Over the last several years, when cheap easily available energy obviously was in decline, there have been a lot of cures advanced for how to ameliorate the impact on society. The one idea that did take off with a vengeance was substitution of gas with ethanol.
Historically, Fords original cars were made to run on ethanol because the production of petroleum was not in full swing and gas was relatively scarce. As petroleum production in this country was developed, gas became more economical to produce than ethanol and the changeover began. Now, gas is becoming more expensive and petroleum is becoming scarcer because we have used it up at an amazing rate, and we are seeking alternative methods of keeping the nations rolling stock on the road. Ethanol has been touted as the substitute of choice for a variety of reason.
The principle reason for pushing for ethanol production as a substitute is its supposed pollution free use and it is renewable. I have some serious reservations about its being non-polluting that I will not address in this post. Renewability is obvious.
Palooka has pointed out that there are many means of producing ethanol; corn is just one of them. He further points out that an advocate of ethanol production, Blume, has researched this subject pretty thoroughly and he thinks this substitution is possible.
Now I actually don’t relish the prospect of being a naysayer and gloom and doom purveyor. In many respects I am not looking forward to the consequences of expensive fuel and harsh conditions as a result, and it would be to my distinct advantage to be able to drive and continue running much of our society as it is. I don’t have a whole lot of time left in this world, and being an old guy forces this realization. I would much prefer to live in relative comfort until I kick the bucket.
However, I would like to consider myself a harsh realist on many fronts and look at the reality of the situation with wide open eyes and fore go the dreamy eyed view through rose colored glasses. It is entirely possible that several alternate scenarios are possible since I can make no claim to having all the information that may or may not be available. We may indeed have enough petroleum available for some time to come and while driving will become more expensive but not impossible and all the stuff that is dependent on petroleum will be more expensive but available. It is also a possibility that an alternative form of energy that is dirt cheap will be found or developed and we will be in hog heaven again.
Now here is my generalized analysis concerning all that I have read about and heard about on substitution of ethanol for petroleum.
Indeed, there are alternative forms of energy, those that substitute for the liquid fuel and those that produce electricity. In my view they all have some fatal errors in thinking that involve wish fulfillment and another financial bubble that concentrates more wealth into fewer hands. Not one of these alternatives has been sufficiently examined for unforeseen consequences that I can find. All of these different methods involve large infrastructure changes, every one of them, even ethanol. Right off the top, look at the subsidized building of ethanol refining plants. I am talking about a national change over now. Whenever you go about making radical changes to infrastructure it involves huge investments and huge use of raw materials. On the investment side, this country is broke and has huge debt, so where is the investment money to come from? Fire up the printing presses? We know this is being done now and the result is that we have that passes for money loses its purchasing power thus demanding that more money has to be printed to make these investments. Plus, to be able to make the infrastructure changes, you have to have manufacturing facilities, which most have fled to other countries, and you need large workforces. With a pretty hefty segment our population about to retire, where is the workforce going to come from? More imported labor? I sure know that no matter how large a wage I would be offered, I simply cannot handle the long strenuous work days any longer. How about you? I will posit that extending the retirement age to 75 and the accompanying benefits is not going to solve that problem.
Getting back to the specifics of ethanol: To make a national changeover to liquid ethanol as a substitute for gasoline will not happen. Not because we would have to build new distribution infrastructure, but because the actual production would involve huge changes in production infrastructure. At the present, productive farmland is predominately used for some kind of food production. Decreasing that to make fuel would have a huge impact on food availability, rather obviously. Looking for other types of biomass that would not need farm land would be another infrastructure change I am referring to. The only other type of biomass I can think of that would fit the bill is surface water plants. Without huge disruptions to the eco system, we cannot either create enough surface water systems or utilize existing surface water systems to accomplish this. Further, I posit that we have neither the capital nor the resources to try this. Again, on a national level.
You might want to check out the huge amount of tax money that is right now being used to subsidize ethanol production. Last year, a bill was passed that sets 60 billion gallons of ethanol production by 2030, principally from corn. Further investigation shows that some supposed experts in this area calculated that it would take every bit of farmland in the
http://bznotes.wordpress.com/2006/07/01/ethanol-vs-gasoline/
http://nature.gardenweb.com/forums/load/sustain/msg0113331712037.html
This means that at our present usage, it would take more ethanol than petroleum gasoline to drive the same miles.
