DrumBeat: June 13, 2007
Posted by Leanan on June 13, 2007 - 8:53am
Topic: Miscellaneous
SOME ways of cutting carbon are cheaper than others. So, at different carbon prices, different sorts of methods of abatement become worthwhile. Vattenfall, a Swedish power utility, has tried to quantify which ones would be worth undertaking at what price.The result is a testament to economic irrationality. The measures below the horizontal line have a negative abatement cost—in other words, by carrying them out, people and companies could both cut emissions and save money. At a macroeconomic level they would boost, rather than reduce, economic growth.
Four Takes on Global Oil Demand, Supply and Disruption
Four major oil- and energy- related reports emerged this week: the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Oil Market Report (OMR); BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2007; the Short-term Energy Outlook (STEO) from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA); and the EIA’s 2007 Outlook for Hurricane Impacts on Gulf of Mexico Crude Oil & Natural Gas Production.
A $3 gadget that promises to quench a user's thirst for a year without spare parts, electricity or maintenance.
Companies will 'buy' their way out of polluting
Big European companies will be able to buy their way out of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, an environmental watchdog claims today.
India snubs West on climate change
India will not curb its greenhouse gas emissions as long as the West continues to treat it as a 'second class global citizen' with less right to pollute than the developed world, a senior Indian environment official has said.
Businesses accused of green hypocrisy
At a "summit" on the issue organised by the Guardian in London, Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth, accused Shell of sponsoring the event in a bid to align itself with green issues while failing to clean up its own act.
Stay cool without overheating your wallet
Is your home equipped to handle the heat waves many areas experience in the summer months? Even though you may not be able to control the weather outside, there are still simple steps you can take to keep your home cool and comfortable and reduce your utility bills at the same time.
John Michael Greer: A depopulation explosion?
In the examples [ibn Khaldun] surveyed, agricultural societies were conquered by new ruling classes of nomad origin, who saw their subjects as cash cows but failed to realize that cows have to be fed. Revenues needed to maintain vital infrastructure were thus diverted into unproductive uses, sending societies into a downward spiral of economic collapse and depopulation from which they rarely recovered.In the the twilight of the industrial age, ibn Khaldun’s insight is likely to be worth close attention. There aren’t a lot of nomads at the edges of today’s civilizations, but too many members of the political class in the modern world have no more sense of the importance of infrastructure to survival than the nomad rulers ibn Khaldun critiques, and the malign neglect so often visited on infrastructure in the US and elsewhere may be a foretaste of worse to come.
World Energy Patterns Showed Evidence of Shifting in 2006
The year 2006 was another year of high and volatile energy prices. But despite high prices, world energy consumption growth remained above average, continuing the trend of recent yearsEnergy use is also increasingly shifting away from OECD countries and becoming more carbon-intensive.
Three Triggers for Higher Oil Prices
After hitting a nine-month high last week, oil took a shellacking. I guess that means we can all breathe easier and go out and buy HUMMER H3s, right? Not so fast!
Securing the future - An oil company perspective
Tony Hayward, BP's group chief executive, gave a speech that discusses some of the 21st century challenges the world faces in the matter of energy and what we as an industry might do to meet the challenge.
Report says biofuel puts developing countries' water at risk
Increasing agricultural output for biofuels is further expected to put more pressure on water resources, says a new report from India-based research company RNCOS.
Maize of Deception: How Corn-Based Ethanol Can Lead To Starvation and Environmental Disaster
As the Bush administration continues to push its alternative fuels agenda, it has become increasingly evident that corn-based ethanol could be as much the global villain as a boon to society. Instead of improving the environment and moderating oil prices, corn-based ethanol could result in mass deforestation, strained land and water resources, increased food prices, augmented poverty and swarms of farmers uprooted from the land.
Spain Farmers Root out Biofuel Myth
The current increase in biofuel production is threatening livestock, and leading to a rise in the prices of cereals, chicken, pork, and beef, the Spain s Union of Small Farmers (UPA) warned on Monday.
Biofuel is gold rush of the 21st century, says FAO
The worldwide upsurge of interest in biofuels can best be described as the "Gold Rush of the 21st Century", said Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) deputy regional chief for Asia and the Pacific Hiroyuki Konuma.
Japan: Govt eyes boosting domestic biofuel output
The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry plans to introduce new legislation to establish measures to boost domestic biofuel production, according to ministry sources.
