Grass To Fuel

Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is a warm-season grass and is one of the dominant species of the central North American tallgrass prairie. Switchgrass can be found in remnant prairies, along roadsides, pastures and as an ornamental plant in gardens. Other common names for this grass include tall panic grass, Wobsqua grass, lowland switchgrass, blackbent, tall prairiegrass, wild redtop and thatchgrass.


Miscanthus is a genus of about 15 species of perennial grasses native to subtropical and tropical regions of Africa and southern Asia, with one species (M. sinensis) extending north into temperate eastern Asia.

Lawnmower technology could be answer to world energy problems

Get out your lawnmower to make fuel. What do you think oil is? It is nothing more than biomass that has been converted to that black goo known as oil. No magic, just chemistry. With all the problems afflicting oil, such as funding terrorists, there is no wonder the best minds in the world are turning to a way to short circuit the oil creation process -- Just remove the time factor.

Both miscanthus and E-Grass can act as carbon dioxide neutral fuels because of their ability to use carbon dioxide highly efficiently in photosynthesis. As these plants grow they remove carbon dioxide from the air so effectively that when they are used to supply energy, little, if any, more carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere than was removed from it by the growing plants. The result is a stable, steady-state situation: the amount of carbon dioxide that is added to the atmosphere when the plants are used to produce energy is approximately equal to the amount of carbon dioxide that is removed from the atmosphere by the growing plants.

Great advantages await us as we move into a cellulose based biofuel future. A highly favorable carbon dioxide balance, and the resulting positive impact on our global warming crisis; a markedly decreased dependence on uncertain petroleum sources from the middle east and elsewhere; and stable food prices for consumers are some of them. These benefits will accrue not only to U.S. consumers, but also to people throughout the world. How can we afford not to pursue this uniquely promising "growing" energy future?

Carbon neutral fuel, it's what Bush has been talking about long before the Goracle showed with his outlandish tale of woo.

I wonder where the Republicans are telling this tale? The enabling legislation was passed in 2005.

John Gibson Explains The Left

Nutroots is all hate all the time.

Solar-B

Image above: Taken by Hinode's Solar Optical Telescope on Nov. 20, 2006, this image reveals the structure of the solar magnetic field rising vertically from a sunspot.
Image credit: Hinode JAXA/NASA


The latest addition to exploring the Sun, introduction here.
It's called Hinode(formerly Solar-B), Japanese for Sun, It's a joint venture between Japan, UK and USA scientists. It became operational fall 2006 and is now doing science.

The Hinode (Solar-B) is a highly sophisticated observational satellite equipped with three advanced solar telescopes. It was launched on 22 September 2006 UT (23 September in Japan time). Its solar optical telescope (SOT) has an unprecedented 0.2 arcsec resolution for the observation of solar magnetic fields. It would resolve a feature with the size of 50cm, if it observed the Earth. The X-ray telescope (XRT) has a resolution of three times as high as Yohkoh, and the EUV imaging spectrometer (EIS) has sensitivity ten times as high as the ESA SOHO instrument. These X-ray and EUV telescopes would reveal the heating mechanism and dynamics of the active solar corona.

With this suite of telescopes, we can address the following key questions in solar physics : Why does a hot corona exist above the cool atmosphere? What drives explosive events such as solar flares? What creates the Sun's magnetic fields?

The Hinode (Solar-B) project office at NAOJ plays a lead role in instrument design and development, mission operation and data analysis with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and promotes international collaboration with the US and European partners.



Consider this, it wasn't until the mid 19th century that man understood that the sun was just an ordinary star, one of billions in the galaxy.

2007 is the predicted solar minimum for sunspots.

Didactic Jihad

And so it goes with the U.S. media, until it's way too late.

That Pesky Finnish River

The icebreaking date for the Tornio River in Finland has been recorded since 1693. With the increased greenhouse effect, impacts on the cryosphere are likely. One impact will be less ice on rivers and lakes. Freeze-up dates will be delayed, and break-up will begin earlier. The period of river-ice could be shortened by up to a month. Many rivers within the temperate regions could become ice-free or develop only intermittent or partial ice coverage.