On a small local level, yes we can use ethanol to drive. But to have that effective, certain conditions have to exist, or be built or changed, and large parts of the country are simply unfit for doing so. Take an examples: If we want to use corn for the raw material, there are very limited areas where this is possible. Where I live, the
So, let’s look at other crops as possibilities. Switch grass, soybeans, cattails, sugar cane, sugar beats, waste biomass and lord knows what else could do the job. No argument from me, as least from an experimental point of view. But, each crop takes the right conditions that do not universally exist. To grow massive quantities of anything is going to take water, lots of it. On a regional basis, having a variety of different crops utilizing a specific areas ability to grow that crop is the problem. Surface water based crops pose special problems and further pollution of waterways and surface water is virtually guaranteed, and damage to whole eco systems would be another nightmare. To complicate this, we are now just beginning to experience water shortages in this country. And, the further away we get from traditional crops the more infrastructures will have to be built to support that type of crop. Again, where will the investment money come from and the work force to support it?
So, from all of this I conclude it is going to be regional localized production if any at all, not national. In my neck of the woods where gardening all by itself is a severe challenge that not many are ready to try at this time, I have no idea what could be used for just our local community to produce ethanol, even if our local poor assed area could somehow come up with the money and materials to build a conversion plant. We were unsuccessful in our first attempt to get switch grass to grow here, for feeding animals, much less producing the tonnage for ethanol production. We are going to try again. While it is true that this area raises lots of cattle and horses and thus there is pasture land, it is limited. So I speculate that in our area we swallow the high cost of fuel imported into the area, or we just quit driving so much. I fully realize that other areas do not have these types of disadvantages, but I think that there are more areas that have these problems than not.
One other problem that is not addressed is the upsetting of the ecology by monocropping anything. We can already track the damage to eco systems and land fertility by monocropping. If we develop other monocrop non traditional farming, (like surface water plants) we will only be compounding the problems. We are already seeing the effects of this type of farming in pollution of the land and water. How much worse are we willing to make it to keep the nations travel miles intact?
From the above arguments, I have to conclude that the hard line advocacy of ethanol production to solve our liquid fuel problems is a futile attempt to keep what we have and is not based on the realities of our environment.
Now on to a not so popular view on this subject. One of my big concerns concerning finding any form of power on a vast scale that is affordable and easily available is the social consequences. Presently, I find our popular and mass culture in this country to be pitiful, disgusting, and irrelevant to what I consider important, and I would just as soon see it make some big changes. Any continuation of our present energy usage will not bring about that change, at least in my opinion. People are simply not going to get out of their comfort zones voluntarily. Peak oil and peak everything else will force it to change. I just hope it is for the better, and again, I would like to live long enough to see how it works itself out.
28 comments:
From Belgium,
Murph
Investors will not put money into any new scheme until they have wrung out every last cent on their present investment. Big Petra is too big; if any technology looks like upsetting the apple cart then they will just buy it and bury it.
On the subject of introducing a new form of fuel, look at how quickly lead free gas was introduced and accepted after the petrol companies decided to bite the bullet.
One form of biomass you didn’t mention was sea kelp which could be grown off shore and would not affect present agricultural usage. Any change in nature is going to have a knock on effect somewhere but not all change is necessarily bad change. So far we do not know what the consequence of this would be. Would it be worth finding out.
From the above arguments, I have to conclude that the hard line advocacy of ethanol production to solve our liquid fuel problems is a futile attempt to keep what we have and is not based on the realities of our environment.
well murph, if the arguments are valid the conclusion would be justified. you may be at a point where you've thrown the baby out with the still wat.... errrr, i mean bath water. i can create a model to validate any of your arguments and those presented in the links you provided. conversely, i can create a model to dispell them as well. every damn one of them.
so where do you want to start?
and btw, we don't have to dream up models where we're only speculating about results though we could and would regarding some of them. i.e., global warming. or some of the newer technologies being advanced. but there are plenty of working models with long lists of historical data already in existence for us to draw upon and we can spring from there.
aside from population, whats your biggest concern? ... p
I do believe ethanol may end up being the biggest boondoggle in the history of the planet. If there is a god/goddess/gods out there somewhere or just some intelligent aliens watching us, I am quite certain they are having a good laugh at our expense. We definitely do some stupid things.
