
this huge resource to be destroyed. </p><p> </p><p>And in case you think, that was then
and this is now, just look at our management of the Hauraki Gulf. I challenge you to find one fisheries resource, anywhere in the world that has been properly, sustainably managed.<br /></p><p> </p><p>There is one way and only one way of preserving our fisheries resources
from our Hubris. Large portions of our EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone)
must be set aside with no fishing what-so-ever being allowed in the
area. Our small existing reserves are great and seed outside areas with the
young of many species but large areas seed outside areas with fully
grown fish. We must stop thinking that we know what we are doing in the
ocean and simply do what has been shown to be effective. With such a
system, the 'catch per unit effort' in the permitted areas will be so
good that we can abandon destructive fishing methods and just use long
lines. </p><p></p><p><img alt="Map of the study region. New Zealand Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ,... | Download Scientific Diagram" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brit-Finucci/publication/351357015/figure/fig1/AS:1020349055504386@1620281580681/Map-of-the-study-region-New-Zealand-Exclusive-Economic-Zone-EEZ-black-dashed-line.png" style="height: 600.459px; margin: 0px; width: 530px;" /></p><p>And don't let the scientists tell you which areas should be reserves and which areas should not. Remember Hubris. Remember that the scientists don't know what they are doing. They have proven this time after time.</p><p>Here is a possibility. You will note in the above diagram that the EEZ of New Zealand extends from about 25<sup>0</sup>S to about 55<sup>0</sup>S. Start at the top. From 25<sup>0</sup>S to 26<sup>0</sup>S, no fishing. From 26<sup>0</sup>S to 27<sup>0</sup>S, fishing permitted. From 27<sup>0</sup>S to 28<sup>0</sup>S, no fishing. From 28<sup>0</sup>S to 29<sup>0</sup>S, fishing allowed. And carry on like this right to the South end of our EEZ. You could do this in 2 degree bites instead. Whatever you do, don't let anyone manage it. </p><p>Your only management tool is "If you fish in the no-fishing areas, your boat is confiscated and sunk. Note that the most important aspect of any enforcement is it's inevitability. We must pursue boats that fish in our reserves regardless of the cost and sink them. In the not-so-long term, this will be, by far, the most economic policy.<br /></p><p> </p><p>And for heaven sake, ban all foreign fishing boats from our waters. Let them destroy their own fisheries. If we can't fish all our permitted areas then the fishing will just improve even more over our EEZ and the bottom line of our fishermen will greatly improve as their catch-per-unit-effort increases. </p><p> </p><p>If you do insist on licensing foreign fishing boats to fish our waters, note that the vital step is enforcement. Any fishing boat that has it's tracker turned off is confiscated. Any fishing boat, fishing in a forbidden area is confiscated. Officers of these boats are jailed until a substantial fine has been paid. Fishermen on the boats are treated really well, given a tour of New Zealand and sent home with their wages (paid by us) and memorabilia. Imagine their attitude to their officers if they are caught again. Fossil fuel is taken off the boats and they are sunk in no-fishing areas. They form great reefs and will snag anyone trying to drag a net in these areas.<br /></p><p>https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2010/12/fisheries-policy-lets-change-tacks.html<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-15529590922384678742022-04-11T13:40:00.002-07:002022-05-29T18:32:50.054-07:00The actual warming effect of Methane<p> </p><p>We often hear about the relative green house effect of Methane vs Carbon dioxide on a 20 year basis or 100 year basis. This is a perfectly legitimate way of looking at the situation since methane is oxidized relatively rapidly in the atmosphere while Carbon dioxide remains much longer. Carbon dioxide is taken up by various processes and notably by photosynthesis. The half life of Methane in the atmosphere is about 7 years since it is oxidized to carbon dioxide, while the half life of Carbon dioxide is estimated at about 100 years.</p><p> </p><p>What I'm talking about here is the relative green house gas forcing of the amount of Methane and Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a given moment. <br /></p><p> <img alt="Examples of greenhouse gases and their contribution to global warming [35-37]." class="figure-details-image__main-image" itemprop="contentUrl" src="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard-Tuckett/publication/222342513/figure/tbl1/AS:668677586296834@1536436568128/Examples-of-greenhouse-gases-and-their-contribution-to-global-warming-35-37.png" /></p><p>In this chart from1998 you can see that the total radiative forcing of 365ppmv (parts per million by volume) of Carbon dioxide is 1.46 Watts per square meter of the earths surface.</p><p>The radiative forcing of 1.75ppmv of Methane is 0.48W per square meter.</p><p>So doing a simplistic calculation*, if Methane was 365ppmv it would have a forcing of 355/1.75 X 0.48 = 100.1Watts per square meter.</p><p>Since the forcing of the 365ppmv of Carbon dioxide is 1.46W/m2, Methane is </p><p>100/1.46 = 68.6 times as powerful a green house gas as Carbon dioxide.</p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The calculation is only a first approximation. This has to do with the fact that the effect of green house gasses increases a given amount for a doubling of the concentration. It is not a linear function. In other words the increase in the warming effect would be the same from 100ppm to 200ppm as from 200ppm to 400ppm</span></i>.</p><p>However, at present (April 2022) the concentration of Methane in the atmosphere is 1.91ppm while the concentration of Carbon dioxide is 418ppm. The effect of Methane is equal to 1.91 X 68 = 130 ppm of Carbon dioxide. It is, as if we had 418 + 130 = 548ppm of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.