Free Software Replaces MS Office, New AC for 1/10 electric cost, No Bio-fuel at Sea?? Coal Nightmare

Nightmares are not something one normally thinks of as "funny". Yet that was my feeling about the frightening scene that awoke me this morning.

Inside Humor

"Funny" has a broad range of meanings in our language so my cousins used to distinguish between the usual meanings by asking if you meant, "Funny weird, Funny ´ha ha´, or Funny ´sheeesh´?" The "Funny ´sheeesh´" I will leave you to puzzle over. When I first heard it, I immediately understood intuitively what they meant (although it might be something quirky about the use of the English language in Canada that made it more obvious to me that to others, perhaps), but it also leaves me essentially incapable of describing it to someone else.

My nightmare was, as I said, frightening. The scene was a dark barn filled with old farm machinery. Tractors, harvesters, various broken machines, motorcycles, all of which were covered in a thick slimy coating of crude oil that was blacker than night. Moonlight barely illuminated their shapes as zombie-like, malevolent young men arose from under the oil, apparently intending to do me harm. The sound effects to the scene were almost certainly provided by my own snoring.

The "funny" part, however was not that I laughed at my pursuers making "threatening" snoring sounds, however, it was the fact that the "scary" aspect being either dirty crankcase oil, or some blacker than night crude oil. That made it "funny weird" because from my immediate history, I would have expected "scary" dreams to be renderings of other recent events in this week. I did, after all, spend Thursday in preparation for a medical procedure that required a "no eating" "liquid diet". Since there was vast quantities of liquids that were required to be consumed, hunger was not a big problem for the first 18 hours or so, but I also cannot remember when a tiny serving of tapioca pudding looked so inviting. Sumptuous feast was the term that leapt to mind as I closed the refrigerator at about 1:00 AM. And if I hadn´t slept until the last moment before my early morning doctor´s appointment, I can barely imagine what I might have thought about the milk and cat food on the kitchen floor.

Nor was a day´s fasting, far short of starvation, anywhere near the scary part of the week, that was reserved for the medical procedure. It was my first colonoscopy. I am resisting the urge to put the whole event up on Youtube.com but the basic criteria for nightmare material or a very scary movie are certainly all there. The event is essentially the "television debut" of your rectum, descending, transverse, and descending segments of your large intestine. It is, of course, not quite a gross as that sounds since the purpose of the fasting and liquid diet (accompanied by some truly disgusting-tasting purgative/laxative in quantity of a whole US gallon, plus "at least" 32 ounces of other liquids) is to get you empty and thus allow a clear picture from the camera that is inserted about 5 feet into that previously unexplored sewage system. (By the way, I only managed to choke down about 3 quarts of the purgative, but added another 3 quarts of apple juice.) Oh, yes, I haven´t yet gotten to the "scary" part either.

The truly scary part was the pictures and the doctors report that he removed several LARGE polyps, several smaller ones (a small one is shown here in this Mayo Clinic video) and discovered a diverticula in the transverse colon. The "large" polyps look absolutely gargantuan in the photos. Or rather, more accurately, because they were "in me", mine looked like they could threaten shipping in the whole of the North Atlantic, not just tinker with one measly Titanic. In reality, they are about the size of canned, whole, button mushrooms but with a rosy complexion. Frankly, that is, at least potentially, good news. None of the polyps were observably malignant or cancerous. Pathology reports are yet to be returned from the lab, but this is one of the great aspects of colonoscopy: early detection of potentially cancerous growth can mean the difference between living a normal life for decades to come, and facing a death sentence from undiscovered growths that have been neglected so long that they may have already metastasized. Either way, malignant or benign, early detection leaves me with better odds.

Between Major Scary and Merely Documentary

It would seem, if one was to delve into such things, that the origins of my nightmare were actually rooted in my deeply divided feelings about fossil fuels.

I have been working on "green" fuels for several years, but it is obvious that the Coal "industry" in both North America and the rest of the world are not just going to politely fold their tents and disappear overnight. This is especially true in two places, North America and China. In both places there are huge reserves of these fuels, and they are, pardon the expression, "dirt cheap" compared to petroleum from the exotic "Middle East", Central Africa, or South America. China, even though they announced in the People´s Daily over 4 years ago that they were about to bring on-stream a coal liquefaction plant (they paid Honeywell US$6.6 million for equipment to modernize the process) and that many more were on the way, they are still building coal burning electric generating plants and the rate continues to be about 1 per week, every week (so that´s at least 200 or more since that time).