Most of this is about greed. Why do we want such stupid things? Why can't we be happy with hearth and home and family and friends? That's all that really matters in this world. We don't need cars or electricity or any of that stuff -just each other.
P,
lol, ok What is your model to keep additional land and water pollution at bay by massive harvesting of surface water plants? How are you going to deal with ecological depletion in some area you wish to exploit. I hope it is obvious to you that massive farming has upset and propagated ecological depletion on a huge scale. One of the areas I draw on is the land based raising of shrimp. I has been a disaster for area pollution.
I do honestly believe we cannot support massive ethanol production on farm land, just not enough of it, just not enough arable land available. And BTW, what baby am I throwing with what water? lol
I know you have been looking at ethanol production favorably. You haven't advanced how you are planning to escalate liquid production sufficient to offset gasoline production by just 13% much less 100%. I agree that we have models we can draw from, Brazil being one of them. However, any comment on how much rain forest has been depleted to do this? I have also read articles some time ago that the model of Brazil is not valid, that the country is not running on ethanol to the extent that is claimed. I haven't researched this for a couple of years now so I can only draw on what I remember. Might be an interesting thing to look at seriously.
Belgium,
The quick use of lead free fuel was not a new fuel, it was the old with additives. Took virtually no increase in infrastructure.
Indeed sea kelp works, but on a massive scale, how would it affect marine life that depends on it. Already, 95% of the large marine life is gone and whole areas of the ocean are dead and/or dying. It sure appears to me that massive harvesting of anything from the oceans is going to have drastic side effects. Massive harvesting of fish is case in point. I am interested, what change in nature do you consider benign? I will assert that every small change in the natural order is compounded and will have drastic changes, many we can observe today. The object is not to have man made changes I think.
ras,
I would assert that it is and has been a boondoggle and further is focusing further wealth into fewer hands, and on many fronts.
I reckon that hearth and home alone are no longer sufficient for most of the population. When it becomes sufficient, then it will eliminate much of the ridiculous parts of our society.
P,
Oh yes, how do you respond to this from the third link I posted?
More damning, however, is that converting corn to ethanol requires about 99,119 BTUs to make one gallon, which has 77,000 BTUs of available energy. So about 29 percent more energy is required to produce a gallon of ethanol than is stored in that gallon in the first place.
From Belgium,
I will admit that lead free gas was not a new fuel. I mentioned it in the sense that it took a leap of faith on the part of the petrol companies that everybody would have their carbs tweeked and go for the concept.
I know that alcohol as a substitute for gas (petrol, naft etc) was mentioned a few posts ago and for a short while comments on two posts were running simultaneously but why limit your argument to alcohol as a substitute. I have the feeling, maybe erroneously, that if those in control of matters suddenly gave the Tesla technologies away for free and without metering devices and gave as a rider that as an added benefit there would be no overall increase in world population, you would still find an argument to be against it.
I do not know of any man made changes to nature which are benign but what I do know is that nature is changing all the time of its own accord. We do not know for certain why the dinosaurs died but when a whole class of species suddenly was not there any more every other living species did not die as a result of this. Nature adjusted and remade a new balance point. Perhaps it was this reduction in predators which gave mans’ predecessors the advantage to become what they are today. I also do not understand the essence of the life force; only that it does exist. According to a National Geographic program, living organisms have been discovered in such unlikely places as Venus living in a high pressure atmosphere of methane; the moons of Saturn at about 150°F above absolute zero and in the acidified radioactive lagoons of the Chernobyl plant. This does not imply that I am in favour of mankind acting recklessly towards the planet and in fact in a previous post I bemoaned that mankind was systematically poisoning a rape victim – Mother Earth. I am not arguing that we should rush Pell Mell to see how quickly we can get through the species but I believe that nature will find different solutions to restoring a balance point. Are you arguing that either mankind left to its own devices should be the only species apart from lemmings to press the self destruct button or that we should have a Final Solution imposed upon us? Alternatively should mankind refrain from any activity which impacts on his surroundings?