</p><p><br /></p><p>What is the importance of this. It looks as if we are destabilizing huge reservoirs of methane clatherates, both on the ocean bottom and below permafrost. If we have major blow outs of methane, the effect on our climate could be truly catastrophic. There will be no controlling the acceleration in warming. The rate of rise of methane in the atmosphere is accelerating, suggesting that we have already begun to have such an effect.</p><p><br /></p><p>Another worrying factor is that with a huge output of methane, we might overcome the mechanism in the atmosphere that is responsible for the oxidation of Methane into Carbon dioxide. That would truly be catastrophic.<br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-6285636556895528822022-04-07T12:14:00.011-07:002022-04-12T14:42:04.125-07:00The cost of not Pyrolyzing<p> <b>Pyrolysis</b> - heating various hydrocarbons to break them down into shorter molecules. </p><p><b>Feed stock</b> - wood, plastic, tires, used engine oil, electronic equipment etc.</p><p><b>Output</b> - cooking gas, gasoline,diesel, jet fuel, road tar etc.</p><p><br /></p><p>Let's say, for the sake of the argument, that you use renewable electricity to heat the feed stock and the energy content of the resulting products is only equal to the electrical energy that you used. ( like the processing of tar sands). Would this be a worthwhile enterprise. Let's look at the side benefits.</p><p> </p><p>1/ You produce gaseous and liquid fuels which are very energy dense. For quite a long time, we will need such fuels to power long range aircraft, heavy machinery, large trucks and so forth.</p><p>2/ You avoid the fee for sending the feed stocks to a land fill. The pyrolysis company accepts them for free</p><p>3/ You avoid the cost of sending them overseas (plastic for instance)</p><p>4/ You avoid the cost of storing them somewhere</p><p>5/ You avoid the health costs of storing them (Piles of rubber tires breed disease carrying mosquitoes and leach poison into the environment.</p><p>6/ You avoid the cost of destroying our ocean fauna. (plastics in the ocean kill ocean animals in a range of ways).</p><p>7/ You avoid the health costs of microplastic in our environment. The effects of microplastics are just now becoming apparent.</p><p>8/ You produce a range of valuable side products (steel and sulfur from tires, charcoal from wood)</p><p>9/ You reduce the amount of oil that must be pumped from the earth. Pyrolyzing plastic, basically uses oil that has already been pumped (plastic is made from oil). </p><p>10/ Pyrolyzing waste wood from the production of engineered wood, produces green fuel and sequesters carbon in buildings and in the charcoal which is incorporated into soils. Using engineered wood, displaces concrete, a huge source of carbon dioxide.</p><p>11/ Pyrolyzing treated (tanelized) wood keeps this poisonous product from the environment and recovers the arsenic, copper and chromium.<br /></p><p>12/ You recycle vital minerals, reducing the amount that must be mined. (electronic equipment is mostly plastic, with a range of valuable metals which can be refined ((separated)).</p><p>13/ You extend the life of waste dumps.</p><p>14/ You can pyrolyze, and thus dispose of the contents of old dumps that are problematic.</p><p>15/ We add to the amazing story of New Zealand. We are known for such things as our amazing natural wonders, our stance on nuclear power, our grass fed meat (read The Omnivores Dilemma for the alternative - ug), how we look after visitors if they are injured while visiting, our lack of tipping and our almost unique response to Covid. Solving our waste problems would add to this. It all translates into cold hard cash as people want to visit and to buy our products in their own countries.<br /></p><p> </p><p>I'll add more as I think of them. In actual fact, the energy content of the liquid and gaseous fuel produced is greater than the input energy by a considerable factor. The devil is in the design of the pyrolysis units. Have units that are designed to pyrolyze each of the various feed stocks and it will be worthwhile having a fractionation tower to separate the output of the units into their components.</p><p>Note that the energy content of alkanes is greater, the smaller the molecule so methane has the highest energy content than all the other alkanes. In other words, you are adding energy to a substance as you break it down by pyrolysis.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-45435610568138786352022-04-01T13:22:00.010-07:002022-05-08T03:25:35.061-07:00The Omnivores Dilema<p> This is a book-review of a small part of The <i>Omnivore's Dilemma</i> by Michael Pollan. (starting on chapter 8). It is the part where he describes how a farmer, Joel Salatin in the Shenandoah Valley, near Swoope, Virginia grows grass and that grass is the foundation of the whole farm. Actually, to call it grass is a misnomer. </p><p> </p><p>What he is growing is a meadow of a variety of species, somewhat like what used to grow there before man arrived. Some of the species in the Meadow are Grass, of course, both sweet and meadow, plus Fesque, Clover, Timothy, Millet, Plantain and a bunch more. </p><p> </p><p>Joel and others have described how the appropriate level of grazing (neither too often or too seldom) encourages the growth of a wide variety of plants and maximum total productivity. <br /></p><p> </p><p>The farming method is Joel's take on the theme of only grazing an area for a short time in a long time and then letting the meadow recover. Typically the cows are allowed on any one area for a day and then moved to a new area. They are only allowed 'one bite'. The rotation period varies with weather, season, rainfall and would be different in different parts of the world but it is more or less two weeks on this farm (until the cows are allowed back on a given patch of pasture).</p><p><br /></p><p>He also 'grazes' pigs on grass (meadow) land. The pigs are not allowed to totally trash a paddock and are moved from time to time. Joel has found a neat way to decide when to move the pigs despite the fact that the pigs might be larger or smaller, more numerous or less numerous. Through expenience, he has seen how much supplemental pig food to give for a given area of field. If there are bigger pigs or more pigs, the feed will be finished quicker than if smaller or less numerous. When the feed is finished, it is time to move the pigs. Only experience will tell a farmer when is the best time, neither to often or too seldom, to move the pigs.