That is a frightening amount of carbon dioxide to be spewing into the atmosphere, and unfortunately, even the liquefaction processes produce a fair amount of carbon dioxide even if the liquid fuel burns cleaner. It has long been my hope to bring the coal and electric industries into the future with an enlightened attitude that recognizes that they too have a great responsibility to the future, and that phasing in renewable fuel sources and reducing the rest of the rainbow of dangerous and toxic gas emissions to as close to zero as possible should also be in their own playbook. To give credit where it is due, these industries have (however ploddingly, reluctantly, or wailing woe about future unprofitability) already substantially cleaned up sulfides and sulfates, mercury, and reduced NOx´s and particulates. But we can´t afford to give them a pass to the future simply because they are domestic and cheap fuel sources or we may not have enough atmosphere to breath to have a future at all. (Okay, that´s alarmist, but we´re talking about the stuff my nightmares are made from in this case, and it scares me when I´m awake too.)

Congress too (at least the House) has passed tough laws requiring coal derived liquid fuels to vastly reduce carbon dioxide released from these processes with a fast "bump" to even higher percentages of reductions. I fear, yes, really, "fear" that such standards cannot be met and that this may be a case where plugging the flow completely (because they cannot be met), is inviting some sort of dam burst in some form or other. That is why, over the past several days as I prepared a presentation about a device I created to do less expensive hydrocracking of long chain hydrocarbons that will also be more compact, less expensive to build and use less energy that I was trying to figure out if it could be of use to the coal-to-liquid fuel processes that exist, or possibly help in creating a new one. I suspect that was the origin of my particular nightmare of especially black and "scary" oil and furtive, malevolent persons popping out of it to haunt me.

Now, what remains for me to reason my way through is whether I am worried that we´ll be "buried" in coal-to-liquid forms of fuel that remain highly environmentally challenging, or that my device might just make it too easy to create coal-to-liquid fuel to a standard that is considered "acceptable" and that thus might become the entrenched "good enough" standard that haunts us for too many more decades while a really clean and renewable fuel like bio-oil (aka biomass "pyrolysis oil"), or jatropha curcas oil are relegated to the fringe of the industry because they remain only marginally viable on a cost basis.

We need to remember that although the USA may be the largest market for transportation fuels, it is also one of the cheapest. (Okay, nobody has to write me about the rates for gasoline in Iraq or other OPEC nations, I´m talking about the rest of the world.) While Americans have become quite comfortable paying a couple of dollars for a US gallon of "petrol" the British are up to their elbows in (justifiable) road taxes and surcharges on taxes, and who knows what other justifications but meanwhile their automobiles sip gingerly on (converted to US dollars and US gallons) $7.219 per gallon (diesel and petrol being the same price this week in Hampshire, Sussex and environs).

What I hope is that our new DaoChi Hydrocracking device (still secret and proprietary) will make sufficient contributions in commercializing the jatropha and biomass pyrolysis oils, the truly renewable energy sources around the world.

Upside-Down or Backwards, or "Who do you listen to?"

Here´s an extended quote from a brief story that appeared in the Biofuels International section of the Biofuels-News.com website:

"While blending biodiesel into road transport fuel is actively encouraged, and even mandated, in many countries, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) forbids marine diesel to contain hydrocarbons not derived from petroleum refining."

"This is because Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAME) are hydrophilic, have a solvent nature, and can be corrosive to certain metals and rubber gaskets. They also have a poor life when stored at room temperature and can begin to oxidise within four weeks."

"Despite this, there is growing interest in research into bio-derived fuels in shipping, as they have the potential to reduce emissions of sulphur and particulate matter, both of which are currently being targeted by environmental legislation."

Since one of the proudest accomplishments of the US Coast Guard in recent years is to start running (at least) one of their boats on the Great Lakes patrol entirely on Biodiesel, obviously the sentiments expressed about trepidations are not universally held. Indeed it was already several years ago that I received some inquiries from yacht owners who were expecting to arrive in Florida from the Mediterranean soon, asking ME (as if I would know from my decades of "seafaring" aboard nothing larger than a dinghy) where they could fill their tanks with biodiesel at a Florida marina.

Where the big boys play

Did you notice the British spelling of "oxidiSe" ? But it would probably come as no surprise that the ridiculous "go slow" cautionary statements were, according to the one attributed quote in the story, from a spokesperson for Chevron, named Monica Vermeire. I understand, Ms. Vermeire, it is just your job, and there are vast vested interests and investments to protect but if everyone with a dollar at risk managed to protect just their "little" corner of the market we´d have no change whatsoever. When the environment is at stake, wouldn´t it be nice if, for a change, the massive multi-national companies didn´t act as foot-dragging reluctant giants being hauled to their first haircut. It is a little ironic but perhaps poetic justice, after the environmental disasters that cling to the name, that the one huge petroleum company to break out of that mode a little is the ExxonMobil group who recently (July 14, 2009) announced their US$300 million investment in algae derived biodiesel development with Synthetic Genomics of California. The announcement has stirred tremendous excitement among those already working in the field and caused others to re-evaluate their positions as well.

