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7/7/2007 Social TrapSocial trap is a term used by psychologists to describe a
situation in which a group of people act to obtain short-term
individual gains, which in the long run leads to a loss for the group
as a whole. Examples of social traps include the overharvesting of fish
species by commercial and sport fishers, the near-extinction of the American bison, energy "brownout" and "blackout" power outages during periods of extreme temperatures, the overgrazing of cattle on the Sahelian Desert, and the destruction of the rainforest by logging interests and agriculture. 7/5/2007 EmbargoIts the duty of the government to provide for defense. Has anyone asked how the Pentagon expected to fight a sustained war in the Middle-East, when the US has a limited supply of oil? The US has known since at least the 1973 oil embargo that it cannot rely on oil-producing States to provide petroleum. Nobody seems to have considered that the US Military requires a huge amount of oil to cross the battlefield, then there are fuel trucks that supply the machines, and other fuel trucks that supply the fuel trucks. It has nothing to do with support for this war, which I ardently don't, but with the ability of the military to fight any war. Which I do, begudgingly. It would be wonderful if the world did not need military...but right now it seems to. Perhaps the Pentagon procured diesel trucks that can run on vegetable oil just in case of this contingency, because then I would know where we can get fuel for them. 7/4/2007 7/4/07It is a sad 4th for me because the Executive branch of the United States' Government is dragging me down. I wonder how history will view you, me, the Senate, the Press or every other group inside and out of the US for taking whatever actions, or inaction, we do. Tonight, some others are celebrating with fireworks up the block, just like I heard there, almost two months ago. In my building, one friend took a trip to South America, three others, off to the Middle East for work, two others moved away and had a baby. When I left my door this afternoon, I was expecting to find a party going on, just like every other holiday or football game since I moved in here, 15-years ago. The rest of them are off to a party that no-doubt involves kilts, fire-dancing and paddles. I'm content to be at home, by myself, but with the dogs. I want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening, yes?...ALGAEHere is what one company, PetroSun, is doing to turn algae in to biofuels. They happen to be an oil company. Rather than reject them as oil/war profiteers, I welcome them because if their experiment works, it will get some real attention. Also, it will be the oil companies, hopefully sooner, than later that will be the major distributors of thees fuels. Plants such as soybeans and sunflowers produce oil, that can be used to make biofuels.
Although these crops have received a lot of media attention
in the last several years, they require intensive management
and may not be sustainable in the long term due to rising
development and production costs. We believe a different type
of oil crop that holds great promise for the future is microalgae. Extensive research has been conducted to determine the utilization of microalgae as an energy source, with applications being developed for biodiesel, ethanol, methanol, methane, and even hydrogen. Independent studies have demonstrated that algae is capable of producing in excess of 30 times more oil per acre than corn and soybean crops. Biodiesel produced from algae contains no sulfur, is non-toxic and highly biodegradable. One of the biggest advantages of biodiesel compared to many other alternative transportation fuels is that it can be used in existing diesel engines, which relieves manufacturers of having to make costly engine modifications. Biodiesel can also be mixed, at any ratio, with conventional petroleum diesel. As a result, the alternative fuel can be used in the current distribution infrastructure, replacing petroleum diesel either wholly, or as a diesel fuel blend with minimal integration costs. This press release fails to mention the topper, photosynthesis. Algae consumes carbon dioxide, so the production process, the growing of the algae itself, reduces global warming, by sucking some amount of it out of the atmosphere and turning it into oxygen. Note that this photos is from http://www.nmsu.edu/~ucomm/Releases/2007/january/algae_biodiesel.htm and not from PetroSun and I hope its obvious, that I have nothing to do with any of these companies. McDonald's Switches to Biodiesel FuelI've been waiting for this to happen. I don't eat at McDonald's, but they are such an influential company that this is good news. My friend said "It looks like the big boys are going to co-opt you," and I replied "...but that was my plan all along..." 7/1/2007 Los Angeles ShotsDay and night shots from the same location in Los Angeles. One set looks towards Century City. On the right, you can see an oil well next to a high school campus, and in the detail shot, the well is marked in green. The other set is the Hollywood Hills. 