<br /></p><p> </p><p> In no particular order: (because one could start anywhere - the farming methods are circular going round and round).</p><p>Picture - Fesque<br /></p><p> <img alt="tall-fescue – Seed Force™ New Zealand" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" height="223" src="https://www.seedforce.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/tall-fescue.jpg" style="height: 369.605px; margin: 0px; width: 530px;" width="320" /></p><p> </p><p>Let's start with the beef cows.</p><p><br /></p><p>First, he only grazes a given area with his beef cattle for one day, allowing only one bite of any plant at one time, never a second bite. The plant in question balances its roots and top hamper so after being shorn/cropped, roots die back under ground*. This is dead, energy rich, organic material which is soon consumed by the soil fauna, turning it ultimately into humus. In other words it is building the organic content of the soil from down below. As Joel says, the roots of some plants in a meadow go down meters so you are building a very deep soil**. </p><p>*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>I knew this with respect to punning trees but never thought about it with respect to meadow plants.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>**While, of course, sequestering carbon. <br /></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p> </p><p>The plant then begins to grow new photosynthetic collectors (leaves) and begins to photosynthesize again. As with all organisms, they tend to follow a sigma growth curve. This is a curve that starts at the origin (zero zero on a graph), rises slowly in an exponential fashion, straightens out in a very fast increase and then levels out. The following graph is about population growth but the growth of many individual species follows the same pattern.</p><p>Graph - The sigma curve<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><img alt="2. A sigmoid (or logistic) population growth curve. Population growth... | Download Scientific Diagram" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" height="217" src="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nobuyuki-Yamaguchi-2/publication/266760380/figure/fig1/AS:614036001546241@1523408999313/A-sigmoid-or-logistic-population-growth-curve-Population-growth-slows-down-as-the.png" style="height: 401.2px; margin: 0px; width: 590px;" width="320" /></p><p><br /></p><p>The farmer, returns the cattle to the field in question when the plants are nearing the level-out-phase. This way he gets the maximum grass production possible. Of course the plant builds new roots to balance thepart of the plant that is above ground. Most plants exude energy rich compounds into the soil around their roots to feed the saprophytes (fungus) which bring nutrients to the plant. Saprofites can mobilize nutrients which plants can not (P* in particular) and which are outside the root zone of the plant.</p><p>*<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Some soils have a chemical make up that fixes the P that farmers put on the field into an unavailable form. The fungus-es can mobilize this P and make it available to the plant. Some soils have huge, stores of P which are not utilizable by plants.</span></i> <br /></p><p> </p><p>Picture - Clover <br /></p><p> <img alt="Clover, Blossom, Bloom, Purple" height="213" src="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2018/05/25/22/58/klee-3430247__340.jpg" style="max-height: 3264px; max-width: 4896px;" width="320" /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p>Now we come to a neat part(one of many). The cattle do what cattle do and leave big plate sized cow pats in the field. Flies love to lay their eggs in this warm nutritious muck. Apparently, the sort of fly where this farm is located has a 4 day cycle. ie. The fly larvae (grubs) would hatch out into flies in 4 days. So the eggmobile is brought in on day 3. It is a trailer pulled by a tractor that houses 400 egg laying chickens. They get to work, scattering the cow pats in every direction and picking out all those nutritious fly larvae. </p><p> </p><p>This farm apparently only has three external "nutrient" inputs. One is chicken food, the second is pig food and the third is some <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/glauconite">green sand</a> for it's mineral content. Because of the grubs the chickens get from the cow pats plus some grass and insects, they only need three quarters as much bought-feed as would be needed for chickens that only get bought/bought-in-feed - a nice effect on the bottom line. </p><p>Picture - a beautiful eggmobile <br /></p><p><img alt="The eggmobile @fermequatretemps #themarketgardener | Chickens backyard, Chickens, Chicken coop" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/80/00/a4/8000a4e19611fa28a83db09b64c41051.jpg" style="height: 590px; margin: 0px; width: 590px;" /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p>The above image is not the eggmobile on Joel's farm but it is such a 'beaut', I couldn't resist including it. Note the mobile fence in the background to confine the chickens to the area where you want them Also note the lack of cow pats in this particular field. This field hasn't been grazed by cows recently. If you leave chickens on any area for an extended time, they will reduce the vegetation to zero. Hence the advantage of having a mobile chicken house. And one last observation. This field appears to be a monoculture, not a meadow with a wide range of plants for the grazers to eat.</p><p> </p><p>Picture - Timothy <br /></p><p><img alt="619 Timothy Grass Photos - Free & Royalty-Free Stock Photos from Dreamstime" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" height="213" src="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/timothy-grass-lovely-green-field-summer-42060021.jpg" style="height: 353.113px; margin: 0px; width: 530px;" width="320" /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p>But we aren't finished with chickens yet. Joel also raises meat chickens. They are raised in mobile cages, each containing about 75 chickens and open on the bottom so that the chickens can access the pasture. They are moved 'one foot print' each day so the chickens have access to fresh pasture and don't decimate a given patch. Of course they leave their droppings on each area but not in such quantities that they 'burn' the pasture. As you can imagine, with the above measures, the pasture growth is legendary. Incidentally, Joel points out that if he increased his production, he would put too much organic fertilizer on his pasture and this would result in exceeding the ability of the pasture to utilize all the nutrients. There would be a danger of runoff, polluting nearby streams.