Navigating back to alcohol, I am not arguing that marine life would die out if we introduced kelp farms. I imagine that these would be in designated areas and there would be plenty left over for the marine life which depends upon it. Thinking about it logically, if kelp was farmed at sea, how are you going to keep other marine species out? In fact as the kelp increases the marine life which depends upon it may increase also. For all I know there may be a symbiotic link between kelp and other marine species. If these species become overwhelming to other marine life, then nature will adjust to form a new balance point.
Overall, I am left with the feeling that your argument is not about alcohol but more to do with aspects of human behaviour.
What we really need to do is get TOTALLY away from the internal combustion engine. But for the reason mentioned by anonymous from Belgium, that will not be coming anytime in the near future....
b... "In fact as the kelp increases the marine life which depends upon it may increase also. For all I know there may be a symbiotic link between kelp and other marine species."
considering kelp takes in CO2 and exhausts O and fish are vicie vercie, thats exactly the point. however, its not that simple and all potential consequences need to be examined.
all... have any of y'all taken a hard look at the dead zones in oceans and waterways of this planet? what killed em and how'd they get that way? how we gonna fix it? better put, how are we going to stop doing what killed them so mamma nature can fix it? any y'all got any ideas? ras? mostly all i've heard so far is how alcohol is the demon curse of mankind and anybody who suggests differently can go to hell. we're on our way. and alcohol ain't got much to do with it!
murph... i got a real prob with this pimentel guy. i'd want to turn over some rocks on the claim that "The growers and processors can't afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol" but i don't have time right now what he's implying is that none do. do you know that to be fact? at this point i'd think it would likely be more correct to say they do not use methenol cuz thats what's often used when the system fuels the system. lets speculate for a minute... what if i find out they do? where would you be on this guy then? i really don't know about the big industrial ops and thats what he's referring to. i'd have to go looking. but i know one thing... thats not the case with small cottage systems. and it don't have to be the case with larger ones.
and have you given any thought to why he would use btu's to make his point when nobody else does? thats not the way acedemics, engineers, and techs would normally go about it is it? isn't the issue about work, not heat? why's he razzle dazzle us with btu's when it would be far more correct to speak in terms of joules wouldn't it?
i also have some issues with his math in the dvorak link but that will take some unpacking too.
but i have even greater concern with the guy's overall credibility and his influence on the public and this needs to be brought into this discussion. many acedemics dismiss him. here's an example..... http://www.newrules.org/agri/netenergyresponse.pdf you can cut to the chase on your guy by scrolling down to pg 7.
why is he always publishing his papers in the same journal not known for peer-reviewing other biological papers or those on renewable energy? used to be international association for mathematical geology's nonrenewable resources. now renamed natural resources research, which handles aspects of non-renewable resources, both metallic and non-metallic.
why in a recent paper would he describe as "independent" a DOE study by the ERAB [energy research advisory board, gasahol, 1980] and cite it as his "credible" source as to why we should believe his negative energy balance allegations forwarded in the recent paper {same one cited in the morris piece i believe] when the proclaimed evidence was a study actually led by pimentel himself 25 years earlier? why should it not be surprising that the conclusion of that ERAB study was that the u.s. should abandon attempts at producing ethanol and instead rely on mobil oil's process for making synthetic gasoline from coal? a clue to the answer might lie in the fact that he was working for mobil at the time? why wasn't this discolsed to the DOE at the time [jack anderson, gasohol program: prey to big oil] the study was commissioned?
this is the kinda stuff that usually lights us up around the old campfire here whenever one of us discovers we might just be being had. pementel is THE go-to guy for the media... the darling of the peak oil community and the jerome corsi of anti-biofuel slam jobs. many roads lead back to this guy as the self-proclaimed "credible expert". is this guy a pimp? if the glove fits must we convict?
