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.

Gettin Ready

It's a bit of a funny time of year. I feel like I am just getting ready for the Holidays. I'm just watching the time go by and getting things ready for the Holidays. While it will be absolutely great to see Mum, Bernie, Glen, Dad and Judes again. I'm not sure I should be marking time til the holidays start. I really should starty some other project that I can finnish before I go. Maybe I should renovate the last room in the House. I't would be good to come backl home from the holidays and have a proper bedroom to sleep in. Not to mention that If I get that room done I will be able to have a real bed again and not have to sleep on a Futon. It's not even a good quality Futon, but it has served me well over the last year.
OK it's sorted I will try and finish off the main bedroom and hopefully get it finished before I leave for NSW and Christmas. That is unless someone has a better solution or project for me.

Off to PNG

So it is now official. I will be off to PNG on the 18th of February. The trip is to Kimbe Bay on the 18th of Feb next year. Kimbe Bay is in the West New Brittian Province of PNG in red on the Map below.




So Unfortunately I wont be going to Crazy Highland PNG but it's still a new country and it's a new culture. Kimbe is shown in More Detail in the Photo Below.

In between the VN and the OT on the Map above is an Island called Kimbe Island (Original Huh) and that is Where the Trip is to. It will be 10 days on a livaboard Dive Boat Moored off of this little Island.
The Project is pretty cool as well. They are trying to find out how far the Larvae go and where they go to and they have found a unique way of doing this. They have found a way to "tag" the Larvae even before they are born then you can sample that same and surrounding reefs to find out how far the Larvae travelled in the water column. This trip is about taging the larvae. There will be more trips later to collect the juveniles once they have settled on a reef and figue out how far they have traveled and which breeding pair they came from.
Anyway very cool news for the moment and I will post more on this trip soon.

Orpheus Island

I have just been on Orpheus Island for the last Week working on the Coral Spawning with Andrew Baird. Collecting Larvae and corals, Diving and Taking Photo's. We managed to go out to a Mid-Shelf reef with some good vis, so I have some excellent underwater shots that I will put up on the web soon. These shots should also feature in a lot of the Centre's publications for the next year or so. Any way this is just a quick post to say that I am alive and well and I had alot of fun over the last week. Andrew Baird is a great guy and maje his trips fun. Alot of work and little sleep but still fun. So thanks Andrew and there will be Photo's up on the Web here soon.

Cheers Lewis

Sponsorship

So the Maggie Island Outrigger club is thinking of buying a new canoe. They are not the cheapest things in the world though. So today I have been to the Port of Townsville Website to find out about sponsorship to buy a canoe. Aperently they were going to buy the naming rights for one of the rowing boats a year ago for about $10000. Mirages cost about $13 000 this is a bit of a difference. There is also difference in What the Port would get out of it. The nameing rights would have allowed the port to name the boat in small black letters about 5cm big on one side of the bow of the rowing boat. Buying a Mirage on the otherhand buys a full colour spread down the side of the canoe that would have the port name and logo. The other thing is that the canoe will spend alot of it's life down on the Strand, one of the most popular places in town. thousands of people would be walking by it each day. Seeing that the Port helps local sporting clubs.
Well that sounds like a good speal to put to the port. Hope fully it will convince them to help us with a canoe. If anyone has any ideas about how to sell this a bit better then leave a comment. I'm open to all suggestions.

Cheers Lewis