Beijing dispatches energy-saving cops
Quick, check the thermostat -- the energy police are on patrol.Businesses in Beijing will have to be more aware of their energy use after the city formed a team to monitor energy-saving practices in response to the central government's calls to cut consumption in big cities, state media reported.
The IEA pointed to unexpectedly strong demand in big emerging economies, a sharp supply fall last month and another crimping of supply this month because of routine maintenance on infrastructure outside the Opec zone.
Higher standards of living in China and India are driving inflation in food prices as a move to a more Western diet has led to a greater demand for meat and milk.
...The problem has been exacerbated by severe drought in Aus-tralia and the United States and a growing trend for farmers to grow crops for fuel instead of food, which has caused a worldwide shortage of cereals and milk.
California officials criticized the intervention by one executive branch agency with another as improper and possibly illegal, but a Transportation Department attorney said it wasn't.
It's one problem on a list of many outlined by researchers at the universities of California and Colorado. They urged Canadians to filter smoke stacks, reduce ship traffic and burn fuels out in their entirety to minimize dirty waste.
..."It's a model that we may all need to adopt as peak oil becomes more and more of a reality," supporter Rosalie Paul of Georgetown said of Petroff's plan for a sustainable project.
Without much in the way of news the crude oil rally was larger enough get back a big chunk of what they gave back on Friday. Some traders thought that the rally came about because Saudi Aramco the state run oil company announced that it will cut crude oil exports to Asian refiners for the ninth straight month. Of course that shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone who has been following the situation. All the comments coming out of Saudi Arabia make it quite clear that they have no intention of raising oil production and that they would be complying with their agreed upon production cuts at the last OPEC meeting.
The final payment of $US15 million was settled in April, but the plant has never produced a single watt of electricity.
First, uranium is scarce and therefore becoming expensive. Costs of new power plants is prohibitive. Note that the French built their plants mostly in the 1970's when materials and labor were cheaper.
After more than half a century of growth as the Canadian supply mainstay Alberta natural gas production has peaked and entered a decline that will continue no matter how much drilling is done, the province's industry watchdog agency says.
● Supply will remain tight and prices high barring a major economic setback
Oil markets risked tightening later this year if Opec was inflexible over supply, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday as it sharply raised its estimate for world oil demand.
Bills rise as China gets a taste for milk and honey
The cost of the weekly food shop is being forced upward by global demand for cereals and dairy products.
Palestine: Gas reserves and the national energy system
The discovery of off-shore gas reserves in Palestinian territorial waters alters Palestinian energy policies dramatically and may have repercussions on relations with Israel, currently the Palestinian National Authority’s principal commercial and energy partner. The drilling activities of British Gas in Palestinian territorial waters seem to open new opportunities to a country strongly dependent on the importation of petrol (in particular for the production of electricity) and at the same time open new political questions and frictions with the Government of Tel Aviv. The results of negotiations regarding the use of the gas reserves will be conditioned by parallel negotiations (currently suspended) between Palestinians and Israelis.
Pakistan: Energy crisis may go from bad to worse
The country may witness an aggravated energy crisis in the years to come as the proposed thermal power house at Chichuki Maliyan with a capacity to generate 500 megawatt electricity is in the doldrums, as the project has been withdrawn from Wapda in a strange development, The News has learnt.
Thailand to build first nuclear plant
AFP reports that Thailand’s largest energy utility said it will invest US$6 billion to build the country’s first nuclear power plant, expected to start operations in 2020.
Experts cautious on Malaysian oil pipeline
Oil industry players have given only cautious approval to Malaysia's multi-billion-dollar northern pipeline project, citing slowing oil demand in the Asian region and cost concerns.
Senate bill would hike fuel economy
As motorists face near record gasoline prices, the Senate took up an energy bill Tuesday that would raise auto fuel economy standards for the first time in nearly 20 years and make oil industry price gouging a federal crime.
Honda aims to bring green diesel cars to Japan soon
Japanese carmaker Honda Motor Co. said Wednesday it plans to introduce vehicles with low-pollution, fuel-efficient diesel engines in Japan and North America within the next few years.
Dem claims meddling in waiver request
The Transportation Department acknowledged Tuesday encouraging members of Congress to weigh in with the EPA on California's request to implement global warming controls on automakers.