i don't have a prob with anyone playing devil's advocate. in fact, its healthy in debate. especially now-a-days. but lets at least ask who the devil might be before jumping to conclusions that they're acting in our behalf to save us from our own folly!!
as for the mileage issue... blume writes about his years of field studies and those done by independents all of which "commonly indicate reductions in mileage of 10 to 15% in low compression conversions of engines designed for gasoline." i can look beyond blume and find similar. eth is high octane juice. add load and efficiencies increase on eth, decrease on gas. studies bear this out. arguably ICE tech has 100 years under its belt tweaking systems to burn gas. these studies are based on engines tweaked to that technology. some with modification. some stock. using the same tech the industry could easily tweak the ICE to optimise for alcohol. blume....
"alcohol has achieved 48% work efficiency in the lab, and 43+% effieiency on the road [matthew brusstar, et al., high efficiency and low emmissions from a port-injected engine with neat alcohol fuels, for u.s. environmental protection agency, sae paper 2002-01-2743, 2002]. standard gasoline engines converted to using alcohol will get much better mileage than the heating value would indicate, although generally a little less than gasoline. engines designed to take advantage of ethanol's fuel characteristics will generate more miles per gallon, at lower cost per mile, with less than 1% of gasolines's pollutants, and with negative CO2 emissions."
gasoline efficancy hovers between 15-20%. after 100 years of what are sposed to be some of the smartest guys on the planet. why the hell haven't we been vaporizing after all this time? there are over 250 patents issued on this. some inventors mysteriously dead. some patents bought up and thats the end of it. the work of the alcohol monster? i stubed my toe. better cut it off so it don't happen again. people are pissed. they're looking for a bad guy to blame. most of them know big oil and big auto have been funkin with us for years. they feel powerless and for the most part they are. small, cottage industry ops, provide a way to re-claim our power and feel like we actually have some control over our own destiny. at the same time live sustainable, ecologically sound practices. but most won't claim it. they think its a bunch of hooey without even lookin. sometimes i think they'd rather just bitch.
in your article you expressed concern about infrastructure change necessary to alts. as for alts i'd certainly agree on H. and likely anything approaching pickens plan. as for the ICE, we've already got it. when it comes to burning alcohol in it the only thing needing changing is our heads! that and modifying for even greater efficancy and even less pollutants.... p
P,
I will admit that I have not done a lot of cross checking on different sources. Perhaps all of them have agendas? I also believe that we have gotten a bend over job from the oil companies. My grandfather was an old steam buff. Back in the 50's he insisted that if we had put the engineering and research into steam engines, that is what we would be driving, more efficient according to what I've read.
I think you have missed my point concerning infrastructure. I carefully mentioned that distribution infrastructure for ethanol was in place, it was the production infrastructure and conversion to ethanol from plant material infrastructure that would have to be developed on a massive scale. I fully realize that the engines need little if any change. I have read several articles (didn't keep them) concerning the ethanol conversion infrastructure not turning out as had been planned and abandoned in the Midwest. Don't remember the circumstances or details.
Palooka, it very well could be that ethanol has a practical place for internal combustion engines in the future. I know there is a lot of controversy over that. I personally do have an aversion to quick fixes that are touted as our saving grace. In almost every case I can think of in our society, quick fixes have had some very real and unforeseen consequences that were not so good.
Further, I do not consider alcohol to be a demon curse at all. It is simply another molecular combination that will perform tasks, making us drunk or fueling our cars. Whether we synthesize or create organically some variation of alcohol is not my point. I am concerned with what it will take to do it on a massive scale and the consequences of it. I do not dispute that if enough investment was put into it, it could be done. Again, what will be the side effects of doing so?
Let's take a look at a massive infrastructure change that has had some definite bad side effects. The "green revolution" where in an advertised effort to feed the world, we started dumping GMO seeds on the ground, dumped tremendous amounts of pesticides in the ground and we still can't feed a rapidly growing world population. Meanwhile, this factory farming has destroyed massive areas of farm land, contributes to poisoning our food and ground water. Or look at factory methods of meat farming, which is really disturbing I find. Consequences to the animals involved and the poisoning of the meat supplies are well documented. I am asserting that the agricultural production of ethanol will have many of the same disadvantages and probably a lot more that we can't see right now. Both of these took some really big infrastructure changes from the family farm to the factory farm. These changes took place over time, and even though not a quick fix, the side effects have been really bad for us humans. What we are talking about here is another massive and quick changeover to another form of factory farming dedicated to ethanol production whether it is on land or water.
