Clearing our forests of unwanted biomass

George Rebane

This has been a longstanding problem as we wait for the next big wildfire.  The econuts have done everything possible to delay and derail solutions.  Now they have another one in their sights – micro refineries for biomass conversion.

This new technology allows the set up of numbers of temporary refining facilities in the hinterlands that convert forest biomass and trash into excellent fuels for vehicles and heating.  And by the accepted carbon accounting methods these micro refineries produce what are known as “carbon negative fuels”.  The big deal is that they can be located anywhere, and when the biomass is brought from within a 30 mile radius, these facilities solve the transportation cost problem that was said to shut down plans for plants near places like Loyalton in the Tahoe National Forest.

Alan Weiner of the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels is ecstatic about this new technology since Colorado is filled with dead, bug infested forests that need to be cleaned up.  Micro refineries seem to be the exact solution we have been waiting for, but Weiner’s fear is that the econuts will find a way to also kill this solution.

For more on what micro refineries are and how they work, go visit Cool Planet, the company that has developed and is marketing the technology.

Finally, the reason the econut fear is a real one is that micro refineries will remove a major reason to deny access to forested public lands, a prime Agenda21 objective.  Reclaiming overgrown and dying forests for human enterprises and recreation is definitely not a part of their plans for our sustainable stack-and-pack future.

Postscript:  Did anyone else hear the developing story that presidential aide and close confidant Valerie Jarrett may be the one to have issued the stand down order to our military response teams in Italy and Tripoli?  We recall President Obama’s whereabouts during that fateful time in Benghazi are still a top level state secret; he told his team, which included SecDef Panetta and our ‘what difference does it make?!’ SecState Hillary, to “handle it” and then evaporated the area.  Now I'm not sure yet that there is anything to Vallerie's stint as acting CinC.  But I will wager that if it is true, the wheels will finally come off this adiministration.

Comments

[MikeL]

The Forest Service is holding a public meeting to discuss road closures in the Shasta Trinity forest today at 5:30 PM at the Veterans hall in Redding. Congressmen LaMalfa will be in attendance. Please attend this important meeting if you can.

[MikeL]

Here is a good read of the condition of the current agency tasked with managing the forests. http://evergreenmagazine.com/web/The_Forest_Service_s_Mission_Statement_is_Pure_Fantasy.html

[Russ Steele]

The White House has been stonewalling where the President was during the engagement. Instead of a 15 minutes of missing tape, we have a President missing for 7 hours, and now rumor that Valery Jarrett was making decisions in the Situation Room. The burden of proof is on the White House on where the President was and who was actually making decisions that fateful night. Until the Obama is forthright and truthful with the American people, the rumor mill will continue churning out reports from unnamed sources. This in fact maybe the real cover up, that the President delegated his authority to an aid, while he did a vanishing act.

[George Rebane]

MikeL 546am - do you know why roads need to be closed in the Shasta Trinity forest?

[George Rebane]

Administrivia - fished more comments from TypePad's travesty of a spam filter. Please let me know right away if your comment does not appear or disappears after posting. I try to check the spam folder regularly, but I don't want comments to languish there because I forgot.

Also, please check out the 7aug13 update to 'Approaches to Effective Education'.

[Todd Juvinall]

Please read the Tahoe Forest Management Plan and you will see the cutting edge of government hegemony over our lands.

[Todd Juvinall]

Here it is

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5214243.pdf

They appear to be using the 1990 Plan of which I had many comments back then. If you go to the Tahoe Forest Homepage you will see they too are updating their trail plan. I bet they are closing many miles to the public/taxpayers

[George Rebane]

Thanks to MikeL and ToddJ for the links. Sustainable stack & pack is the objective, and we can't have too many of us out there enjoying our forests.

[Walt]

I it's actually good for our forests, the eco gang is against
it. How many decades did it take to wake them up that fire
is good? By that time the damage was done...With interest.

OK, gang,, now for some fun. How many here believe there is a good
possibility that Big Foot is out there? Even video footage is getting better.
Yup,, I admit being in the "just maybe...." camp.
( I have my reasons.)ad not because I can pass for his offspring.
For some reason, not many dare admit it. " Who? Me?? No way.."

The reason I bring up the big guy, is that we better hope he is never found. Within 24 hours more "friends of B.F." will come out of hiding , and demand the forests be closed to ALL outside access.
It will all be deemed,,, "habitat".
Soon after that the rural arias will somehow fall victim to B.F. sphere of influence. Mark my words. One, alive or dead, will
be all they need.
Hay,,, It could happen,, who knows...

The W.H. story? Nothing surprises me anymore what comes out of there.
I have more respect for Egyptian people than I do for some of my countrymen.
They saw how bad the guy they elected really was, and promptly did something about it.
We didn't have the guts to do the same, then even re elected the somebich.

