"zenboom" ? wrote in message
...



"JoeSixPack" wrote in message
news:nuYYe.303954$on1.168159@clgrps13...

"Goedjn" wrote in message
...


If I grow one ton of corn and burn it, I am not burning the equivalent
BTU in petroleum based oil. Therfore my energy consumption is carbon
neutral.


Your conclusion does not follow from your postulates.
This doesn't mean that your conclusion is wrong, but
it does mean that your argument is.


That may be true in theory, but in practice, the CO2 levels in our
atmosphere will continue to rise. An equilibrium used to exist, before
our
industrial revolution, where the amount of carbon released by biotic
respiration and natural fires, was roughly equal to the rate at which the
earth was able to re-absorb that carbon.

Nowadays we burn carbon in nearly every home and in factories,
powerplants
and transportation vehicles. This orgy of burning carbon is the reason
the
atmospheric rate of CO2 is rising, not because of the TYPE of carbon fuel
we
are burning.

"Carbon-neutral" sounds fine, but it's ridiculous to think that
atmospheric
CO2 will stop rising just because we switch from fossil-carbon fuel to
biofuel-carbon fuel. The only way to stop that is to stop burning
carbon-based fuels altogether.


alright, then. please explain why you think that is ridiculous ?



Very simple. The atmosphere won't know the difference between fossil fuel or
biofuel. The carbon emissions are the same. Growing more crops for biofuels
won't cause the CO2 to go down, only slow it's rise at best. Most of the
arable land on earth is already covered with vegetation, consuming CO2.
Radically increasing the arable land on earth to supply all the biofuels as
a direct replacement for fossil fuels is not a feasible option for a very
long time.

In-short, "carbon-neutral" doesn't translate into significant CO2 reduction
in the atmosphere.

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
Fossil fuels are biofuels...just not currently produced.

But Oil may not be a fossil fuel. It may well be left over from the
formation of the solar system.

What evidence for that is there?

Here are some of the points of circumstantial evidence for that
theory:

1) Oil was found on Mars

2) Oil was found in Sweden at the rim of a meteorite crater that
punctured
the earth's crust millions of years ago. There were none of the porous
coral-reef ocean-sediment formations that normally hold oil were
found,
and
are postulated to be where oil must be formed by ancient lifeforms.

3) The Earth's core contains a large amount of silicon carbide, as
well
as
radioactive elements. In theory, hydrocarbons should be a bi-product
of
the
radioactive decay process, and being very light, should rise towards
the
surface, where it would be trapped by porous reservoirs and sealed in
by
impervious overburden.

Any citations for any of the above?

Google "abiotic oil"

I did--it's hokum.

When I heard this idea about 20 years ago,k it was a very fringe idea. Since
then, it has gained credibility, not faded away. That's not the normal
course for "hokum"

Harvard Magazine doesn't seem to agree with you:
http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/030573.html

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/articl...d=1130&print=1

If you'd bothered to read any of this, the word "hokum" would only occur to
a mindless idiot.

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
...
In article zzcZe.274183$tt5.167492@edtnps90, "JoeSixPack"
wrote:

The occurrence of helium in natural gas deposits is actually sited as
evidence for the "abiotic oil" theory.

I'd sure like to see an explanation of that. The conventional wisdom is
that
helium is formed as a byproduct of the radioactive decay of uranium and
certain other elements, deep within the earth's crust. We find it in
natural
gas deposits, not because of some particular association between helium
and
natural gas, but because natural gas deposits are where we happen to drill
into the earth's crust.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)


Both helium and methane are light enough that they would have long ago
escaped into space, had they not been trapped in the earth's crust after
having been formed somewhere below that impervious layer.

Did you ever stop to do a mental calculation of how much organic life would
have had to be buried perfectly below an impervious layer before
decomposition broke down the body mass, to account for all the world's known
petroleum deposits? And after that, how much of the body mass would have
remained buried instead of decomposing into the atmosphere? It seems a lot
more far-fetched to believe the biotic origin theory than the abiotic one,
where those compounds forming deep in the earth and percolating upward. The
chemistry has been verified experimentally to happen at pressures similar to
those found only 100 kms and deeper below the surface. Use some logic and
save your skepticism for the least credible theory, not the most credible
one.

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
...
In article , Brock Ulfsen
wrote:
Duane Bozarth wrote:
Brock Ulfsen wrote:
But Oil may not be a fossil fuel. It may well be left over from the
formation of the solar system.

What evidence for that is there?

Well, a neutral article covering the basis
ishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Or for something a little more in depth:
Authors: Rasmussen, Birger1
Source: Geology; Jun2005, Vol. 33 Issue 6, p497-500, 4p
NAICS/Industry Codes: 4227 Petroleum and Petroleum Products Wholesalers
Abstract: Petroleum generation largely occurs through the thermal
decomposition of organic matter.
[major snip]
petroleum was generated from organic matter that accumulated in marine
environments, most probably comprising the remains of photosynthetic and
chemosynthetic organisms, pointing to a sizeable biomass as early as 3.2

In other words... it was *not* "left over from the formation of the solar
system" -- it formed from rotting plants and animal carcasses.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)


Excuse me, but that's a tough one to swallow. There's far too much oil in
the earth to have all been formed from "rotting plants and animal carcasses"

One has to wonder what all these dead animal carcasses are doing buried
miles beneath the earth's surface. There must have been a huge race of
groundhogs then.

If everything gets buried where the hell is all the extra dirt coming from
when the continents are slowly erroding away?


"JoeSixPack" wrote in message
news:PphZe.249048$9A2.35320@edtnps89...

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
...
In article zzcZe.274183$tt5.167492@edtnps90, "JoeSixPack"
wrote:

The occurrence of helium in natural gas deposits is actually sited as
evidence for the "abiotic oil" theory.

