Fungus Makes Biodiesel, Biodiesel HI., Sen. McCain Writes, DDG=Lean Bacon, Unique Charity Fundraisin
Stafford Williamson
August 27, 2007
Fungus Makes Biodiesel, Biodiesel HI., Sen. McCain Writes, DDG=Lean Bacon, Unique Charity Fundraising
Ravichandra Potumarthi, a researcher in India, has demonstrated and presented his findings at a conference (the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology) that using the enzyme lipase as the catalyst he can convert vegetable oils into biodiesel. The trouble, of course, with that, conceptually, is that lipase is a complex protein, difficult and expensive to synthesize. Naturally it would not be a significant breakthrough if Ravichandra did not start thinking "outside the box", so to speak. He saw no reason to go to the trouble of refining the enzyme to a pure form, he simply found an organism that produces plenty of it, and tossed it into the mix. The main advantage here is that you don't have to heat the oil at all for the process to work as in (many, if not most) of the more conventional methods of using methanol (or ethanol) and sodium hydroxide. The mechanism Ravichandra chose was a simple fungus called Metarhizium anisopliae. Interestingly this particular fungus is not all that difficult to obtain at the moment, because it is being investigated as a means to control malaria carrying mosquitoes.(op.cit. Wikipedia.org) It is also already being used as a means to destroy thrips (nasty little things that curl the leaves of citrus trees -- we have an infestation of these in our own back yard), grasshoppers and termites.
In what is, sadly, another apparent example of bureaucratic inefficiency, reported on the Biopact.org website the University of Abertay (Dundee, Scotland) has received a [prestigious, Biopact reports] Carnegie Trust Research Grant to do a year long study to "investigate turning residues from beer and whisky processes into biofuel." Now the reason this is yet another bureaucratic bulwark of paper-pushing inefficiency is that Coors, the famous Colorado brewery, formed a partnership with Merrick & Co. to do exactly that almost 2 years ago, and it has been so successful they plan to open a second plant to double capacity. Back in 2005 it was reported they were selling their output at US$2.50/gallon on the local market.
Admittedly Abertay researchers may explore some lesser known areas, but in addition to making ethanol from the waste of brewing processes, dried distillers' grains are already a "hot" item in the biofuels market. Why? Because not only can they have their oils extracted from them (not a portion of the grain that held any interest for brewers and distillers), but then the residuals can still be sold as feed for livestock. Pork producers reported that these lipid-reduced dried distillers’ grains actually resulted in better weight gains with leaner meat than the same distillers' grains that had not had their oils removed. High fat content in distillers' grains fed to swine resulted in "flabby" conditions. Dairy farmers may be less thrilled, since a significant part of the attraction for supplementing milk cows feed with distillers' grains is the increase in fat content in their milk, which brings a higher price.
In what I have to call a somewhat forward-looking deal affecting Hawai'i (new, politically correct spelling -- I'm not all that fond of political correctness, but this spelling appeals to me for some reason, probably because it correctly reflects native pronunciation). HECO (Hawaiian Electric Company) and the Natural Resources Defense Council jointly announced a policy by which all of Hawai'i's electric utilities will shift away from fossil based diesel to use biodiesel over the next few years. The article, or rather the press release claims that this will make them the largest single user of biodiesel in the United States. An emphasis on locally grown and locally produced biodiesel obviously reduces dependence on imported foreign oil. Some vegetable oil will likely have to be imported for some considerable span of time, but that is covered in this policy announcement too. Palm oil that may be imported for the purpose of use by the electric companies must comply with (and in some aspects exceed) the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil criteria.
Additionally, the press release notes: "A Hawaiian Electric subsidiary will partner with Blue Earth Biofuels LLC to build a facility on Maui to supply biodiesel to Maui Electric Company, which uses diesel for about 85 percent of its electric production." We have been working with Blue Earth Biofuels for several months now on promoting jatropha curcas cultivation not only in Hawai'i, but in several other venues as well, and talking to a wide spectrum of entities from international conglomerates to ambitious entrepreneurs. It is a slow process, but we believe we are making some progress as we try to mesh the methods and ambitions of the people with whom we are speaking.
