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Cow Manure --> Electricity
jmtpi writes "ABCNews has a story about a dairy farm in Minnesota that uses its cow manure to generate enough electricity to power the farm plus 80 homes and create fertilizer. There's also a more detailed story."
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Is a crock of shit. :)
Yes, I am a Muslim. No, I am not a Terrorist.
I'm sure burning this stuff will be creating lots of pollution, oh well earth has to end some day.
Ahhh the sweet smell of efficency. *takes a deep breath*
*faints*
... the power of bullshit.
Miko O'Sullivan
I can also make fertiliser from cow manure.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Let the conspiricy theorist run with this one...
How we could have done this 20 years ago, but 'Big Oil' kept the secret away from us... so Bush could be President and protect 'Big Oil' from the evil Iraqis!!!
Why are we still using oil? Why must we support oil tycoons when we can all have milk and power our homes at the same time? I am off to find Jack and trade him some beans for a cow!
Journalist defeats Blaster and captures Master to secure story on electricity from manure.
That's a nice generator...
FOR ME TO POOP ON!
Give me a break. The Chinese were generating electricity from biogas 100,000 years ago!
I thought the future was going to get bigger, brighter, better, and flying (cars). Now as I get older, and understand more about population issues, it seems we are going to have to come up with more and more clever ways of re-using waste products. I suppose this is better in the long run (?) but hopefully I will still be able to drive a flying, shit-powered car before I die. Hopefully I can get the OUTATIME vanity plate someone else in my state does.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
How is this news? Oh, yes, now I see, the USA soon will be as developped as China where it's been done on a large scale for years.
...literally
In case someone would start a poll on this topic, I will go with the CowboyNeal option... :)
Anyonw here qualified to know if this could be applied to human waste?
I would imagine we get a lot less methane out of ours, but these guys seem to be making a fair bit.
Also does anyone know what kind of pollution levels these things create? It seems like it would be fairly clean but I'm not an expert on burning shit.
-Nex
This sig has been deprecated.
todays electrician is tomorrows shit scooper.
Flying cows replace power transmission lines.
If you read the article, you'll see that they're not burning the manure, they're simply expiditing the anaerobic processes of bacteria that consume it. In fact, the farmer touts "odor reduction" as a benefit of the process.
Sounds like a shitty investment.
Yeah...this really brings the meaning of the term, "Dirty Power" to a whole new level!
Because coal needs to be mined. A dangerous and environmentally unfriendly activity. The shit is already on hand, why not just use it?
With a proper plant with proper filters, I can't imagine that burning shit is going to be problem. Can't be anyworse than having lie on the ground.
But seriously folks, I'm all for alternet engery sources. Just not at the expense of reason. Nuclear is still the best existing form of renewable energy. All we need to do is develop an entire lifecycle managment system.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
...you can see Mel Gibson and Tina Turner.
22000 gal manure per day/ 760 cows = 30 gal/cow per day
Doesn't that seem a little hi?
Ever drive by a HUMAN sewage plant? See that orange flame at the top of a tall pipe? That is the same "bio-gas" which is surplus being wasted. See the large spheres nearby? Those are "bio-gas" storage tanks. Many facilities use it to heat the digester tanks to promote microbe growth.
Imagine if human waste treatment were to start generating electricity. Your local water and sewage board could start PAYING you for the privilege of of disposing of your sewage.
The cows are primarily being used to produce milk. Generating power is just a benefit of recycling their shit. Either way, the same amount of wast is produced, but one way we are doing something useful with it.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
If this is such a good idea, and so cost effective, why isn't it being done more places?
"In the USA we don't just waste our natural resources, we waste our waste, too!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I don't believe this shit.
Burning methane creates only water and carbon dioxide. Burning coal, which often contains sulfur, creates acid rain.
Other than the fact that burning manure has nothing to do with the article, coal doesn't come out of cow ass.
This is my sig. The post is over.
But, if the cows are already being used to produce milk, steaks, and leather, why not use them to power the cow facility and a couple homes while they're at it? It is efficient simply because it allows one to milk further use (no pun intended) out of their cows.
This also works for human manure?
My energy bills are much high lately.
Sounds a lot like the system set up at Mad Max Thunderdome.
why is it that *EVERY* damn comment with a negative attitude gets modded down?
The parent comment was funny, damnit!!
We've never been told explicitly how they get the bioelectic energy out of us, efferectivly transforming us into this this [duracell.com]
but they used pigshit there.
I'm talking about longer term solution. This isn't one. The farmer is calling this the "way of the future".
I don't think cows enter into the "way of the future" in any fashion.
Even producing enough electricity to power their own farm and a few more homes doesn't make up for how inneficient it is compared to other solutions, namely ones that don't include drink milk.
This is my sig. The post is over.
Not shit, energy! No energy, no town.
I hope no one really thinks this is a good idea.
We'd be better off using the land wasted on the cows, to produce biodiesel.
You like beef? How about milk? Butter? Cream with your coffee? Cheese?
Guess what, all of these things come from cows! We need cows on hand to make them and we might as well get even more from them while we're at it. You can only use so much fertilizer, so what are we going to do with the rest of the manure? Throwing it out is the pinacle of idiocy. We went to all the trouble to feed the cows the food so let's use what the cows didn't.
Biodiesel is great and all, but I can't eat it. I can eat cheese and beef. With cows we get food AND some electricity to boot.
China and India have been at the forefront of biogas power production for decades.
In 1979, China had an estimated 7.2 million biogas plants, fueled primarily by pig manure.
In the same year, India had 80,000 of its own biogas plants fueled by the defecation of the sacred cow. (Holy Shit!)
They've even been doing this in the US for quite some time. Here is another article that provides an excellent explanation of the process, costs, and capabilities of such a system.
In Soviet Russia, hot grits pour themselves on YOU.
bullsh*t
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
So this might not be the most technologically amazing invention, and it's clearly not going to solve the world's energy problems. But it is an inspiring example of how a few individuals can actually do something less destructive for the environment without being mandated to do so by government regulations.
At the risk of sounding trite, consider what you can do to have a less destructive impact on our planet, even if it doesn't involve thousands of gallons of shit a day.
Imagine what one of these could do in the Nation's Capitol. We'd have enough power to do the whole planet a couple of times over ;-)
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
This really isn't anything new. The pioneers in the late 1800's burned cow-patties when they were crossing the praries. In fact, cow-patties will emit methane for a fairly long amount of time. One of the California universities (sorry, can't remember which) uses methane off-gased from a landfill.
If the combustion processes is controlled correctly, there is little pollution generated. The biggest problem with either of these dirty fuels is "What impurities are in both of these that are not present in cleaner fuels that cannot be removed?"
I wonder how many homes could be powered if everyone ate vegan, and we used all the energy it takes to raise all those cows for electricity.
Not unless the cow was really constipated.
The idea is that you use every resource available to it's fullest potential...and that shit is just laying there asking to be composted into a viable fuel. I don't see that is an inefficient process.
if your goiing to talk about efficiency, you could wonder how many non-north-american-houses could be powered by those 800 cows..
all this creating more energy is nice, but using less of it would be even better. that can be done without decreasing level of lifestyle.
We've been looking for alternate means of poewr for a while now, especially some with sources that can be used with resources readily available here in the USA. Given the sheer quantity of livestock being raised in the midwest, this could easily be used to reduce the coal being burned for power plants. Even more interestingly, it should be possible to take copious quantities of this shit and refine in into petroleum. That's right...oil from something other than Jurassic Park leftovers.
This could then be used to reduce intake of oil from the middle east, cut back on our support of wacko 3rd world regimes like Saudi Arabia, and cut our trade deficit in half rather quickly. Granted, under the current admin it won't happen since they don't own shares in too many farms, but who knows - Texas and Oklahoma could still become prime sources for oil, but for differnet reasons. gasoline would not be the only product; jet fuel, asphalt, plastics, and every other petroleum derivative would be cheaper and more readily available with this sort of massive domestic petroleum supply.
This does not solve the pollution problem, though. Burning coal, oil, or dung still gives off massive levels of CO2. This becomes a problem with respect to global warming and the potential backlash of global cooling while the planet readjusts. What we need are renewable energy technologies like cow power (Eat More Chicken Now for Cheaper Power Later!) while we work out the kinks on clean power sources like fusion and microwave/solar.
Hopefully someone is thinking along this wavelength and could use bacteria to turn Bessy's leftovers into black gold. That would probably be the hardest part of the process since raw petroleum isn't a uniform compound.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
People can't eat or drink biodiesel.
Unless you decide to legislate a vegetarian diet, people are going to continue to eat meat, drink milk, and wear wool.
Why not just burn coal?
Because farms don't produce coal. Farms produce manure (as waste), and the manure produces methane, wich is a smelly pollutant.
What these farmers can do is turn that smelly waste into a profitable ressource.
coal?
It's just as bad for the environment
No, its much much worse for the environment to dig out buried carbon and release it into the atmosphere than to prevent the release of methane in the atmosphere.
I don't really want to smell the fumes of burning shit, thank you!