Actually the announcement said that "up to US$300 million" would be spent on the investigation and development of algae strains with Synthetic Genomics, but the overall figure given was a US$600 million total investment in the biofuels research. All of this is all the more remarkable because they are expecting such modest yields. You should recall that corn produces about 250 gallons of ethanol per acre while sugar cane can result in 450 gallons per acre, but that even the most productive of biodiesel sources these days palm oil provides just 650 gallons of fuel per acre. "Exxon estimates that algae could yield 2,000 gallons of fuel per acre each year," according to a UPI story on the announcement.

Now the reason that this (month old announcement) is "news" this week is that Synthetic Genomics CEO Craig Ventor expects to engineer vast quantities of algae that simply excrete the lipids they produce into the growth medium. In effect as one reporter put it, they "pee fuel every time they go to the bathroom" (sorry, I´ve forgotten whose analogy that was, but perhaps they would rather not be best remembered for that accurate analogy). Presumably then, there is no "harvest" in the conventional sense. All Exxon´s algae pools have to do is have a gently running circulation of water that skims the oil off the top before recycling the medium (and presumably adding nutrients and carbon dioxide) into the algae growth tank. This is a very simple and inexpensive separation of oil and water, and "presto" instant vegetable crude oil. The other advantage is that colonies of algae are not destroyed during a harvest process, so that their normal life cycle can produce without re-generation of a new next generation of algae before the pond is productive again. This kind of minimal hands-on extraction will also greatly reduce costs, and since they are ExxonMobil, they don´t have to build expensive refining complexes, or even small modest costing biodiesel processing plants, they just ship to their existing (expanded?) facilities and it all fits straight into their existing infrastructure.

Happy Ending

I am still learning. (That´s a happy ending in itself, or at least it could be, but today´s doesn´t end there.) In particular I am still learning how to use a very helpful "template" produced by some kind, and generous person that allows one to automate some of the processes for writing a multi-chapter "book" using the Open Office software. Open Office is actually maintained and released by Sun Microsystems (whose founders are multi-billionaires who haven´t lost the "common touch" and are still extremely interested in giving tools to people that enhance their lives and give them a chance to advance out of poverty). It very closely parallels the Microsoft Office suite of business software, a word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentations creator, and a few other utilities, and it can both read and write in the Microsoft file formats for all of these programs including "historic" (antique?) versions of these files going back as far as 1997 at least. If you are not familiar with the "open software" "movement" it consists of people who are willing to donate their time and in many cases their intellectual property into the public domain so that the software they create cooperatively with other programmers around the world can be distribute for free. There are several versions of operating systems based on some earlier versions of "unix" which are also free, and many programs (though not nearly as many as are available for MS Windows) that are also available for free. The Open Office suite of programs is simply one of the best and most useful because it is all the same applications that everyone uses every day in business and educational computing. Version 3.1 was recently released, or rather, I recently got around to downloading the upgrade, and as always, the software is still free.

Now that I have the software working correctly, I have managed to get about 180 pages of my novel in fairly good order and I have finally come up with a plot structure that will wrap up the story in the next few chapters (though not all the details). So in this case my "happy ending" is that my "happy ending" (of the story) is getting closer. The unfortunate part is that I keep finding other things that are more important or more urgent that finishing the novel, so it lies neglected for days at a time.

The final part of this "good news" is that with the school year starting again here in Arizona, I will be sitting through many a teachers´ "prep" period which is where, by habit from the very first chapter, I have written most of this novel, so I may finally get it finished after over 2 years of merely "in progress" status.

Oh, and although I am not going to try to get into the all the technical details, a "new kind" of evaporative cooler was developed with the help and sponsorship of the California Energy Commission.

Here´s what they say on the OASys home page: "The OASys produces up to 3.5 tons of cooling while using less than 600 watts for an energy efficiency equivalent to better than 40 SEER. Switching to OASys cooling will result in an 80% energy savings without sacrificing comfort."

But almost more importantly, for anyone West of Denver, the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act offers 30% rebates for this kind of high efficiency upgrade (the charts show dramatically the difference in power consumption). Additional rebate programs may be available to you in California, Colorado and New Mexico. The 3 ton unit will probably cost you close to $2000 net cash outlay, plus you can get your house cooled for 80% less.

Now that´s a happy ending.

Love and warm wishes,

Sincerely,

Stafford "Doc" Williamson

http://daochienergy.com