Desperate for Fossil Fuels: King Coal

Now Destroying Mountains Once Merely Raped

I spent a lot of time in Eastern Kentucky growing up, it’s where my paternal grandparents, Aunt and cousins lived and where we spent vacations no matter where else in the country (or elsewhere) we were living at the time (Navy brat). I’ve no more relatives there, the last of them died a decade ago and none of us siblings chose to live there for raising our own families or even retiring in our old age.

I do recall several very nasty UMW strikes in the mining region around Harlan, and I recall the black moonscape on the Green River near Paducah’s western shipping point that stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions, the coal tailings having turned a lovely rolling greenscape into utterly depressing nothing. I also recall learning to shoot my father’s beautiful pearl-handled six-guns at the abandoned strip mine near Laurel, and one touristy adventure in a no longer operating underground mine where we rode through in one of those little coal rail cars as if it were an amusement park ride.

These days they do things a little differently, as the deep seams get harder to work (and miners become more rare, having been decimated by Black Lung) and the easy seams have all been stripped. Now they’re going for the mid-seams, the last of the stored coal, by simply blowing up the entire mountain to get to it.

It’s called Mountaintop Removal mining, and it’s utterly devastating the southern Appalachians in the traditional coal mining regions of Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia. It’s a horror even worse than Mister Peabody’s tailings outside Paducah. It’s destroyed ~500 whole mountains so far, it’s polluting mountain streams that contribute to the primary water supplies for millions of people downstream, and it’s killing the abundant biodiversity these mountains are so very famous for. Most of all, for those of us who dearly love these gorgeous mountains, it’s very, very tragic. Some of the mines are as big as the Island of Manhattan.

Continue reading »

Earth Day ‘08

In honor of Earth Day (April 22) and Earth Week (April 20-26), I went on over to EPA’s Earth Day Events & Volunteer Opportunities page to see what’s happening in my neck of the woods. I live in region 4, which includes the entire southeast plus Kentucky. If you’d like to pick up on some opportunities in your region, just click on the map and the list comes up.

In Atlanta the Children’s Museum is sponsoring one of the biggest regional events for kids. EPA has a character called “Mother Earth” who will distribute vegetable seeds and help children plant them in pots, and she’ll be giving away sun visors for the “SunWise Parade” through the museum. Sounds like fun, but I’ve no little kids and it’s way too far to drive.

Lots happening in Florida, but I won’t be there until Saturday - for a funeral, alas. Knoxville isn’t that far to go for their Earthfest event on Saturday, but I’ll be in Florida then. Oh, well. Looks like there’s just not much happening - at least, nothing government sponsored - in my Western North Carolina mountains. But wow! I’m looking out my window right now at the new green baby leaves on my hardwood forest, at gorgeous sprays of white-white dogwood scattered throughout, the red azaleas are in full dress around my garden bench, the tulips and cala lilies and jonquils are everywhere, wildflowers are popping up in the garden terraces where I didn’t plant them…

There are some great ideas available on the International Earth Day site, and interesting news and projects on the EarthdayNetwork website.

Hmmm. I’m guessing the best thing I could do today is sip some nice fresh mint tea while sitting on my garden bench planning all the hard work I need to do to get the place in order. It’s a perfect 72 degrees and the sun is intermittent. Happy Earth Day and Earth Week, all you hopeless nature-lovers!

Links:

Earth Day goes political and corporate
International Earth Day
EarthdayNetwork
EPA’s Earth Day Events & Volunteer Opportunities

Algae Biodiesel Steals the Show

Will bee offers a very cool post today on his blog RideLust, Solazyme’s Algae-Derived BioDiesel Passes Defense Department’s Cold Weather Testing.

I particularly enjoyed the lede…

In a recent news release from Solazyme and as reported at this years Worldwide Energy and Trade Show yesterday, their algae-derived biodiesel has passed its Department of Defense cold weather testing. To demonstrate the performance and readiness of their product an unmodified Ford F-450 diesel was driven to the conference fueled by Solazyme’s biodiesel by former Director of the CIA, James Woolsey.