Yes, you should thank them, since they are saving you from having to smell those fumes by transforming the manure in a closed system and then burning the methane quite thoroughly. Methane then ends up as water vapor, CO2 and energy.
Wich is much better smelling than raw manure.
Now, had you read the article before trolling about coal, you'd have known all that.
You can't take the sky from me...
farmers are by far the MOST efficient people, and also some of the most environmentally minded people. (and btw, there aren't cow farmers... farming is plants, ranching is animals... This is a cow rancher!!!)
Or the cow ate the average american diet, which includes dairy.
This is my sig. The post is over.
This will not provide a sollution since we need too many cows to produce significant amounts of energy, therefore this will not be a sollution to an energy crisis. But this improoves a litlle the eficiency of the farming and the most important the methane does not escape into the athmosphere. Instead it is burned and CO2 is released. I know that CO2 is greenhouse efect gas but the methane increases MUCH more the geenhouse than C02. This one is good since improoves farming eficiency, gets rid of nasty cow manure smell in farming areas, it is environmental friendly reducing the greenhouse efect and generates electricity. So you better use it! Especialy in Holand when the smell is nasty! :)
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
It was too exepensive to run power lines to villages in China, so they used methane power for a long time.
think of the money in it for them!!
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Just a note: there's a lot more cow manure being produced nowadays than coal. The concept of "renewable" is a big deal to anyone who thinks there will be a world in the next 100 years.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.
If you're extremely patriotic, collect all the cow shit you can and store it in your back yard. You too can help reduce America's dependency on foreign oil.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
The third world wackos are the ones funding terrorism...cut off their funding and lots of terrorists will have much fewer resources to use.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
It is a really shitty source of power....
You'll have that sometimes...
least that's what we call them in nc.
In Soviet Russia... ... water and sewage board pays you!
Or is that Communist China?
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
I don't drink or eat cows. Yet I still eat... amazing eh?
~long term~
You're right. We won't stop till there's not enough land for cows. Just like we won't stop using oil until there's not enough oil left.
Of course there won't be enough land to produce vegetables either at some point, and we will have to use snythetic soil means, but cows will either be long gone before that, or the torture of them will increase.
Regardless... The sooner you become more efficient, and cleaner, the better for everyone.
This is my sig. The post is over.
...That's some good shit!
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
there aren't cow farmers... farming is plants, ranching is animals... This is a cow rancher!
I'm assuming you're from the U.S., and from the western half at that.
In the Eastern US, someone who grows cows for milk or for slaughter is usually called a "farmer". A "rancher" is primarily a mid-west or western term.
Haven't people been doing this for decades? Back in the 80's, I'd seen more than one PBS show on it.
The article talks about collecting all of the manure with machines--so I don't think there's any "ranch" here, unless you mean the mechanical barn with cow after cow stuck in a stall with a chute from the cow's rear to the methane oven.
In Minnesota, they cook them.
"The heat produced by the engine keeps the manure cooking, and the excess warms the barn's concrete floors."
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
the point was, the farmer was trying to make it sound like this is the solution to all of our future power problems; using cows as a our main resource.
This is my sig. The post is over.
More like a field :-)
this was on AP or Discovery a year ago.
/ 07 17_wiremanure.htmlr y/scripts/manure.htm l/ fea tures/BNP__Features__Item/0,1338,60768,00.htmlt tp://www.dairycares.com/news/caseesenergy.htm
some other links to cow manure:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/07
http://amos.indiana.edu/libra
http://www.achrnews.com/CDA/ArticleInformation
h
>You like beef? How about milk? Butter? Cream with your coffee? Cheese?
No. I don't consume anything in that list (including coffee). Are you surprised? I'm assuming you are since you followed that question up with telling me that those are dairy products.
But the amazing part (to some of you, obviously) is that I am still alive and I eat every day.
Is everyone a total moron and didn't read the article or what? I'm not talking about NOT using the waste from current cows. The farmer was talking about implementing this as a solution for the future, basically increasing the amount of cows in usage. I never said that we shouldn't use what cows we have, but I AM saying that we should get rid of the cows we have.
This is my sig. The post is over.
I'm sorry, but a story like this is just too good to pass up.....
Mod Points: Helping you keep your opinion to yourself.
..couldn't that be useful for plants in greenhouses? I can imagine the distorted ecosystem of a greenhouse, where there are hardly any animals to exhale CO2, adding the CO2 left by the combustion of CH4 could have the plants create clean O2 that can be let out into the atmosphere with no further risks thus eliminating all pollution.
But of course I don't know shit about chemistry.. so I could easily be wrong.
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
I still think that converting the Fresh Kills landfill to a facility that captures methane emissions, generates hydrogen from garbage compost, and burns the rest in a euro-style plasma furnace could really help SI, as well as NYC (and probably the country at large)..
;); NYC would get more tax revenue from the sale of power, hydrogen and methane to power generators and municipal vehicles/facilities and taxes from jobs and industry, as well as additional independence from out-of-city power generation and some relief from peak periods of use. NYC would also reduce its payments for handling trash, thus reducing its budget problems. Talk about a win-win-win-win-win!
;)
SI would get cleaner air and jobs in a good local high-tech industry (we'd be HAPPY to import garbage
Just keep Tony Soprano's hands off it
We *did* do this 20 years ago. It *is* old news.
Sheesh. Doesn't anybody read Mother Earth News anymore? Are we so focused on what might be coming out tomorrow that we've completely forgoten what we did yesterday?
Farmers have been doing this for over 100 years. Henry Ford promoted it as the ideal way to provide for our energy needs before WW1.
During WWII you could buy units on trailers to pull around behind your car, pile the shit in,a nd get a few miles of driving out of the resultant outgassing.
The only "conspiracy" here is that people no longer want to acknowledge that shit even exists and would rather go to war and die over a bit of oil than shovel a bit of their own shit.
Napoleon considered the most valuable men in his army the people who cleaned the latrines. They didn't *bury* the shit, they collected it for use.
Napleon's army made much of its own gunpowder while, ummmmmmmmmmm, "on the run," as it were.
Cows aren't the only biological device which can serve as a very efficient refinery of raw materials.
KFG
going vegan ain't good for the eviroment.
First cows/pigs don't eat soy, they eat grass.
Growing good-quality soy, the type most people would want if they were vegans and you probably eat, strains the enviroment.The grass that cows eat just grows, at the most some artificial fertilizer will be used(but not a significant amount)
Monoclture (growing one kind of crop) strains the enviroment ALOT, grass doesn't(because its grass and doesn't need our help to grow good)
And if everyone went vegan, they probably wouldn't go eko-friendly vegan, but get the cheapest tofu vegan.
And cheap soy is grown in monoculture.
Also if we al went vegan what would happen to our lands?, they'd probably become suburbans, or some kind of dessert.(how is that good for the planet)
Or we could replant them with trees, at a cost.
And lastly how would you convert that saved energy, by growing less crops, to electricity?
We could grow crops just for energy(bio-mass), putting an slightly less amount of strain on the planet, but then we wouldn't have real milk , nice leather and delicious steak.
Cows are truly a gift of God, you put in cheap worthless grass and get out good milk, very good leather and very rich food.
Nothing wasted. Nothing lost.
We humans, on the other hand, operate differently: we treat our excreta as waste, mixing it with all sorts of nasty chemicals, and then spend an absolute fortune trying to make it safe to discharge into the environment. We mine minerals from the soil -- minerals that normally are locked away, out of the chain -- and then have trouble dealing with some of the by products of the way we use them (nuclear waste, anyone?) We try to improve the productivity of our fields by using chemical fertilisers, at great expense. Etc., etc.
To see people making good use of cow manure in this way is marvellous. And for the nay sayers, it's actually better for the environment than just letting the methane release into the atmosphere: methane is a far more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and burning it reduces the greenhouse effect of the released gases (methane is CH4; the reaction is CH4 + 2O2 ==> CO2 + 2H2O. Yes, water is a greenhouse gas, but it's far more useful to us than CH4 is.)
This is something I'm definitely all for. It's a true win-win setup. Marvellous. Absolutely marvellous.
Sorry, couldn't help myself.
Today's lesson was to not assume anyone replying to you will read the article, or have any clue about the OBVIOUS.
I'm not implying that we should NOT use what manure cows are producing now. I'm saying that we should NOT increase the number of cows in usage. That is why I started it off with how inefficient it is as a long term solution (ill go out and feed my 10 cows). I did NOT mean that this is a waste of time, nor that this is a process we should totally forget about. Sure I think using what cows are currently in consumption to produce power is great. But this farmer is talking about making strides for the future, and that cows should be an integral part of that (including population growth).
I really don't see how anyone misunderstood me so extremely.
oh well..
This is my sig. The post is over.
- The storage of nuclear waste is something that *cannot* be thought through and planned completely, because of the ultra-long storage times involved (e.g. many tens of thousends of years). The oldest structures the human race built are, what?, 4 thousand years old, and look at their condition.
- Fast-breeders sound attractive, but with people like GWB still running the show I would not want to produce more Plutonium, it can be too easily used in nuclear bombs.
