You are confusing the pre contact classical Maya with the later resurgent civilization the Spanish encountered.
Henry is correct about the climate stress coincident with the collapse, which led me to mention Diamond’s book. Collapses never seem to be for one simple reason, they are convergences of precarious events, the ultimate trigger usually being too many people, and some adversity trigger that their ancestors might have managed to get through. Kind of like how avalanches happen.
I just wanted to discuss "The macro versus the micro " for wood products and power .
I do not want to discuss nuclear power .
I thought "Garry Tait " Feared fire threat and was looking for removal of biomass .
I have grid tied wood power . I do this alone . I get thumped by logs going through wood chipper . It is not worth this .
I have grown dried beans , I will be working with these beans for some time .
I was a student of alternative energy and appropriate technology . I was going to work in third world . I abandoned this because of dunning of overpopulation , The boot comes down pushing your aspirations into mud , The boot belongs to the person providing your funding .
I made a life through appropriate technology in an urban area during an event that spanned decades and it would cost you your funding to talk about it .
I need to bring in firewood , It is raining . I guess I will clean beans .
It would be nice to be able to talk about cleaning beans .
Yes, far off into the weeds again, but a good exchange of ideas, I think.
I would like to get things back to macro vs micro, but was thinking, maybe macro vs micro is a straw man comparison. Maybe we should be talking about macro AND micro? They are different things, different technologies and benefits, and as pointed out, we really need aspects of the macro to lead anything like the lives we have, and the huge efficiencies of some macro processes are things we would be fools to do without.
As @oregoncarl had pointed out, and perhaps is the theme @SteveUnruh is pointing to, perhaps the question should be how much less we can use, how much it is practical to disengage from energy and resource use, and still lead a comfortable and acceptable life?
That is exactly the theme I’m exploring on my personal journey. I question if any of us can even reach true carbon neutrality.
My goal was to be carbon negative .
Went to meeting of Illinois boichar
Asked for grant , got angry response
USDA project to use biochar as substitute for carbon black in vehicle tires.
He was in charge of meeting . meeting at University of Illinois , Sustainability studies center .
Few attendees , Paul S. Anderson was there
People are telling me you can not do this . But you can , And under Trump you are allowed to .But there is no money in it
really . I do think it pays some people to say you can not do it no matter what proof you have . From the meeting I would say they have to say you can not do it to keep their jobs .
Good job HenryB. pulling this back to personal using wood approach. I too do this all alone. That sets the scale. And IMHO Scale of these things matters much.
Since you say that you firewood, grow a bit’o beans and do some DIY electrical generating.
Good deal. A nice centrist/practical-ist approach.
Firewooding for heat power give much experiences and what-it-will-take perspectives. Every year lots of opportunities to fine tune for less wood use and cleaner burning. My tall, tall chimney on a very steep pitched secondary roof challenges me to never, ever soot/creosote it up; then need major scaffolding building.
I final condition dry down a 12-24 hours worth of wood boxed down low in the incoming air circulation at both sides of our corner installed woodstove. To most this would be scary close. Do have to watch the fuel wood for heating as it dries down!! Using this up first. Replace, rotated, with new outside cold-damp wood.
For starches growing here it has come down to drying beans and drying peas as the only long term storage possibilities. And the wife buys outlet stores bags of the premium polished rices. Beans&Rice can be done a hundred different ways.
I just found the recipe for rice flour pasta’s! We free-range hatch out our own chickens for the pasta eggs.
We stay grid tied too. That give a nice, reduce-use, feedback in $'s. And I generate as I wish, and want. Never again a 3-6 weeks bad storm blew trough and waiting for the lines to be restored here ever again. The “game” then to IC engine electrical-generate is to do the same as with the firewood: craft down to minimum fuels-use. And that electrical energy making fuel be, after a week or two, to be the same wood that we would heat with. Wood to keep the food refirgerators and freezers, safe-store cooling and freezing down.
Actually GaryT my macro-fail intent was to point out that too many never take a reasonable centerist approach and even make anyhting for themselves. Fool themselves that world-saving is more important.
And the micro-fails do not ever make anything for themselves either. Delaying until they reach would reach a perfect from the molocule-by-molocule up, understandings.
