Archive for December 13th, 2009

and on and on and…

13 December 2009

So I started following the doomer blogs and sites 18 months ago. Many of them were predicting TEOTWAWKI within weeks, or months, or maybe even a year.

Yet here we are, 18 months later, still rolling along, pretty much as we have been. They say a lot of people are out of work and a lot of people are hungry, although I don’t see the proof of that when I look around. To me, everything looks pretty much as it always has.

And the doomer blogs are still spouting off about the end of the world and climate change and peak oil and financial meltdown and you’d better have 600 pounds of wheat and 5,000 rounds of ammo and there’s really no hope without the ability to farm 10 acres and live like people did 200 years ago. And there is that part of me that’s so sick of the world as it is that welcomes the end times, whenever they get themselves ready to arrive, and so I entertain these fantasies of a world without cars or without having to sell my soul to earn money, yet the end times never come, and so I keep on waiting, and prepping in my modest way, and going to the soul-sucking job 5 days a week to keep the money coming in and the benefits and make sure the kids have what they need. And so that’s my life on December 13th, 2009.

I don’t think I could go back to just living, I don’t think I can abandon everything I’ve thought for the last 18 months. But I have to recognize that the disasters the doomers have predicted have not come to pass. I mean, here we are. There is a lot more resiliency in our civilization than they have understood. But I do feel foolish and betrayed and sad that we’re dealing with all the same old problems instead of the new ones I think would somehow be better.

More Thoughts on Biochar

13 December 2009

The more I read about biochar, the better I like the idea. Making it remains problematic.

I was thinking that a solar kiln made specifically for making biochar would be ideal. However, I later realized that would have a major problem: the release of methane from the wood into the atmosphere during pyrolysis, methane being a powerful greenhouse gas. I don’t know how to collect it — maybe that’s possible for a home handyman.

So I’m back to the idea of heating a relatively (but not completely) airtight container in an open fire. That way, the methane gets burned up and with a decent design adds to the heat of the fire and so the speed of pyrolysis.

The problem I had in my previous attempts was that I was burning softwood that was not dry. I need to use dry hardwood to make a good, hot fire, and also make sure it has a good draft. My goal is a hot, smokeless fire.

My trash can technique is not that bad, assuming a change to dry oak as a fuel. One additional change I could make would be a chimney attached to the top to enhance the draft.