I'd sure like to see an explanation of that. The conventional wisdom is
that
helium is formed as a byproduct of the radioactive decay of uranium and
certain other elements, deep within the earth's crust. We find it in
natural
gas deposits, not because of some particular association between helium
and
natural gas, but because natural gas deposits are where we happen to drill
into the earth's crust.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)


Both helium and methane are light enough that they would have long ago
escaped into space, had they not been trapped in the earth's crust after
having been formed somewhere below that impervious layer.

Did you ever stop to do a mental calculation of how much organic life would
have had to be buried perfectly below an impervious layer before
decomposition broke down the body mass, to account for all the world's known
petroleum deposits? And after that, how much of the body mass would have
remained buried instead of decomposing into the atmosphere? It seems a lot
more far-fetched to believe the biotic origin theory than the abiotic one,
where those compounds forming deep in the earth and percolating upward. The
chemistry has been verified experimentally to happen at pressures similar to
those found only 100 kms and deeper below the surface. Use some logic and
save your skepticism for the least credible theory, not the most credible
one.

JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
Fossil fuels are biofuels...just not currently produced.

But Oil may not be a fossil fuel. It may well be left over from the
formation of the solar system.

What evidence for that is there?

Here are some of the points of circumstantial evidence for that
theory:

1) Oil was found on Mars

2) Oil was found in Sweden at the rim of a meteorite crater that
punctured
the earth's crust millions of years ago. There were none of the porous
coral-reef ocean-sediment formations that normally hold oil were
found,
and
are postulated to be where oil must be formed by ancient lifeforms.

3) The Earth's core contains a large amount of silicon carbide, as
well
as
radioactive elements. In theory, hydrocarbons should be a bi-product
of
the
radioactive decay process, and being very light, should rise towards
the
surface, where it would be trapped by porous reservoirs and sealed in
by
impervious overburden.

Any citations for any of the above?

Google "abiotic oil"

I did--it's hokum.

When I heard this idea about 20 years ago,k it was a very fringe idea. Since
then, it has gained credibility, not faded away. That's not the normal
course for "hokum"

Harvard Magazine doesn't seem to agree with you:
http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/030573.html

http://www.enviroliteracy.org/articl...d=1130&print=1

If you'd bothered to read any of this, the word "hokum" would only occur to
a mindless idiot.

Well, a lab experiment which shows one can possibly generate small
amounts of methane is, as is noted in the article, a long way from being
anything at all conclusive about the origins of large reservoirs of
petroleum products.

All I have seen so far I would say is hokum wrt to being the origin of
the known large commercially viable reserves.

JoeSixPack wrote:

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
...
In article , Brock Ulfsen
wrote:
Duane Bozarth wrote:
Brock Ulfsen wrote:
But Oil may not be a fossil fuel. It may well be left over from the
formation of the solar system.

What evidence for that is there?

Well, a neutral article covering the basis
ishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Or for something a little more in depth:
Authors: Rasmussen, Birger1
Source: Geology; Jun2005, Vol. 33 Issue 6, p497-500, 4p
NAICS/Industry Codes: 4227 Petroleum and Petroleum Products Wholesalers
Abstract: Petroleum generation largely occurs through the thermal
decomposition of organic matter.
[major snip]
petroleum was generated from organic matter that accumulated in marine
environments, most probably comprising the remains of photosynthetic and
chemosynthetic organisms, pointing to a sizeable biomass as early as 3.2

In other words... it was *not* "left over from the formation of the solar
system" -- it formed from rotting plants and animal carcasses.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

Excuse me, but that's a tough one to swallow. There's far too much oil in
the earth to have all been formed from "rotting plants and animal carcasses"

Why? What is a physical basis for that as a blanket aassertion other
than your personal opinion.

JoeSixPack wrote:

Even if it costs $10 a gallon?


It doesn't. It costs about $3 to $4 per gallon, not much different than
gasoline.


--
Steve Spence
Dir., Green Trust, http://www.green-trust.org
Contributing Editor, http://www.off-grid.net
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html

In article PphZe.249048$9A2.35320@edtnps89, "JoeSixPack" wrote:

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
m...
In article zzcZe.274183$tt5.167492@edtnps90, "JoeSixPack"
wrote:

The occurrence of helium in natural gas deposits is actually sited as
evidence for the "abiotic oil" theory.

I'd sure like to see an explanation of that. The conventional wisdom is
that
helium is formed as a byproduct of the radioactive decay of uranium and
certain other elements, deep within the earth's crust. We find it in
natural
gas deposits, not because of some particular association between helium
and
natural gas, but because natural gas deposits are where we happen to drill
into the earth's crust.

Both helium and methane are light enough that they would have long ago
escaped into space, had they not been trapped in the earth's crust after
having been formed somewhere below that impervious layer.

Yes, of course. But what's the point?

Did you ever stop to do a mental calculation of how much organic life would
have had to be buried perfectly below an impervious layer before
decomposition broke down the body mass, to account for all the world's known
petroleum deposits? And after that, how much of the body mass would have
remained buried instead of decomposing into the atmosphere? It seems a lot
more far-fetched to believe the biotic origin theory than the abiotic one,
where those compounds forming deep in the earth and percolating upward. The
chemistry has been verified experimentally to happen at pressures similar to
those found only 100 kms and deeper below the surface. Use some logic and
save your skepticism for the least credible theory, not the most credible
one.

Well, that's exactly what I did... and exactly why I believe the biotic-origin
theory. You'll have to do a little better.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

In article aahZe.249043$9A2.73762@edtnps89, "JoeSixPack" wrote:

Very simple. The atmosphere won't know the difference between fossil fuel or
biofuel. The carbon emissions are the same. Growing more crops for biofuels
won't cause the CO2 to go down

Nonsense -- of course it will. The carbon which those plants incorporate as
they grow comes from atmospheric CO2.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

In article KrhZe.249049$9A2.36492@edtnps89, "JoeSixPack" wrote:

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
m...
In article , Brock Ulfsen
wrote:
Duane Bozarth wrote:
Brock Ulfsen wrote:
But Oil may not be a fossil fuel. It may well be left over from the
formation of the solar system.