One thing you can be sure of is in all of the climate/ecological/societal Fails been quoted here it IS the been-doing-it’s who will be the ones who come through. Some Mayans did come through. Some Easter Islander’s did come through. Nordic immigrant Greenlander too stubborn set to keep eating non-native pigs unable to learn from the adapted in Inutit’s to eat whale. Icelandic immigrants learned to adapt, and made-do. Icelandic, volcanoes, earthquakes, ice storms, floods and all.
I like reading Jerod Diamond too. Have all of his books - all bought used, cheap, second hand.
But . . . he never says what to do at any practical moving forward level for individuals. Personally LIVES in the L.A. California basin, too crowded, states around, resources sucking whirlpool. Do you really think he has the daily doing-practicality to come through a 50-90% fall down event like their gonna come 9.0? Nope. Like in the latest N.C and S.C massive slow flooding events that have gone on, and on, and on. Daily Doer there will come through and make out.
Too many fears-writers and fears-movie makers. A new set every 10 years or so. And they never hands-on offer true daily use practical solutions. The Lindsey husband and wife team. Micheal Moore and Al Gore.
Read instead E.F. Shuemachers works. H.B. Kain’s. The Dali Lahma. These guys all give hope through personal doing it actions.
Regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh
Not me Steve. The last two paragraphs here are some of the best of your writing I have ever read. Amen!
Ho-Ping Food for Everyone
Gabell, Medard
Published by Doubleday (1979)
ISBN 10: 0385140827 ISBN 13: 9780385140829
I have uninterruptible power supply and multi back up systems .
I have a prototype combined heat and power system that has not worked yet .
I built it two years ago and did not work on it last year .
I used it for heat I did not use it for power .
It pays to be carbon neutral . I want to be paid to be carbon negative .
Green Peace is against it .
I have a barn , big barn way older then me . The timbers came from a ship .
A lot of barns out here were like built that way . A barn like that was burnt down by the national guard near here.
To make conventional agricultural land .
another few fell down . owner cleared one out . dozens of neighbors came to help out with another . It is still a pile .
I wanted to promote "Novo biopower LLc " It is the worst example of cronyism and graft in the us forestry system
logging national forest saying they are preventing forest fire , They are not doing much to prevent forest fire . Maybe they are doing something . They are not saying let it burn . I think we have to do better .
I think if a person wants to address carbon neutrality, the biggest bang for the buck is taking ag waste, reap energy from it, and sequester the carbon, as much as can be retained, back on ag land. A proven benefit system will be widely employed, and annually provide energy and carbon sequestration, plus increased soil fertility and water retention, which it seems we will need soon enough.
Possibly no one here is going to put 5 tons a year of biochar into soil, or whatever the per capita footprint is. Nor is that reasonable, precisely because much of our carbon impact comes from industry. To reduce energy use / footprint and sequester, might be possible.
Does that put me in the pizza eater crowd? 
I really don’t see a macro versus micro argument. We need both. Those who do nothing versus those who aim to reduce their energy demands? Sure. So let’s talk about what all can be done in that regard.
As for burning the old barns, at the worst that means their carbon was tied up for centuries, and served human purposes meanwhile. Wood never lasts, but charcoal persists millenia, that is the real offramp.
Regarding carbon credits, I thought the EU and other entities trade in carbon, so any audited scheme should merit carbon credit value, at around 18.59 € per ton for 2019. The trick will be the auditing, and at a home level meaningless, but a significant added value for a “macro” scheme, like a cement kiln, etc. Or a farmer with a lot of straw that could be reduced to biochar, and distillates, space and waste heat.
i think i am a mixed up from both worlds 
fooling myself and delaying until i got all my molecules straight…
Thats why i love reading here on DOW and follow some steps of the DOers…
Steve U, Thanks for all the feedback and your postings, i think a cap from Nike is the most suited for you… Just DO it…
There was discussion of terra preta
some one stopped it
and said no you can not talk about that . You have to discuss biochar .And then there was going to be a board , for standards for biochar and this was arranged by and paid for by Monsanto .
Charcoal can be mixed with animal feed . You should be paid carbon credits for doing that and it can be audited .
Dear Thomas,
In a private meeting we had together with IPCC Secretary M. Abdallah Mokssit, in Rome at the FAO’s headquarter, the Secretary told us it is governments that decide at IPCC, not the IPCC Secretariat, sorry. I would nuance is answer a little… First, carbon sinks are in most UN documents for quite some time. It appears 13 times in the Kyoto Protocol, 8 times in CDM methodologies I join, with clear reference to soils in one occurence. Any company could have presented a land based CDRemoval methodology in Bonn, get it accepted, and use it. It has not happened, except on voluntary carbon markets.