Some time ago I sent a brief note to Senator John McCain about supporting legislation to allow people in general, and seniors in particular to "re-import" prescription drugs from Canada. I got a reply this week dated August 13, 2007 (via snail mail). In it Senator McCain points out that he "joined with a number of my colleagues" in developing Senate bill 242, known as the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act of 2007 back in January of 2007. It was "sent to committee" (quite often a "never-never-land" for legislation that couldn't find enough support to get passed, but no one wanted to go on record as being "against it"). Later they brought it back from cold storage as a proposed amendment to Senate bill 1082, the Prescription Drug User Fee Amendments of 2007, which then passed by a vote of 63:28 on May 3,2007. (I'm taking these facts from the Senator's letter, I haven't attempted to verify them independently.)(Surely I can rely upon a United States Senator to tell the truth, can't I?) BUT ... Senator McCain goes on to explain that, "While I was not present during debate on the legislation, my absence did not effect [sic] the outcome of any vote." (63+28=91) Now Senator McCain has a LOT of senior citizens in his constituency of Arizona, especially in my neighborhood and nearby Sun City retirement communities, but the good Senator also explains that, "However, the bill was further amended and, as a result, it is unlikely that the importation of prescription drugs would occur under the Senate-passed version of the bill."
Senator McCain has positioned himself as a major reformer on campaign finance. I hardly think that drug company lobbyists affected the less than tenacious stance on the issue. And yet, "res ipsa locuitur", the results seem to speak for themselves. Medicare Part D remains, prices remain not merely high but actually out of reach for many citizens, and the pharmaceutical companies merrily wheel their wheelbarrows of profits to the bank.
One can readily see where the average person comes to feel that their input has no value to the political process.
If the above example is the result of a constituent's communication of support for a Senator's own avowed position, how little would it be likely to affect Senator McCain's position to express an opposing viewpoint on the conduct of the Iraq "war", the "war on terrorism", or the impending withdrawal from Iraq? Can anyone envision that it would have anything but less than no effect on the actual conduct of any of these administration policies? At least with Senator Warner speaking out on the issue of orderly but rapid withdrawal, it does seem that we can expect General David Petraeus' report to be followed by an administration proposal to at least "re-deploy" troops and bring some of them home. Can’t we? On This Week with George Stephanopolous(Terry Moran was hosting this week) after two weeks of not reporting the statistics of military casualties in Iraq, the "In Memoriam" segment listed MORE than 25 dead per week in "announced" deaths from the U.S. military.
Michel Martin, of National Public Radio (formerly with ABC Television's Nightline) appearing on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher after disclosing that her husband is the lawyer representing the confessed felon, compared the dog fighting scandal involving a football celebrity (I won't dignify the issue by mentioning his name) and the outrage and vociferous protests it generated; contrasting to the hundreds and hundreds of murders in major urban centers like Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and Baltimore (and the list goes on and on, though she wasn't trying to make hers an exhaustive list) that we seem to simply accept as a nation and a society. Wouldn't you think that even if we can't prevent all the murders in our own country that we would at least be massively outraged by 25 deaths per week as the price for President Bush's adventures?
On a topic of less consequence and more idle speculation than anything else, I can't help but wonder if Sharon Gless, who has recently returned to series television as "the mother" (aka Madelaine) in USA Network's Burn Notice is related to the show's star Jeffery Donovan. Their smiles are either genetically related or at minimum they MUST have the same dentist. (Okay, I confess ignorance, I don't get Showtime Network so I didn't know Ms. Gless has been hiding out there on Queer as Folk from 2000 to 2005.)
Last, but not least, certainly in time consumed for me recently, is that my company, Williamson Information Technologies Corp., has opened an online store for computer supplies, power supplies, laser toner, inkjet cartridges and the like. I am not mentioning it here to entice any readers to shop there, but I would appreciate a mention to the leaders of any charitable groups to which you might belong. You see, while this is not a "non-profit" business, one of its main functions is to support non-profit organizations by paying them commissions to refer their members as customers. Additionally, the non-profits can, themselves, sell discount coupons in their own localities to raise money (they keep 100% of the sales proceeds from the coupons themselves, in addition to their commission). If this sounds like something you or your favorite PTA fundraising chairperson would be interested in, check out some of the details at our PTA/PTSA information page. We aren’t limiting this to just PTA’s, however. We are particularly concerned with clean water projects (like the one that will be receiving the support of American Express' "Members" project) and sanitation projects, as well as clean/green energy projects, we can't possibly know all of the organizations involved in these worthy efforts, so I would appreciate your help in bringing them to at least consider using this as a fund raising activity.