John Edwards wants U.S. to back G8 on climate change
Democratic presidential candidate
John Edwards on Tuesday said the United States should join the Group of Eight in a call to cut global warming gas emissions in half by 2050.
Colleges make green commitment
Colleges and universities are hardly the worst offenders when it comes to producing the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. But with about 17 million students, they are massive energy consumers — and some schools say they consider it a moral responsibility to be at the forefront of the green movement.
Scientists to Canada: clean your dirty snow
Even Canada's thinly populated Arctic regions can play a role in curbing global warming, by reducing soot from dirty, old cooking stoves which are blackening snow and making it melt faster.
High Oil Prices, Looming Deadlines Spur Brazilian Exploration
Brazilian and foreign oil companies reported 33 new oil discoveries in the first five months of 2007 as companies rushed to meet the minimum drilling requirements of exploration contracts and boost reserves as oil prices remained high, industry experts told BNamericas.
From Hiroshima to Iraq, 61 years of uranium wars
The “peak oil” scare is a hoax, which any geologist knows because it recycles every 20 years to boost oil prices. His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, Saudi oil minister from 1962 to 1986, believes that the oil age will end not for lack of oil but because of technology: “(T)he oil prices were destined to crash in the long term and the world would never use up the last drop of oil, because it would not need to: ‘The Stone Age did not come to an end because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will not come to an end because we have a lack of oil.’”
Alex Petroff's Congo project gains momentum
After graduating from Hampshire College last year, Petroff returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo to start building a village, patterned after his 80-page senior project that proposed self-sustaining, oxen-powered agrarian villages as a mode of economic development.
S-Oil freezes $4bn refinery project
South Korean refiner S-Oil Corporation yesterday put an indefinite hold on its $4bn plans to build a major new refinery, the latest energy project to fall victim to tight contractor markets and soaring costs.
A little Saudi Surprise or was it just another excuse to buy back into the oil bull market? Monday turned into a big buy back session as the oil came storming back. Traders who dumped positions on Friday seemed to think the market all of a sudden had value on Monday. Yet if you talked to two or three different traders as to their reasoning's to get back long the market, it was hard to find one defining reason.
Nigeria: End the Energy Crisis Now!
The other day in Abuja, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua gave stakeholders in the Nigerian Energy sector a marching order: Enhance the supply of electricity immediately or risk the declaration of state of emergency. Rightly so. If there is any aspect of national life that needs urgent, combative attention, it is power.
Philippines pays off nuclear power plant
The Philippine government has finally paid off the Bataan nuclear power plant almost 32 years after started on what became one of the country's biggest follies.
Millions could have been better spent
Dr. Helen Caldicott, the author and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is an English MD/scientist who has done a superb job of research. Her findings clearly show that nuclear is not the way to go.
Official: Ethanol goal to be hit early
A top official with the National Corn Growers Association said Tuesday he expected 15 billion gallons of ethanol to be produced annually in the United States much sooner than the group had once predicted.
Alberta's era of abundant natural gas coming to an end
Age is overtaking the top money earner that paid off the provincial deficit and fuelled budget surpluses as energy prices rose since 1999.
BP says that the world still has enough proven oil reserves to provide 40 years of consumption at current rates, in spite of a slight fall last year.
Russia Considers Increasing Coal Use to Facilitate Gas Exports
A series of deadly incidents has dealt Russia's coal industry a serious blow, as the sector's safety standards apparently remain low. Nonetheless, the Russian government is still considering long-range plans to increase the use of coal in power generation in order to reduce natural gas consumption and maximize gas exports.
Big oil companies cancel expansion projects
Instead of expanding their refinery capacity – which could drive fuel prices down – big oil is canceling expansion projects, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Over the past decade, Russia's oil and gas companies have held two big lures for investors. The first was their privileged position in a country brimming with oil and gas. The second was the silver lining of decades of Soviet mismanagement. By applying western methods and technology to existing, poorly developed sites, Russia's majors could milk them for cash with less need to invest in exploration.
Intel and Google's energy drive
Web search leader Google Inc. and semiconductor maker Intel Corp. launched a broad-based program on Tuesday to introduce more energy-efficient personal computers and server systems to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
What do you recommend for a portfolio distribution in light of the collapsing dollar and peak oil?
Chris Skrebowski: How close to peak oil are we?
