Raise the Hammer

Undustrial, I'm gonna nominate you as editor of Hamilton's Mother Earth News to keep us up to date on this stuff. Every now an then I get turned on to some idea in this area, like the old flame that Mrjanitor just rekindled. It'll take days to get that song outta my head. I really got interested in it in the 90s but as i now recall, lost enthusiasm after contemplating all the practicalities involved. Like how to put extra hard valves in a Honda generator, fitting a natural gas/dual fuel carb onto it, noise attenuation, ensuring no CO problems in the house, not to mention wondering what the insurance co. would say. Like, sir, what is your heating plant? UM its a homemade dual fuel co gen, 50cc generator coupled to an absorption chiller ....... [dialtone] They hung up on me! Guess they don't want my business!!

This stuff is complex and the world has become a very tight fisted place. We need to loosen up, even if there are risks. It's fun though and that damn song won't quit playing in my head.

A few years back i got similarly excited after reading about a mennonite (?) who had rigged up a cattail derived ammonia generator that somehow coupled with a windgenerator to make truck fuel. Can't recall the details but it seemed more beneficial than ethanol which as we know is a negative economy. All of these ideas might be practical in remote communities, especially where diesel generators mean high cost electricity.

You might also be interested in the effort to make small stoves for third world use which has an enormous positive impact on health and forests. I ran across this page a few days ago. It represents, in my mind, a much more positive approach than the whole CO2-GW thing since ordinary people become beneficiaries instead of being ensnared in useless costly carpetbagging boondoggles.

http://www.bioenergylists.org/

Hamilton could run a bootcamp on this similar to other such efforts??