<br /></p><p> </p><p>Picture- Millet <br /></p><p> </p><p><img alt="millet | plant | Britannica" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://cdn.britannica.com/48/156548-050-7F7B684C/Millet-grains-harvest.jpg?w=400&h=300&c=crop" style="height: 300px; margin: 0px; width: 400px;" /></p><p> </p><p>Grazing has another beneficial effect. If tall varieties are allowed to dominate, they shade out low growing plants such as clover and the variety of plants in the meadow decreases. With this sort of management, all the plants have a chance and some farmers have observed that the variety of plants actually increases under 'proper' grazing. </p><p> </p><p>Of course, plants such as Clover are particularly important as they fix Nitrogen. It is equally bad to graze too much as it is to graze too seldom. With seldom grazing, tall plants will shade out low growing plants and the variety in the field will decrease. With grazing too often, or grazing continually you don't take advantage of all of the growth spurt of the meadow plants and some varieties die under excessively intense grazing. plant variety will decrease with grazing in intervals that are either too long or too short.</p><p></p><p> </p><p>A good part of the farm is in trees, mainly on northern slopes, where they get wood for construction, fire wood and then chip all the waste wood. These chips, are a very important part of the farm. </p><p> </p><p>In the three harsh months of winter the cows are housed indoors. How neat is the following system.... Joel just keeps adding layers of either wood chip or straw for bedding but before each layer is added, he scatters a bucket of corn over the bedding. The bedding rises up over the three months and the cows remain comfortable due to the heat generated by the bedding. The bottom of the bedding, is, of course, anaerobic but as there is apparently no net generation of ammonia, the upper, aerobic layers are taking up this dangerous gas. In the spring, when the cows go back out on pasture, he lets in the pigs. He calls them his pigaerators. They root around, mixing up the bedding, looking for those lovely ascoholic kernels of corn and the bedding becomes aerobic, and heats up, killing any nasties that are in it. After the pigs have finished he has some lovely fertilizer to use wherever he wants. </p><p> </p><p>Picture - Plantain <br /></p><p> </p><p><img alt="Plantain Weed: Benefits, Side Effects, and Uses" class="n3VNCb" data-noaft="1" src="https://i0.wp.com/post.healthline.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/plantain-weed-1296x728-header-1.jpg?w=1155&h=1528" style="height: 331.013px; margin: 0px; width: 590px;" /></p><p> </p><p>There is much more to <i><u>The Omnivores Dilemm</u></i>a. I suggest getting a copy.<br /></p><p><b> </b></p><p><b>Authors Notes</b></p><p>Sunshine doesn't reach into the soil. Pretty obvious, no? so the soil organisms have to get their energy somewhere else. We have already described how when the top hamper of a plant is removed, the roots die down to match the top. This energy rich organic material is available for the soil organisms.</p><p>In addition, most plants put out organic material from their roots. Some estimates say that this is up to 30% of what they produce by photosynthesis. They don't do this for nothing. If it wasn't beneficial to the plant it wouldn't have evolved. These energy rich materials feed the saprophites (fungus) that live in the soil. In return, the saprophites can not only mobilize materials that the plant can not (notably P), but with their extensive network of hyphae, they can bring such materials from far beyond the root mass of the plant.</p><p>There is one more source of energy rich organic material. This is any organic material that is laid down on the surface of the soil. This includes mulch, compost and manure. Earth worms and beetle and so forth use this material and bring it down into the soil where other organisms benefit from it or from the excrement of the worms and beetles.</p><p><b> </b></p><p><b>Farm inputs</b></p><p>Besides a little fossil fuel for a tractor and an ATV, the only inputs to the farm are chicken feed, pig feed and Green sand. As the electric vehicle revolution proceeds, more different types of vehicle are being produced which run on electricity. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually, Joel's tractor and ATV will run on electricity provided by solar panels on his roof. His in-house battery will probably be a used battery from his electric car which no longer has the range he requires but is plenty grunty enough for his house. Perhaps he has already done this. My information is far from up to date.<br /></p><p> </p><p><u>Chicken feed</u></p><p>When an animal eats, only 10% of the feed becomes the animal (or eggs). The rest is excreted. This may seem strange to you if you have fed animals and use about 2kg of feed to get 1kg of animal. The apparent anomaly is only apparent. It is due to the fact that the feed is dry (typically below 7% moisture or it will spoil) while the animal is 80+% water. </p><p>So the other 90% of the feed is excreted as Carbon dioxide, urine and feces. This rich material is laid down on the surface of the soil and as mentioned above, is incorporated in the soil.</p><p> </p><p><u>Green Sand</u></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">Also called "glauconite," greensand is <b>a material from the ocean floor that is mined to be used as a soil conditioner or fertilizer</b>. It has a bluish-green color and is made of marine potash, silica,
iron oxide, magnesia, lime, phosphoric acid, and about 30 other trace