At least at this point, I am not convinced but will keep the information line open.
Belgium,
I thought the changeover to lead free gas was mandated. Not so?
Your second paragraph is misleading as to where I stand. At the present, would population is sufficient that large groups of people are starving because food production is not sufficient. History of people and reproduction is well documented in relation to available resources. If we had all the Telsa free energy, would it be possible at all in any way to limit human reproduction? What kind of world government would we have to have to try and enforce that?
Yes, nature appears to be changing all the time, although there are periods with small changes over time and big massive changes in short time periods. It is also true that we find life, or evidence of life in what has been considered until recently to be impossible.
The argument that I subscribe to concerning mans imprint on his environment centers on sustainability. My view, is that unless we can live sustainably, eventually we will self destruct. May take awhile, eventually, it all runs out or we drown in our own waste.
I also am not arguing that water farming by itself will cause other species to die out, but that mans intensive farming will cause that.
It seems to me that we either look at humans as a separate and self sustaining species aside from or despite the environment or we look at humans as another life form linked to the environment. In the first, we then have to say that all the biological systems that sustain us are incidental and what we need to sustain ourselves is infinite. Anything in between is a version of this first view. I have talked with people that believe that is true and look at what we call the natural world as just another resource to be exploited.
In my lifetime, I have observed a general degradation of the environment due to attitudes like this. Many species of animal and plant life I flat out don't see anymore. We have to answer the question of whether this is good, bad, or indifferent. I come down on the bad side.
You are correct in a way that I am concerned with human behavior. As a species we seem to go to extremes about most everything. As a consequence, we create problems that demand more extreme behavior.
What is the way out? Maybe another problem that has no solution?
Hola to all....
http://www.airturbineengine.com/index.html
found his link to be interesting for a bunch of reasons just wish I was close enough to Las Vegas to have a closer look a this concept.
Seems it is based on certain vortex characteristics that was proposed by Victor Schauberger, and this person claims he has been able to put those ideologies to work. Have a look see tell me what y'all think.
Regarding ethanol production. Down here in the south part of the globe sugar cane is easy to grow, grows rapidly, grows all year round and in some places the farmers consider it almost a dang pest and harvesting is often done by cheap labor not the expensive harvesters. It has that advantage over corn based ethanol.
OK that was my 2 pesos worth
Ely
If we ever do come up with a means of limitless free energy I am going to immediately use my share to build a starship to get the f**k off this burg before we turn it into a blasted burned-out cinder, which I would lay odds would be the ultimate outcome.
P, re dead zones: they are caused by massive amounts of nutrients, mostly from monocropped industrial farm fields but sometimes from city sewers, washing into the ocean. Algae feeds on these nutrients and has a population boom and after the resulting crash the decaying algae sucks all the oxygen out of the water creating hypoxic conditions that kill the nearby marine life.
How to fix it? Stop dumping so much damn fertilizer and waste into our rivers. The dead zones will naturally rebalance themselves when that happens.
In other news, I saw a big, honking fancy SUV today and do you know what the license plate read? I'M RICH. I thought, that's nice; now pull over and leave your SUV alone for five minutes so I can key Fuck Off into the paint.
Ok, I wouln't really have done that.
Probably.
I have GOT to get out of the city before it drives me bonkers.
This may sound off-topic, but it's not. And it is a serious question, that humanity needs to address.
Who is making the crop circles, and how are they making them?
Chances are, the technology used to create these magnificent designs requires no internal combustion or nuclear fission.
Hoaxes? Surely, you jest.
There's a new one at Wiltshire. A celtic cross.
Instead of smashing protons, why don't our brightest minds try solving this easily-ignored/denied enigma?
My suspicion is that 'free energy' has more than a little to do with what's happening all over the planet, as regards the circles.