Craig Sams rightly says in the attached document… Greenpeace opposed land use for carbon management on the basis that this would allow fossil fuel and industries to get cheap carbon credits and not reduce their emissions. But of course, as Craig points out, cheap credits and sequestration is the solution, not the problem! Soils organic carbon monitoring is certainly more difficult to measure than putting up windmills and solar panels, but the main problem is TARGETS. With a 1990-2016 reduction of 23%, plus 0,7% in 2017, the EU ETS carbon price felt to the point of… having no more carbon market. 100% reduction, and even, carbon negativity, might be needed before carbon reaches attractive prices for soils to be better considered. The problem with carbon reductions targets is not that it is hard, the problem is that it is too easy (low prices), targets are way too reachable, for many actors at least.
palaterra
Am 05.09.2018 um 18:55 schrieb henry buehler:
Are you still in business ?
yes, of course
Does your business have any income from carbon credits ?
currently not
Do any of your suppliers ?
currently not
Do your customers get carbon credits for using your products?
currently not
There was a Chicago carbon exchange .
I had asked that buried charcoal be considered for carbon credit .
To the best of my knowledge it does not .
polluting more so you can get credit for polluting less does .
unbelievable
mixing wood pellets with coal does .
I found this little web page, for whatever it’s worth. They give a few interesting bits of information, that ag waste ash has a low melting point, and high ash content, making either low temp combustion, or temps high enough to liquify the ash desirable. Not sure if this applies as stringently to char production. They mention that these same ash characteristics apply to coppice willow and similar fast growth.
They allude to significant methanol production potential.
Good Morning All,
I’ve had to sleep on some of the exchanges here . . . .some to respond to . . . some to ignore.
My real reason for starting this particular topic approach was to make guys inward/look/think how (just as I’ve had to) that your approach/goal WILL determine your success. And more important; your happiness/satisfaction with your results.
KoenV.L. of course you will always want to know down to the Micro. From your own life’s-works descriptions you first professionally were a Big/Macro systems guy. Well . . . that is actually all dependent on Funding as you learned. And in western style democracies true Top-Down funding is determined by voters/concerns/interests. Ha! Why funding can be pumped-pushed (man to the Moon), then rapid cut-off. Fickled? No. Not really. Voters self-interest motivated? Surely. “How does this befit me, right now, where I can see it?”
But from that Macro-fails time period Koen you had your 30 caliber/7.62 rifles reloading experiences. Very, very Micro. Cold chamber mass sucks out energy inhibiting rapid/uniform wide-spreading molecular ionization. By the 4-5-10 shot then heating chamber mass changes things. Favorably on the Micro/chemical scale. 20 rapid shots, coupled with summer desert temperatures and then pressure spiking on what had been “normal” just fine. So. You were forced to develop middle ground accounting for the extremes ranges of usages.
So you go to Thailand. The practical farmers, wife, determined King, will keep your works centered, and moving forward just fine. No brainac white lab-coating myopia for you!
And GaryT. you did directly ask me if I though you were a pizza eater.
Nope. You are not. You live rural, out on land. Annually grow things. You, like I have at times been, are an Urban/Suburban pizza eaters Supplier.
When I and the wife commercial tree harvested that wood/fiber harvest went to making construction lumber to build more tract’ my-house-is-my-ATM, houses for pizza eaters. The for-paper-pulp wood we had shipped made more take-out pizza eaters boxes.
WayneK himself raises, ships-out grass fed beef cows. Ultimately he says to McDonalds; actually true.
And I’ve had relatives who dairy cowed for decades shipping out weekly hundreds of pounds of milk. (pizza cheeses)
Doing these were/are all Urban/Suburban-living pizza-eaters Suppliers. Have to pay the Caesar taxes in Caesar acceptable coin to retain your Rural and be left alone in peace, eh.
Most of these same dairying relatives would never actually make ice-cream, or butter, at home directly. Nope. Go to the big-stores to buy-it. Factory-made. So busy, busy keeping their Mondo-Suppliers operations alive, most even gave up kitchen garnering. Buy that all too, year around from the same big-box stores. After-all. They were already there. And that made then into “pizza eaters”.
