Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Bonds, Currencies, Commodities and Index Futures -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moominoid who wrote (2152)	7/26/2001 11:17:29 AM
From: Mark Adams	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12411

My point was that if you don't oxidize the carbon part as well you lose a lot of the energy content. And a very valid point it was. I'd overlooked the energy loss by neglecting this conversion in my diamond production. I just thought you might know off the top of your head, whereas I have to go back to the books to figure that kind of stuff out. In thinking about it though, without doing any reading, it would seem that the carbon content of CH4 per unit of energy would be higher than for say, vegetable oil, which should contain much longer tails of hydrogen. Now I'm curious. A quick link- someone is looking into this; ars.usda.gov veggievan.org Vegetable oil; 884Kcal per 100g usaid.gov The nutritional calorie is equal to 1000 thermochemical calories (1 Kcal) or 4184 joules of energy. The thermochemical calorie is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one gram of liquid water by 1 degree Celsius. wwwchem.csustan.edu 1 Btu = 252 calories 1lb coal = 13,000 btu 1lb wood = 3,500 btu 1gal propane= 92,000btu 1gal fuel oil= 138,000btu 1cu. ft. nat. gas = 1,000 btu nrggroup.com (8841000)/252-> 3507btu/100g vegetable oil. 100g/28g/oz-> appx 4ozs, or 1/4lb. 1/4lb of vegetable oil contains almost the same amount of energy as 1lb of wood. Or vegetable oil has an energy density four times that of wood. One pound of vegetable oil contains the same amount of energy as one pound of coal. Assuming I did the conversions correctly. We have a surplus of vegetable oil capacity, and a shortage of energy. Hmm. This is from How to make money growing trees by Vardaman; One reason it does is biological, and a recent study showed why and revealed other interesting facts about how forests develop. All energy originates in radiation from the sun, but we cannot use most of this until it has been converted by photosynthesis in the cells of green plants. Your forest does a lot of this work. Scientists studied the flow of energy in a New Hampshire forest and came up with this accounting of yearly radiation per square foot: Calories Total received from the sun 116,499 Received outside growing season and not converted -71,906 Reflected back into atmosphere during growing -6,689 seas on Used to heat forest to permit growth -18,358 Used for evaporation of water -18,580 Total converted into plant form 966 Used by plant for their own maintenance -531 Deposited as litter on forest floor -324 Growth of roots 23 Total growth of trunks, limbs, twigs, etc. 88 Since there had been no fire or logging for 55 years, this was an impressive forest. The scientists calculated that the stored energy per square foot was located as follows:* Calories Living trunks, limbs, twigs, etc. 5,546 Living roots 1,089 Litter on forest floor 3,189 Organic matter in top 14 in. of soil 8,187 Total stored energy per square foot 18,011 My point being that forests are very inefficient in converting/storing solar radiation compared to more rapidly growing biomass such as hemp or algae.