My conclusions at very best
● Oil supply will peak in 2011/12 at about 92-94 million barrels/day
● There will be supply shortfalls in winter before Peak
● Oil supply in international trade may peak earlier than the oil production peak
● Aided by CERA's optimism we are still in denial
● There are huge challenges and huge opportunities
People are starting to notice that Central Banks worldwide(especially China) have started to divest themselves of US dollars through one means or another. That means the bill is in the mail. When it arrives, hyperinflation has a good chance of being the result.(See German Hyperinflation story below.) Since the average American uses only US Dollars, they stand to lose everything that isn't a hard asset. A good place for the average American to put their money, is to pay off their home. The property will continue to retain value. You won't be able to sell it, but if you live in it, you are getting the value of it. The monetary value will eventually return.(Probably after the issuance of a new currency.) The stock and bond markets ARE NOT the place to go.(Think 1929.) Even overseas investments will tank when the US goes down the tubes. In a world where the primary concern will be the next meal, precious metals will be useless as a barter instrument. It will regain it's value post monetary collapse. Since what you would be bartering for will probably be food, think about secure storage of a couple of years worth of food for personal use. For a barter instrument food will be king during the crisis. Several smaller secure storage sites for barter would be a good investment. Just remember, not all your eggs in one basket. These will be desperate times and people will do desperate things. Which leads me to personal firearms and security. Investing in a security fence and weapons capable of repelling small bands of people might be in order. Think personal survival. Don't, under any circumstances, show your assets. Friends in fair weather will stab you in the back if desperate enough. Strangers won't think twice. If you look well fed, when others around you are starving, you will attract the attention of "Local Authorities" who may try to commandeer your assets with promises of payment after the crisis. Avoid the situation in the first place. Dress down for the duration of the crisis. Avoid contact with "local authorities". Do your best to be invisible.
Mohammad Ali Khatibi, deputy director for international affairs of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said, “In the most optimistic situation, future supply and demand will seriously get close to each other and we will not have any additional supply, in the pessimistic situation, oil demand in winter will reach an amount which supply can not meet ... “
Isna also reported him as saying non-Opec production was disappointing but that Opec members did not have major additional reserves available to boost output, so consumers may have to use their own reserves.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Business_News&...
Khatibi is saying THEY HAVE NO SPARE CAPACITY. He is telling you THEY CANNOT INCREASE PRODUCTION beyond current levels. He is also saying THEY WILL BE LUCKY IF THEY CAN MEET DEMAND THIS WINTER.
With the Natural Gas situation It could be difficult to stay warm this winter.
Looking at the top book cover, I don't hold much hope that people are going to grow or can their own food.
They don't have seeds (OP naturally).
They don't have fertilizer or compost.
They don't have sufficient water.
They don't know how to can.
They don't have a canner.
They don't have canning jars.
They don't have jar lids.
Even in my boondocks area where you'd expect many people to preserve/can food, my wife and I are one of the few who do.
I wonder how useful canning will be if energy gets really expensive. It takes a lot of energy to boil everything and sterilize it properly. Heck, even glass was not affordable for the poor before the age of fossil fuels, because it took so much energy to make it. (Hence the Bible saying that wisdom is worth more than gold, glass, or rubies.)
Well, in my case I can run the electric stove off our PV system if necessary and, in a worse case, fire up the wood cookstove in the kitchen.
What's even worse is that many foods require pressure canning. How many people have a pressure canner these days? We're the only ones of the four families within a mile of us.
I agree, preserving food would be difficult for most people. Of course, they could always dehydrate. Unfortunately they won't have a dehydrator and won't know how to make one. Even our 2 bushel one would be hard pressed to dehydrate a significant quantity of food.
"...I can run the electric stove off our PV system... "
Really? I haven't spent a ton of time on PV calculations but I do know that electric resistance takes a LOT of electrical energy. How big is your PV system?
OC,
The system is 3.6kW which isn't huge. The thing to remember is that no one is going to crank all the burners up to high and turn on the oven when they can.
In our case, we run the jars through the dishwasher and leave them there so they stay hot. (And, if you've missed it in my other posts, I run a 40 gallon electric HWH on the PV everyday the sun is out.) Then we have one small pot simmering for the jar lids which takes hardly any juice.
