I look forward to the conference and sincerely hope that there are many positive outcomes from the event.

“We are the ones we have been waiting for” Hopi Elders

As a passionate advocate for Human Rights around the world for over 20 years, I have found that in addressing the issue of the environment, we need to find solutions to poverty. The impact of poverty in third worlds, and our own, is one of the largest negative impactors on our environment.

The issues of environment and poverty are linked and until we deal with both issues as a “package” we will face repetative “neighborhood” solutions versus worldwide sustaining solutions.

K.vonKrenner
International Legal Human Rights Advocate

As you would have seen in Davids book he always approaches from the Permie angle, multiple function, stacking and a longer chain of uses for the raw materials to extract as much use and value as possible. Is the PRI in NSW doing any of this at all now? Its been 2 years since I was there. I know they invested a great deal of capital into solar panels and batteries, a similar amount would be required for ethanol infrastructure (still, masher, pumps) but it would yield a far greater energy dense (and flexible) result. Usable in both cars and generators (which can still be used to charge batteries if needed). There are also fuel cells that are designed to run on ethanol as the fuel feedstock.

If you want to read some of the literature about the potential of running ethanol (Octane of 105) in a vehicle you could try this link to some research done in the US.

http://www.methanol.org/pdf/ISAF-XV-EPA.pdf

This paper deals primarily with alcohols, ethanol and methanol but shows in fairly easy to read format that the thermal efficiency of ethanol engines is better than diesels and far better than petrol engines meanign you drive further on less fuel and the emissions are a fraction of those found in petrol exhausts.

Some vehicles manufactured in Brazil run ethanol only as it is clean and powerful when used in an engine designed to utilise it so this is a technology available today. Its not the perfect fuel, cold starting is a problem especially in temperate climates but this is also a fuel that can be retrofitted to existing vehicles. Replacing the 1.5bn existing vehicles with electric cars is not a realistic option. That said, driving less might be a good idea too

regards
Peter

I wrote an article about this recently and some people left comments. It’s a mixed bag – some permies are for biofuels, some against. I’m interested in setting up a driver owned alcohol fueling station in Brisbane as Blume suggests.

http://permaculture.org.au/2010/06/02/biofuels-and-confirmation-bias/

Cheers,
Tim

Thanks for the note Pete….I for one always enjoy the discussion around BioFuels….simply I see that they have a great future though in decentralised, integrated production system alongside a raft of other technologies including that of Jean Pain’s and others, especially syngas integrated with forestry/aquaponics and biochar production. We have a client in California who is testing some of Dave Blume’s production claims around Typha communis L. as this has the potential to be the effluent fuelled/cycling sugar cane of the temperates from an ethanol production perspective. I personally have seen some great small and un-lauded examples of farmers growing their own fuels and yet again doing what some experts say isn’t possible or economic when its actually quite the opposite. Power on! Ciao, Darren

Essential oils can be extracted with a still but you would have more luck with a process like freeze drying as this really pulls out the oils. We did this some years ago with roses and man the first extraction was always incredible. Big upfront costs though, not as straightforward as a still which can be cobbled together very cheaply. The length of the column will directly influence the proof of what can be extracted, shorter makes lower proofs, long ones will take the purity out to fuel grade (> 180 proof, or 90%) this can then be blended with petrol as in the E85 engines. Or directly burnt in the engine with some small mods.

cheers
Pete

Darryl Hannah was one of the “celebrity” speakers/backers at David Blumes press conference in the US a few months back to speak about the production of biofuels as part of a drive to get the US off foreign oil. She was there alongside L.Hunter Lovins and is a supporter of biofuels, primarily in that press launch case, ethanol. On my PDC with Geoff in 2008 we essentially ignored energy and biofuels were only discussed in a negative sense. I side with David Blume and Darryl Hannah on this, I think good design can be used for the production of biofuels in the same way it is for food forests and other living systems.

David Blume puts forward his ideas well in his book (tome, but very readable) “Alcohol can be a Gas” and his first book version was prefaced by Buckminster Fuller back in the early 1980s after the first oil shocks. He suggests approaches such as growing cattails in sewage to both grow fuel and purify the waste water stream and then this could be enhanced by pumping some of the CO2 from the brewing process into the cattail bed to enhance the growth further (the lower part of the plant is high in starch). They produced over 2000 US gallons of ethanol from one harvest from an acre of marsh, far in excess of the 250-300 that corn produces.

What do others out there in the Permaculture world think? Biofuels have been utterly vilified in the press but to most people this conjures up ideas of monocrops of corn or rainforest clearance to grow palms. David’s ideas are a world apart from this and Permies should easily relate to his concepts as he himself is a Permculturist. We all see and appreciate the difference between a monocrop farming system and an integrated one such as Joel Salatins so why not extend that concept to integrating energy crops into our designs?

Karpai!
Pete