- Maybe it is time people should consider doing something about the other half of the equation: energy-consumption. I've replaced all my lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lights, bought an energy-efficient fridge and washing machine (got me a rebate from the power-company, too). I also switch off all equipment with small power adapters when not in use, they consume a small load 24/7 which adds up. I *halved* my electricity bill, and that is without *any* change in my lifestyle or level of comfort.
Another idiotic thing is cooking and heating homes electrically. Electricity is the highest form of power, and it is wasted on heating. Cooking on natural gas saves money and is much more efficient.
I am *not* a tree-hugger, I just want to see my kids being able to light and heat their homes when their grown-up, too.
I'm from half-way between.
A rancher is generally somebody who can afford to lease/own thousands of acres of land to run cattle. This sort of lends itself to rich/politically connected men. Ranchers generally don't manage their lands by themselves.
A farmer (from where I'm from) owns his land and stock and is (hopefully) beholden to nobody. What he puts his place he gets to take back out. What he doesn't put in...
-Brett
The sooner you become more efficient, and cleaner, the better for everyone
Exactly, which is why this is so great. Cowshit was just wasted, and now it's used for fuel. That's pretty damn efficient. This way, I get to have my steak and eat it too.
Reformat properly, 50h homes. Geeks hate decimal. Do any geeks not hate decimal? If so, tell me.
People who are using the land to feed and power their family may be efficient, but this guy isn't just feeding and powering his family. He is producing dairy products that go into circulation. That is the inefficient and unhealthy part. He's also making a few people on top who have strangled the business from top to bottom, very rich, destroying the sharing of wealth.
The land usage isn't even that efficient. At some point this will be an issue, but currently I guess it isnt.
And did you even read the articles? Even the FARMERS are calling it a farm...
This is my sig. The post is over.
Wow. You're a great person. You're a vegan. Big fucking deal.
I doubt that the farmer envisioned billions of cows kept alive for the sole purpose of shitting. That would be stupid. I'm sure that he meant that lots of cattle owners could do this same thing.
There is certainly a great deal of untaped potential in the US. Only 4% of landfill sites use their methane to generate electrcity. The U.S. EPA estimates that as many as 500 additional landfills could cost-effectively turn their methane into an energy resource, producing enough electricity to power over 3 million homes across the U.S.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Ok, so you are another person who doesn't have a clue what I'm saying.
So here it is in what I hope is easier English for you to understand: Turn manure into power, good. More cows, bad.
This is my sig. The post is over.
http://www.monolithicdome.com/gallery/airforms/dys tor/index.html
Switzerland has a small one, with a 37.75' diameter. Chile has a large one, with
a 90.2' diameter. And there are 65 others of various diameters in 46
installations throughout the U.S.
We're talking about Monolithic Airforms, manufactured at Bruco, for USFilter.
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According to USFilter, their "Dystor system is a gas holder design that uses a
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There are 2 things I don't see in this article:
1. The setup and maintenance costs of the digester
2. Comparisons to the amount of energy that could be generated if you used the land to farm crops that could be used for biodiesel.
You can't really tell anything about the overall efficiency of the scheme apart from a marginal increase of an unknown amount has been achieved, in a process that's not been comprehensively studied.
What you really need to do is work out, starting from the energy in sunlight and the energy in the cows' feed, to how much energy and money they get back from the electricity.
Efficiency increase = E / (S + F)
where E is the amount of usable electricity delivered, S is the energy from sunlight hitting the ground and F is the amount of energy contained in the cows' feed.
As an exercise to the reader, find out the energy value of solar radiation over the farmland and the energy in the cows' feed. These values dwarf the amount of energy generated as electricity. If this even results in a 0.1% increase in overall system efficiency I'd be totally gobsmacked.
Of course, the other way of looking at it is that this farmer saved (and made) a whole bunch of cash with even this teeny-weeny increase in overall efficiency, how much money could be made with carefully thinking about efficiency in agricultural systems design. Maybe its time for the craftsman/farmer to move on and see what engineers can do.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Cow Manure --> Electricity --> Profit!
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
Of course he isn't envisioning that. I can't believe you even imagined that anyone would say something that ignorant after the entire point was: not to keep cows alive for a single purpose.
retard.
This is my sig. The post is over.
Flame your farts for a healthier future (well actually, cows **belch* about 4x as much methane as goes out the dirty end).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The whole idea is to make more efficient use of the wastes we produce NOW and not use cows to produce electricity. If every ranch out there started producing electricity from the manure they have right now we would need a lot less oil and coal power plants which is good.
We don't need to make cow manure the main source of electricity. I think this is the future. Using many many sources from whatever is available in a certain area. Power grids also waste energy so if we have localized power plants we also save energy. Think about that too.
What if we used human waste. No wait, what about the heat humans generate in addtion to their waste. What if we could harness the heat from people. We could power a lot of computers and use the computers to keep the people busy while they create heat. I'm going to start working on this right away.
...you followed that question up with telling me that those are dairy products
No, he said they come from cows. He said nothing about dairy products. Last time I checked, beef is not a dairy product.
The farmer was talking about implementing this as a solution for the future, basically increasing the amount of cows in usage.
Are YU a total fucking moron? Don't paraphrase unless you can get it right. The farmer said nothing about increaing the number of cows, just doing something productive with the cow's waste, which was being created anyways.
I never said that we shouldn't use what cows we have, but I AM saying that we should get rid of the cows we have.
Now you're just proving you have the intelligence of a 14 year old by contradicting yourself. Not in separate paragraphs, but in following senenct fragments.
At least the shit the cows make is useful... yours, however, I'm not sure anyone will ever find a use for.
Excuse the spelling mistakes above, I'm tired...
such a nonsensical strawman, sh1twit.
The cow-body generates more bioelectricity than a 120-volt battery. And over 25,000 BTUs of body heat. Combined with a form of combustion...the humans had found all the energy they would ever need. There are fields, Neo, endless fields...where cow-beings are no longer born. We are grown. For the longest time I wouldn't believe it. And then I saw the fields with my own eyes...watched them liquify the dead...so they could be fed intravenously to the living. And standing there, facing the pure, horrifying precision...I came to realize the the obviousness of the truth. What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world...built to keep us under control...in order to change a cow-being...into this. (a battery)
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
I'm talking about longer term solution. This isn't one. The farmer is calling this the "way of the future".
It is! There are a great many dairy farms and ranches in this country, and only a few currently generating electricity from manure. It certainly isn't practical for each household to raise 10 head of cattle, but capturing the current output is very worthwhile. It will not consume any resources that aren't already being used.
Add to that, capture from landfill and we have a considerable net gain in available energy in any part of the country.
From a business standpoint, anything that can nearly double profitability can't be a bad thing. It may be just the thing to save a number of family farms.
As a general principle, I'd say capturing potentially valueable resources that are now wasted is certainly the way of the future.
Bah, we Indians have been using cow manure for a variety of things for hundreds if not thousands of years. I'm not surprised that there is even more useful things we could do it. It's been a replacement for Lysol and fuel. This method is also used in India called Gorba gas. :P
:-) [trans. long life to cows]
They laughed at us when we told them that cows were holy. Guess, whose laughing now?!
Cow Zindabad, Cow Zindabad!
sri
Yes. Why did you have to repeat this joke for the 123th time?
Thanks for being really nitpicky on the diary thing. That really helped everyone.
but you are a retard for saying that this sentence isn't correct: "I never said that we shouldn't use what cows we have, but I AM saying that we should get rid of the cows we have."
Do you not realize that the first part of the sentence is something I never said, but the last part is something I DID say? That sentence doesn't mean "use the cows we have and get rid of the cows we have". It means "do what we can now, but cows have to go". I didn't realize that every fucking thing I say has to be 100% obvious or morons like you. I guess that sentence included a basic logic that apparently is too complex for you.
The point was that everyone was jumping on me for thinking that I meant this idea was inefficient to implement Right Now. I didn't mean that. I meant that long term it is inefficient to increase the number of cows. You need to get that straight before attempting to insult me through your ignorance.
But on the useful side of your post, which was mostly flame, you're right, I read the article wrong. He didn't say that cows are a good means of resource for the future. Mostly what he said was that industry should be more self sufficient, but he included the idea of keeping things the way they are. We can't keep things the way they are, or we will just run out of fuels.
This is my sig. The post is over.
I doubt that the farmer envisioned billions of cows kept alive for the sole purpose of shitting. That would be stupid. I'm sure that he meant that lots of cattle owners could do this same thing.
Actually, they could just close the energy loop from the plant matter to the methane a little tighter. Envision billions of vegans kept alive for the sole purpose of shitting....
methane is odorless
it is the stuff that is usually with methane that smells bad i.e. sulfates and such
The first part of your sentece is something you said:
I never said that we shouldn't use what cows we have
In other words, we should use what cows we have. So, we should use what cows we have, but we should get rid of what cows we have? how is that not contradictory?
Think about what you want to say before you type, and especially before you reiterate, albeit incorrectly, by denying the validity of my resonse
It is actually very common to burn these waste products to create electricity. I've been involved in several of these projects myself.