Hahaha!!! Man, I’d have paid real money to see that! There is a real future here, and some folks have been putting in some serious R&D to make it happen. Go on over to RideLust and read the whole thing, it’s definitely worthy!

Paint-On and Print-Out Solar Cells

Great news this week on ScienceDaily, picked up by Nanotechnology News and other outlets that researchers from Swansea University have developed a paint coating for steel buildings that will generate electricity even in low light situations.

Note that this isn’t solar panels on the roof, but the enameled coating on the siding itself. Meaning that metal buildings - including garages, barns, equipment sheds, airport hangars, outlying megachurches and community buildings could all be generating electricity (some from the infrared spectrum current solar cells cannot capture) while they’re just sitting there enclosing space. Put a few regular panels on the roof too and it could be generating more than it uses on a regular basis.

But when I went looking at just how innovative this development is in the overall scheme of things keeping affordable alternative energy options safely insulated from regular people who might just put them to work, I found that the idea isn’t all that new, and isn’t anywhere close to being marketed to consumers of things like metal buildings (commercial or residential). Why do you suppose that is, given the sheer amount of money being funneled into research and development, as well as into actual production?

Continue reading »

Hemp: Our Original Industrial Crop

Back when the country was new, its beloved “father” and gentleman farmer George Washington advised…

“Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.” [1794]

It was the #1 cash crop in the 13 new states just as it is the #1 cash crop in 50 states today. As a fast-growing “weed” that requires no pesticides or herbicides and very little fertilizers or irrigation, the close-packed stands of 8-9 foot tall plants provided more biomass per acre than any other crop ever discovered, bred or engineered. Its fiber content is 2 to 3 times as great as cotton per acre, and is both softer and stronger than cotton. Hemp paper lasts hundreds of years and can be recycled more often than tree pulp papers.

Hemp’s high cellulose content is a fine base for plastics - composites made with hemp are now used by Mercedes Benz to produce auto bodies and dashboards. Hempseed oil is both more nutritious and more economical than soybean, peanut, sunflower or canola oil. It burns brighter than any other plant oil, and can be used to produce non-toxic diesel fuel, paint, varnish, detergent, ink, home heating oil and lubricating oil. It is as easily converted into ethanol as corn, but can be grown in a much wider range of climates and conditions.

News organizations warn that we are facing a worldwide food shortage in part brought about by the diversion of staple food crops to ethanol and biodiesel fuel production, worsened by reliance on unsustainable agricultural practices and chemical pollution of once-rich “breadbasket” farmland. Our reliance on foreign oil has caused 2 wars in this first decade of the 21st century and killed more than a million people with violence. America alone has sacrificed more than 3,000 soldiers and left some 30,000 returning veterans with life-crippling injuries. Pollution from fossil fuel burning contributes to another few hundred thousand premature deaths worldwide every year. Global warming, if unchecked, will eventually kill tens or hundreds of millions more.

The answers we seek for the future may require a re-examination of our past. Perhaps George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were right. What might be accomplished if we did NOT spend 4 billion dollars a year trying to prevent farmers from growing industrial hemp?

Links:

Fossil Fuel Cuts Would Reduce Early Deaths, Illness, Study Says
1997: Canada Repeals Hemp Prohibition
Energy Farming in America
Hemphasis: Hemp as a Fuel/Energy Source
Vermont House Approves Hemp Bill
Hemp-based biodiesel, NOT ethanol

25 Alternative Energy Strategies - 5

In this, the last five items in the list of 25 strategies, a look at community efforts to become self-sufficient is in order. While an energy self-sufficient homestead can exist in any rural environment, the more neighbors (no matter how spread out) who catch the bug, the more resources are available to be developed for the good of all. It’s the natural ‘next step’ in extending the idea of energy self-sufficiency toward the broader society.

The real “trick” in items 21-25 are the collective will to work together and agree upon sustainable agricultural, building, energy production and distribution practices.

Part 5: Collective Strategies for Communities

When FDR was elected President in 1932 - in the midst of the Great Depression - he addressed the awful situation by means of the “New Deal.” Tucked away in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 which established the huge public works programs, was the Subsistence Homestead Communities project. The plan was to relocate some of the idled workers from over-populated industrial areas into planned subsistence communities they would build for themselves with government money.