We use a big burner for the hot water bath or pressure canner. Again, there is no need to turn the burner up to high. The thing to remember is that burners cycle. In other words, the temp control is not like the burner was on a rheostat by rather it pulls a mimimal load of juice and them periodically calls for more juice, maybe 2-3k, for maybe 10 or so seconds. Therefore, the PV system isn't being challenged for any prolonged periods.
Finally, we almost always use the grid for canning since it's sort of set and forget. I was refering to using PV were it the only choice. And, I'll tell you, it would beat the heck out of having to use the wood cook stove on a hot day!
Todd
the dishwasher? ... I take it you have no children?
Also as far as a wood stove on a hot day, have you not heard of the Russian summer kitchen (all out doors), or even noticed the intrusive barbecue. Actually I envy your PV system, my remarks are from jealousy there and as well, from the sound of it, the dependable Sun you have.
dishwashers are wastes of money, electricity, and water.
get your kids to do that, or both you and your significant other can get it done right after dinner, 5 mins tops with both working on it.
Thanks Gilgamesh, for a while I thought I was the only crank about dishwashers and dishwashing. I actually enjoy dish washing, not drying though, air dry is best anyway and cleaner. Also when you have a headache it's better than all analgesics, with the possible exception of Demerol. ;>)
A hint. If you use paper assiets, which you can throw away after dinner, you don´t have to dish at all.
And of cource onetime use plastic knifes and forks.
Actually, it is kids who are the energy suck - we chose to never have any. As far as my case, it is run off the PV system in the afternoon. The water is solar heated. It uses 6 gallons a load which is once or twice a week. My experience is it is more energy efficient than hand washing. But, suit your self.
I'm not sure about the 'water' bit...dishwashers have been shown to use less water than handwashing.... although it's not clear whether any water required in the manufacture & disposal of the dishwater, as well as that required to cool the power generation plants is included.
A standard "Stove circuit" in a North American breaker panel is 40 Amps @ 240 Volts = 9.6 kw, there are a few 30 amp stoves available (= 7.2 kw) , used mostly in mobile homes or old houses with 60 amp electrical services but they are getting hard to find and are more expensive than the larger ones.
Solar dehydrators can be made using a variety of scrap or recycled materials that will likely be available, especially once the abandoned suburban houses start to be salvaged.
We've got a pressure canner, but the truth is that there is very little that we absolutely would have to can under pressure. Sweet corn could be dehydrated instead, and green beans could be salted away in crocks; lots of other vegs could be salted away as well. (That presumes that there will continue to be a salt supply; as salt is among the oldest of all trade goods, that seems like a pretty safe bet.) As I'm sure you know, tomatoes and fruits can be canned by hot water process rather than pressure -- considerably more people would have a large enough pot do do this over a wood fire outside if all else fails. It is also a more forgiving & foolproof method; almost all beginners start with this and later move on to pressure canning.
Then of course there are also root cellars, which can include a variety of non-structural underground storage methods. In many locations, some root crops can just be wintered over right in the garden.
Finally, as I said in another post on this same thread, people traditionally would keep pigs, and a lot of the garden produce that was not immediately eaten would end up being fed to the pigs. That was not waste, but rather a different and highly efficient form of storage.
As I explained on another post, I anticipate that people with the equipment and know how will specialize in this. People that don't have a clue when it comes to producing and preserving food will have to produce something else of value to exchange with these neighborhood specialists.
Of course, every book I've read on the topic strongly cautions about water-bath processing, since you have to have a high enough acid content to naturally kill botulism bacteria. The only thing we water-bat process is tomatoes, and even then only when our pressure canner is full. I certainly haven't found water-bath canning to be more forgiving, especially when we were newbies. Our pressure canner takes much less time, energy, and effort than our water-bath canning. It only takes a tiny flame to get our pressure canner up to pressure and even less to hold it there. Our water-bath pot takes gas at full blast and you can't turn it down much until you're done.
Root cellars rock! We had some of our potatoes in there until a few weeks ago (eight months!). And that was just a closed-off corner of our basement. "Putting Food By" covers both canning and root cellaring, but "Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables" covers root cellaring in much greater detail.
Canners,
I have two large pressure canners and two waterbath canners.
I use the pressure only for foods that require it. Tomatoes,jams,jellies..etc, and pickles don't require it as plenty of acid.
If questionable then I pressure can.
As to Leanans statement on energy. Its easy to do outside with a wood fire. With waterbath all you are really doing in most cases is creating a vacumn to seal the lids.