-rockpicker
"Humans are a virus."
Easter Island, part duex, here we come!
Dude
Ely,
I tried to track down somewhere a description of what principles this concept is built on. The only reference is back to Shauberger stated principle with no real details that I can find so far. The concept seems to directly contradict, on the surface anyway, our laws of physics. If this is true, he has the whole scientific community to battle with since they would then have to rewrite almost of all physics understanding.
One interesting thing about the site is all the rhetoric of virtually free energy and the tremendous benefit to mankind and hardly any information on the engine itself. Now if the guy is so concerned about the extreme benefit to humanity, what is his problem with just building one of these things large enough to actually demonstrate what it is capable of. I can understand wanting to be rich for his effort. But ease off on the rhetoric of being a gift to humanity and get on with it. Whenever I see claims of such an exulted nature it sets my weird shit o meter to quivering, a la Stoney. If a person invents something that will actually do what is tauted, why with all the public bull shit along with it? The object would be to get it built, and stay alive long enough to see it used and hopefully get rich doing it. Of course, the staying alive in todays world might just be the hardest part. We have a bunch of examples of how difficult that can be. Either that, or this is just another scam.
rockpicker,
You are right on the crop circles thing. With all our satellite stuff, I cannot believe that if it was a hoax, we couldn't have pictures of guys out there making them by now. Been going on for too long, what is it now, 20 years?
rp... certainly not off topic in my view. something or someone is definitly talking to us. and it ain't runnin on alcohol though many think the ones who think some intelligence is at work here have been snortin the sauce. the celtic cross has been followed by the the pentagon err, err, pentagram.
i generally check in daily here.... http://www.earthfiles.com/
linda moulton howe, the queen of high strangeness, keeps her broom pointed toward the horizon and not much gets past without her saying hey... lookie here folks.
how bout you? where you checkin in?
i do believe your suspicions will soon be serious sortie in the soup. and the flyers of more conventional sorties are scared shitless!! ha!!!
... hcukme
I totally don't get crop circles. I think they are beautiful, wondrous, even. But, WFT?? Some are known to be hoaxes. So, why not the rest? I have seen the videos of energy orbs or lights over the fields that supposedly created some of them. But, no real proof.
But, if they are not hoaxes, and they are some sort of message, what's the fucking message? That there are space hippies or extra-terrestrial geometry artists that want to come here and make pictures in our fields because they are loaded and this is some sort of space humor? They are space-based Celts and witches making idiosyncratic patterns that have some sort of significance to people with a history of playing Dungeons and Dragons?? Why don't they just break down and spell it out like Burma Shave signs along the road:
"Nice planet you have here. Too bad you fucked it up," or
"We note that you are getting fatter. Be back soon to cull the herd."
I don't know. The best that I can come up with in my mind is that the reason we are not getting word messages is because it is not people that we are dealing with. I think it might be the planet Herself. The Mother is perhaps talking to us in the patterns that are common to all life and energy forms in the universe, to show us that She is sentient. And, maybe She is using life forms that have been known as fairies or elves to do the work. I haven't got a friggin' clue what the real deal is, but this explanation makes me feel the best.
I know this is a change in subject but I came across this article that I thought was well done.
http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=847#more-847
I've been thinking about it, and I think the Limits to Growth models showed that our civilization as its currently modeled would collapse even with a supply of free energy, because one of the other constraints would bite us in the ass: water, topsoil loss, pollution, resource levels, etc. These would all get us in the end, but the problems would come at a differetn time depending on rates of use, etc. I can't find the book right now or I could say for sure.
On another note, I'm still looking for a "real" job and could someone please tell me why anyone has the right to make me pee in a cup in order to get a job? Oh yeah, this is America, I forgot, sorry...
Not that I've got anything to hide. With the exception of coffee and the occasional beer I've never done drugs. But I'd rather go herd goats in the hills somewhere than pee in a cup for some fascist pig.
Come to think of it, I'd go do that anyway if I could find a place!
ras,
Yup, that peeing in a cup is a drag, and for god's sake, don't put any poppy seed dressing on your salad a few weeks before hand either. And to keep the color right, don't take any vit B complexes for a few days or you get questioned on that too. Been there, done that. Course it's ok to have legal drugs that fuck you up when you apply.