minerals.</span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">In any farm, if you are continually removing minerals from the farm as chicken and beef, you will eventually have to replace them. In this farm, some of these minerals come in as chicken feed, some as pig feed and some as green sand.</span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><br /></span></span></p><p><b>Further reading</b></p><p>There are three other books that I would highly recommend. All great reads.<br /></p><p>1/ <u><i>Dirt </i></u>by David R Montgomery</p><p>In this book he describes what happens to a civilization that treats it's soil like dirt.</p><p>2/<i><u> Growing a Revolution</u></i> by David R Montgomery</p><p>In this book David describes his journey to realizing what is a better way of farming as he travels the world looking at farms in which the owner has come to this realization independently of each other. The same basic methods were arrived at from the tropics to temperate latitudes, from small holdings to huge ranches and for all sorts of crops.<br /></p><p>3/ <i><u>The Second Half of Nature</u></i> by David R Montgomery</p><p>In this book he describes the inner working of a rich organic soil<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>4/ <i><u>What your food eats</u></i>. I haven't got this one yet but it is on order.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-19148106197160198132022-03-31T17:45:00.002-07:002022-04-10T12:29:05.347-07:00Housing farm animals indoors<p>Housing farm animals indoors can be pretty horrendous. They poop and pee and if they must be kept confined for long periods, say, because the weather is too cold or wet or stormy outside, the conditions can get, quite frankly, rank. There are a couple of systems that get over this problem. </p><p><b>The totally aerobic system</b></p><p>I saw this system for myself in South Africa in the farm where we got our baby broiler chicks for our fish/chicken farms. In the cage where the farmer kept his laying hens and roosters, he put down a deep bed of saw dust of the type that comes from a lumber mill. It is quite coarse, unlike, for instance, sanding sawdust or even the sawdust from a table saw. Chickens have solid urine (the white part of a chicken poo) but even so, left alone, the chicken houses will become pretty rank in short order. The bedding becomes anaerobic and the anaerobic break down of organic material produces Carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia. It is an eye-watering, lung-damaging combination. So what did the farmer do.</p><p>He had his employees turn the bedding every day. This kept it aerobic. We got to know the farmer as we bought chicks every two weeks and eventually he let us come and see his system. We were amazed at how odorless it was. It was toward the end of a cycle and the bedding was a fine, brown material with the odor of fresh earth. The farmer told us that this system pretty well eliminated any disease problems. I suppose a pathological bacteria falling into this mass of micro-organisms would be like dropping a pet rabbit into the middle of Africa. The other disease control effect must have been the elimination of ammonia. Ammonia will damage the lungs of any animal breathing it in and leave the lungs open to infection.</p><p>Composting barns are also used for cattle. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOPRuSugkqU">Here is an extreme example</a> of a composting barn in which the cows are kept indoors 24/7/365. It is more common to have cows indoors only when the weather is too inclement to have them outside.</p><p><b>An anaerobic/aerobic system</b></p><p>I read about this one in <u><i>The Omnivores Dilemma</i></u>. It was developed by Joel Saladin in his farm Polyface in the Shenandoa valley in Virginia, USA. Joel keeps his cows indoors for the three winter months. Instead of aerating the bedding, he adds a layer of wood chips or hay as needed. But before adding new bedding, he scatters a pail of corn over the old bedding. Presumably the system works since there is no smell of Ammonia. The upper layers of this bedding would be aerobic so the upper layers are probably incorporating the ammonia produced by the lower levels. After three months it is time to send the cows out to pasture. When they have gone, he sends in the pigs. He calls them his pigaerators. As they go in search of the alcoholic kernels of corn, they root around and stir up the bedding, aerating it. The bedding heats up, probably killing any pathogens and results in an odorless rich compost for spreading on the fields.</p><p>There is one other example of indoor animals at Joels farm. His son grows rabbits for meat. Rabbit urine is very strong and if kept indoors, you would have to be continually cleaning to stop the rabbits damaging their lungs from the ammonia their urine produces. So, once again they put down a thick layer of wood chips or hay under the pens. Here they keep the layer aerobic by introducing chickens. The chickens forage in the litter for grubs and insects and keep the wood chips aerobic. <br /></p><p><b> </b><br /></p><p>As I said at the beginning, holding farm animals indoors can be horrendous but it can also be very good for the animals. As usual, with all farming systems, the devil is in the detail.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-90724991445375767822022-02-21T20:12:00.009-08:002022-02-25T11:29:11.648-08:00Jacinda and Covid 19<p> Up to now, I tried to be calm, diplomatic and reasoned when talking to anti-vaxer. I have three such folks in my own extended family. But now that some nut cases are insulting Jacinda and comparing her to Hitler, that is it. I am over it. Let's go back to the beginning of the spread of Covid.</p><p> </p><p>At the same time that all over the world, Covid was spreading like a grass fire, the measures that Jacinda took, knocked Covid on the head every time it managed to get into our country. Yes, tourist industries suffered. Tourism suffered everywhere in the world. To stop Covid we had to stop people with Covid entering the country. As a result, the rest of us here in New Zealand lived a pretty well normal life with the occasional lock down. Our situation was so so much better than it was in the rest of the world. </p><p> </p><p>And what about crediting Jacinda for this success. You could argue that it was a combined effort of her and her government and some medical experts. Very true. What was different from almost every other government in the world is that the Kiwi government listened to the experts and acted accordingly. </p><p></p><p> </p><p>Bisides if it had gone badly, we would have blamed Jacinda for the failure. So fair is fair. Her government under her leadership stopped Covid in its tracks. Without any reluctance what so ever, we can credit Jacinda for our amazing success. <br /></p><p> </p><p>And look at our economy. The governments of other countries favored business over people. As a result the level of Covid increases and trashed their businesses anyway. Here Jacinda looked after our people first and since Covid was so rare, our industry went from strength to strength. Talk about other governments having the opposite effect to what was intended.