From: "Brown, R Ken" <brownrk1@texaco.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1998 13:29:55 +0800
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com
Subject: RE: Renewable Energy Stuff (was citizenship silliness) (fwd)
Message-ID: <896C7C3540C3D111AB9F00805FA78CE2013F8414@MSX11002>
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Jim Choate wrote:

> Quit sending these responses to my private email. If you want to
discuss it
> keep it on the list. Any further such private submissions go into
/dev/null
> unread. This also means you don't need to cc: if you send it to the
cpunks
> list since I'm subscribed...;)

It's because we're using these broken-as-designed mailers 
that put your name into the reply as well as the the list :-(

> Now, back to more intersting discussion...

Definitely

[...snip Jim Burnes on hemp yields (because you all already read it...]

> You're going to seriously claim that 1 gallon of hemp oil is
equivalent to 3
> gallons of gasoline? I don't think so. I've seen hemp burn and it
don't burn
> anywhere near that efficiently.

I'm begining to lose track of this thread. Are we talking about:

1) reducing  fossil fuel use for conservation? (not something
Cypherpunks mention a lot :-)

2) ways of cutting the imported fuel requirement of "western"
countries in order to save money and/or  teach the Arabs a lesson?
(cf the sideline about Israel)

3) how to live with as little interaction as possible with the 
the existing state or corporate economy?

4) what we do for fuel if the balloon goes up, the lights go out,
the crash comes & we are in an "Earth Abides" scenario? 
i.e everyone has died, or gone away, or stopped working for 
money and we ahve to survive as best we can?

If (1) or (2) then reducing fuel consumption is a damn
sight more cost-effective than substituting anything else 
for motor gas. You know, insulation, designing buildings
for the climate, high fuel taxes, subsidised public
transport... all the things us lefty Europeans like bit that
don't go down well in Houston, Texas. I take Jim's point
about solar-powered houses being a money pit - although
there does seem to be some medium-term benefit in 
glass cladding  for passive solar heating (known to our
 ancestors as "conservatories" :-)

And if (2) is what you mean then you probably ought to 
carry on paying the dollars to those Arabs so they carry on
spending them on American products - like McDonalds 
and Disney and MS Windows. Cultural imperialism works
wonders. For every Muslim for whom America is the 
great Satan there is another for whom it is the home of
Elvis. Or the Simpsons. Or Charley Pride. Or even Jim 
Reeves. You wouldn't believe how much Jim Reeves 
you hear in Africa.

For (3) again the easy way is to arrange your lifestyle
to consume less.  I expect if you are distilling fuel-grade
alcohol in your yard the local equivalent of customs and
excise will want a word with you.

If you are going to burn plant material for fuel
don't bother with oil.  Either distill the alcohol (if you 
are in a warmish climate like southern California you can
probably get the best yields from cane - but it sucks up 
water like a herd of  hungry camels) or burn wood.

In a temperate climate you probably get the best yields 
from coppiced trees - use whatever  grows in your local area
and coppices well. Willow grown in wetlands does well.
The yield of burnable biomass is far better than most 
herbaceous crops. Use hazel, birch even oak. 
Leaves make animal feed, stouter poles are for timber,
thinner ones for burning - if you need higher temperature
make charcoal out of it.    Lots of use for the bark as well. 
Just like our ancestors used to do before all this 
industry. Of course you won't be able to run a car on it...
for that you need the alcohol.

If we did get thrown back to a mediaeval economy those 
of us who survived probably would be growing hemp
(you heard it here first) but not as a fuel crop.

Hemp has great yields but it isn't much cop as fuel
It was one of  the major crops in England a thousand 
years ago -  in some pollen studies it was the major crop. 
That's not for recreational or medicinal use (you don't
need acres of it for that)  but as animal feed and 
for fibre, with fuel as a useful byproduct. Probably not as an 
an oil crop & if it was it would probably be cooking oil.

> I also notice it doesn't mention what it costs to raise that 4
tons/acre...

Clearly more than getting oil from out of the ground.
That's why my employers are still in business.

There were some Welsh hill farmers on the radio the other day
asking more  more subsidy from the government.
Apparently their average income is now only about 10,000 UKP a year
(maybe 16,000 USD). They were complaining that their fathers
and grandfathers used to be able to get a living from the 
land, but they can't, and they were blaming the "global market"
and urban-dominated governments who didn't understand
farming.

Of course the truth is that they can live the way their grandfathers
lived if they want to. But in the last 100 years *everyone* *else* has
got richer and the way of life of a small farmer in the Welsh hills
now looks like poverty.

And there is nothing (other than the law) to stop someone with 
30 acres and a cow from growing their hemp and their willow
withies (in Wales)  or their cotton and their cane (in California)
and riding their own  horse and making their own clothes and 
having almost nothing to do with the rest of the modern economy.

But they won't be able to have a car, or a computer and if they 
get any modern medicine it will be on welfare.

We probably ought to know *how* to live like that, just in case things
really fall apart.  (I remember once having to show someone how to 
squat over a hole-in-the-ground latrine because he had only ever
used bogs with seats) . But don't look forward to it.

Ken Brown (usual disclaimers still in force)