Mr Wayne and wife still heat with wood. Son raises home chickens. They still large garden. All just like the wife and I. So we ain’t sheeple “pizza-eaters”.
I aint’t saying for you GaryT. You have to answer this one yourself to your own man-in-the-mirror.
I will say not specifically directed to you GaryT.; but to all who insist on posting up these bigger-picture info links with large scale Macro’s (for-others) you will, like has proven time again, and agian in decades past, setting yourselves up for disappointment, after disappointments.
Why?
Funding fails.
Macro/Mondo projects are core dependent on sheeple-interest Funding. And that Funding is metered out by vested social/political interests. With the political side, election/reelection very $'s lobbing-interests influenced.
Anyhow. This was intended to be a forced respective topic. I certainly did not enjoyed looking back at my 1972 through 1989 electric car enthusiasm period massive-fail with much joy.
Ha! Why from a 1989 point forwards spring-boarding off of what DID work; learned from those 16 years I have gone a different approach way.
Do-It-Yourself power works because of it’s reasonable scale. Not dependent on outside funding.
Do-It-Yourself power works because the developers/power-users are one-and-the-same persons. No need to convince others of the worthiness of your endeavors and works.
Just make it work for you, and your immediate dependents.
Tree-farmer Steve unruh
Gemasolar Thermosolar Plant . Originally called Solar Tres, it was renamed Gemasolar
“Solar Tres,” would use all
the proven molten-salt technology of Solar
Two, scaled up by a factor of three. Boeing,
Bechtel, and their Spanish partners are currently
investigating design options, preparing cost
estimates, and negotiating contract opportunities
for a project start in 2000.
Solar Two’s 3 primary participants were Southern California Edison (SCE), the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
“We’re proud of Solar Two’s success as it marks a significant milestone in the development of large-scale solar energy projects,” said then U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.
“This technology has been successfully demonstrated and is ready for commercialization. From 1994 to 1999, the Solar Two project demonstrated the ability of solar molten salt technology to provide long-term, cost effective thermal energy storage for electricity generation.”, Boeing
On November 25, 2009, after 10 years of not producing any energy, the Solar Two tower was demolished.[2] The mothballed site was levelled and returned to vacant land by Southern California Edison. All heliostats and other hardware were removed.
Boeing the prime contractor for "solar Tres " back flipped out of of their obligation , setting back the project five years .
And then there are the Micro-failures.
Most of these occur because the Micro guy/gal modeling with commercially obtained materials then gets stymied transitioning (up-scaling) to real world made-in-process materials.
“Whatch-you talking about now, SteveU?”
I was gifted a marvelous miniature working toy steam engine as a kid. It was intended to be fuel-heated with very clean burning cans of super clean safe Sterno-brand fuel tins. Jellied alcohol.
Well . . . substitute heat fuels like wooden sticks sooted up the boiler, blocked heat transfer, and made a pita mess to have to cleanup each and every time used… Crushed BBQ charcoal: by the time to clean burning - same sooted up mess. Propane/butane would have been just fine. (I was a kid with no allowance to these) Gasoline! Ha! Big, big mistake! Got tail swatted for that attempt.
So. Woodgasing. Many have expressed this to be a base stock maker to be able to make DIY methanol. Why? “For my bio-diesel maker.” Jeessh-man! It’s a long way from woodgas released CO, H2 to making any liquid. And that liquid made will have a lot of carry though “minors” from the woodgas. Will not work for you at all like commercial spec grade supplied methanol.
Scale-Matters!! A lot.
The early 1940’s Atomic Bomb developers ran into scaling up issues going from lab-ratting with super purified uranium 234?5? and plutonium when scaling up to true make-a-bomb production quantities. Parts per millions contaminates carry troughs from Hanford WA and Oak Ridge KY.
So . . . years delay to re-refine to super purity? Or make what was available work, accepting less “yield” optimal results?
Their gitter-done-NOW is in history.
And back to my miniature-toy steam engine or the fellows want to make liquid fuels from bio-mass fuels bases . . . the goal should be to make a shaft go around with power making results.
