The Next Depression?

[TheMartianChick]

Quote:
My local library is literally in my back yard. It is a wonderful community resource. I love to read, so this keeps me from buying books at the bookstore. I also buy books on Ebay from one particular seller in Canada. She usually packs them in a computer paper box, so I can buy a lot at a time.The prices are so reasonable that even with shipping, they are a bargain. When I travel, I take those with me so that it isn't a big deal if I lose one along the way.

 

[swampducks]

I love your name TheMartianChick! Now you just need an avatar of Mars with a chick standing on it.

 

[banter]

Don't get me started! I was the chief cook and bottle washer and art advocate at a large library outside of Boston for 23 years. My main job was children's programming. We offered
storytelling, music, crafts, baby-time, history, civic and nature based programs. We had lot's of holiday parties and a Scrabble club. We hatched chickens, ducks and quails with 4H. We worked with both Boy Scout troops and Girl Scouts Even small libraries offer many programs, AND with community support and input are willing for ideas to do for more. They cannot, however be for profit. That is of course in addition to books, movies, videos, inter-library loans
etc. etc. ect.......! All for FREE!

We hatched allot of beautiful chicks which many children would have never had the opportunity to witness!

 

[dirtdoctor]

hello,

Great posts here on this wonderful topic,

I love the topic of future times and hard times, diesel is now $4.15/ California, not from lack of surplus, but due to several things, 1, environmentalist keep us from building more production faciliities, so the demand is pressed, but the Investing in Petroleum futures has jumped the prices way up. If you havent heard of Permaculture, i would suggest you get the book and start preparing. It aint gonna get better for a long time, Since our great government has decided to bail out financial companies, printing more fiat money, and devalue stocks oh its only just begun.

Get your seeds, plan on living off your land, supply your family meds and necessarys cause they will be REALLY Expensive in teh near future.

I had to pass on the extra fuel costs of our organic recycling business SOILS TO GROW, to the customers and they told us that they wont be using our services as MUCH as normal, that they were cutting down, scaling back.

I have run bio diesel, its ok. takes alot of oil, to work, i used to run it in two dumptrucks, three loaders, and four other grinders and screens, One bad batch, and i spent thousands of dollars repairing machinery. And then Who do you go after? to recoupe the costs? NO ONE... WHY kill the poor little guy trying to make a buck with a alternative fuel.

If they would allow the sulfur to remain in the diesel fuel, then our forests might be stronger, in California its been 20 yrs of reduced air polution, acid rain, now our forests have a severe decline of SULFUR, (main ingredient of ACID RAIN)... so the balance in our forests is outta whack, and the bugs and dieseases are getting stronger as our forests decline from lack of sulfur. OH isnt man smart....

Plus the low sulfur reduces the amount of lubercation in the diesel which equates to more wear and tear on a diesel engine. replace one in the dump trucks and your @20,000 poorer.

then we pass the costs on.... to you....
so, grow your own, economize like crazy and dont advertise that your prepared for the crunch, some folks dont have, and when they NEED they might just wanna TAKE what you have... keep the powder dry and the water clean.

jack
Soils To Grow LLC
[email protected]

 

[Rosalind]

I'm not sure I said modern diesel is less efficient. Biodiesel is less efficent but not the
processes we use to combust it. I may not be understanding you here but let me
give an example of what I mean. A town here in CT is using a bio/diesel misture in all
their diesel equipment including generators, my specialty. The trucks are getting less mileage per gallon, the generators are burning more fuel per kw, and the maintenance
costs have skyrocketed. I'm a field tech on the front lines. I see what these declared
miracle fuels really do.

OK, I must have misunderstood you.

But, if you will tolerate a few more engineering questions:

-What type of biodiesel blends are they running? There was a report recently (and darned if I can find it now) about a lack of quality control in biodiesel blends, and the report's main finding was that the ASTM needed a little work on robustness and also had not been consistently implemented or followed up on.

-How are the biodiesel blends being introduced? If they are not properly introduced into systems that previously ran straight diesel, they can really wreck a system. Regular diesel and heating fuel oil dissolves metal flakes and plastics more than biodiesel, and it contains more solid non-combustible residue (esp. if made from coal). Regular diesel is also slightly less viscous. So when you introduce this more syrupy, cleaner-burning goo into the system, a lot of the sludge (dissolved crud from years of diesel use) gets pushed out into the combustion chamber and coats the electrodes. As you might imagine, this can cause some very serious damage to the system. Are the biodiesel blends being increased gradually on a schedule known to be effective for that machine?

-Have the machines (truck engines, generators, etc.) been altered in any way to accommodate more veggie-oil blends? The greater a proportion of veggie oil you run, the more likely it is you'll need a second in-line fuel filter to remove, well, basically burnt french fries and such, depending on what your veggie oil source is. Biodiesel, due to its different permeability/solubility in certain plastics, also makes EPDM gaskets and hoses blow out. Bad news is, most rubber machine parts these days are EPDMs. Those gaskets should be replaced with silicone or Viton rubber ones when converting to biodiesel or veggie oil. And believe me, I know exactly how many rubber gaskets and hoses are in a truck, a generator...The fuel filter should be changed on a different schedule, too, and needs to have a highly efficient water separator prefilter.