What evidence for that is there?

Well, a neutral article covering the basis
ishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Or for something a little more in depth:
Authors: Rasmussen, Birger1
Source: Geology; Jun2005, Vol. 33 Issue 6, p497-500, 4p
NAICS/Industry Codes: 4227 Petroleum and Petroleum Products Wholesalers
Abstract: Petroleum generation largely occurs through the thermal
decomposition of organic matter.
[major snip]
petroleum was generated from organic matter that accumulated in marine
environments, most probably comprising the remains of photosynthetic and
chemosynthetic organisms, pointing to a sizeable biomass as early as 3.2

In other words... it was *not* "left over from the formation of the solar
system" -- it formed from rotting plants and animal carcasses.

Excuse me, but that's a tough one to swallow. There's far too much oil in
the earth to have all been formed from "rotting plants and animal carcasses"

OK, fine - demonstrate that. Show your work.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Steve Spence" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

You do realize corn oil is available it the grocery store .....


So is olive, palm, sunflower, safflower, peanut, canola, fish, lard,
and
about a hundred others. What's your point?

you claimed it was rarely grown for oil. you were wrong.


Corn is a good crop because it's commonly grown, it can be pressed for
oil, and mashed for ethanol, plus the distillers grains are used for
animal feed, so it has many by products.


Does that make it feasible as a replacement for petroleum fuel?
as one replacement, yes. since you can make biodiesel and ethanol from
the
same bushel, plus animal feed, it's a very good source of fuel.

Even if it costs $10 a gallon?

Ehanol is cheaper than gasoline at today's prices...

What's the price after you take off all the subsidies?

JoeSixPack wrote:


Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline at today's prices...


What's the price after you take off all the subsidies?


What's the price of gasoline after you remove the subsidies?


--
Steve Spence
Dir., Green Trust, http://www.green-trust.org
Contributing Editor, http://www.off-grid.net
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html

"Steve Spence" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:


Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline at today's prices...


What's the price after you take off all the subsidies?
What's the price of gasoline after you remove the subsidies?


I'm sure you mean taxes. Remove them, and we're talking about 15-30% less,
depending on where you live. That only increases the spread between
petroleum and biofuels, so I don't see what you're getting at.

JoeSixPack wrote:
So where did all the excess "carbin" in the atmosphere come from before we
started burning petroleum?

The carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have been fairly stable
until the industrial revolution started burning coal (A fossil fuel) and
petroleum il, which may or may not be a fossil fuel, but in any case,
niether were active parts of the atmospheric carbon cycle for the first
million years or so of human use of combustion.

....Brock.

Duane Bozarth wrote:
I'd be interested to see the hybrid data for those--that's far different
than US hybrids. Who are the seed suppliers and do they have web
presence? Are these produced by the US equivalent of the land-grant
universities research programs as were/are many of the new varieties
here or by commercial seed growers?

All the usual suspects. Big global companies, developement is mostly by
Deapartment of Primary Industries, lots of local seed companies
producing hybrid seed to. Universities have largely been urban until
recently, so had little to do with horticulture.

I don't recall ever seeing a commercially grown wheat/barley/rye
variety that would be much over 3 ft, even going back to old Turkey Red,
the original hard red winter wheat brought over in the 1800s. Extremely
tall is bad owing to tendency to go down, of course. Very, very short is
a problem as well owing to difficulty in cutting w/o getting into the
ground or missing the short heads. On the very rare occasion w/ really
high moisture years I can recall some years which may have gotten to
mid-chest height, but that would be the exception, not the rule.

Hmmm, mid-chest would be about right heritage varieties, 1m to 1.5m.
Crops growing here are usuall half that high.

Here we go, a traditional variety, 2m (6ft) and a modern hybrid 60cm (2ft).

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/e...ish_746022.htm

....Brock.


We've been growing wheat and grain sorghum here since the early 1900s
and the pictures back then of harvest w/ teams and stationary thresher
don't show a real significant difference in heights from what I recall
in the 50s when I first can really remember up to now...

Pictures of horsedrawn harvesters here show wheat tended to be about 1m
tall, definitely over waist height, as opposed to barely knee high for
the current varieties I see in paddocks by the hyway.

Duane Bozarth wrote:
JoeSixPack wrote:
Google "abiotic oil"

I did--it's hokum.

So explain Carbonaceous Chondrites.

....Brock.

Doug Miller wrote:
In article , Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:

Brock Ulfsen wrote:

But Oil may not be a fossil fuel. It may well be left over from the
formation of the solar system.

What evidence for that is there?

Well, a neutral article covering the basis
ishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Or for something a little more in depth:
Authors: Rasmussen, Birger1
Source: Geology; Jun2005, Vol. 33 Issue 6, p497-500, 4p
NAICS/Industry Codes: 4227 Petroleum and Petroleum Products Wholesalers
Abstract: Petroleum generation largely occurs through the thermal
decomposition of organic matter.

[major snip]

petroleum was generated from organic matter that accumulated in marine
environments, most probably comprising the remains of photosynthetic and
chemosynthetic organisms, pointing to a sizeable biomass as early as 3.2

In other words... it was *not* "left over from the formation of the solar
system" -- it formed from rotting plants and animal carcasses.

Note the word _largely_ (whcich was required for a long time in the US
peer reviewed press to be allowed to make any references to abiotic origin.

That is a reference to the conventional petroleum geology theory, which
has problems of its own, and relies on biological truisms that predate
the discovery of extremophile bacteria. I might note that the Russians,
who believe in abiotic origins for oil seem to be finding it where they
look with at least the same level of reliability of the US based
theorists looking in somewhat different places.

....Brock.