</p><p> </p><p>Business that suffered and their workers were given a very good level of financial support. <br /></p><p> </p><p>Jacinda was criticized for not getting vaccines into New Zealand early enough. Let's have a look at this. The mRNA technology was new. People had been doing research on this for many years but to bring it to a state where it could be used in medicine would have taken at least a decade under normal procedures. The situation was desperate so they rushed the procedures through. Jacinda delayed the uptake of the vaccine until other countries had given millions of doses and it was clear that it was safe. Soon after that the vaccine was shown to be effective. Only then did we started to get vaccinated in New Zealand.</p><p> </p><p>Sorry world. We used you as our guinea pigs and it worked. You have to understand that Jacinda's first priority is the safety and well being of the people of Aotearoa. <br /></p><p> </p><p>As for this comparison of Jacinda with Hitler, what utter nonsense. It shows the complete stupidity, hysteria, illogicality, ignorance and petty meanness, and jealousy of these idiots. Jacinda put in regulations to keep us safe and they have worked. In fact we are in better shape that almost any other country in the world. Hitler put in regulations to trap Jews, Gypsies and other populations he considered that didn't fit into the German ideal of racial purity and sent them to be gassed in industrialized gas chambers. Get a life, you morons. </p><p> </p><p>Over time, the measures that the world finally took with shut downs, isolation, vaccination and contact tracing, has selected for viruses that spread faster but were less deadly. The selfish anti-vaccers, who refused to join the common effort to keep our vulnerable people safe, will now benefit from the efforts of the rest of us. Now, if an anti-vaccer catches Omicron, they are far less likely to die than if they had caught Delta or one of the other varieties of Covid. </p><p> </p><p>And one last thought. I can understand how people could go down the rabbit hole and not wanted to get vaccinated. The mis-information is extremely pervasive on the internet and some of it is very persuasive. Someone who is scientifically challenged would have very little appreciation of the scientific process and how effective it is. But not to wear a <i>mask</i>??? </p><p><br /></p><p>Surly the most scientifically challenged amongst us understand the concept. Surly anyone that hasn't lived under a rock for all his life knows that some diseases are transmitted through the air. Generally the virus or germ attaches itself to wee droplets that a person expels from his or her mouth when talking, coughing, sneezing, singing or yelling (in increasing order of aerosol production). These droplets are inhaled by anyone in the vicinity. For heaven sake, wearing a mask will reduce your chance of catching <i>or spreading</i> the common cold and any other air-born disease, never mind Covid. Are you anti-maskers so angry that you are willing to catch Covid or are you just plain stupid.<br /></p><p> </p><p>If anti-vaxers haven't caught Covid yet, they may be OK now. Omicron is less deadly than previous varieties. Some of you will die but not as many as if you caught one of the previous varieties of Covid. Mean time those of us who are double vacced and boosted will likely only have mild symptoms if we catch Covid.<br /></p><p> </p><p>Lastly, look at the Stats, people. Let's say for the sake of the argument that the vaccine is ineffective. Here in New Zealand we have about a 90% vaccination rate. So, if the vaccine is not effective, people in the general hospital with Covid or in ICU with Covid should be in a ration of 9:1. In other words for every unvaccinated person there should be 9 vaccinated people. Say on some day, the ratio was 50:50. You would probably say that the vaccine was ineffective since half are vaccinated and half are not. I hope I don't have to explain further how wrong you would be.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-15887750935598996402022-02-05T10:57:00.002-08:002022-03-14T02:36:23.332-07:00New Zealand History<p>It is 2021 and there is a move in New Zealand to teach our history in our schools. This move can only be applauded. The teaching of the history of a country is at least as important as the hard sciences and in some ways, even more important.</p><p> </p><p>However, the commentary I have heard so far suggests that this may become a pakeha* bashing exercise. True the people of European origin have much to answer for in New Zealand, and for that matter all over the world and I will leave the exposure of European abuses to those that have been disadvantaged by European actions. Here, for balance, I would like to present a few salient facts that should also be taught, so that this doesn't turn into a Pakeha - bad, Maori -good, exercise. If you want to teach history then actually teach history.</p><p>*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>People of European ancestry or even people of non Pacific heritage. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> </i></span><br /></p><p> Bear with me for a moment.</p><p><br /></p><p>For the past 2.75million years, the world has been in an Ice Age. Throughout this ice age, there have been many alterations between glacial periods and interglacial periods. We are in the latest interglacial known as the Holocene and the previous interglacial around 125,000 years ago is known as the Eemian. This sequence extends back for the whole 2.75 million years with between 30 and 50 separate cycles, depending on how you define this. Why do I mention this.