Imagine that... it was warming long before industrialization.

You got it right, that's a U.N. data graph. Lack of reasoning power is no excuse for socialism.

Heritage's Ben Lieberman On Global Warming

Man caused global warming, it's a hoax. Prove your ignorance, support the liberal's plan for global socialism.

IPCC CO2 vs The Truth

The facts as shown by the IPCC


The facts. More here.

Focus on the small graphic contained within the top three graphics. Notice the difference? During the last 100 years the CO2 levels were not flat during this time period, they were a lot higher and a lot lower.

The Fourth Assessment report ("AR4" to those in the acronym loop) of the IPCC. Now that the summary for policy makers (or "SPM") has actually been published though, we can discuss the substance of the report without having to worry that the details will change.

Ford Super Duty Afterburner

This is what you get free with your new 2008 Ford Super Duty Truck. $50k with afterburner.

After recent disagreements with engine supplier Navistar, as well as dealing with Super Duties that perform roman candle impressions, Ford is accelerating development of a new diesel engine for its burliest of pickups. Ford and Navistar played chicken earlier this year over warranty costs for the older 6-liter Powerstroke V8. That engine had a high number of issues that led to Ford covering repair costs. Ford in turn sued Navistar, the engine supplier, and held back payments for the new 6.4-liter Powerstroke in an effort to recoup some of their expense. Navistar decided they'd have none of it, and shut down engine production, slowing Super Duty production until a court order got the engines flowing again.

This acrimony has spurred Ford to come up with an alternative to Navistar engines in one of its most pivotal vehicles. The diesel and its muscle-bound tow rating attract plenty of buyers, and the Super Duty is at the top of the Ford Truck food chain, so problems here look bad. If your work truck doesn't work, you're in trouble. Ford can't afford to lose the profits from the Super Duty, nor can it accept tarnishing the image of the iconic F-Series trucks, so the Dearborn team is on it in the interest of exorcising Navistar power plants from the engine bay and keeping that customer cash flowing.

Buy Toyota, be happy.

The Enemy Hasn't Changed

The nature of the enemy hasn't changed, but we have. We no longer seem to be able to make normal, moral, rational judgments. Distinguishing right from wrong is getting harder.

"Incoinvienent Truth" Theme Song

The Democrats want to tax the air you breath. From the same author who brought you A Barack Obama Christmas Carol.

Penn and Teller Takes ON Truthers

Liberalism Explained

Yep, that's what it's about.

Better Living Through Activism

In case you are confused by those carbon offsets, and the Goracle saying he expects you to change your lifestyle but not his -- then Mary Katherine Ham is here to try and help you out.

Run Fred, Run

A clip from Fred Thompson who’s filling in for Paul Harvey. Here is the transcript:

“Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto.

NASA says the Martian South Pole’s “ice cap” has been shrinking for three summers in a row. Maybe Mars got its fever from earth. If so, I guess Jupiter’s caught the same cold, because it’s warming up too, like Pluto.

This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air-conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle.

Silly, I know, but I wonder what all those planets, dwarf planets and moons in our SOLAR system have in common. Hmmmm. SOLAR system. Hmmmm. Solar? I wonder. Nah, I guess we shouldn’t even be talking about this. The science is absolutely decided. There’s a consensus.

Ask Galileo.”

I’m starting to like this guy.

The Sun, New Discoveries

The restless bubbling and frothing of the Sun's chaotic surface is astonishing astronomers who have been treated to detailed new images from a Japanese space telescope called Hinode.

The observatory will have as dramatic an impact on our understanding of the Sun as the Hubble Space Telescope has had on our view of the universe beyond, scientists told a NASA press conference in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday.

"Everything we thought we knew about X-ray images of the Sun is now out of date," says Leon Golub from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. "We've seen many new and unexpected things. For that reason alone, the mission is already a success."

Hinode (Japanese for "sunrise") was launched in September 2006 to study the solar magnetic field and how magnetic energy is released as the field rises into the Sun's outer atmosphere. The mission was formerly known as Solar-B.