JoeSixPack wrote:
"zenboom" ? wrote in message
...



"JoeSixPack" wrote in message
news:nuYYe.303954$on1.168159@clgrps13...

"Goedjn" wrote in message
...

If I grow one ton of corn and burn it, I am not burning the equivalent
BTU in petroleum based oil. Therfore my energy consumption is carbon
neutral.


Your conclusion does not follow from your postulates.
This doesn't mean that your conclusion is wrong, but
it does mean that your argument is.


That may be true in theory, but in practice, the CO2 levels in our
atmosphere will continue to rise. An equilibrium used to exist, before

our

industrial revolution, where the amount of carbon released by biotic
respiration and natural fires, was roughly equal to the rate at which the
earth was able to re-absorb that carbon.

Nowadays we burn carbon in nearly every home and in factories,
powerplants
and transportation vehicles. This orgy of burning carbon is the reason

the

atmospheric rate of CO2 is rising, not because of the TYPE of carbon fuel

we

are burning.

"Carbon-neutral" sounds fine, but it's ridiculous to think that

atmospheric

CO2 will stop rising just because we switch from fossil-carbon fuel to
biofuel-carbon fuel. The only way to stop that is to stop burning
carbon-based fuels altogether.


alright, then. please explain why you think that is ridiculous ?




Very simple. The atmosphere won't know the difference between fossil fuel or
biofuel. The carbon emissions are the same. Growing more crops for biofuels
won't cause the CO2 to go down, only slow it's rise at best. Most of the
arable land on earth is already covered with vegetation, consuming CO2.
Radically increasing the arable land on earth to supply all the biofuels as
a direct replacement for fossil fuels is not a feasible option for a very
long time.

In-short, "carbon-neutral" doesn't translate into significant CO2 reduction
in the atmosphere.

Much of the arable land is used for grass, or grain to feed cattle,
where the carbon is released into that atmosphere as either exhaled CO2
or farted methane. If we used that same land to grow hemp to make paper
and stored the paper in nice dry buildings (made of fibrepanels produced
from hemp) for centuries, that carbon would be sequested, and hemp
produces more biomass per acre tham grass.

....Brock.

JoeSixPack wrote:
"Steve Spence" wrote in message
...

JoeSixPack wrote:


Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline at today's prices...


What's the price after you take off all the subsidies?

What's the price of gasoline after you remove the subsidies?



I'm sure you mean taxes. Remove them, and we're talking about 15-30% less,
depending on where you live. That only increases the spread between
petroleum and biofuels, so I don't see what you're getting at.


No, I'm not talking about taxes that you see at the pump.

I'm talking about health subsidies, security subsidies, environmental
subsidies, all those things that if the consumer paid for them at the
pump instead of in general taxes on income and other sales taxes, would
be indicated by $6 or more at the pump.

http://www.green-trust.org/securesup...curesupply.htm


--
Steve Spence
Dir., Green Trust, http://www.green-trust.org
Contributing Editor, http://www.off-grid.net
http://www.rebelwolf.com/essn.html

Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
I'd be interested to see the hybrid data for those--that's far different
than US hybrids. Who are the seed suppliers and do they have web
presence? Are these produced by the US equivalent of the land-grant
universities research programs as were/are many of the new varieties
here or by commercial seed growers?

All the usual suspects. ...

What's with this????

... Big global companies, developement is mostly by
Deapartment of Primary Industries, lots of local seed companies
producing hybrid seed to. Universities have largely been urban until
recently, so had little to do with horticulture.

That seems almost incomprehensible that there aren't Ag Departments in
at least some of the major Universities, regardless of where they are
physically situated. Where are the Vet schools, the Animal Husbandry
programs, the Ag Engineers, Milling and Grain experts trained?

There are of course, commercially developed varieties but most US-grown
varieties are developed by the various University and Grower-sponsored
research organizations. Example facilities in Kansas at Kansas State
University include

http://www.k-state.edu/wgrc/
http://www.k-state.edu/igp/
http://www.k-state.edu/igrow/

Dad did a sponsored Farm Tour to Au and NZ a number of years ago under
aegis of US Dept of Ag but other than his tales of visiting and staying
w/ various producers around and meetings w/ Wheat Board (or whatever it
was called specifically) and other gov't officialdom I don't recall what
they saw for the research end.

I don't recall ever seeing a commercially grown wheat/barley/rye
variety that would be much over 3 ft, even going back to old Turkey Red,
the original hard red winter wheat brought over in the 1800s. Extremely
tall is bad owing to tendency to go down, of course. Very, very short is
a problem as well owing to difficulty in cutting w/o getting into the
ground or missing the short heads. On the very rare occasion w/ really
high moisture years I can recall some years which may have gotten to
mid-chest height, but that would be the exception, not the rule.

Hmmm, mid-chest would be about right heritage varieties, 1m to 1.5m.
Crops growing here are usuall half that high.

The "mid-chest" would have been a rare event as I noted, only occurring
in very rare growing seasons.

Here we go, a traditional variety, 2m (6ft) and a modern hybrid 60cm (2ft).

That's going far farther back than what I would consider
"traditional"... :)

There's not been much of that type grown in really large quantities for
at least a 100 years, at least in the US. I was coming from the frame
of reference of when wheat was introduced as a widespread grain crop in
the US midwest in the mid-1800s which was primarily w/ the introduction
here of hard red winter wheat, specifically Turkey Red.

The Duram wheats are grown farther north and west in the US from where
we are located here.


http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/e...ish_746022.htm

...Brock.

We've been growing wheat and grain sorghum here since the early 1900s
and the pictures back then of harvest w/ teams and stationary thresher
don't show a real significant difference in heights from what I recall
in the 50s when I first can really remember up to now...

Pictures of horsedrawn harvesters here show wheat tended to be about 1m
tall, definitely over waist height, as opposed to barely knee high for
the current varieties I see in paddocks by the hyway.

