The farm bill working its way through Congress is a good example of wasteful spending. According to Op-Ed Contributor: Weed It and Reap by Michael Pollan in today's NY Times, it will cost the taxpayers $288 billion (not million).
I have a better idea. Take a small portion of that pile of money, and spend whatever it takes to develop viable nuclear fusion power and build a hundred such plants around the country. Then, along with switching over to electric vehicles and electric heat in homes and offices, we can stop importing oil, and, in fact, start exporting oil. I think this would cause a huge economic crash in the Middle East, and cut much of the funding of al Qaeda.
Now, that would be money well spent.
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At least support this part of the Farm Bill;
S.1884 – The Salazar Harvesting Energy Act of 2007
A Summary of Biochar Provisions in S.1884:
Carbon-Negative Biomass Energy and Soil Quality Initiative
for the 2007 Farm Bill
http://www.biochar-international.org/newinformationevents/newlegislation.html
(...PLEASE!!..........Contact your Senators & Repps in Support of S.1884........NOW!!...)
ON FUSION;
I thought your readers would be interested in looking at these energy technologies and EPS's theoretic base for ball lighting.
Aneutronic Fusion: Here I am not talking about the big science ITER project taking thirty years, but the several small alternative plasma fusion efforts.
There are three companies pursuing hydrogen-boron plasma toroid fusion, Paul Koloc, Prometheus II, Eric Lerner, Focus Fusion and Clint Seward of Electron Power Systems
Vincent Page (a technology officer at GE!!) gave a presentation at the 05 6th symposium on current trends in international fusion research , which high lights the need to fully fund three different approaches to P-B11 fusion
He quotes costs and time to development of P-B11 Fusion as tens of million $, and years verses the many decades and ten Billion plus $ projected for ITER and other "Big" science efforts
Here are the links:
http://www.electronpowersystems.com/
U.S., Chilean Labs to Collaborate on Testing Scientific Feasibility of Focus Fusion http://pesn.com/2006/03/18/9600250_LPP_Chilean_Nuclear_Commission/
However, short of a Energy "silver bullet" like fusion , Here is a fully DOABLE technology
Time to Master the Carbon Cycle with Terra Preta Soil Technology;
The integrated energy strategy offered by Charcoal based Terra Preta Soil technology may
provide the only path to sustain our agricultural and fossil fueled power
structure without climate degradation, other than nuclear power.
The economics look good, and truly great if we had CO2 cap & trade in place:
Terra Preta soils I feel has great possibilities to revolutionize sustainable agriculture into a major CO2 sequestration strategy.
I thought the current news and links on Terra Preta soils and closed-loop pyrolysis would interest you.
SCIAM Article May 15 07
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=5670236C-E7F2-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40
After many years of reviewing solutions to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) I believe this technology can manage Carbon for the greatest collective benefit at the lowest economic price, on vast scales. It just needs to be seen by ethical globally minded companies.
Even with all the big corporations coming to the GHG negotiation table, like Exxon, Alcoa, .etc, we still need to keep watch as they try to influence how carbon management is legislated in the USA. Carbon must have a fair price, that fair price and the changes in the view of how the soil carbon cycle now can be used as a massive sink verses it now being viewed as a wash, will be of particular value to farmers and a global cool breath of fresh air for us all.
If you have any other questions please feel free to call me or visit the TP web site I've been drafted to co-administer. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node
It has been immensely gratifying to see all the major players join the mail list , Cornell folks, T. Beer of Kings Ford Charcoal (Clorox), Novozyne the M-Roots guys(fungus), chemical engineers, Dr. Danny Day of EPRIDA , Dr. Antal of U. of H., Virginia Tech folks and probably many others who's back round I don't know have joined.
Also Here is the Latest BIG Terra Preta Soil news;
SCIAM Article May 15 07;
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=5670236C-E7F2-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40
The Honolulu Advertiser: “The nation's leading manufacturer of charcoal has licensed a University of Hawai'i process for turning green waste into barbecue briquets.”
See: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007707280348
ConocoPhillips Establishes $22.5 Million Pyrolysis Program at Iowa State 04/10/07
Glomalin, the recently discovered soil protien, may be the secret to to TP soils productivity;
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2003/030205.htm
Erich J. Knight
540-289-9750
shengar at aol.com
Thanks (again to Erich J. Knight) and to Nicole for all the info and the informative links.
I wonder if you have ever looked at the work of the late Dr. Bussard? He made quite a lot of progress on fusion power, but passed away last month. I believe his company is still working under a grant from the Navy. You can see a lecture he gave at Google last year - it is on the internet....
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