</p><p> </p><p>The fauna of New Zealand, consisting mainly of birds, has survived, evolved and thrived through all of this climate variation right up until the arrival of the 'First People' from the Pacific. Then much of this rich fauna disappeared in a geological instant. All over the world this happened, not just in New Zealand and some scientists hypothesize that the extinctions were due to climate change. Pretty hard to support this argument when the fauna of so many continents managed multiple, extreme climate changes quite nicely, thank you very much, until man arrived.</p><p> </p><p>The fauna of the Americas for instance, disappeared around 12,000 years ago, the Fauna of Australia, 50,000 years ago and of New Zealand some 700 years ago.</p><p> <br /></p><p>The point is that despite what they maintain, the Maori are no different than all the other people of the world, They may have come lately to some ecological knowledge, promoted by the disappearance of so many species. And we Europeans, at least some of us, have come to the same realization - rather at the 11th hour also. However for the Maori to present themselves as the great guardians of nature is to put them on a pedicile that they don't deserve. If some of them are ecologically aware now, and would never consider killing a native pigeon for food* - great - but many many people of European origin are also now ecologically aware.</p><p> </p><p>One part of honest teaching would deal with the extinction of the mega fauna of New Zealand and many lesser sized species by the first people. <br /></p><p>*<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Recently a Maori chief killed some Kereru (native pigeon) to eat, claiming it was his traditional right.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p>Then we come to wars. At the time that Europeans arrived in New Zealand, all of the North Island and a portion of South Island was taken up by Maori tribes with the boarders fluctuating according to which tribe won the latest battle. It was a constant theme of the time to raid other tribes, take slaves and booty and eat some of the losers. </p><p> </p><p>There is no question that Europeans had superior armament and <i>did</i> displace Maori to gain land for farming. In many cases they bought the land with muskets and other trade goods, (not always from the owners of the land). In fact, at the time there were no individual owners of the land and the Maori concept of land ownership was that the tribe owned the land as long as they could hold on to it against other tribes. </p><p> </p><p>The different concepts of land ownership led to many conflicts, as it did in many other parts of the world, as the Maori saw the land that they considered theirs, alienated from them. This is in no way to exonerate the Europeans and their actions but as I said, I will leave the Maori perspective to the Maoris to present.</p><p> </p><p>A chief of the Ngapuhi tribe, Hongi Hika (Hone Heke sp?) was taken to the UK and much feted. He was given many valuable presents and when he arrived back in Australia on the way to New Zealand, he sold the presents to get money to buy muskets. Other tribes had been trading for muskets for some time but Honi's level of armament far exceeded what they had. He used the muskets to range far and wide in New Zealand and conquer other tribes. The balance had been completely upset and he caused huge destruction and even caused the elimination of some tribes. This was the attitude of the time. Might is right and the devil take the hinder-most*.</p><p>* <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>As it was amongst the Europeans in Europe. The were in constant war with each other.</i></span> </p><p><br /></p><p>Incidentally, the Treaty of Waitangi, which is considered the founding document of New Zealand which was between many of the Maori tribes and the British crown, was considered the starting point. Honi Hike trashed the other tribes of New Zealand before this date so the decimated tribes have no recourse. Hardly just for a people that claim they are trying for justice. If the Maori and especially the Ngapuhi tribe are truly after justice, then they should compensate tribes that they decimated before the Treaty of Waitangi and not use the legaeze excuse that everything starts from the Treaty. In fact, the compensation they give to other tribes should come from their treaty settlement money and land they now consider their own should be given back to these tribes.</p><p><br /></p><p>It should be mentioned here that, at the time, there were many in the UK that objected to New Zealand becoming a colony despite her huge natural resources. They felt, quite rightly, that the native population would be exploited as had happened in other colonies of the UK. The counter argument was that the sailors, whalers, sealers and others were corrupting the Maori and a government was necessary to control this abysmal situation. The musket wars by Honi were one of the reasons that the British crown decided to sign a treaty with the Maori and make New Zealand a colony.</p><p> </p><p>Then we come to the Moriori and what happened to them.</p><p> </p><p>The Moriori lived on the Chatam Islands and unlike other Maori tribes, were a peaceful people. Non violence was 'their thing'. A group of Maori hitched a ride over to the Chatams on a European sailing ship and slaughtered them. <br /></p><p>This is just a taste. If you are going to teach history, then teach history. The European behavior has much to be regretted but so does the Maori behavior.<br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-81587493910920486002022-02-05T10:45:00.006-08:002022-03-05T02:09:56.040-08:00An open letter to Z energy<p> </p><div>We were all so proud when you bought out Shell. We had our own
power company instead of being royally screwed by overseas companies.
Our delight was complete when you told us you were going to be an
'Energy' company. We pictured you gradually shifting to charging the
ever increasing electric cars with the roves of your stations covered
with solar panels and a large battery at each station, storing excess
and even stabilizing the voltage and frequency of the local grid. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>For
heaven sake, you have some 250 stations country wide. With a one mWh
battery at each station, you would have had more capacity than even the
upgraded Hornsdale. You would have had a country-wide distributed energy storage capacity.