I wouldn't like wheat quite that short for the reasons stated
before--would force one to run the combine header nearly on the ground
which makes for picking up lots of dirt and wear on the lower carriage
in order to not miss the shorter than average heads.

I still think regarding your point regarding the total biomass per acre
that the modern planting density compared to such hand sown fields of
the reference time frame when such super-tall varieties were predominant
will counteract a large amount of the difference in total plant volume.

JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Steve Spence" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

You do realize corn oil is available it the grocery store .....


So is olive, palm, sunflower, safflower, peanut, canola, fish, lard,
and
about a hundred others. What's your point?

you claimed it was rarely grown for oil. you were wrong.


Corn is a good crop because it's commonly grown, it can be pressed for
oil, and mashed for ethanol, plus the distillers grains are used for
animal feed, so it has many by products.


Does that make it feasible as a replacement for petroleum fuel?
as one replacement, yes. since you can make biodiesel and ethanol from
the
same bushel, plus animal feed, it's a very good source of fuel.

Even if it costs $10 a gallon?

Ehanol is cheaper than gasoline at today's prices...

What's the price after you take off all the subsidies?


Direct payments to grain producers are less than $0.25/bu for corn which
is something on the order of 12-15% of current market price. But, one
can't just make the blanket assumption that this is paid on every bushel
produced since there are significant other considerations every producer
must take into account in deciding how to run his particular operation
under current Farm Policy and Tax Law, just as in any other industry.

There is a tax credit which goes to the ethanol producer which I don't
know the exact magnitude of under current law. It's intended, of
course, to stimulate the expansion of production and is nothing
dissimilar to other economic incentives which have been codified for
such things as wind generation and solar.

One of the last data points I have states "...the costs to produce
ethanol from corn starch and the capital cost of dry mill ethanol plants
have decreased. In 1978, ethanol was estimated to cost $2.47 per gallon
to produce (in year 2000 dollars). By 1994 this price had dropped to
$1.43 per gallon 12 and current fuel ethanol production costs are
estimated by the authors to be about $0.88 per gallon for dry mill
operations. The cost reductions may be traced to various factors. The
production of ethanol has become less energy intensive due to new
techniques in energy integration and the use of molecular sieves for
ethanol dehydration. The amount of pure ethanol produced from a bushel
of corn has increased from 2.5 gallons to more than 2.7 gallons."

http://www.ethanol-gec.org/information/briefing/16.pdf

I think it's clear that actual production costs are quite competitive w/
gasoline at or above the $1/gal mark.

Brock Ulfsen wrote:

....

Much of the arable land is used for grass, or grain to feed cattle,
where the carbon is released into that atmosphere as either exhaled CO2
or farted methane. If we used that same land to grow hemp to make paper
and stored the paper in nice dry buildings (made of fibrepanels produced
from hemp) for centuries, that carbon would be sequested, and hemp
produces more biomass per acre tham grass.

And less food and other necessary products...

Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
JoeSixPack wrote:
Google "abiotic oil"

I did--it's hokum.

So explain Carbonaceous Chondrites.


Whatever their explanation, they're not the source of production oil
reserves.

In article , Brock Ulfsen wrote:
Duane Bozarth wrote:
JoeSixPack wrote:
Google "abiotic oil"

I did--it's hokum.

So explain Carbonaceous Chondrites.

Coming right up...

" A rare type of stony meteorite which contains large amounts of the
magnesium-rich minerals olivine and serpentine and a variety of organic
compounds, including amino acids. Although fewer than 100 carbonaceous
chondrites are known..."

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/C/carbchon.html

Do you *really* think that's where Earth's petroleum came from? Rare
meteorites, of which fewer than a hundred are known? Get real.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

In article , (Brock
Ulfsen) says...

That is a reference to the conventional petroleum geology theory, which
has problems of its own, and relies on biological truisms that predate
the discovery of extremophile bacteria. I might note that the Russians,
who believe in abiotic origins for oil seem to be finding it where they
look with at least the same level of reliability of the US based
theorists looking in somewhat different places.

The controversy is caused by a bunch of simplistic morons kicking the
dirt in a desert and proclaiming that all petroleum resources are from
the same source. There is little doubt that deep methane is left over
from either the formation of the earth or as a fossil remnant of the
earth's original methane atmosphere. OTOH, methane in sedimentary
strata is probably the remnant of decomposed organic matter. In both
cases, heat and pressure can cook methane into longer carbon chain
molecules and free hydrogen, also reducing CO2 to CO, yielding our
familiar natural gas fuel.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

In article ,
(Goedjn) says...

My suspicion is that we'dd end up with less carbon in
the air if we go ahead and keep burning dead dinosaurs,
and use the cropland to produce things that permanantly
remove carbon, like CAF panels, construction-lumber, and
pencil-leads.

Sort of. It is pointless to grow a large amount of biomass without
preserving it, since the decay process releases all the carbon back into
the atmosphere. Even large biomass crops, like timber, reach CO2
equilibrium in only a few decades. Building materials sequester a lot
of carbon, not only in the lumber, but in cellulose insulation and other
manufactured wood products.

Unfortunately, the biosphere just doesn't have the capability of
scrubbing all the fossil fuel carbon out of the atmosphere. You would
have to cover all the arable land on the planet with crops, and then not
allow those crops to decompose, in order to keep up with the release of
carbon from coal burning.

Most of the fossil carbon on the earth takes the form of carbonate
fossils, like limestone, marble and chalk, which are fairly inert.
Little sea critters are still laying down their fossil shells, and over
the long run will remove all the carbon we are dumping into the
atmosphere.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

In article ,
(Goedjn) says...

Or find a plant or environment that's particularly good at
sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. Crank the global
temp a degree or so, And I'll bet you get algae blooms
like you never saw... that ought to do it...

Until the algae dies.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

In article ,
(Solar Flare) says...