I had an employer once brag to me that he could tell when his employees were on drugs. I didn't tell him that 90% of his work force smoked pot on the job, and the other 10% took all kinds of stuff at home, I was one of them. lol. What a jerk.
Sheep herder uh? Well, there are worse jobs, I've had a few of those too. I think to apply for sheep herder they are now demanding 10 years experience or a degree in herding of something. Probably have to have helicopter license too. Maybe even a degree in engineering would be helpful. Haven't seen any help wanted ads for the job for a long time though. lol. Career change time.
Murph, lol. I was actually talking about goats. I do a bit of experience with them, believe it or not. I like them a lot. They are stubborn, ornery, and hard-headed. In other words, me with horns. ;-)
And the Nigerian Dwarfs -my favorites -are just about the prettiest animals you'll see anywhere. I could use the milk to make soap; I'm an experienced soapmaker all ready and goatsmilk soap is the best.
Ras;
There are jobs available here in southwestern Montana for people who can tend sheep in the mountains. No joke. Not a lot of call, but there is some small demand. Used to be much greater. I'm talking several thousand sheep to the herd. And months pretty much alone in the mountains. 7,000 to 10,000 feet. Constantly moving. Griz, wolves, coyotes, storms, lonliness. This country's big enough to lose all yer sorrow's in, and lonesome enough to break yer heart...
No shit.
Murph,
Aye, then. The stalks being generally not broken, but only bent, and the bends at the nodes on the same sides of the plants indicating consistent force, and all the plants laid down in the same direction, not crushed into submission, not killed, but urged into genuflection by some other-worldly force, I say, is message enough to ponder.
McLuhan said the media is the message.
In this case, observe the size, the mathematical sophistication, the precision of the execution of the designs.
Freeacre, it's good you are mystified. As fear is a sign of intelligence, so too is bewilderment. The figure eight of June was measured to be 950 feet top to bottom. It contained 44 perfect circles of graduated size, arranged in such a way as to remind humanity of the up-coming lunar eclipse of Aug. 16. If it was a hoax, I'd love for science to examine it thoroughly and get back to us as to how, exactly, it was perpetrated, with special attention applied to the lack of footprints and the anomolous radiation levels observed in the soil beneath the circles. Hopefully, they'll come up with something a bit more substantial than the NIST report on the WTC7. Berma Shave.
-rockpicker
Ooh; I just had a thought. How's about we have an Olympic cropcircle competition next time, and we'll see just what humanity is capable of?
-rp
odium, odium,
what's occurred
to rhodium?
-rp
Hopefully, they'll come up with something a bit more substantial than the NIST report on the WTC7.
and..... on how the pyramids were built
urged into genuflection
oh my, what a wonderful choice of descriptive word.
I don't know about this guy with the turbine engine. He's got a turbine, and he's got some nice jeweled bearings in a housing for it so it spins real easy, but so far that's all I've seen it do!
If I built an engine that runs on ambient air, I would have it hooked up to something, and running! I would be PROVING what I had done! This guy spins his "turbine", which does absolutely nothing, and says "send me a check"! Nope! Not buying it!
Crop circles? Yep! I know what they say! They say: Who the fuck is Richard Nixon, and why are we picking him up on our communication equipment?"
Ethanol? I remember certain members of my community creating this commodity through crude but effective means! I seem to remember you got a lot of it with the use of very little corn! I also remember that corn being fed to livestock after it had been used for this purpose.
In fact I remember this commodity being much MUCH easier to make than we are being lead to believe! I remember it being used to fuel supercharged, and turbocharge race cars to obscene speeds! In fact I drove a couple of these cars (alcohol drag cars) at these speeds! The stuff burned so clean, that on a clear day, you couldn't even see the flame! They gave us something to mix with it so the flame would be visible! Otherwise you couldn't tell it was on fire!
I don't know what the scrabbling rabble that hang out on Wall Street are trying to pull off with ethanol, but you can rest assured, it won't be good, and it won't be cheap!
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