One project involved modified diesel engines that burned landfill gas to make electricity. The other involved piping landfill gas to an existing power plant to burn in the boiler.
In both cases these projects would not have been economically viable except for govt incentives, tax credits, and environmental regulations.
While it may sound appealling to use this free energy source, it is actually pretty expensive to make it all work. The electricity produced ends up costing more in the long run than regular old power from coal or natural gas.
The landfill gas is usually pretty nasty and it is difficult to keep things running. Everything corrodes quickly. These facilities also produce very little power, on the order of 10's of MW whereas a large coal unit is usually 500MW or more. Diverting your maintenance people to the little installation to keep it running is very inefficient. It is much better to keep them working on the large units.
Shit... should've hit preview... especially after all the spelling mistakes in my last post, oh well.. I guess I'm no better than the editors here...
Do you think we could do this at wastemanagement plants in the US? I think that would be a great idea. Humans produce so much shit all the time, and if we did this we could at least turn it into fertilizer and energy?
ideas should be free
So if we find Iraq running one of these methane power plants will we have proof they are developing a dirty bomb?
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
Comparisons to the amount of energy that could be generated if you used the land to farm crops that could be used for biodiesel.
You and a lot of other people on here are missing something important here: the farmer's prime goal is NOT to produce electricity. It is to produce milk. And to grow some crops on his 1000 acres. The electricity is just a convenient by-product of the cows, and of the process used to reduce the manure odor so that he doesn't bother his neighbors. I'm sure he has no interest in converting his whole farm to biodiesel production.
Maybe its time for the craftsman/farmer to move on and see what engineers can do.
Speaking as an engineer, we would have a bunch of cross-site meetings with various stakeholders, we would write up thousands of pages of feasibility documents, create innumerable Powerpoint presentations, hire a bunch of contractors and consultants since we don't have the required expertise, then the company would fire the whole lot of us and contract someone from India to do the job because it costs less. They would do roughly the same thing, and in the end the company would give up on the whole project and write it off as a business loss, and nothing substantive would have actually been done.
- The manure is not burned, rather it is "cooked" at 100 degrees
I'm pretty sure McDonald's has prior art for this.
No, what you are a LOT of people are missing is that neithre he or I are discussing whether or not current farmers should try to use their by products as efficiently as possible. Using every resource in your disposal should be an obvious goal.
He is talking straight efficiency. I was talking about it being a bad idea to increase the number of cows, and he is showing why.
The reason I said my original post is because I thought the farmer was saying that we should increase the number of cows. After reading the article again though, I realize that the farmer only said that we industry should be more self sufficient.
This is my sig. The post is over.
second attempt:
We should use what cows we currently have in circulation as efficiently as possible.
We should not increase the number of cows.
And we should EVENTUALLY, get rid of cows.
This is my sig. The post is over.
Local news covered this several years back...
Of course we could, but the social taboos against it at the moment are enormous, and probably insurmountable.
You often hear about water shortages. We have toilets that can't flush an ant, mandated by law now in America, in order to "save water."
What they don't tell you is that the shortage is of *drinking* water. We're the only culture that has ever used its drinking water to dispose of shit, then has to retreat it to be fit for drinking, and then use it to flush away shit *again.*
It really doesn't make a lot of sense.
KFG
coming from a long line of dairymen...
if you have a dairy, it is not called a dairy ranch, it is called a dairy farm. BTW, the "dairy" itself is only the building where the cows are actually milked, not the whole farm.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
In todays times, you never know if someone is just trying to be funny or if it's one of those super-smart europeans deserately trying to make a point.
...I tried and tried and tried, but I couldn't seem to get any energy out of your shit. Needs to be rated +5 Troll first.
1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila floor
Get your vassectomy today.
...Pig's shit rules this world...
I saw this on reading rainbow about 15 years ago.
Vi vs emacs is bad enough. Leave the what you're eating religion on some vegetable site.
Who needs karma anyways.
Every few days, he shovels out another big load, ready for the digester.
Put your ego away for a minute and read the article again.
Hog and chicken waste is a huge enviro problem too, does this stuff break down to methane?
--collecting methane at sewer plants and from city dumps is being done on a large scale at over 200 US municiplaities. It works quite well.
World wide there are literally hundreds of thousands of them (methane digesters using anareobic digestion), most of them being single family sized units where the collected gas is burned in small cookers and for lighting.
I built a digester in the mid 70's, was EXTEREMELY easy to make. I worked on a large dairy then, despite running the digester for all summer and collecting gas, just a small display size prootype unit, I could NOT get the farmer to drive over one mile to my cabin to look at it. His stock question was "why aren't THEY doing it if it is so good?" The gas collected was great, basically burned like propane. I tried other farmers over the years,I have yet to get one to take the plunge and actually do anything different, alwatys the same, it ain't in their propaganda magazines for their particular niche for farming. You can NOT get those guys to do anything practical until they get "permission" from the agribiz cartels, and right now, the agribiz cartels want the farmers to buy expensive petroleum and chemical products from them or their country club buddies. and the farmers WONDER why they keep going broke....and they TEACH going broke in the ag colleges, which is AMAZING to me they can suck young guys into doing that.
grumble....
At least this one dairy farmer in the article gets it, it's probably only one in a thousand or less that can actually think for themselves. Work hard, 7 days a week, YEP! They do, been there done that meself. think outside the box? Hardly ever happens, so petrified of their buddies at the co-op and the feed store thinking they are "enviros" or something near as I can tell.
Flash forward almost 30 years now, I get the same thing today, I work part time on a large poultry farm, besides methane digestion I have also asked why they don't use sprouted grains instead of the dismal dried up crap they call "feed" that barely keeps the cluckers clucking. SAME ANSWER, because "they" don't do it, this "they" guy who tells them what to do, it's not in the trade mags so "it doesn't work, it's hippie pie in the sky stuff enviro whackos".
I LAUGH every time I hear of a farmer going broke, because if they only thought just a smidgen outside the box and stepped back from being brainwashed by archerdanielsdowmonsantoexxon, they could make money, and easily. But no, they'll defend practices that they follow that produce for them a lower profit return than their grand daddys got in world war two. Sure, they can grow huger volumes of much crappier food off an acre, deal is, it IS crappier food and they hand over their cash to the big companies, then the bank takes their property eventually. Lead around by the nose don't even begin to describe it.
And I get the same thing from urban internet engineering "experts" who have constantly told me over the years my solar panels don't work, they "aren't practical". Funny, my electric bill is PAID OFF, I don't get a "monthly" bill with no idea what it will be if there's any political or middleman trading shenanigans. but, "solar isn't practical".
Phooie
The 21st century will belong to those who can think out of the box and stop making money for BIGCO, who work FOR THEMSELVES, and stop supporting those brane dead politicians and political parties who are in BIGCO's pockets.
Dubyah really is the most powerful man in the world!
im not pushing just "what you eat religion". I'm pushing ultimate efficiency in the long run.
This is my sig. The post is over.
Apocalypse. Mad Max. Pigs. Drawf. Thunderdome. Bells. Ring?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
This is done in India for hundreds of thousands of years. I have seen and played around one as a tiny kid couple of decades back. I am surprized that such a matured technology has taken Sooo LOOOONG to come to the US (in the 21st century). WOW !!!!!!
** Faints With Surprize **
Vishal.
Lets hook this up to some supersized Americans.
so... when the boilers burst
the shit hits the fan, eh?
and ecologically friendly PP SUVs would really be transporting a shitload of stuff...
(PP=poop propelled)
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
Actually, we don't even need to burn the methane - we can use it as feedstock for production of methanol, or we can thermally decompose it into CO2 and H2 in order to extract the hydrogen.
Is this the "super cow power" in apt-get ?
And soap, judging by the odor emitted from all the stinky Hindus I've met...
You are a tool Ledskof.
Get rid of cows.... Ha!
--would it be possible to get the name of this city so I can do some research on it? I would like to present a proposal to my county commissioners on this. Most of the other sites doing biogas and cogen I found were much larger cities and a population of 10,000 is in the ball park enough for comparison purposes. Thanks in advance if this is possible.
You can learn more about it here: BioGas in India
I am not sure if using farm byproducts to produce electricity is new, since I have heard of similar ones before (in documentaries).
Please pardon my ignorance, if I have said something stupid above.
Thank you.
GrimReality
2003-03-09 23:55:59 UTC (2003-03-09 18:55:59 EST)
How about human manure? Just think all those shit turning into power for the city
since when does wool come from cows? And in most areas where wool is harvested, it is non-fatal to the animals involved. (Sheep are simply shaved to harvest the wool, if you were wondering). Perhaps you are thinking of Leather?
I think you are a little slow,So here it is in what I hope is easier English for you to understand: Turn manure into power, good. Take advantage of the same amount of cows in more ways than one , very good.
1. Cow Manure
2. ?
3. Energy!
??? --> Profit
sounds like Master-Blaster rules China, too.
If you really want to be efficient, kill yourself.
The shit that Katz cranks out would power the solar system forever.
They're going to burn the underwear!...Underwear can contain traces of methane!