[MikeL]

George,

Having driven and hicked many of the roads with the Shasta Trinity National Forest I really can not offer a reason for the road closures. The forest service say it is make sure they have a sustainable system of roads and have decrease or no money for road maintainance. I find that claim that they have no money for maintainance to be such bull S since they have plenty of cash to pay prevailing wage rages to private contractors to lay asphalt on forest roads that I have been using for 45 years and and place large rocks and logs across roads they are closing.

Of course some believe that the closing of forest roads by the government is part of Agenda 21.

I do believe that the road closures are an attempt by the very wealthly Eco fanatics that fund the terrorist groups like Earth First, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and even the Serria Club to keep humans, who they think are a cancer on the planet, out you the woods.

[MikeL]

I meant hiked... not hicked.

[George Rebane]

MikeL 506am - actually "part of Agenda21" and your belief about the "Eco fanatics" are one and the same. Recall, A21 is nothing more than a statement of objectives in how future human life on the planet should be conducted - in short, it is an organizing principle for like-minded ideologues.

DaveC 645am - any idea how long this 'fish passage project' will last - days, months, years?

[Michael Anderson]

I'll try to ignore all of the Agenda 21 nonsense and address the question of these micro refineries.

So I went to the Cool Planet website and I couldn't find anything that would be offensive to my environmental friends, even those who you pejoratively describe as "econuts" (and Mike L. describes as terrorists), in the construction and implementation of this technology.

So then I went to the blog to read some of the comments, and my opinion was confirmed. I couldn't find any negative comments from people who I assume would be described as being in the environmental community. Here's a good example:

"Very exciting. However sadly no discussion of renewables, or of oil dependency, in the mainstream media, seems to reference your work. I'm greatly looking forward to seeing just one truly scaled up proof of concept - where both you and the independent farmer (say) can make a profit, sustainably. (Do those biofractionators need to be rebuilt, after some use? Are there hidden costs, say through chemicals needed to make the biofractionators work, or to heat the process, or to replace enzymes lost in the biochar? etc.) There isn't much of an energy margin in sunlight. But I really, really hope this is for real."

[Todd Juvinall]

Nonsense? Now there is another liberal head in the sand. And I thought he was a smarty pants. I guess I was misled.

[Dave Cranfield]

George, no indication on the USDA website on how long the closures are in effect.

[Walt]

Look what shows up from "greenie" central.
With the nice, cool, Fall like days we have been having ( in AUGUST)
they may be on to something.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/08/09/major-danish-daily-newspaper-warns-globe-may-be-on-path-to-little-ice-agemuch-colder-wintersdramatic-consequences/

[fish]

Remember Walt when the conditions support the AGW premise it's climate, when the conditions don't, it's merely the weather.

[Bill Tozer]

On the news Diane Fine-stein was spouting about Climate Change causing all the fires in the desert and high country east of LA. Heck, fires down there are as common as liberals in the basement of the outhouse partying beneath the punch bowl. That area (including Angeles National Forest and Los Padres NF) used to have fires that burned for months on end before man arrived with air polluting air tankers and other unnatural fire suppression machines. One burned for 2 years straight. But, that was before 1993.

The very next thing on the news was a guy in Missouri saying he had enough with the constant rains that washed his house away. Rain, rain go away, come again on Fine-stein's birthday.

Fine-stein's voice rose to an odd high pitch even for her as she said "Climate Change is coming and we better get ready for it!" Hmm. Should I stock up on bottled water and sun block or should I stock up on hip waders?

[Russ Steele]

Bill,

I recommend some long johns and fir lined hood on your jacket.

Here are some climate change facts that DiFi over looked:

- Coldest summer on record at the North Pole (DMI)

- Highest August Arctic ice extent since 2006 (DMI)

- Record high August Antarctic ice extent (NSIDC)

- No major hurricane strikes (CAT 3+)for eight years (NOAA)

- Slowest tornado season on record (NOAA)

- No global warming for 17 years (depending on data set)

- Second slowest fire season on record (USFS)

- Four of the five snowiest northern hemisphere winters have occurred since 2008 (Rutgers Snow lab)

- largest YoY gain of arctic ice (nearly 1,000,000 sq km over 2012, DMI)

Why, There is too much slush fund money on the table from CO2 taxes.

[George Rebane]

RussS 757am - We appreciate these doses of facts about climate change you bring to these pages. Thanks Russ.

[Russ Steele]

Thanks George,

There are some more insight to the impacts of the lowest solar cycle in 100 years here: http://wp.me/p1JSc1-xC

[fish]

Why, There is too much slush fund money on the table from CO2 taxes

Shhhhh.......quiet Russ.....you're going to blow the next progtard funding scheme.

(and Russ.....I don't think it was Feinstein. Pretty sure it was her dimmer colleague Babs)

[Todd Juvinall]

I actually like "climate change" as the official moniker of the left. It diminishes the importance of what they are trying to brainwash people with. Every human knows the climate changes and takes it as part of life. If they had stuck with "global warming" I think we would have a more difficult time undoing the brain damage to the uninformed.