Love
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
Ravichandra Potumarthi, a researcher in India, has demonstrated and presented his findings at a conference (the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology) that using the enzyme lipase as the catalyst he can convert vegetable oils into biodiesel. The trouble, of course, with that, conceptually, is that lipase is a complex protein, difficult and expensive to synthesize. Naturally it would not be a significant breakthrough if Ravichandra did not start thinking "outside the box", so to speak. He saw no reason to go to the trouble of refining the enzyme to a pure form, he simply found an organism that produces plenty of it, and tossed it into the mix. The main advantage here is that you don't have to heat the oil at all for the process to work as in (many, if not most) of the more conventional methods of using methanol (or ethanol) and sodium hydroxide. The mechanism Ravichandra chose was a simple fungus called Metarhizium anisopliae. Interestingly this particular fungus is not all that difficult to obtain at the moment, because it is being investigated as a means to control malaria carrying mosquitoes.(op.cit. Wikipedia.org) It is also already being used as a means to destroy thrips (nasty little things that curl the leaves of citrus trees -- we have an infestation of these in our own back yard), grasshoppers and termites.
In what is, sadly, another apparent example of bureaucratic inefficiency, reported on the Biopact.org website the University of Abertay (Dundee, Scotland) has received a [prestigious, Biopact reports] Carnegie Trust Research Grant to do a year long study to "investigate turning residues from beer and whisky processes into biofuel." Now the reason this is yet another bureaucratic bulwark of paper-pushing inefficiency is that Coors, the famous Colorado brewery, formed a partnership with Merrick & Co. to do exactly that almost 2 years ago, and it has been so successful they plan to open a second plant to double capacity. Back in 2005 it was reported they were selling their output at US$2.50/gallon on the local market.
Admittedly Abertay researchers may explore some lesser known areas, but in addition to making ethanol from the waste of brewing processes, dried distillers' grains are already a "hot" item in the biofuels market. Why? Because not only can they have their oils extracted from them (not a portion of the grain that held any interest for brewers and distillers), but then the residuals can still be sold as feed for livestock. Pork producers reported that these lipid-reduced dried distillers’ grains actually resulted in better weight gains with leaner meat than the same distillers' grains that had not had their oils removed. High fat content in distillers' grains fed to swine resulted in "flabby" conditions. Dairy farmers may be less thrilled, since a significant part of the attraction for supplementing milk cows feed with distillers' grains is the increase in fat content in their milk, which brings a higher price.
In what I have to call a somewhat forward-looking deal affecting Hawai'i (new, politically correct spelling -- I'm not all that fond of political correctness, but this spelling appeals to me for some reason, probably because it correctly reflects native pronunciation). HECO (Hawaiian Electric Company) and the Natural Resources Defense Council jointly announced a policy by which all of Hawai'i's electric utilities will shift away from fossil based diesel to use biodiesel over the next few years. The article, or rather the press release claims that this will make them the largest single user of biodiesel in the United States. An emphasis on locally grown and locally produced biodiesel obviously reduces dependence on imported foreign oil. Some vegetable oil will likely have to be imported for some considerable span of time, but that is covered in this policy announcement too. Palm oil that may be imported for the purpose of use by the electric companies must comply with (and in some aspects exceed) the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil criteria.
Additionally, the press release notes: "A Hawaiian Electric subsidiary will partner with Blue Earth Biofuels LLC to build a facility on Maui to supply biodiesel to Maui Electric Company, which uses diesel for about 85 percent of its electric production." We have been working with Blue Earth Biofuels for several months now on promoting jatropha curcas cultivation not only in Hawai'i, but in several other venues as well, and talking to a wide spectrum of entities from international conglomerates to ambitious entrepreneurs. It is a slow process, but we believe we are making some progress as we try to mesh the methods and ambitions of the people with whom we are speaking.