Seething and swaying
Charged particles follow magnetic field lines that rise vertically from a sunspot – an area of strong magnetic field. On the edges of the sunspot, the magnetic field lines bend over to connect to regions of the opposite polarity

NASA: Sun-climate connection found

Another contribution to peer-reviewed denier literature.

Alexander Ruzmaikin and Joan Feynman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., together with Dr. Yuk Yung of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., have analyzed Egyptian records of annual Nile water levels collected between 622 and 1470 A.D. at Rawdah Island in Cairo. These records were then compared to another well-documented human record from the same time period: observations of the number of auroras reported per decade in the Northern Hemisphere. Auroras are bright glows in the night sky that happen when mass is rapidly ejected from the sun's corona, or following solar flares. They are an excellent means of tracking variations in the sun's activity.

Feynman said that while ancient Nile and auroral records are generally "spotty," that was not the case for the particular 850-year period they studied.

"Since the time of the pharaohs, the water levels of the Nile were accurately measured, since they were critically important for agriculture and the preservation of temples in Egypt," she said. "These records are highly accurate and were obtained directly, making them a rare and unique resource for climatologists to peer back in time."

A similarly accurate record exists for auroral activity during the same time period in northern Europe and the Far East. People there routinely and carefully observed and recorded auroral activity, because auroras were believed to portend future disasters, such as droughts and the deaths of kings.

"A great deal of modern scientific effort has gone into collecting these ancient auroral records, inter-comparing them and evaluating their accuracy," Ruzmaikin said. "They have been successfully used by aurora experts around the world to study longer time scale variations."

The researchers found some clear links between the sun's activity and climate variations. The Nile water levels and aurora records had two somewhat regularly occurring variations in common - one with a period of about 88 years and the second with a period of about 200 years.

The researchers said the findings have climate implications that extend far beyond the Nile River basin.

The findings of Alexander Ruzmaikin, Joan Feynman, and Yuk Yung have shown a non-trivial correlation between annual water levels in Cairo and the number of solar auroras between 622 A.D. and 1470 A.D.

More information

• NASA press release
• Paper in Advances of Space Research by Feynman only
• Paper in Journal of Geophysics research by all of them, full text

Among other conclusions, in a Fourier-like decomposition, there are oscillations with a period of 88 years and with a period of 200+ year both in the river records as well as the aurora records.

Solving The Illegal Immigration Problem

Why do people try and make this so complicated? Simple, they have a vested interest in low wage jobs. To solve this problem, solve the employment problem. Make the penalties for hiring illegals severe, say 10 years in federal prison for the heads of companies employing illegal immigrants. The beauty of this solution it is closes the plausible deniability loophole, that being, the way major companies get around the law, by hiring service companies to do the actual work, and use illegal workers in the process.

No jobs, no workers. Problem solved overnight.

Nuclear, The Only Viable Option

Europe agrees to embrace nuclear option in battle to save the planet

Now that's a headline, grabs your attention, doesn't it? As I have said many times before, if you want to actually reduce CO2 emissions and not just move them around, the only viable option is nuclear. All the other "alternative fuels" have either a net negative, I.E. produce more net CO2, or are more polluting overall.

Soon, the liberals will be out with the pitch forks protesting this, for to them, there is no solution except we all are forced to live like cave men.

Sometimes the obvious just takes time to be observed.

Environmentalism, The New Communism

Václav Klaus in Texas two weeks ago.

As the House Energy and Commerce Committee prepares to question former Vice President Al Gore tomorrow morning about global warming, Czech President Vaclav Klaus is warning congressmen that 'environmental extremism is the modern equivalent of communism'

"I warn against adopting regulations based on the so-called precautionary principle which the environmentalists use to justify their recommendations, the clear benefit of which they are not able to prove." Klaus added, "Responsible politics should take into account the opportunity costs of such proposals and be aware of the fact that the wasteful environmentalist policies are adopted to the detriment of other policies, thus neglecting many other important needs of millions of people all over the world. Each policy measure must be based on a cost-benefit analysis."

-- That sage advice from one who knows communism and the European response to global warming.

