Greenpeace are Stupid

Now I have some reasons for the title of this post. The Government has finally come out and decided that they should support Biofuels. Now biofuels in their current form are not the best at reducing CO2 emissions. This is because we are only using 10% ethanol to 90% Petrol mix this is a mix that allows for the fuel to be put strait into cars as they are now with no modification. There is not a huge reduction in the CO2 emitted per unit of fuel when only 10% of the fuel is from renewable sources. the next problem is that our current source of ethanol is from Cane sugar which is a good source of ethanol. There are better ways such as cellulose digestion to produce ethanol which use waste product to produce ethanol. This makes the agricultural side of the production much more efficient. Due to the farm being able to sell sugar and ethanol.
At this point I should say that Greenpeace has come out stating that there is no point in using biofuels like E10 petrol as there are no real CO2 emission reduction.
However Cellulose digestion and some other biofuels are still in the development stages. Either developing the techniques or developing the scale to be able to supply the quantities needed. To enable this development investment is needed and investment will only come when there is a market. Making that market is the job of entrepreneurs and Government. So Greenpeace coming out against or even dismissing the current biofuel market will slow down the development of better biofuels and real savings in CO2 emissions.
Wake up to your self Greenpeace!!!!!!!!!

Crazy working conditions

Louise my boss's PA had a bit of bad news today. A bit before lunch she had to race off to hospital to see her husband. He had been beaten up at work. Pete works for the council as a gardener in Queens Gardens. What follows is no yet verified so don't take it as fact yet. Apperently one of his co-workers has attacked him. From the damage that has been done he must of attacked him with and implement ie large stick or shovel whatever. Pete has been in hospital since the attack and will be flowen down to Brisbane tomorrow morning to have people reconstruct his jaw, teeth etc. Louise is leaving this afternoon so that she can get set up in Brisbane for when pete arrives tomorrow.
Every one here at work hope that all goes well and that Pete is up and well soon.

Cascade Rogaine

So another Rogaine season has started. Min and I had the pleasure of introducing someone to Rogaining. Karina rows with Min for Townsville and JCU Rowing club. She said that she had fun and that it was nice to see a different part of NQ.

We went in the 6 hour event. did a nice leasurely loop around on the South western side of the map. The terrain was gently rolling hills and open woodland. If anyone gets a chance they should definately go and check out the Emerald Creek Falls near Mareeba. It really is lovely countryside

Photo's to come soon

Finishing the Holidays

Ok so the rest of the Holiday story.
After Christmas Day min and I went to Durras with Dad and Judes. i think that this was exactly what we needed. Glen Kiara Min and I all just chilled out went surfing diving and did a bit of exploring. Read lots of books and caught up on sleep. Min and I had bought an expansion pack for the Settlers of Catan game and we played that a bit, as well as Monopoly and some cards for our nighttime entertainment. Min got to stand up on a surf board and decided that she should become a surfy chick.
After Durras we went back to Wollongong and basically spent a week saying goodbye to everyone and doing dinners and a bit more shopping.
We had a great time and I got to meet mins family, not to mention seeing mum and dad again.

I hope everyone out there had a great holiday season and got prepared for this yeasr to come (even if we are nearly a third through it).

Cheers Lewis

Germany

Germany are apperantly getting Monster Trucks Now I thought this would have to be either those large Tractor tyre type cars or they would be a super long truck ie something like a road train. It isn't though they are calling B doubles 'giga-liners' they are only 25m long and has two trailers. they really need to see a real giga liner and come to Aust to see a road train. Those funny Germans always worrying about something.

Now this is Surfing

The music for this is a bit dodgy but it looks like so muck fun.

Holidays

Hey Everyone,

So I've just had a great holiday with my family. I want to say thanks to Mum and Bernie for putting us up in their house for most of the time (or is that putting up with us). Also thanks to Dad for taking all of his megre holidays to come to the coast to see Min and Myself. Finally thanks to Judes for missing Christmas with her family to come down to the coast.
So some details are in order. Min and I flew down to Sydney in mid december and then a quick trip down to Wollongong to dump our stuff and make some general introductions (Min hadn't met my mum before then we were back off to Sydney for a christmas party with Min's friends. Interesting party good food some drink and stealing presents from each other. By way of explanation there was secret santa but you could either choose a random present from under the tree or steal one from someone else. It made for a fun and long present opening.
After the quick party in Sydney we were off to the mountians to see Min's mum and dad. They were lovely and we stayed in Leura for a couple of days saw them and caught up with the people that Min knows up there in them misty peaks known as the Blue Mountains.
Then it was back to Wollongong and some shopping to finish off getting the christmas presents. Now I have been planning some of my presents for months. For example I bought Mins Digital SLR camera back in November but I had started looking in september so that I knew which one I could afford and which one's were good. I ended up getting the Olympus E500. A middle of the range SLR with a good range of dedicated digital lenses. The other big present I gave was a tree. My stepdad love gardening and he had been searching for a rare plant called a Daintree pine. I did some research and found out that there were no nurseries that sold them in NSW so I contacted a wholesale nursery in Walkamin near Mareeba and then contacted a nursery near mums place and and got them to order a shipment. I then bought the Tree from the nursery in wollongong and got her to hold it for me til the day before christmas. It didn't cost alot but Bernie now has one of only 12 Daintree pines in NSW.
Christmas day was great Glen, Chiara, Dad, Judes, Mum, Bernie and Min were all there and I think everyone had fun. It was good to see people unwrap the presents that I got them. Anyway I will cover the rest of the holidays soon in the next post.