Both helium and methane are light enough that they would have long ago
escaped into space, had they not been trapped in the earth's crust after
having been formed somewhere below that impervious layer.

Helium is an inert gas that seeps through anything. Methane is a
chemically active substance that forms hydrates with water to form
methane ices at temperatures as high as 50 degrees. Technically these
methane ices are termed clathrates. The bound methane is not a gas, and
doesn't escape anywhere.

Did you ever stop to do a mental calculation of how much organic life would
have had to be buried perfectly below an impervious layer before
decomposition broke down the body mass, to account for all the world's known
petroleum deposits? And after that, how much of the body mass would have
remained buried instead of decomposing into the atmosphere?

Most petroleum reserves are found under salt domes, where ancient seas
laid down thick organic deposits, then dried, sealing the deposits under
a layer of impermeable salt. This all happened long before the earth
had an oxidizing atmosphere. You will recall that the earth has only
had free oxygen in its atmosphere for the last 600 million years. Prior
to that, the earth enjoyed about 3 billion years of anaerobic fertility.
The comments about fossil fuel being decomposed dinosaurs are a JOKE,
only taken seriously by the uneducated. Even coal deposits mostly date
from the carboniferous, about 350 to 300 mya, an era dominated by
insects, crustacea, and the first 4-footed animals, mostly amphibians.
Coal deposits far outweigh all petroleum reserves, and nobody denies
that coal is fossil plant matter.

It seems a lot
more far-fetched to believe the biotic origin theory than the abiotic one,
where those compounds forming deep in the earth and percolating upward. The
chemistry has been verified experimentally to happen at pressures similar to
those found only 100 kms and deeper below the surface. Use some logic and
save your skepticism for the least credible theory, not the most credible
one.

You forget that the issue is not theoretical. They have to drill wells
into oil bearing strata, and big paychecks depend on the process. They
have studied core samples from oil wells, and the oil occurs in biotic
strata, not in abiotic strata. Your theory is unfortunately running
afoul of cold, hard fact.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
I'd be interested to see the hybrid data for those--that's far
different
than US hybrids. Who are the seed suppliers and do they have web
presence? Are these produced by the US equivalent of the land-grant
universities research programs as were/are many of the new varieties
here or by commercial seed growers?

All the usual suspects. ...

What's with this????

... Big global companies, developement is mostly by
Deapartment of Primary Industries, lots of local seed companies
producing hybrid seed to. Universities have largely been urban until
recently, so had little to do with horticulture.


That's completely wrong. Horticulture largely pertains to urban and
commercial plant production for food and aesthetics. Agriculture pertains
to rural and commercial food production from plants and animals.
Universities are situated in cities, but their agricultural colleges are
fully engaged in rural food production in all areas.

Brock Ulfsen wrote in
:

That is a reference to the conventional petroleum geology theory, which
has problems of its own, and relies on biological truisms that predate
the discovery of extremophile bacteria.

From time to time the bacterial origins theory rears its head and then
disappears once again. Still one must consider the easter Ohio western
Pennsylvania shallow oil fields originally tapped into by Drake.

I might note that the Russians,
who believe in abiotic origins for oil seem to be finding it where they
look with at least the same level of reliability of the US based
theorists looking in somewhat different places.

During the soviet era the Russians used their sledgehammer-to-kill-a-fly
routine with exploration for natural resources. It appears they weren't
so selective as people who had to answer to shareholders every year, but
lucked into some odd discoveries. We're probably not nearly as close to
"the end" as the doomsday crowd preaches.

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
I'd be interested to see the hybrid data for those--that's far
different
than US hybrids. Who are the seed suppliers and do they have web
presence? Are these produced by the US equivalent of the land-grant
universities research programs as were/are many of the new varieties
here or by commercial seed growers?

All the usual suspects. ...

What's with this????

... Big global companies, developement is mostly by
Deapartment of Primary Industries, lots of local seed companies
producing hybrid seed to. Universities have largely been urban until
recently, so had little to do with horticulture.

That seems almost incomprehensible that there aren't Ag Departments in
at least some of the major Universities, regardless of where they are
physically situated. Where are the Vet schools, the Animal Husbandry
programs, the Ag Engineers, Milling and Grain experts trained?

There are of course, commercially developed varieties but most US-grown
varieties are developed by the various University and Grower-sponsored
research organizations. Example facilities in Kansas at Kansas State
University include

http://www.k-state.edu/wgrc/
http://www.k-state.edu/igp/
http://www.k-state.edu/igrow/

Dad did a sponsored Farm Tour to Au and NZ a number of years ago under
aegis of US Dept of Ag but other than his tales of visiting and staying
w/ various producers around and meetings w/ Wheat Board (or whatever it
was called specifically) and other gov't officialdom I don't recall what
they saw for the research end.

I don't recall ever seeing a commercially grown wheat/barley/rye
variety that would be much over 3 ft, even going back to old Turkey
Red,
the original hard red winter wheat brought over in the 1800s.
Extremely
tall is bad owing to tendency to go down, of course. Very, very short
is
a problem as well owing to difficulty in cutting w/o getting into the
ground or missing the short heads. On the very rare occasion w/ really
high moisture years I can recall some years which may have gotten to
mid-chest height, but that would be the exception, not the rule.

Hmmm, mid-chest would be about right heritage varieties, 1m to 1.5m.
Crops growing here are usuall half that high.


Giant plants are not so hard to develop, but that's not usually the goal of
plant breeders. The key is the efficiency at which plants convert sunlight,
water and nutrients into the final biomass product. There's not much room
to improve the efficiency of photosynthesis, it has become very efficient
over the last few billion years, and the efficiency of our photovoltaic
cells lag behind them quite badly.