This is mostly cow crap, not bull crap. Not many bulls in a dairy herd. Leave the house and computer once in a while city boys
Problem was, it took 30 fucking comments to get you to re-read the article you COMPLETELY fucked up on the first time. Maybe art college isn't working out for you, after all.
Bush will accuse Netherlands of holding WMD.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Let the Mad Mad: Beyond Thunderdome jokes begin!
>The only significant input is sunlight, the only significants outputs are milk and electricity.
And of course, the cow... which after a few years of producing milk and methane for us will do a nice job as leather jackets, shoes and burgers.
Nice website.
Nothing like teaching kids from sources derived solely from the lunatic left.
Where's the balance to riverdeep? Looking at that site wouldn't give kids any information regarding the junk science that global warming is based on. Let's not forget that global cooling was bringing an end to the world less than 20 years ago.
One of the linked pages refers to Bush being against Kyoto, and for voluntary limits. Then states that Lieberman says that voluntary limits don't work.
Where is the US Senate vote that shot down Kyoto 95 or 98 to 0? Was it just Bush that was against Kyoto, or was it EVERY republican, and EVERY DEMOCRAT senator that opposed Kyoto? Even the lunatic left senators opposed Kyoto. Why? The article doesn't state that either. The article states that Kyoto was to get a handle on global warming. If that was true, then every senator would have voted in favor of it. So apparantly, the article has it wrong. Anyone who's studied the Kyoto agreements knows full well that it was a political shot across America's bow. It would have crippled America's economy, hurt not just business but the people of America, and had hypocritical exemptions put in place for other "polluters".
Riverdeep web site is a tragedy. It shows what a determined group of lunatic extremists can cobble together to spew their distorted view of environmental issues. Any teachers using the riverdeep web site to teach their students without providing balance is part and parcel of the lunatic left. Next they'll requiring their students to write letters to the president opposing the war regardless of their own political views.
Maybe infernal combustion engines aren't the way to do this. I wonder if using it for direct heat or running a steam turbine wouldn't be better. Of course, the turbine approach only works for a large scale operation. Then too, there are the economy of scale problem. A diesel that's been primarily engineered to burn diesel isn't going to be all that good for burning anything else. A "modified diesel" is probably a good example. A diesel that's been engineered (materially and otherwise) to burn biogas would probably work better. The problem here is that there has to be enough incentive to make a lot of them. Building one or two such engines wouldn't pay off what it cost to design them.
Anyhow, I don't think burning biogas is a bad idea. It will have to be properly engineered and applied to worth a squat though.
I can't decide whether you are a serious troll, or the world's most painful comedian. Because either way, you talk some shit. Hey, The PETA website has some new completely unproven, false arguments for you to impress your friends and influence strangers with. (As long as they are all in your art school clique, of course) Here's a clue, get an education, throw out all the propaganda you are repeating, and learn to think for yourself. God, you are more a puppet of the charity industry than anyone else here.
Actually, the smell comes from all the other gasses that come off with the methane. It's burning all the other stuff along with the methane that reduces the odor. Which means that the exhaust from the motor/generator is more than pure CO2 and water. In fact, it's likely that the engine used to power the generator is more polluting than your recent model Chevrolet since there are no pollution standards for the "converted" internal combustion engine that was used. CO, NOx and all that.
lollers!!!!1
I vaguely recall a story about this on 3-2-1 Contact way back in the day. It was a weird combination of wow and gross. I also remember getting into trouble with one teacher the next day because I mentioned it. Apparently, she thought manure was a bad word for a 3rd grader to know.
I wonder how my grandparents would have reacted to that one, they owned a farm.
Methane cometh from pig shit Madmax thunderdome.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Th farm down the road from me (Bore Place, Kent, UK) has been doing this since 1984. Big deal.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
Or better yet, everyone in the neighbor hood boycott's #2's in the traditional toilet, and uses their own bright red five gallon buckets to shit in, then once a day you get billy in the pickup truck to comeby and gather your family's stools. If everyone saved their CRAP, we wouldn't have any electric bills!
You could even cut deals with all you can eat buffets, to collect their patron's stools!
Forget being an architect, i'm gonna be a stool collector! Who said you cannot get rich off of shit, ones man's trash is another mans treasure.
Just think if everybody stopped using cars, and used horses, we could have shitsweepers who could transport it to a local methane electricity generators, on every corner! I'd bet we could get alot of horseshit gathered, and it solves the high gasoline problems and helps our environment!
During WWII you could buy units on trailers to pull around behind your car, pile the shit in,a nd get a few miles of driving out of the resultant outgassing.
That brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "piece of shit car", doesn't it?
Great post. I'll add a couple things:
1) Buy a composting toilet (SunMar is the best IMO); check your local regulations first; but composting toilets produce wonderful fertilizer if they're used properly; and fertilizer == $$
2) There are ways to modify septic tanks to produce methane much the same way that this farmer does. Not for the faint of heart
The whole thing about energy nowadays...is who can get rich over it >> politics/lobbying >> regulations up the wazoo. There are many of us fighting the good fight....and yes
Thanks!! Friend!
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
The farmer is calling this the "way of the future".
Its not the way of the future for you moron, its the way of the future for the farmer. The farmer knows how much electricity he outputs...and knows full well this will not be the way to produce electricity for cities, etc. But it can become quite an efficient and usefull method for small rural communities. And it cuts down on air pollution significantly.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Do you drive a car?
Do you use a computer?
Do you, shock, grow your own food? Or buy it from the supermarket?
There's much more you can do for the environment and general well-being of the planet than worrying about the cruelty and inefficincy of animal products.
(I tried to resist, I did...
</troll>
Sorry, but I don't see exactly where he is showing how to more efficiently harvest milk. He mentions a few things about comparable power production from biodiesel, but that is neither here nor there because the discussion is about MILK PRODUCTION primarily, with the new added bonus of some elctrical production. Remember, the first and foremost product here is DAIRY FOODS. Everything else is just a bonus.
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
How do you think they turn the pumps to begin the process of extracting that energy?
No, the shit doesn't initially power the pumps; the power company does.
Noooo, you're not listening. The shit isn't powering anything.
*drumroll*
The ShitMobile.
All you have to do to refuel it is shit in it. That oughta reduce dependency on oil.
You are 0 seconds away from being a bigot in my book.
"And why is it that all muslims say that they have a sacred duty to kill non-muslims?"
We don't. Where did you hear that? From binLaden? Consider the source.
"Why do you treat your women like crap?"
Where do you get your information? You seem to be judging us by the extremists. That would be like me saying that since Christians killed thousands upon thousands of Muslims during the crusades you all want to kill all of us.
"Why do muslims all admire Osama Bin Ladem [sic]?"
I, for one, don't. He is a heretic. Quite similar to Jim Jones (cyanide kool-aid), for instance.
Underground pipes carry the manure to a heated cement pit. For 21 days, it cooks gently at about 100 degrees, making it a perfect environment for hungry bacteria.
Nothing like waking up to the wonderful smell of slow cooked cow manure!
SIGFAULT
actually, the conspiracy will hqappen when Dubya's regime, er, I mean administration passses a law banning it's use"getting money from the oil industry".
In Soviet Russia, all you base are belong to a beowulf cluster. Profit!
Amazon is going to patent the "One-Click Shit to Power" method after reading this info.....
/sig "Shop smart! Shop S-Mart!"
Agreed, except for a few problems.
1) Plants produce much less protein than is necessary for normal human growth and survival. The only way to ensure that enough proteins are ingested is to eat lots more plants than most people can eat in one day, where even cheese added will greatly reduce this amount (however, some vegetarians avoid cheese altogether). Lacking these crucial proteins as many vegans do, their growth is known to be somewhat stunted as a result and other problems result. (well published studies)
2) Humans cannot extract as much energy from plant polysaccharides as they can from fatty meats. Only about 10% as much energy can be absorbed from plants as from meat. As a result, people need to eat more plants to make up for the lack of proteins and our inability to process polysaccharides efficiently as Evolution/ God
So, maybe after extensive genetic engineering that turns humans into partial ruminants will people be able to thouroughly process plants, but not today.
In conclusion: Concept noble, implementation impossible.
P.S. I like the way meat tastes frankly. (genuine opinion)
Mandatory Disclaimer: These comments are not intended to offend anyone (i.e. PETA, et al.), but are my genuine position to which I am entitled. I am merely stating facts with which I have been presented in my experiences. Thusly, I cast this li'l comment off into the digital nexus.
The poster was refering to the general inefficiency of all animals, not just cows.
To all those saying "this is not new"... here's a "me too" (of sorts).
I live in Vermont and we're rather famous for our cows. Anyhow, a farm just down the road from me has been doing this for years. They generate surplus electricity and sell it back to the electric company. It's rather cool. Glad to see it getting more attention.
Lets see. I run my home on 3000 kWHr/year. For lights, electric stove, fridge, this computer, dehumidifier and central air in summer, for the furnace blower of a gas-fired furnace in winter, for everything. That is 347 watts 24/7. Divide 347 into the 150 kilowatts 24/7 gives over 400 homes. That is 2 cows per home.