And it wouldn't have been a financial sacrifice on your part. These
batteries are ridiculously profitable in their own right. Hornsdale paid
off the whole $66m investment in her 100mWh battery in three years. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>We
pictured you taking a whole range of waste streams and turning them
into petroleum products by pyrolysis or one of the other known
processes. All our plastic waste, used rubber tires, used engine oil,
tallow, wood and paper, electronic equipment etc. etc. would have been
diverted from land fills which are degrading New Zealand.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Now
we are back where we started or worse. You are selling off Z to an Australian company. Do you realize that Ausi banks
take about one billion Kiwi dollars our of this country every 6 months.
Now we will have our major fuel provider doing the same. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>To
top it off, you and the other owners of Marsden point are going to
shaft our strategic capacity to refine our own petroleum products and
make us dependent on overseas suppliers for them.</div><div> </div><div>Just another New Zealand success story. So sad. <br /></div><div><br /><br /></div>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8268551755123531151.post-35838692686369227122022-02-05T10:40:00.004-08:002022-02-05T10:40:53.048-08:00The costs of not Pyrolyzing<p> Pyrolysis is a method for turning a whole range of waste streams into petroleum products such as cooking gas, gasoline, diesel fuel, airline fuel and all the way up to tars. It is done by heating the material in question in an enclosed retort up to, typically, 5000C. In a petroleum refinery, this would be called cracking. If you heat heavy crude (long chain molecules) up to a high temperature it cracks the long chains and produced more of the more valuable short chain molecules.</p><p>It seems only right and logical that a pyrolysis unit/business should be credited with the costs it avoids. In other words, we must take externalities into account. Some of the worst abuses of people and the natural world occur because we don't take the true cost of our actions into account. <br /></p><p>There are costs of not treating your waste streams by pyrolysis. Some of them are general to all waste streams. Some applying to specific wastes. First the general ones.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>General Costs of Not Pyrolyzing</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sending waste to land fill</span></p><p>First, a waste dump charges money per ton for waste that they store. For specific wastes they often charge more. Secondly, a waste dump typically fills up a formerly beautiful valley with garbage, removing it from public use and thirdly if not managed very carefully, water leaches out of the waste dump and pollutes the water down steam from the dump</p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Sending waste overseas</span></p><p>Hard to believe that this is actually a thing. We used to send our waste plastic to China before they became a tad sensitive to being the garbage disposal country. It hurt their pride. Now, at least here in New Zealand, we send it to another country. I won't say which one. I don't want to hurt their feelings. They don't dispose of this plastic in an acceptable way (pyrolysis for instance) and it blows into their streams, lakes and rivers and is carried to the ocean. I don't think I have to detail the damage that plastic does in the ocean. It has been covered again and again in article after article.<br /></p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Costs for Specific Waste Streams</span></b></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Used Tires</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Leave a tire outside in any orientation you like. After the first rain look inside. No matter which way you oriented the tire, there is now a little pool of water inside. As we all know, the weather is warming and various organisms are moving poleward. One such class of organism are the mosquitoes. A particularly noxious group are the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/media/dpk/diseases-and-conditions/mosquito-borne-diseases/index.html">Culex mosquitoes and <u><i>A aegypti</i></u> </a></span> <span style="font-size: small;">They transmit a particularly noxious range of diseases. Aegypti can breed in an upturned bottle cap. A massive pile of tires is a huge mosquito breeding farm.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Of course then there is a fire danger with some really toxic smoke being produced and a leaching danger with some chemicals being leached by rain into the ground. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Wood </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Starting at lumber mills, they produce great quantities of off cuts with no value and saw dust. The saw dust has some value to horticulture and the off cuts can be sold as fire wood. However, if you pyrolyze this waste, you produce completely green petroleum products and charcoal. The charcoal can be incorporated into agricultural soils where it serves the same function as humus and last for a very long time, sequestering carbon in the process. This lowers the financial obligation of a country under the Koyota protocol. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you build quality buildings from engineered wood, you, of course, sequester even more carbon for significant periods. <br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: small;">Treated wood is another problem all together. Tannelized wood has been pressure treated with a mix of Chrome Copper and Arsenic salts. There are many off cuts during the building process and over time, buildings will be demolished and this wood burnt. The ash is toxic and you don't want it incorporated into your soils or sent to a land fill. If pyrolyzed, the ash can be sent to a refinery and the metals recovered and kept out of the environment. Otherwise, over time we are polluting our soils.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Electronic Equipment </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">Electronic equipment is mostly plastic these days. In addition it contains a wide variety of valuable metals. All can be recovered by pyrolyzing the equipment and sending the ash to a refinery</span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Plastic </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">When plastic is burnt in a normal 'bonfire', it releases dioxides. The formula is C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>3</sub>O<sub>2</sub>. It is a liquid at room temperature and is used in transformers to suppress sparking. Heated in a properly designed pyrolysis unit, dioxides are broken down into harmless compounds. If left in nature, they accumulate in the fat and concentrate as they go up the food chain. They are carcinogenic. Eliminating dioxides from the environment reduced health costs.</span> </span></span><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></b><br /></p>William Hughes-Gameshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184766974497951683noreply@blogger.com0