Bigger plants take longer to grow, take more water and nutrients, so what's
the advantage? When grain is the product, there's usually more to gain by
shortening the plant, thereby diverting more of the growing plant's energy
to developing the head of grain instead if building large stalks. Nature
makes plants tall because they usually have to rise above the competition
and capture the precious sunlight. In a field of one type of grain, there's
no reason for the plants to compete with each other by being taller.

If bulk biomass is the key, it may not be the best strategy to grow a forest
of 12-foot high sugarcane that takes 11 months to grow, when the same
biomass equivalent can be delivered from a crop of sugar beet harvested 3
times a year.

There's been considerable research and discussion on these subjects, so I
recommend you investigate some of it.

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message ...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

"Steve Spence" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:

You do realize corn oil is available it the grocery store .....


So is olive, palm, sunflower, safflower, peanut, canola, fish, lard,
and
about a hundred others. What's your point?

you claimed it was rarely grown for oil. you were wrong.


Corn is a good crop because it's commonly grown, it can be pressed for
oil, and mashed for ethanol, plus the distillers grains are used for
animal feed, so it has many by products.


Does that make it feasible as a replacement for petroleum fuel?
as one replacement, yes. since you can make biodiesel and ethanol from
the
same bushel, plus animal feed, it's a very good source of fuel.

Even if it costs $10 a gallon?

Ehanol is cheaper than gasoline at today's prices...

What's the price after you take off all the subsidies?


Direct payments to grain producers are less than $0.25/bu for corn which
is something on the order of 12-15% of current market price. But, one
can't just make the blanket assumption that this is paid on every bushel
produced since there are significant other considerations every producer
must take into account in deciding how to run his particular operation
under current Farm Policy and Tax Law, just as in any other industry.


Don't ignore all the indirect ones. Subsidies on fertilizers, pesticides and a phoney "loan" program that will never be repaid, amounts to a 50% subsidy paid to the US farmer on every bushel of grain.

President Bush Challenges EU on Farm Subsidies
By VOA News
04 July 2005



President Bush says the United States will drop subsidies to American farmers - if the European Union does the same in Europe. He told British television Sunday, ending those subsidies would allow African countries to compete better, reducing their need for international aid.

President Bush will attend he Group of Eight Summit this week, which will discuss aid to Africa. But farm subsidies are very popular in France and Germany, and the U.S. challenge is not thought likely to be accepted.

"Brock Ulfsen" wrote in message
...
JoeSixPack wrote:
So where did all the excess "carbin" in the atmosphere come from before
we started burning petroleum?

The carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have been fairly stable until
the industrial revolution started burning coal (A fossil fuel) and
petroleum il, which may or may not be a fossil fuel, but in any case,
niether were active parts of the atmospheric carbon cycle for the first
million years or so of human use of combustion.

...Brock.

Exactly, but it's not a question of the total carbon budget. It's a question
of emission rates exceeding assimilation rates. That's what they fail to
get.

About 55 million years ago, there was a very rapid rise of global warming,
almost 12C worldwide, in "just an instant" in geologic terms. It has taken
a very long time for the temperatures to creep down to recent levels. It
seems obvious that assimilation rates for carbon being fixed outside out of
the cycle are very slow indeed. In other words, burning biofuels is just a
way to pass the carbon around faster.

"Larry Caldwell" wrote in message
.net...
In article ,
(Solar Flare) says...

Both helium and methane are light enough that they would have long ago
escaped into space, had they not been trapped in the earth's crust after
having been formed somewhere below that impervious layer.

Helium is an inert gas that seeps through anything. Methane is a
chemically active substance that forms hydrates with water to form
methane ices at temperatures as high as 50 degrees. Technically these
methane ices are termed clathrates. The bound methane is not a gas, and
doesn't escape anywhere.

Did you ever stop to do a mental calculation of how much organic life
would
have had to be buried perfectly below an impervious layer before
decomposition broke down the body mass, to account for all the world's
known
petroleum deposits? And after that, how much of the body mass would have
remained buried instead of decomposing into the atmosphere?

Most petroleum reserves are found under salt domes, where ancient seas
laid down thick organic deposits, then dried, sealing the deposits under
a layer of impermeable salt. This all happened long before the earth
had an oxidizing atmosphere. You will recall that the earth has only
had free oxygen in its atmosphere for the last 600 million years. Prior
to that, the earth enjoyed about 3 billion years of anaerobic fertility.
The comments about fossil fuel being decomposed dinosaurs are a JOKE,
only taken seriously by the uneducated. Even coal deposits mostly date
from the carboniferous, about 350 to 300 mya, an era dominated by
insects, crustacea, and the first 4-footed animals, mostly amphibians.
Coal deposits far outweigh all petroleum reserves, and nobody denies
that coal is fossil plant matter.

It seems a lot
more far-fetched to believe the biotic origin theory than the abiotic
one,
where those compounds forming deep in the earth and percolating upward.
The
chemistry has been verified experimentally to happen at pressures similar
to
those found only 100 kms and deeper below the surface. Use some logic
and
save your skepticism for the least credible theory, not the most credible
one.

You forget that the issue is not theoretical. They have to drill wells
into oil bearing strata, and big paychecks depend on the process. They
have studied core samples from oil wells, and the oil occurs in biotic
strata, not in abiotic strata. Your theory is unfortunately running
afoul of cold, hard fact.

--


Until you can concoct a way to dismiss away all of this:
http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1130.html

....your declarations are running afoul of cold, hard fact.

"Larry Caldwell" wrote in message
k.net...
In article , (Brock
Ulfsen) says...

That is a reference to the conventional petroleum geology theory, which
has problems of its own, and relies on biological truisms that predate
the discovery of extremophile bacteria. I might note that the Russians,
who believe in abiotic origins for oil seem to be finding it where they
look with at least the same level of reliability of the US based
theorists looking in somewhat different places.