Botulism and salmonella prone foods need the higher heat (via pressure) to destroy the spores and such. But with greenbeans many did not pressure can in the older times but just cooked them a long time to destroy whatever might possibly be tainted and thats IMO why country food like greenbeans are very throughly cooked down here. To be sure no getting sick. That translated so most southern cooking is highly seasoned with jowl,fatback or bacon and cooked extra long.
Canning is a lot of fun. You get great satisfaction from seeing all those nice jars full of healthy food and no middle men involved ,except for flats(lids),everything else you saved.
You can also ferment foods. Very healthy too.
I know you are aware of all this Todd but just using your post to speak on the subject.
However even here in the rural outback many (most) do not can food anymore. They go to Walmarts or whatever. Just lazy or the younger folks just don't care to. Having never had to do it before.
Blue Ball puts out and excellent book. Also 'Putting Foods By' is very good.
I ferment,can,dehydrate and freeze. I just dehydrate fruit and tomatoes,,some peppers. I usually also grow my own spices. Garlic,oregano,basil,sage and so forth.
Its the only way to go.
Today I brought a sack of cane sugar. Now they are putting it in 4 lb sacks and charging $2.49...no more 5 lb sacks I guess, so I went and brought a 25 lb sack for $5.00 at Sams Club.
The merchants are starting to rape us with food prices. How is it that Sams Club can sell 25 lbs of sugar for $5 yet the grocery stores charge half that for 4 lbs? This tells me they are really screwing the public.
Thats one reason I preserve my own garden produce.
Next year,chaos suspended a bit I will bring up a hive of bees. Build my supers and uppers this winter. Then I won't need their sugar anymore.
I don't find canning a chore. Sit out on the porch with a fish cooker fired by propane,some mixed drinks and a good cigar and easy chair. Not that much work. Preparing the food is a tad of work. Cleaning cutting etc.
I can put up 3 canner loads easy before the day heats up. Two huge burners on my fishcooker brings them up to high temp fairly fast. I have a 500 gal propane tank I own and am going to rent another. Just using it for cooking I think I can get 5 to 10 years out of 1,000 gallons.
Airdale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_botulinum
Each of the seven subtypes of C. botulinum produces a different botulin toxin.[3] These are labeled with letters and are called A to G types. Types C and D are not human pathogens. A "mouse protection" test determines the type of C. botulinum present using monoclonal antibodies.
In the United States, outbreaks are primarily due to types A or B, which are found in soil, or type E, which is found in fish. Optimum temperature for types A and B is 35-40° C. Minimum pH is 4.6. It takes 25 min at 100°C to kill these types. Optimum temperature for type E is 18-25°C. Minimum pH is 5.0. It takes about 0.1 minute at 100°C to kill type E C. botulinum.
This is why two of my principal items to stock from other peoples' street-waste has been glass and mirrors. (Also Aluminum Sheet Flashing and Foil-lined rigid insulation)
These materials are very durable if treated well, and can set you up to do that precious boiling and canning with a nice, sunny day.. also dehydrate foods for longer-term storage, bake, simmer, clean etc..
At the recycling center, nice big panes of storm-window glass are just smashed up into the bin. With all the people replacing old windows with DoublePane Vinyls, there are lots of storms windows floating around which could be working for you.
Bob
Thanks jokuhl,
I wondered what your seemingly perverse fascination with mirrors was, glad to hear I surmised incorrectly, ... even here on the coast we get enough sun to make a food dehydration under glass a possibility instead of the usual mold infested stuff and with mirrors cut into parabolic reflectors, my goodness what a variety of joys to be had. We need some sort of depository to put good helpful ideas like that in.
My small addition here which, I mentioned before about self employment in a PO work environment, is to stock up on a few glass cutters.
If you have any more information on how you are building your sunshine machines, I for one am interested.
My pleasure.
Yeah, I've seen dehydrator plans on MotherEarth News that are just a glazed box with black inner faces sending the heated air up into an 'oven' chamber where the food racks live. The Solar Ovens out there can be as simple as Tinfoil glued to cardboard walls, helping about 2-3 suns worth of light heat up a glazed, insulated container with a darkened pot or breadpan inside.
I'm also using some 30"x78" Patiodoor tempered glass to make Solar Hot Air boxes, which can warm up the household air by blowing it through a sun-warmed sheet of black felt or similar fabric that divides the box into front and rear chambers. Supposedly (and understandably) better heat transfer than the similar flat-plate versions. I scored a dozen of these from a neighbor, and another 8 to 10 that are about 44" square. In this game, it all becomes about surface area..