Read about the Cumberland Homesteads project for yourself, it gives a rough idea of the rewards community development can reap, even if the whole thing is privately financed by the motivated homesteaders themselves (as it must be today). Sure, there are many grants available for rural community development (such as state agri-tourism initiatives) when there is someone skilled in applying, from all sorts of government agencies federal and state. And some resources available from corporate largesse these days as well.

Continue reading »

25 Alternative Energy Strategies - 4

For homestead and/or community independence

We’ve looked a bit at on-site electrical generation, transportation fuels and building technologies. In this installment we’ll look at some ways of putting things together into overall strategies for homestead independence.


Part 4: Hybrid Energy Systems

In a previous post a short video was offered about as small, 1Kw hybrid energy system using solar and wind offered by a company in Canada. Whether you’re planning to go off-grid with storage batteries or negotiate a price for your excess production with the local utility (and get a “backwards meter”), the same thing is true of energy supplies as is true of general homestead success - diversify. So Here are five hybrid systems, some good links and some cool ideas for planning your alternatives…

Continue reading »

Working Hybrid Wind-Solar System

Here’s a short video demonstration of a hybrid home electrical generation system developed by SEMA Technology that we’ll be exploring in more depth later. While it does depend on a storage system (battery), it would only take one of these to power my homestead. I’d still have to weigh longevity of its capacity and cost of replacement before I’d change my mind about going with the backwards meter. Which might cost me less over time and avoids the necessity to either turn off the solar cells or send the wind energy to a heat sink as waste.

Next week I’m planning a series looking at the best and most affordable technologies out there right now, and what’s on line for the future.

Energy Project: Solar Panels for Free?

In my 3-part series on energy independence (parts 1, 2 and 3) I talked about both solar and water as readily exploitable sources of ‘free’ energy here on my NC homestead where wind isn’t an option. With a water powered ram jet I can solve my water pumping problems and get gravity feed to the house to boot, and there are also possibilities for making electricity directly with a water turbine if we care to go that far into re-engineering the creek.

As with my plans for solar panels on the homestead roof, any electricity we can generate will most likely be returned to the grid via one of those “backwards meters” big energy companies (like ours) are required to provide if you do generate power on your property. That way they have to purchase all the excess energy you produce. The purchase price is of course always less than the retail price you pay for the energy you are using, so the best you can hope for is a seriously diminished electricity bill - use less energy than you sell, you might even come out ahead every month!

Continue reading »

Energy Independence: Part III

A River Runs Through It!!!

One of the most desirable characteristics of a chunk of land that any determined homesteader looks for when purchasing is water. Wells are expensive to drill and getting more expensive, so a good many people in appropriate areas of the country will be seeking either an already developed spring-fed system or a piece of property that boasts springs that can be tapped. But for energy purposes it’s more important to have a creek or two running through the property, as these can be developed to produce power for either the household water system or for the entire homestead.

Our homestead is lucky to have two creeks, one on each side of the north-south ridgeline that divides the property, both of which drain the National Forest on this south-facing slope of mighty Mount Mitchell, and both of which run all year long without freezing over. These are small creeks unless it’s raining hard in the high country, and the one on the house side of the ridge boasts more springs and greater downhill grade than the one on the nearly inaccessible ‘other’ side.

Our water system originates from a spring bubbling up among the roots of a gigantic tulip poplar tree near the creek. A depression collects more water than silt, and this water is transferred through 2 quarter-inch copper pipes slightly downhill to a small, capped cistern made out of a 4′ tall section of 2′ wide concrete pipe with a concrete lid that can be removed to de-silt when necessary. The bottom of the pipe is buried about a foot in the ground and is not sealed because it doesn’t have to be. This allows it to be mostly self-cleaning, as the silt slowly percolates out and back into the creek. 1″ pipe from the top of this first de-silting stopover takes water to a large, 750-gallon concrete cistern (that is sealed at the bottom and lined), around which we built a spring house enclosure to protect the pump wiring and cistern itself.

Continue reading »