Direct to the IC piston engine woodgas/chargas does this just fine already. With no more muss and fuss than high performance woodstoving.
tree-farmer Steve unruh
Chemistry is founded on the making of methanol from wood . You can also make methanol from coal . I believe it is most economical to make methanol from fracking natural gas .The macro versus the micro , If you could chose you should chose what is just right .
I remembered and found so I posted this here
The Georgia Project is a 20 million gallon/year biocrude production facility being developed by Ensyn Development Partners (EDP), a 50/50 joint venture between Ensyn and Renova Capital Partners. The project is located at a shuttered particle board mill in Dooley County, Georgia owned by Roseburg Forest Products.
Roseburg is a privately-held wood products manufacturer and timberland owner with operations throughout the United States. Roseburg has over 3,000 employees and over 80 years of operations. Roseburg is providing the site and is sourcing the feedstock and investing in the project.
Feedstock for the project is expected to consist of mill residues, forest residues and thinnings from local sources.
Biocrude offtake will be directed to refineries for co-processing and/or heating & cooling clients.
The RTP biomass conversion unit will be engineered and supplied by Honeywell UOP through Envergent Technologies.
The Vienna Project has received a conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a US$70 million loan guarantee under the 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program.
From what I have read of biocrude, so called, it’s not ideal to work with, tending to be acidic, and requiring elaborate chemistry to make into anything.
But the bigger picture is how does 20 million gallons per year compare to state level fuel consumption? A WAG is that it might meet one day’s consumption?
It will be good, but these things have to be kept in perspective. It seems nothing will directly replace our over consumption and addiction to fossil fuel. We need to wrap our heads around a world using much less. Think of our ancestors from 100 years ago. They had largely the city life and amenities we enjoy, but probably consumed 1/10 or less the energy.
Prohibition in the 1920s was not really about improving American morality and health but about the future of car fuel. On one side was farm-made ethyl alcohol, and on the other side was oil. Henry Ford made some cars that used the former, and John D. Rockefeller, the owner of Standard Oil, wanted cars to use only the latter. Rockefeller deeply funded organizations behind the “dry cause,” and ultimately he got what he wanted: the banning of alcohol for both cars and humans.
Before cars we had horses , Hay was raised to feed horses . There was more rail road , there were more towns . That produced more then hay . This was thriving and not decaying .
The Georgia Project is a 20 million gallon/year biocrude production facility being developed by Ensyn Development Partners (EDP), a 50/50 joint venture between Ensyn and Renova Capital Partners. The project is located at a shuttered particle board mill in Dooley County, Georgia owned by Roseburg Forest Products.
People in Dooly County hope that their economy will be growing along with their trees. A company called Ensyn plans to add 138 jobs to their new biofuel plant. It will be built on a piece of property that has been in use for more than 30 years called the Roseburg Forest Products, which made particle board. But starting in June, Ensyn will start tearing down part of that plant down and constructing the new biofuel factory. It’s expected to be finished in January 2017.
Terrell Hudson, the Dooly County Commission Chairman, says the project is a big deal for the rural county. “The investment for Dooly County is significant. With a county with under a $300 million tax digest and a $100 million investment is a major investment for us, and we’re proud to have that.”
Updated December 12, 2017 07:22 PM
A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of one or more arsonists who reportedly set fire to a vacant warehouse in Dooly County last month, Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Ralph Hudgens announced Tuesday.
The Nov. 30 blaze destroyed the empty 200,000 square foot Roseburg Forest Products warehouse, an old particle board plant which was previously owned by Georgia-Pacific.
No one was hurt, but Hudgens estimates the flames caused about $500,000 in damage to the building, which is off U.S. 41 in Vienna.
Anyone with information about the fire is urged to call the 24-hour Georgia Arson Hotline at 800-282-5804. Callers may choose to remain anonymous.
Ensyn plans to use 440 tons of wood tops and tree limbs from areas up to 60 miles outside of Dooly County to produce electricity and other fuels. They plan to produce 20 million gallons of renewable fuel every year. Even people selling their timber can expect to make $120 an acre.
“It’s good for the farmers and people that have been living here forever. It’s good for our granddaughters and grandsons that are looking for good jobs,” said Hudson.
Michael Shurley works for an insurance agency in downtown Vienna just a few miles from the plant. He says Dooly County needs more jobs, especially after the Roseburg plant closed."
“That was a pretty big blow to a small town like this. Getting those folks back and getting that many jobs back in here will certainly be an economic boost.”