Cow manure, together with recycled newspaper bedding, is scraped from the freestall barn three times a day
How would you like THAT job?
I call bullshit!
(Sorry, sorry... +1, Lame?)
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
What can we learn from this?
- One: If only someone would tell me that you can buy a REAL toilet on the black market--that is, a non-water-saving toilet that actually uses more than two teaspoons of water and has the power to get the job done--then I wouldn't have this problem in the first place.
- Two: That if I was smart, I'd invent a toilet that flushes every time AND turns your shit into electricity, all at the same time.
This post is a bunch of shit, by the way... None of it is true.I wonder how much energy return they would get if they used a fuel cell instead of a heat engine. Would the efficeincy offset the extra cost of the fuel cell?
Also a smaller version of this would be nice for yard waste. I could just think of my yard as a solar energy collector. No need to waste money on fertilizer.
What's wrong with not eating pork?
"Take back the holy land!"
Pesant "When did we own the holy land?"
Knight "Off with his head!"
Pig eats everything. So people raise pig tried to get leftover from restaurant or even garbage dump. The animal seem to enjoy while the stomach is not too empty. Pig is also susceptible to viral disease which occasionally wipe out hundreds of pigs in days.
Actually, keeping in mind that you are posting in a thread that started from a post I made which gives me a bit of insight on what the focus was, the primary focus of the discussion was NOT producing dairy. The focus was NOT increasing the number of cows, because I feel that cows are an inefficient resource.
I think that any body with at least 100 IQ could realize that if cows are making dairy, it would be logical to make use of them as fully as possible. Why would I argue against that? If you are saying "you don't know," it's bceause you are having the wrong discussion like most everyone else in this thread was.
This is my sig. The post is over.
Breaking news now says that Windows is no longer "worth shit". This story proves that Windows is now worth considerably less than shit. (Retail price does not reflect worth)
Is there a leftover of the manure or does it completely become methane?
My "education" was changing my diet to raw organic whole foods, and no longer getting sick, where I used to get a cold about once a month, or needing to see doctors for any reason, and all of the other people whose diets I influenced having the same effects.
I don't give a fuck what is written because I've seen the difference of replacing all the fast food you eat with healthy food. I also understand the strangling the fast food industry places on the economy.
So since you just blabber on and don't have a clue, just stfu.
This is my sig. The post is over.
What beautiful symmetry: This dairy farmer takes cow shit and turns it into electricty, wheareas Slashdot readers take electricity and turn it in to cowshit!
I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.
Farm sales of electricity average $900 a week, Haubenschild says. When milk prices fell to all-time lows last year, his net returns from energy approached those from milk.
It's nice that he has a heated barn and is able to use all the electricity he want, but gee it's not a money maker. Even getting paid 7 cents a kilowatt hour, three times what a comercial generator gets, it does not match the worst year ever for milk! Getting rid of that dairy cow smell must make it worth the effort.
Now, there might really be fresh air in Green Acres.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Don't worry, someone will transgene a pig for you to fly all the way home.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
This is why the space aliens have been mutilating cows! For those ships that could not or did not have their own cow abductee, they needed to extract the manure to power their spacecraft!
It is all clear now!
(I seriously hope I'm joking...)
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
A nice side effect:
Methane results in a much stronger greenhouse effect than the burned methane (co2).
I guess it depends which political party you subscribe to...
That's pretty damn efficient. This way, I get to have my steak and eat it too.
How about cook it too?
Sorry could not resist
Amen to that.
Suburbs
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
shitty shitty bang bang
shitty shitty bang bang
we love you
Farms produce manure (as waste), and the manure produces methane, wich is a smelly pollutant.
Methane is odorless.
this process is reversible. ;)
Using smelly (in a general sense) stuff for something useful always gets attention. Lets just hope that this fact will not get in the way for efficient, innovative uses of cheap if not free resources. Some years ago, IIRC in Sweden, the media found out that heat from the local crematory was used for district heating. The result was a scandal that forced the authorities to quit it. Now only the crows benefit from the heat :-(.
It should be, "Light a man a fire and he will be warm for a while. Light a man afire and he will be warm for the rest of his life."
Hasn't anyone seen Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome?
;)
It's not bullshit, it's pigshit that's the answer!
Fuzzy Knights: New RPG Strips Tuesday and Friday!:
http://www.fuzzyknights.com
your now shit.
we haven't had the obligatory 'hey, this would be a really cool power source for my laptop' comment.
India has one of largest populations of both people and cattle in the world. So it is not a surprise that bio-gas is being extensively used as a fuel for cooking, lighting and electricity. This technology has a tremendous potential for the third world and India has been exporting its know-how to others.
resurrect my
Now, you can build a self-powering cowsie dungsie clock. What will they think of next?
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
chips are flammable because they are composed of mainly of partially digested cellulose fiber, not because they "emit" methane. Unless you ple them up and keep them warm manure ceases to actively ferment fairly quickly. The chips, buffalo or cow, have to dry before they can be used for fuel directly. Fermenting organics of just about any form will give off methane.
this helps me finish my money making scheme, which until now went like this:
1. collect cowshit
2. ????
3. profit!
I have been doing a lot of step 1, but until now I hadn't figured out step 2. Now I know!!!!
In the uk (a place called Holsworthy, Devon) this sort of power is being used on a much larger scale, as detailed in this story
It takes the manure from local farms and generates about 2100 kWatts of power (enough for 300 homes) and the hot water it generates is used for heating in the towns civic builds.
Oh yeah and it was started up in July 2002.
You get better efficiency out of solar/thermal panels, they generate heat and can generate electricity as well if you happen to have a stirling generator.
Thing is, they're much much easier and cheaper to make than photovoltaics. I know one guy who made solar/thermal panels out of some old central heating radiators which were being thrown away, painted them black, put them in a double glazed glass cabinet made out of an old greenhouse.
They're physically quite large compared to the commercially available panels but he gets about 2kW of heat out of them. The hot water they produce is far too hot to touch on a hot day and merely painfully hot on cloudy days (in the UK no less). He reckons they cost £45 all in for the paint, solder, copper piping and pump.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Use it as a Methane Fuel cell so we do not .
.
.
have to burn it and release the hydrocarbons
Be a great way to power a large portion of
the planet, the sewer systems just leak the
gas now or burn it off in open flames
Be a big project, but it could be well worth it
Peace...
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
From the article:
"The happier the cows are," Haubenschild said, "the better they take care of us."
Or as the saying goes, "I'm so happy, I could just shit."
-1 Flamebait ...
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Unfortunately the only ppl that modded you were either Muslims or Liberals
The liberals are sure that peace will eventually win out over war
Be nice, but with a religion based on hate it is not very realistic
The crusades, the inquisition, and some other indescretions by the christians left them little better than the muslims in the past
It is like U2 lyrics..."What more in the name of Love"
The middle east is a powder keg, we need to go take care of this, but unless we do it surgically we may set off the whole damn region
The Turks are just waiting for an excuse to massacre every Kurd separatist in existence
Syria wants to attack Israel so bad it is practically foaming at the mouth
I think Israel's nukes is all the keeps them at bay really .
Jordan to some extent seems to try to be joining the 21st century, may allah bless them .
Saudia Arabia, hehe, well...Let's just say that is where MOST of the captured Al-qaeda came from , and Whabism is HUGE there
Whahism is the strict, inflexible interpretation of islam, and also has a side order of hate . It is larger to blame for what we have experienced .
2 major sects of islam splintered when Mohammed died, this was one of them, but believe it or not it is the one thought Mohammed would least likely support . Go figure ???
Like I said earlier, the christians have their past track record of Crusades and Inquisitions, it just took the Muslims longer to build up to this and thus they have arrived at the same ugly place
Indeed, what more in the name of Love.....
Ignoring this situation is only going to make it worse to deal with down the road .
If you as a liberal feel the jews in israel should be left to be annihilated come right out and say, you believe in free speech right, free thy tongue !!!
If you as a Muslim believe in this great jihad, then you think you cannot lose, speak loudly and recruit more to your cause
It will make it easier to identify the idiots
In the midwest we are buying ammo, and stocking water and food .
There are 30,000 middle eastern men with expired Visas in the US from all the scab labor visa programs from the DOT BOMB blow out .
The state department and INS is offering zero effort to deport these ppl . In california they were so lazy they asked them to come to the police station and report themselves , and were then summarily arrested
How pathetic .
Those that show up dutifully are punished, those that don't are not even sought out .
The ones that are most likely your REAL issue .
If the government does not pull hard on its neck til it hears a loud pop, we are all gonna die from ass-phyxiation .
Well enough of my rant, it will matter not with what is about to happen in the world, I wish peace to all, but oh so rarely do we ever get it .
Peace...Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Pork bar-b-q? MMMM.. delicious.
Bacon?
Anyway, its all good.
OK, so this method may not be able to compete with the commercial power generation industry, and IANAChEng, but how hard would it be to crack the methane into hydrogen for use in the fuel cells that (we've been promised) are just around the corner?