Biofuels Agian

This is an extract from an article in Nature about Butanol as an alternative to Ethanol by Katharine Sanderson. There is a series in the latest edition of Nature about the use of ethanol as a biofuel. I have written in here before about ethanol as a biofuel. Ethanol isn't horrible but I don't think it is the best option. The unfortunate thing is that this little section below is the only few paragraphs about Butanol in 4 or 5 entire articles. I am not saying these articles are bad but maybe more time could have been spent on alternatives to Ethanol.

Nature 444, 673-676

Ethanol alternative

Companies large enough to afford it are also following the basic research route rather than placing early bets on particular technologies. BP has announced it will invest $500 million over ten years to fund an Energy Biosciences Institute, which will be a dedicated facility based at a university. The University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have all been mentioned as possible hosts — the final decision is expected in December.

One intriguing possibility for such research to pursue is replacing ethanol with another form of alcohol. The fact that ethanol is easy to ferment can blind people to the fact that it has almost as many inherent problems as a fuel as corn has as a feedstock. Its tendency to pick up water wherever it goes makes it hard to transport, particularly in pipelines. It's corrosive. It's more volatile than one might wish. And its energy density is low compared with regular petrol.

For these reasons, BP and DuPont are working with British Sugar to adapt their ethanol fermentation facility in East Anglia to produce butanol — an alcohol with four carbons in it, as opposed to ethanol's two. This requires training microbes in new tricks, but it is not as hard a problem as breaking down woody plant material. The East Anglia plant will use locally grown sugar beet as the feedstock, but in the long term the aim would be to use a cellulosic feedstock. "We accept that taking stuff out of the food chain is not the right way to go," says Robert Wine, a BP spokesman.

Drinkwater thinks that an industry demand for butanol as an end product could actually increase interest in cellulosic approaches. "Most refiners would be much happier to use butanol than ethanol," he says. If oil companies become confident in biofuel technologies, investors would in turn be more confident of the biofuels industry as a whole, giving the industry that elusive final shove that it seems to need.

There has been numerous studies on on future energy sources for an energy hungry world and most studies have found that ethanol will not be a viable biofuel in the future. Biodiesel was found to be one of the best alternatives, and butanol has emerged as a biofuel worth looking at. Though with the efficiency of diesel engines (with out being a hybrid car my bosses new car gets around 5L/100km) I think that diesel powered vechiles and Biodiesel will be the way to go.

Lewis

General Business

So a few Items off General Business :-
1. The usuall complaint from the tropics at this time of year. It's hot bloody hot. some days you walk out of the office and the heat and humidity hit you like a wall. Though I must say that it has not been so bad for the last two days as it has been raining and the sun hasn't been able to try and steam us all alive. anyway I will be escaping from the heat in a couple of days. Which brings me to item 2.
2. Christmas is almost here. YAH!!! I am flying down on Saturday and will be seeing the whole family which will be excellent as I haven't seen some of them for over 2 and a half years. This will also be the first time Min gets to meet my family. The best part is though that I get to give everyone presents. And I have some cool presents lined up this year.
3. Min is going to apply for a new position at GBRMPA. this is brand new news. This will be a big step up for her and her career. So I want everyone out there thinking positive thoughts. I'm sure that she will get the job if we are all behind her.
4. I have a few things to make over the christmas holidays. Tom will appreciate this. I have collected material for a Zen Alcohol stove and a Hammock. I cannot find a stove that fits my requirements of being really light and robust so I will make one. The problem with the hammock is that I cannot find one that fits me. I am either to heavy or to long (for those that don't know I am now 196cm (6'4") and 120kg) so I have bought the material and come up with a design and I will have to sew it together.
Anyway that is the general items of business I hope all have a wonderful Christmas and a fun New Years Eve.

Lewis

On the Water

Hey everyone,

I just found an amazing video on the OC paddler website


www.ocpaddler.com


some of the interviews are a bit weird but it' s a excellent view of paddling.