I can't remember if I said it in this thread or another one, but implementation makes a big difference. Also, I gotta tell ya, as an engineer--when first implementing new things, they WILL go wrong. Often horribly so. It takes time to get anything, no matter what it is, up and running. But once it's working well, you take it for granted. That's just how things go, I'm afraid. It's the way the Model T went, too.​

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
OK, I must have misunderstood you.

But, if you will tolerate a few more engineering questions:

-What type of biodiesel blends are they running? There was a report recently (and darned if I can find it now) about a lack of quality control in biodiesel blends, and the report's main finding was that the ASTM needed a little work on robustness and also had not been consistently implemented or followed up on.

-How are the biodiesel blends being introduced? If they are not properly introduced into systems that previously ran straight diesel, they can really wreck a system. Regular diesel and heating fuel oil dissolves metal flakes and plastics more than biodiesel, and it contains more solid non-combustible residue (esp. if made from coal). Regular diesel is also slightly less viscous. So when you introduce this more syrupy, cleaner-burning goo into the system, a lot of the sludge (dissolved crud from years of diesel use) gets pushed out into the combustion chamber and coats the electrodes. As you might imagine, this can cause some very serious damage to the system. Are the biodiesel blends being increased gradually on a schedule known to be effective for that machine?

-Have the machines (truck engines, generators, etc.) been altered in any way to accommodate more veggie-oil blends? The greater a proportion of veggie oil you run, the more likely it is you'll need a second in-line fuel filter to remove, well, basically burnt french fries and such, depending on what your veggie oil source is. Biodiesel, due to its different permeability/solubility in certain plastics, also makes EPDM gaskets and hoses blow out. Bad news is, most rubber machine parts these days are EPDMs. Those gaskets should be replaced with silicone or Viton rubber ones when converting to biodiesel or veggie oil. And believe me, I know exactly how many rubber gaskets and hoses are in a truck, a generator...The fuel filter should be changed on a different schedule, too, and needs to have a highly efficient water separator prefilter.

I can't remember if I said it in this thread or another one, but implementation makes a big difference. Also, I gotta tell ya, as an engineer--when first implementing new things, they WILL go wrong. Often horribly so. It takes time to get anything, no matter what it is, up and running. But once it's working well, you take it for granted. That's just how things go, I'm afraid. It's the way the Model T went, too.

Wow. I must say I'm impressed by your response. I originally thought you were
just some lab chemist or engineer with limited mechanical aptitude. These questions
prove my original assesment of you was wrong. Most of these posts just scratch the
surface of biofuels as most people simply don't understand them.

I'll do my best to answer your questions. My experience with the specific town is one
of talking to the town mechanics and working on and perfroming maintenance to the
diesel generators.

I have no idea what their source is. Most towns buy fuel based on lowest price and
get further state and federal assistance for using things such as a biofuel. The quality
is horrible. You can literally smell the cooking oil blended in to the fuel. The fuel filters
clog up often and upon inspection of them there is literally the same sludge I get in
my turkey fryer.

The bioblends are not being introduced, they are just replacing the older fuels. There
is no field modification that I'm aware of. The consistency of the bio is less viscous than
standard diesel. I'm curious to see what cold temps are going to do to the equipment.

Regular diesel contains more non-combustable material?? I'm sure you can make bio
fuels in the lab that are more refined than standard diesel but this isn't what I have
seen. The exhaust is much thicker with bio. Keep in mind these are not tier 3 emmission
engines we are talking about.

The bio is derating my generators by as much as 20%. I've verified this while load banking
a large Cummins genset that needed a voltage regulator retrofit. The engines simply
run out of horsepower. I was assuming this was due to a lower btu rating of the biofuel.

Now, let me mention teir 3 emmissions. The Caterpiller and Cummins techs I know who
work with the engines a lot more than me (I'm more a power systems geek) are crying
about the new engines. The microfiltration filters are clogging up almost daily, even
with standard diesel. Making these engines run low grade bio is gonna be a disaster.

Now, if fuel prices rise further and we can make a high grade biofuel for $3 a gallon it's
gonna change everything. I truly would love to see it.

There are other cases I've seen too. If we were face to face I'd love to tell you about
the Capstone microturbines we had running off digester gas but that is a different subject,
sort of. And cogeneration is a passion of mine too.

Please understand, I love and constantly read & study alternate energies. I also see
a ton of politics and public misinformation about them. Our goverment is throwing
so much wasted money at pipe dream technologies. Let's start by getting thermal
solar panels on every roof, electric cars that really work, and a retrofit and buildout
of our nuclear infrastructure.

These technologies coupled with American ingenuity can be the next thing to drive
our economy in a positive direction.

Don

 

[quadcam79]

ok people come visit me.. http://www.backyardtechnology.com/technofarming/

I've been working hard at getting away from reliance on others.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Was wondering when you were gonna chime in Quad. The structure for my
elevated garden is almost complete. Now I just need to finish excavation and
put in a Tilapia pond, all thanks to your suggestion.

 

[GwenFarms]

Tilapia pond caught my eye. I'm going to check your site out now.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
Quad has some pics of an Australian woman's hydroponic setup. A very small pond
is filled with Tilapia. The water filters through a garden, feeding the plants and
cleaning the water. The plants and fish are harvested. It's brilliant and something
many of us can do on our own.