If feasible, this would also solve, at least partially, one of the primary obstacles to a hydrogen-based economy: the distribution network. When every [cow | pig | chicken] farmer or landfill can set up a methane-driven hydrogen station for around $300K, plus or minus the differential cost of using a H2 cracker instead of a big generator, the need for a massive pipeline network, fleet of H2 tankers, etc., would be greatly diminished.
Brandishing Dangerous Logic
Wasn't this the basis of energy production in Max Max Beyond Thunderdome (except with pigs)?
I couldn't disagree more and am surely not alone in thinking that stewing up a gnarly crap sludge at 100 degree for days is a step forward for renewable energy.
If you do a rough calculation of the efficiency of this energy scheme, it hovers around zero. This is for the obvious reason that the cow extracts around 98% of the "fuel" from a plant as it digests them. You would blow this crap cooker out of the water by growing plants on the same acreage and using their 1% quantum yield (of plants harvesting photons) to make a biological solar cell that could power something useful.
Then there is also the downside of the smell - those poor neighbors that live downwind...
The point others are making, and which you have missed, is that the time investment sunk into such a venture is a poor return on capital. He would have been much better off, as would his down-wind neighbors, having taking the years he has been experimenting with this and putting it into developing a much more efficient technology.
You are too quick to correct plalaonde - get out yer glasses and read it again' grampa
the guy says that manure is cooked at 100 degrees. but what? centigrade or fahrenheit? very incompetitive reporting, if you ask me.
You said "Whahism is the strict, inflexible interpretation of islam, and also has a side order of hate . It is larger to blame for what we have experienced ."
I think by the sounds of this you are a muslim, but I may be off in my assumption. I don't think I am way off in saying that it sounds like you know at least something of what you speak.
So my question is, if "Whahism" is the "strict, inflexible interpretation" of islam, then does it stand to reason that this is truly what islam teaches? Strict interpretation implies that these people are taking the literal meaning from the holy book.
If that is true, then would it also make sense for those that do not believe this or teach this are truly not muslim, but have developed their own interpretation of the religion and of a gentler allah? Would this in effect be similar to the protestant reformation of the Roman Catholic church into new Christian sects?
If that is, or technically should be the case, then would it not be in the best interests of the peaceable muslims around the world to declare it so?
I agree that the sins of christians from the crusades are abominable, but I think most would have to agree that those sins were committed in a different world, and a world that we have risen above. I use "we" losely to imply the more technologically, culturally, and socially advanced societies, those that one might term the more civilized nations. It is time for the muslims of those nations to help their brothers rise above this as well.
As bacteria break the manure down, they give off gas -- mostly methane, which collects under the tank cover.
What happens when they smoke out by the ez-bake shit oven? I can see the headlines now...
Snooze and you lose your sushi.
Step 1: Cow Shits ....
Step 2:
Step 3: Power!
Check out TrailRegistry.com, my hiking site, Maps, altitude pr
So in theory, I could build a car that runs on crap? Just pump crap into the tank, Heat it, And run the engine off the methane. And when the crap's all used up, dump it on my yard and watch it turn a lush green and watch my flowers bloom! What would they charge per gallon for cow poop at the gas pump?
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
Actually, in Ithaca, NY our sewage plant is entirely energy self-sufficient. All the pumps and generators are run by natural gas (methane) fired engines, and all the heating and AC are also natural gas powered. They have digester tanks to rot the sewage and generate the methane.
They have one of those flames, however, because every once in a while they generate more methane than they have the capacity to turn into energy or store.
I don't know if they put any power back on the grid, but they help keep our sewer taxes down by not having to buy the gas.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
Nor is Tetrahydro cannibinol.
What they could do with the bullshit that gets spewed on /.
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
> So since you just blabber on and don't have a clue, just stfu.
Yeah, since you don't agree with him you're not allowed to talk. You probably make offcolor jokes, see a pretty woman and think I'd like to f**k her, and eat babies. You are terrible human being.
Hey jerkfuck if you're getting a cold once a month it isn't the food, it's because yer a fucking pussy. Now go to your bedwetting/PETA/NOW meeting and cry to someone who cares. Wuss.
nobody gives a shit about your eurotard, whiny, bedwetting, holier-then-thou, faggot shit, vegan diet.
Then there's the damnable problem of making sure the Pu gets used for power production rather than its more common destructive uses...
Yea, Pu is a stupid pun. Live with it!
You're forgetting that he's turned a net cost into a net profit. That is, what probably used to cost him $700 a week now makes him $900 a week. That's pretty impressive. That's equivalent to selling $1600 in milk.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
This technology is being used in Europe, and if you want good information on the process you should check out AD-NETT . On a side note a fiend of mine is working on a project for a village in Freshford Co. Kilkenny, Ireland where they intend to treat the sewage of the town with a digester and use the methane in CHP (combined heat and power plant)http://www.chpa.co.uk/ to produce electricity for the national grid and use the heat for a swimming pool and
Independence? That's middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. G.B Shaw
By my simple calculations, to replace the San Onofre Nuclear power plant near where I live, which generates over 1 gigawatt of power, would require 13.7 million cows.
There are *tons* of cows in the US. According to this report , there were 96 million cows in the US in 1992, of which about 22.6% are dairy cows.
So this could be a pretty big deal (particularly if all cows could be used and not just dairy cows) but it would involve a big fraction of the industry getting involved.
When I toured San Onofre, they mentioned that (1) in California, the power companies must buy power from independent producers at the highest rate they are paying for any power, and (2) pig farmers were selling power to them at that time, and making some pretty good money off of it. That was around 1998-99.
You would think with power costs what they are now, every little farm would be looking into this. I hope they are.
I suspect they are not - or if they are they will find the risks too great.
It would be truely bizzare if we had to genetically breed cows to make them more "gas-y". I can just see it now: dairy cows, meat cows, gas cows...
The one image which keeps popping into my mind when such topics crop up is of starving people in other nations utterly bewindered that we could use all this fertile land...to generate electricity.
Of course the US alone already wastes enough food to save all the starving peoples of the world if we chose to do so - it is just a question of distribution.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
"Why do you treat your women like crap?"
Where do you get your information? You seem to be judging us by the extremists. That would be like me saying that since Christians killed thousands upon thousands of Muslims during the crusades you all want to kill all of us.
It's all over the press dude. It's a common practice in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia. It's as common there as male circumcision is in Israel (and that's a barbaric practice as well, just not quite as much as for females). Do a google for "female genital mutilation" and read about how evil your religion really is.
I'm not judging you by the "extremists". I'm judging you by the members of your organization. How the hell are you supposed to judge a group otherwise? The members of your organization have made it quite obvious that the religion of Islam believes in torturing and subjugating women (look at what they did to women in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and what they still do to them in Saudi Arabia, but countries controlled by the religion rather than a secular government), and in destroying or suppressing anything non-Muslim (look at what the Taliban did to ancient Buddhist statues).
Sure, you can claim you don't stand for these things, but a LOT of people do. Maybe YOU'RE the extremist.
And don't try to use the familiar excuse of comparing Islam to the atrocities of Christianity. Christianity and Judaism are also backwards, barbaric religions; having three versions of the same crap doesn't make it any better. From your reply, you seem to think anyone attacking Islam is a Christian. What makes you think this? Do you have some backwards notion that everyone must believe in some stupid religious system, rather than not believing in any of that superstitious crap at all?
At least be funny when you troll.
This is my sig. The post is over.
Hehehe... coal, flamebait... get it???
Bubumbum
Thankyou, I'm here all week.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
"Why do muslims all admire Osama Bin Ladem [sic]?"
I, for one, don't. He is a heretic. Quite similar to Jim Jones (cyanide kool-aid), for instance.
You're one of the few then. Muslims in mosques in NYC were heard praising Osama shortly after 9/11, saying "he's a good Muslim". You can read it in news stories from that time. So if he's a good Muslim, how can he be a heretic? And it's not just a few isolated Muslims saying this; prominent Muslim clerics have openly supported his terrorist acts. Witness the guy in Britain. People all over the middle east cheered and partied after 9/11; obviously they supported Osama. So where do you get off calling the guy a heretic? Obviously, his actions are well supported by millions of Muslims. If a large number of an organization of people supports something, I have to assume that the organization as a whole does, and then I can judge that organization. If you'd prefer not to be associated with such people, then you shouldn't be part of that organization.
Islam isn't something you're forced into by birth, like race or gender. You're free to choose to follow any religion you wish, or (better yet) none at all. The world over, religious people have shown themselves to be senseless fools, and evil murderous people in many cases (Osama, Milosevic, etc.). No good whatsoever has been shown to come from religion. Why would any sane person continue to be part of such a group?
awesome.
Mohammed said that people have free will to choose to follow Allah. Then, he told the Caliph of Egypt, "Convert, or die." Apostacy is a capital offense in Islam - free will, indeed; if you leave the fold, become a Christian or anything else, you get your head chopped off.