So many projects, so little (free) time..
Regards,
Bob Fiske
http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=2302&itemT...
One of my clients tells of his grandma and her collection of wooden racks. Always had some veggies on these wooden racks all over the home, drying the veggies.
Lehmans used to sell the wooden racks for drying.
Those are WWII posters. The govt successfully campaigned for these things before, they could do it again. Leanan's concern about energy used for canning could probably best be answered by Airdale. He's here this morning.
The flip side of that, of course, is that people used to put away food for the winter without canning.
Look what I found. Energy free refrigerator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot-in-pot_refrigerator
not energy free but free energy : uses stored solar energy (in the form of heat) for evaporation. I have used this system quite succesfully for cooling some beer on sailboats.
Be aware that like all open-cycle evaporative coolers, that design depends on having a low relative humidity. It'll work wonderfully in dry areas like California, and not at all in places with 100% relative humidity, like NYC on a hot summer's day.
Ultimately, to can things you first need to mine the ore, and a smelter to render the ore into the metal needed to make the can. Mines could use renewable electricity. Smelters can be run on wood or charcoal. Then you need a rudimentary manufacturing facility to make the cans themselves, which could be run by solar/wind/hydro. It is a very complex process, but the technology is several centuries old, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canning.
Vacuum sealing is my preferred method. I can stockpile several rolls containing several million plastic bags in a much smaller space than cans or jars and the solar and wind based electricity I produce will run the mechanism. It may not be sustainable over several generations, but for the moment it makes the most sense.
As for envious unfriendly visitors, the best defense is to have your whole community doing the same as you--a confederation if you will. It's the building of such a confederation that provides the challenge.
We've gone to mason gar lids because they are more foolproof and thus safer, but that isn't what they used to use. They used to use jars with wire bales and a rubber seals. The jar & bale are of course reusable over and over again unless they take a quick trip to the floor. The rubber seals should not be reused, but rubber is a renewable resource (presuming that at least a little trade can be maintained with tropical areas). Thus, once a sufficient inventory of jars has been produced to provide a sufficient storage capacity for the population, the ongoing resource flows required are quite minimal - glass and steel wire for a few replacement jars each year, and rubber for the seals.
Jams,preserves,and jellies were once sealed in jars with wax.
Lasted quite well too. My step mother did this a lot. Myself I never tried it but it looks easy. No metal required and really any jar would work, pints or half pints preferrably since it can grow mold once opened in time,however the mold is usually harmless.
Tomatoes are the best and easiest to can IF you use ones with enough acid, like Rutgers. Hybrids usually need an infusion of citric acid or lemon juice.
Drinking home canned tomato juice in the winter is one of life's great pleasures.
Airdale-City folk don't know what they are missing.You can hardly buy something this good and this healthy. No additives, no chemicals, no middlemen.
Airdale,
My mother used to home can jellies and jams with parafin, I suspect you could also use bee's wax. My favorite was dewberry, a ground growing blackberry here on the Texas Gulf coast, followed by mayhaw, a kind of crabapple of the southern swamps.
My father kept a couple of hives of bees. Lots of honey, our big honey producers in Houston were chinese tallow and ligustrum and other privets. Bees also keep strangers out of the back yard, they're great security.
Momma also canned a few pickles-exotic varieties like watermelon rind and hot, garlic pickled okra. Also a few chiles, jalapenos and serrano peppers. Its all fun and good, and a few jars of jam or exotic pickles make excellent christmas gifts- they're very personal gifts. I got a great gift of one from a friend last xmas-a lime/loquat marmalade, my best present.
OilmanBob, I have several fig trees in my back yard and I still make fig preserves every year using pint Mason jars and parafin. The birds get about one third of the figs, the squrrils and raccons get about one third and we humans get the rest...if I arise early each morning and pick the ripe figs before the critters beat me to all of them!
Loonking forward to life in bananaville...
I was just watching that David Attenborough show on amber, Jewel of the Earth. Inside the amber, the Poinars found these insects and miniscule parasitic worms that live most of their lives inside figs. They can't survive without figs, so they know there were fig trees millions of years ago.
Interesting, but it didn't make me want to eat figs.