6/27/2007 Homemade Solar LlightsI made these solar light containers this week, except for the Tiki Torch. A price to pay for alternative fuelsSeveral States are prosecuting users of biodiesel (or waste vegetable oil) for evasion of state road use taxes. The laws were written before the alternative fuel movement took shape, so need to be changed. The prosecutors should be fired. I have no idea what these States would do if you drove an electric or solar car. So, check your local laws and don't get in trouble. Raised BedsMy dad and I built this raised-bed garden last year on a slab of concrete that could not be removed. Tomatoes are the best bang for the buck in a small urban space like this because of the huge difference in taste between store bought and home grown, and of course the cost, which tops $4 per pound for heirloom. I ordered seeds for 10 varieties of heirlooms, including .... We are just waiting for them to turn ripe. Three Days of Peace & MusicLast year, my friends and I went out to the went to the desert for a party and took these photos of each other at night with timed-exposure and a flashlight. 6/26/2007 Señor WencesI came across this Wikipedia article on Señor Wences while looking for a tilde for Señor Dogs' (Winston) name. I'm not sure I ever actually saw the act (although I will make a point to soon on youttube) I feel like I have from listening to my Dad do the act. Here is a clip. Señor Wences (April 17, 1896 – April 20, 1999) was a prominent 20th century ventriloquist whose popularity grew with his frequent appearances on CBS's Ed Sullivan Show. He was born Wenceslao Moreno in Salamanca, Spain, and was a matador before finding fame as a ventriloquist. Señor Wences was known for his speed, skill, and grace as a ventriloquist. His stable of characters included "Johnny," a childlike face drawn on Wences's hand, which he would place atop an otherwise headless doll, and with whom Wences conversed while switching his voices between Johnny's falsetto and his own voice at amazing speed. Wences would create Johnny's face on stage to open his act, placing his thumb next to, and in front of, his bent first finger; the first finger would be the upper lip, and the thumb the lower lip. He would use lipstick to draw the lips onto the respective fingers, and then draw eyes onto the upper part of the first finger, finishing the effect with a tiny long-haired wig on top of the entire hand. Flexing the thumb would move the "lips." Another popular Wences character was the gruff-voiced "Pedro," a disembodied head in a box. Wences was forced to suddenly invent the character when his regular, full-sized dummy was destroyed during a train accident en route to a performance. Pedro would either 'speak' from within the closed box, or speak with moving lips--simply growling, "s'awright"--when Wences opened the box's front panel with his free hand. A large part of Wences' comedy lay in the well-timed, high-speed exchange of words between himself and his two creations, and in the difference in their voice pitches. Wences usually built to a big finish that combined ventriloquism with graceful juggling and plate-spinning. As Wences performed his routines, Pedro and Johnny mercilessly heckled him with flawless comedic timing. Cast of dogsI thought I might write about the dogs, since they are the reason we are all here isn't it after all, the muse and the comic relief? Winston (aka Stone, Mr. Señor Dogs...). English Bulldogs fought bulls, which defines their physique and attitude. W is a rescue. I'm his third owner. He was very bad when I first got him. He is still bad sometimes. I developed rules to avoid interaction with most other dogs and the occasional human who sets him off. If he ever gets near a dog he wants to fight, which has happened about four times I can think of, he is initially aggressive, but then suddenly goes into convulsions, and becomes parallelized for about 20 minutes. Mac Carter, the director of the short film entitled Dave, has seen it and will vouch for me. At home, when he is calm, he is very funny. Pheobe Pugs were lap dogs in royal Chinese courts 3,000 years ago. They would alert the royalty to the approach of anyone, serve as court jesters, and keep the royal lap warm. Pheobe is obsessed with satisfying all three urges, only not all at the same time. I got Phoebe at the insistence of a girlfriend that my pug Lucy needed a companion. Lucy (Lucy Dog). Lucy was my first rescue dog, albeit a rescue indirectly from my sister. She had a special intelligence. Mercedes-Benz 300DMost people I know who use waste vegetable oil as fuel drive 1978 to 1985 Mercedes-Benz 300Ds. They are extraordinary cars. Here are some highlights:
Being PresentI do not know the reason for "being present" yoga. What do people think
about when they are not being present? If they are anything like me,
its thinking about what you can change, trying not to worry about what