The incident I refer to also shows the warmongering ways of Islam. Islam did not spread via the rational, logical discussion of God/Allah. It was spread through war. Please keep in mind, that prior to the stupid Crusades (which was medieval catholicism, not 'christianity), the Islamists took, by force and through killing innocent people who just happened to disagree with them, the land now called Israel by the civilized world, and 'Occupied Palestine' by the shit eating, rock throwing monkeys of the world.
Last night I was walking with my girlfriend here in Riyadh, where I live. We were accosted by Muttawah - that is the religious police, whose official name is The Society to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice - the exact same name as the murderers in the Taliban who went around and killed and tortured women for being outside the house without their Mahram (male escort that they are not allowed to marry - son, nephew, father, brother, but oddly enough, not the cousin, that's ok to marry here), or men who did not wear a beard that was long enough to suit them. Crusaders, indeed. These muttawah accosted us because my girlfriend was not wearing her scarf to cover her hair - which is not required by Saudi law for non-muslim, non-Saudi women. But these guys, impotent bullies all, drive around in GMC Suburbans yelling at people to go to prayer, and yelling at women to cover or take off their lipstick.
After 9/11, all we heard in the press here was how bad it was for the poor widdle Muslims in the world, being yelled at outside of mosques. Well, at least they have mosques to go to; could I or any of my collegues go to a church, synagogue, or temple for comfort during these stressful times? No, because Islam is the only religion allowed here - the practice of any other will get you deported at best, or beheaded at worst, as some poor Filipino Christians in prison found out a few years ago.
If you look at a map of the world, and highlight countries where there are large Muslim populations, you will find a great deal of civil unrest. Everywhere they are, there is fighting - they can't seem to get along with their neighbors, and always want to start killing infidels in order to establish a 'pan-islamic state,' like, say, Afghanistan. In Malaysia about 25 years ago, a Muslim lost a local election to an ethnically Chinese Malay - the Muslims went door to door slaughtering non-Muslims in the community who voted out their guy.
In the US, where are all the Muslim converts coming from? The prison system. Interesting.
The Muslim world has spent too many years ignoring the atrocities commited in the name of Allah, speaking out of two sides of its mouth (Arafat is so stupid that he apparently doesn't think the rest of the world can find Arabic translators, as he would constantly say one thing in the press in English, condemning a particular terrorist act, then commend the 'martyr' in Arabic) for me to take any of them seriously any more. They allowed and financially encouraged the Taliban (only recognized as a legitimate government by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan), knowing full well the atrocities committed there. Indeed, the Taliban are made up mostly of Saudis and Pakistanis, with a sprinkling of Yemenis for flavor. They kill and torture, and the Muslim world looks the other way. When someone finally has the balls to stand up to Hussein and say, "Enough, you're out, next batter up," all we here from the Arab/Muslim world is, "Crusade! Infidels in the Holy Land!" Well, as an Infidel in the Holy Land, I say, shut the fuck up.
The lesson to learn from the upcoming war is this, Muslim world: Either you clean up your back yard, or someone with lots of expensive toys will come do it for you. It would be better for everyone if you did it, but the other way works, too.
Yes, this is off-topic and I expect down-modding katir, but I can handle it.
The Democratic Party: We've been pussies since 1968!
Slashdot is now fabricated with 100% recycled bits. No CFCs were used in its manufacture. YMMV. IANAL.
HAND.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
I didn't realize that the super cow powers of apt-get really existed! But this proves it.
the last line after typeing apt-get:
"This APT has Super Cow Powers."
If you have cowz in da bed, methinks you may be treating them a little too well.
figured I'd let you troll at me a little more..
Through that logic, by only eating vegetables now, I've become more manly?
also the stfu part was because he was attacking me. Of course that doesn't matter right? Just like I'm attacking YOU now by calling you a prick? Next I expect to here: "Oh everyone's a prick now, and you are just perfect."
haha
This is my sig. The post is over.
Can you tell us more of your background in determining maximum efficiency for modern farming methods, taking into account varied production/demand levels across our country? He produces for many people, yes, but then they do not have to keep cows themselves. Electricity is also being sold back into the grid. If one guys farm produces enough milk for a couple of thousand people and can generate electricity as well, he is a hell of a lot more effecient than you.
you're the troll, jerk-off.
as long as i dont get a horrible smell coming from the outlets then i'd say its a good idea(tm)
Another usage division tends to be that if you raise irrigated crops, you're a farmer, and if you raise dryland crops (like most grains) you're a rancher. Hence "wheat rancher" is a common term in the western plains.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The thing is, I understand your frustration at being judged by the actions of zealots and extremists. However it should be noted that if you use this reasoning for self defense then you had better understand that it trully relies on personal responsibility and separation from those who you claim do not represent you. Separation is not simply saying, "They're not me", rather you should understand the importance of not just public opinion of your religion but if you are trully a devout follower and believe that what they do IS WRONG ACCORDING TO THE RELIGION then police those groups with fervor.
IOW, spend all that energy used to deflect word attacks on actually stopping the problem. If you show the world you wish to stop this then that is the best argument in your and your religions' favor. However, ethically and morally you should be more interested in stopping the fundamentalists not worrying whether the world sees you do it or not.
Also, I have a question for you. Understand please that I mean not to offend and I in fact am against the Crusades... Why are the crusades the rallying cry of Muslims everywhere? Why can you set your clock by the predictability of Muslims to say mention the crusades in a bad light against "Christians" yet of course ignore the equally Muslim barbarism of those events? I think the Crusades were wrong simply because I am the type that does not believe that you are justified to commit crimes because the others did it. I do not believe you are justified to respond to the blatant targetting of innocents by you yourself seeking out innocents of "the other side" to destroy. (this is different unfortunately from the "casaulties of war" situation). Lets say I took out of the Crusades the part about what the Muslim's did and just left what the Catholics did. (please read below for an explanation of this) Now, with that done I still wonder why the Crusades are still to this day used as a justification for any sort of rape, murder and pillage. How many centuries has it been?
I say Catholic because that is the case. Many were in fact opposed to the Crusades for a number of reasons ranging from simple misuse of resources best used at home to beliefs against it on religous, moral and ethical grounds of Christianity. You don't hear much of this because quite frankly the same mentality of brainwash some and censor the others through violence that drowned out anti-crusade sentiment then is pretty much the same that liberals use now. However, it is interesting to observe the disparity of mainstream Christians and Muslims. I have yet to meet a Christian that was not against the Crusades on various levels yet as I mentioned above, I seem to find an equal lack of support of the Muslim portion of the Crusades by modern Muslims. This gets into liberal mentallity realy: An upper middle "class" raised black kid will drive around in his new Mustang GT on his 16th birthday with a chip on his shoulder against whitey. When he gets his graduation present of a BMW he will head off to some college and embrace the groupthink leading to his vocal angst directed against "the oppressor" and how the african-americans (if that is the currently accepted term) are indeed oppressed and not given the same opportunity and of course the government should come in and give them what is OWED them.
Meanwhile, there is a young adult who is busy paying off his college student loans acrued during his visit to a state college because his farmer parents could not support him fully but yet due their ownership of so much land they did not qualify for grants. He has spent a lifetime being ridiculed for being a redneck and told in one breath that he is obviously a racist bigot beca
Remember that "religion" can cover just about any mindless obedience of policy and rules including government and choice of programming language (if you have never seen a flame war between VB folk and well... anyone else then you should search out some on the web (note I hate VB but am not an "anti-VB" zealot either)). If a very non faith or diety based "religion" popped up today involving the purification of our bodies and lives by not eating meat, not smoking or drinking, and making sure we had the absolute best in hygiene habits and quickly got out of control (over 100 years) would it be fair to say that anyone who for personal reasons did not drink or smoke and excercised regularly was a mindless puppet or was bad? Not unless he supported the negative actions of the new "religion." More importantly, if hygiene and sanitation is touted as the upmost of importance for life by these zealots yet they employ chemical and biological weapons to further their cause then wouldn't you say they themselves are not following the faith?
The key point is that you can get this murderous, mindless zeal with or without any particular faith system. The majority of people are too lazy to ever stop and think for themselves as critical thought, independent analysis and personal responsibility are frightening to them. An example is how you will find the very religious group of "anti-religious" (or better, "anti-Christian") self labled scientific community and its followers that so eagerly bash any Christian as an illogical, mindless simpleton yet will blindly follow the "scientific facts" that they themselves have neither proved much less even known the people who made them. I have never understood why so many see science as in competition with faith. To me, science is the explanation of how the universe that God created actually works. (I base my distaste of most theories of evolution and thus apart from adaptation based really upon scientific knowledge and personal distrust of those who shove such outlandish theories down our throuts) Nothing beats the zeal of theorists who will refuse to observe facts that may interfere with their biased opinions. Science is great if followed correctly and used to discover knowledge therefore an ethical scientist will when asked about religion admit if his knowledge of religious text is from manuscript and word of mouth or by understanding of its meaning. Thusly he/she will admit that there are theories then there are proven facts and that even the best mathematical theorem is merely an abstraction of reality and subject to error and thus to emotional zeal from its "faithful believers." We could easily have a religion of science you know... Stupid is stupid, regardless of what Stupid's underlying justifications are.
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.