Members of the U.S. Congress committees led by John Dingell (Dem) and Barbara Boxer (Dem) have decided to ask a European leader about her or his views on the climate change, before the hearings with Al Gore tomorrow. They chose Václav Klaus.

• Environmentalism is new communism

The full answers of Klaus to their five questions are here:

• Written response to the House committee members

Global Warming Nonsense

Anyone who still doesn't understand they are being duped with this whole CO2 man caused global warming nonsense, this film is a must see.

The spoiler is CO2 does not cause global warming -- CO2 is a lagging indicator of warming, not a driving indicator. That means quite simply, CO2 increases follow warming temperature, not lead. The temperature warms, the CO2 levels go up, some 800 years later. Common sense will offer you a reason why -- As the temperature warms, plants, marine life and animals become more numerous, the growth cycle starts all over again, until the next ice age comes along.

CO2 is not the main cause of global climate change, water vapor is. Water vapor, and the subsequent weather it causes, accounts for about 95% of the total so-called greenhouse gases. Water vapor comes from the oceans evaporating, and from comets crashing into the upper atmosphere. Yes, large house sized snowballs hit the Earth many times and hour. These so-called micro-meteors are composed of about 20-40 tons of ice. Recent satellite based observations have confirmed this recent discovery.

The last ice age ended about 15,000 years ago, and the Earth started warming. Why? No one knows. The seas started rising, now at a level of about 400 feet higher than they were during the ice age -- so a few feet more or less is nothing but normal.

To sum up, CO2 has been many times higher than it is today, the temperature has been quite a bit warmer, and the oceans have been changing along with the ice melting and freezing again.

Watch the whole thing, before you succumb to the latest nonsense put out by the control freaks on the left.

Happy Equinox

The 2007 vernal equinox occurs at 00:07 UT on March 21st. This marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern hemisphere. Wherever you live, Happy Equinox!

Questions For The Goracle

Wednesday, Al Gore is supposed to testify before the House Committee. Drudge says he has a list of the 'behind the scene' questions for the Goracle.

GORE FACES HILL GRILLING ON 'WARMING'; QUESTIONS AWAIT FORMER VP
Sun Mar 18 2007 20:23:00 ET

**Exclusive**

Temperatures are predicted to reach a high of only 43-degrees on Wednesday in Washington, but look for high-heat to come out of Al Gore's scheduled appearances on The Hill!

Gore is set to appear before Rep. John Dingell's [D-MI] all powerful Energy and Commerce Committee in the morning and Sen. Barbara Boxer's [D-CA] Environment and Public Works Committee in the afternoon.

Both are expected to have overflow seating, and protesters, both for and against Gore.

Gore will get a 30 minute opening and then Boxer and her republican counterpart, Sen. Inhofe, each get 15 minutes each of questioning in addition to their opening statements. Other senators will only get 5 min of Q & A.

"Democrat Dingell is a big global warming skeptic, so do not expect him to go too lightly on Gore," predicts a congressional source.

[Dingell has also invited Gore critic, Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, Adjunct Professor, Copenhagen Business School, to appear at the hearing. Lomborg is author of the book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist.' He recetly wrote: "The cacophony of screaming does not help." ]

Proposed questions for Gore, which are circulating behind-the-scenes, have been obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT -- question that could lead Gore scrambling for answers!

Mr. Gore: You have said several times that we have 10 years to act to stave off global warming. Was that 10 years from the first time you said that or 10 years from now? We just wanted to get a firm date from you that we can hold you to.

Mr. Gore: How can you continue to claim that global warming on Earth is primarily caused by mankind when other planets (Mars, Jupiter and Pluto) with no confirmed life forms and certainly no man-made industrial greenhouse gas emissions also show signs of global warming? Wouldn’t it make more sense that the sun is responsible for warming since it is the common denominator?

Mr. Gore: Joseph Romm, the executive director for the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, has said we must build 700 large nuclear plants to stave off climate change. Where do you stand on the need for nuclear energy?

Mr. Gore: Do you think the earth is significantly overpopulated and that is a major contributor to your view of climate change. (If yes, what do you think is a sustainable population for the planet?)

Perfect Match