you can't. Some people use their minds like a computers, musicians for
example. I had a musician friend in college who used her mind like I
would use an iPod. If she wanted to access a song, she could stream it
to her consciousness and enjoy it. The same with spelling, if you
asked her to spell a word, she said the word would pop up in her mind's
eye. I could never do anything like that. But, I digress. I don't have a photographic memory, so I've always been interested in photography. I think you have to be present to do photography. I worked in as a photographer in college, but stopped taking pictures until the last year. The answer to the question I posed, about why to be present, is that if you look back to a time when you spent a lot of time in your head, I bet you won't remember much about that time. You get more memories by being present, and memories are all we really own. GraceIts very hard for me to be graceful. Instead, I'll try to avoid the opposite of grace, which I take to be force, not in the "Let the Force be with you" sense, and more like "but I used a little too much force". I spent some time forcing the issue, so now, I'm trying to do the opposite. 6/24/2007 Solar lightsThis week I made these solar lights by hacking an inexpensive (about $4 per light) solar light and pairing it with decorative glass. I'm going to put translucent paper in them tomorrow I hope. Sometimes, I turn off all the lights and just enjoy the solars. My mom and I like the solars because it give us the sense of living off the grid. 6/19/2007 ChemistryThis is a outline of the chemical process I use to make biodiesel. Detailed explanations written by other people are linked in the Biodiesel Resources section. Also, I knew nothing about chemistry before I started doing this. I still don't know much. First some definitions. Straight vegetable oil (SVO) is any vegetable oil used to make biodiesel. A sub category of SVO is waste vegetable oil (WVO), the stuff restaurants use for frying then discard. I only use WVO because its has much less of a CO2 footprint than virgin SVO. Otherwise, WVO is used as in fertilizer or dog food. It will eventually decompose or compost on its own. I'm simply speeding up that process. The CO2 footprint remains virtually the same whether it composts by itself or I burn it in my car, so I'm getting a free ride. Most biodiesel you can buy at the pump is made with virgin SVO, so while I'm trilled its conveniently available, because new users can use biodiesel and avoid petro-diesel while they set up a processor. There are issues with using virgin SVO as a fuel, but eventually biodiesel will be made from algae which can double in size every fou4r hours and sucks up CO2. SVO is thicker than petro-diesel, the fuel diesel engines were designed for, so using SVO for prolonged periods can harm an engine. Diesel engines can take a lot of abuse because they are built stronger than gasoline engines, but they are not indestructible. Some people convert their cars to use SVO, using specialized fuel heaters to thin it out. I chemically thin it out instead, using these two chemicals:
Methanol is by far the most expensive chemical I use. I pay about $3.50 per gallon, but methanol is only 20% of the volume of the finished fuel, bringing the final cost of biodiesel down to less than a dollar per gallon. I make batches of 40 gallons of oil and 8 gallons of methanol. There are several kinds of Lye. I use Potassium hydroxide (KOH) mostly because thats what I was told to do. It costs about a dollar per pound, but I use very little of it, so the cost is negligible. The amount of KOH I use depends on how damaged the oil is. There is a test, called titration, that measures the damage and tells me how much KOH to use. Next, I follow these steps:
6/18/2007 EquipmentI use four 55 gallon drums that I got for $2 each from a fruit processor to make biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. I cut off the tops
and drilled three holes in each (in, out and drain) to turn the drums
into inexpensive tanks. You can use metal drums if you don't want to
use plastic. Each tank is for a different task:
The tanks' tasks in more detail: Collection Tank: oil I get from restaurants settles in the collection tank. When it contains 40 gallons, I'm ready to make a batch. It has to settle for a few days before I pump it to the... Processor: I heat the oil to 130 degrees, add eight gallons methanol and some lye. I recirculates the oil for about three hours. When it settles, I have 40 gallons of biodiesel and eight gallons of byproducts (glycerin and a little soap). I drain off the glycerin then pump the biodiesel to the... Wash Tank: Oil and water don't mix, but if you spray a fine mist of water on top of the biodiesel, It slowly makes its way through, pulling out excess methanol, glycerin and soap. Once the biodiesel is washed, it goes to the... Dry Tank: It will dry by itself in the summer, or I can use a fan to speed up drying. Once its dry, it gets filtered and goes into the car. |
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