Renewable Energy Stuff (was citizenship silliness) (fwd)

First, let me say (again) to everyone .... Quit sending these responses to my private email. If you want to discuss it keep it on the list. Any further such private submissions go into /dev/null unread. This also means you don't need to cc: if you send it to the cpunks list since I'm subscribed...;) Now, back to more intersting discussion... Forwarded message:

Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 11:26:47 -0600 (MDT) From: Jim Burnes Subject: Renewable Energy Stuff (was citizenship silliness)

Apparently hemp hurd gassification yields a fairly sizeable, renewable amount of energy per acre. Lemme see if I have the reference....

Historically Hemp (Cannabis Sativa L.) has been a very high yielding plant (Haney 1975). Assuming that hemp produces up to 4 tons/acre seed plus 10 tons/acre stalks, Table 1 shows how many gallons of liquid fuel import could be saved by each of the following proven biomass fuel conversion routes.

Table 1. Conversion technologies for hemp stalks and hemp oil

CONVERSION CONVERSION GASOLINE EQUIV TECHNOLOGY EFF - % GAL/ACRE

1 Ethanol from fermentation of hydrolyzed cellulose 20 200 2 Digestion of whole stalks to methane 50 500 3 Producer gas from thermal gasification of stalks 85 1000 4 Methanol from syngas from gasification of stalks 65 750 5 Methanol from pyrolysis of stalks 3 30

OIL SEEDS - 4 tons/acre

6 Hemp Seed oil from Seeds, no conversion 100 300 7 Biobioesel premium diesel fuel from hemp seed 90 270 oil combined chemically with methanol

You're going to seriously claim that 1 gallon of hemp oil is equivalent to 3 gallons of gasoline? I don't think so. I've seen hemp burn and it don't burn anywhere near that efficiently. I also notice it doesn't mention what it costs to raise that 4 tons/acre... ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------