Some time ago I sent a brief note to Senator John McCain about supporting legislation to allow people in general, and seniors in particular to "re-import" prescription drugs from Canada. I got a reply this week dated August 13, 2007 (via snail mail). In it Senator McCain points out that he "joined with a number of my colleagues" in developing Senate bill 242, known as the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act of 2007 back in January of 2007. It was "sent to committee" (quite often a "never-never-land" for legislation that couldn't find enough support to get passed, but no one wanted to go on record as being "against it"). Later they brought it back from cold storage as a proposed amendment to Senate bill 1082, the Prescription Drug User Fee Amendments of 2007, which then passed by a vote of 63:28 on May 3,2007. (I'm taking these facts from the Senator's letter, I haven't attempted to verify them independently.)(Surely I can rely upon a United States Senator to tell the truth, can't I?) BUT ... Senator McCain goes on to explain that, "While I was not present during debate on the legislation, my absence did not effect [sic] the outcome of any vote." (63+28=91) Now Senator McCain has a LOT of senior citizens in his constituency of Arizona, especially in my neighborhood and nearby Sun City retirement communities, but the good Senator also explains that, "However, the bill was further amended and, as a result, it is unlikely that the importation of prescription drugs would occur under the Senate-passed version of the bill."
Senator McCain has positioned himself as a major reformer on campaign finance. I hardly think that drug company lobbyists affected the less than tenacious stance on the issue. And yet, "res ipsa locuitur", the results seem to speak for themselves. Medicare Part D remains, prices remain not merely high but actually out of reach for many citizens, and the pharmaceutical companies merrily wheel their wheelbarrows of profits to the bank.
One can readily see where the average person comes to feel that their input has no value to the political process.
If the above example is the result of a constituent's communication of support for a Senator's own avowed position, how little would it be likely to affect Senator McCain's position to express an opposing viewpoint on the conduct of the Iraq "war", the "war on terrorism", or the impending withdrawal from Iraq? Can anyone envision that it would have anything but less than no effect on the actual conduct of any of these administration policies? At least with Senator Warner speaking out on the issue of orderly but rapid withdrawal, it does seem that we can expect General David Petraeus' report to be followed by an administration proposal to at least "re-deploy" troops and bring some of them home. Can’t we? On This Week with George Stephanopolous(Terry Moran was hosting this week) after two weeks of not reporting the statistics of military casualties in Iraq, the "In Memoriam" segment listed MORE than 25 dead per week in "announced" deaths from the U.S. military.
Michel Martin, of National Public Radio (formerly with ABC Television's Nightline) appearing on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher after disclosing that her husband is the lawyer representing the confessed felon, compared the dog fighting scandal involving a football celebrity (I won't dignify the issue by mentioning his name) and the outrage and vociferous protests it generated; contrasting to the hundreds and hundreds of murders in major urban centers like Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C., and Baltimore (and the list goes on and on, though she wasn't trying to make hers an exhaustive list) that we seem to simply accept as a nation and a society. Wouldn't you think that even if we can't prevent all the murders in our own country that we would at least be massively outraged by 25 deaths per week as the price for President Bush's adventures?
On a topic of less consequence and more idle speculation than anything else, I can't help but wonder if Sharon Gless, who has recently returned to series television as "the mother" (aka Madelaine) in USA Network's Burn Notice is related to the show's star Jeffery Donovan. Their smiles are either genetically related or at minimum they MUST have the same dentist. (Okay, I confess ignorance, I don't get Showtime Network so I didn't know Ms. Gless has been hiding out there on Queer as Folk from 2000 to 2005.)
Last, but not least, certainly in time consumed for me recently, is that my company, Williamson Information Technologies Corp., has opened an online store for computer supplies, power supplies, laser toner, inkjet cartridges and the like. I am not mentioning it here to entice any readers to shop there, but I would appreciate a mention to the leaders of any charitable groups to which you might belong. You see, while this is not a "non-profit" business, one of its main functions is to support non-profit organizations by paying them commissions to refer their members as customers. Additionally, the non-profits can, themselves, sell discount coupons in their own localities to raise money (they keep 100% of the sales proceeds from the coupons themselves, in addition to their commission). If this sounds like something you or your favorite PTA fundraising chairperson would be interested in, check out some of the details at our PTA/PTSA information page. We aren’t limiting this to just PTA’s, however. We are particularly concerned with clean water projects (like the one that will be receiving the support of American Express' "Members" project) and sanitation projects, as well as clean/green energy projects, we can't possibly know all of the organizations involved in these worthy efforts, so I would appreciate your help in bringing them to at least consider using this as a fund raising activity.
Love
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
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