The controversy is caused by a bunch of simplistic morons kicking the
dirt in a desert and proclaiming that all petroleum resources are from
the same source. There is little doubt that deep methane is left over
from either the formation of the earth or as a fossil remnant of the
earth's original methane atmosphere. OTOH, methane in sedimentary
strata is probably the remnant of decomposed organic matter. In both
cases, heat and pressure can cook methane into longer carbon chain
molecules and free hydrogen, also reducing CO2 to CO, yielding our
familiar natural gas fuel.

--

If it were not for the existence of a few rational thinkers who choose to
maintain an open mind, instead of living up to the stereotypical "hall of
laughing scientists" that have been proven wrong time after time, we
wouldn't have been blessed with the many scientific breakthroughs we now
take for granted.

When you think about it, many radical scientific breakthroughs have come as
a result of dogged determination against a torrent of peer ridicule for many
years. Continental drift, nanobacterial ulcers and powered flight are just a
few examples. Our friend here seems to have the iron will to be counted
among the fools who want to circle the wagons and shoot anyone who's not
inside the comfortable little circle.

Doug Miller wrote:
In article aahZe.249043$9A2.73762@edtnps89, "JoeSixPack" wrote:

Very simple. The atmosphere won't know the difference between fossil fuel or
biofuel. The carbon emissions are the same. Growing more crops for biofuels
won't cause the CO2 to go down

Nonsense -- of course it will. The carbon which those plants incorporate as
they grow comes from atmospheric CO2.

But you intend to burn those plants, putting the carbon back into the
air. So you are not reducing the carbon, just keeping it at the same
level. To reduce the carbon you would need to grow the plants then
take the carbon out of the cycle by not using the plants for fuel.

Bruce


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.

JoeSixPack wrote:

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...
Brock Ulfsen wrote:

Duane Bozarth wrote:
I'd be interested to see the hybrid data for those--that's far
different
than US hybrids. Who are the seed suppliers and do they have web
presence? Are these produced by the US equivalent of the land-grant
universities research programs as were/are many of the new varieties
here or by commercial seed growers?

All the usual suspects. ...

What's with this????

... Big global companies, developement is mostly by
Deapartment of Primary Industries, lots of local seed companies
producing hybrid seed to. Universities have largely been urban until
recently, so had little to do with horticulture.

That seems almost incomprehensible that there aren't Ag Departments in
at least some of the major Universities, regardless of where they are
physically situated. Where are the Vet schools, the Animal Husbandry
programs, the Ag Engineers, Milling and Grain experts trained?

There are of course, commercially developed varieties but most US-grown
varieties are developed by the various University and Grower-sponsored
research organizations. Example facilities in Kansas at Kansas State
University include

http://www.k-state.edu/wgrc/
http://www.k-state.edu/igp/
http://www.k-state.edu/igrow/

Dad did a sponsored Farm Tour to Au and NZ a number of years ago under
aegis of US Dept of Ag but other than his tales of visiting and staying
w/ various producers around and meetings w/ Wheat Board (or whatever it
was called specifically) and other gov't officialdom I don't recall what
they saw for the research end.

I don't recall ever seeing a commercially grown wheat/barley/rye
variety that would be much over 3 ft, even going back to old Turkey
Red,
the original hard red winter wheat brought over in the 1800s.
Extremely
tall is bad owing to tendency to go down, of course. Very, very short
is
a problem as well owing to difficulty in cutting w/o getting into the
ground or missing the short heads. On the very rare occasion w/ really
high moisture years I can recall some years which may have gotten to
mid-chest height, but that would be the exception, not the rule.

Hmmm, mid-chest would be about right heritage varieties, 1m to 1.5m.
Crops growing here are usuall half that high.


Giant plants are not so hard to develop, but that's not usually the goal of
plant breeders.

All depends...the pumpkin and sunflower foks are kinda' into that...

....

....
...In a field of one type of grain, there's
no reason for the plants to compete with each other by being taller.

I don't think they know anything about that... :)

....
There's been considerable research and discussion on these subjects, so I
recommend you investigate some of it.

I don't know what you're responding to here...the discussion (sorta' a
sidebar, but the immediate discussion) was the height of (primarily)
current wheat hybrids as opposed to those of some bygone time--the exact
time of "bygone" is now apparently long ago as opposed to (say) early
19th century when really large scale small grain farming became
prevalent as I initially assumed.

As a wheat/grain sorghum producer, I naturally got interested in what
some others were up to in the same area. I did note that the very short
varieties such as Brock is mentioning are shorter than I would prefer to
grow simply owing to increased maintenance and wear on harvesting
equipment and quite possibly higher loss from missing shorter than
average heads.

This all sprang from the observation quite some time ago (in thread life
terms) that modern agricultural varieties are much shorter than
"traditional" thus reducing total biomass during (particularly)
small/cereal grains production. I said I didn't think they had shrunk
all that much and that higher seeding densities w/ modern practices
would compensate for much of the shorter growth anyway.

As at least one counter example, modern hybrid corns are much taller and
denser plants than the (American) maize of the native Indians for the
most part.

JoeSixPack wrote:

Part 1.1 Type: Plain Text (text/plain)
Encoding: quoted-printable

US farm policy is a complex multi-headed hydra just as is US energy
policy or any other area of national interest. The days of
non-government interference are long gone for all.

We are currently (and have been for approximately 20 years) engaged in
continuing international negotiations regarding US and world farm
policies. It would be imo very short-sighted to US economic interests
to not continue such negotiations but it would also be quite
short-sighted to not ensure that the other nations make similar
modifications to their policies. The problem so far has been that most
of the trade agreements which have been signed have been kept by the US
but not by the foreign nations. This, btw, is not a unique situation
for agriculture--it is a general pattern of US trade policy, it seems.

"Duane Bozarth" wrote in message
...


...
...In a field of one type of grain, there's
no reason for the plants to compete with each other by being taller.

I don't think they know anything about that... :)

If you didn't know that plants compete for sunlight, water and nutrients,
you shouldn't have been having this discussion.