Peak Oil got you depressed Check out Fuel

Fuel, the film, available on Netflix
Josh Tickell has been a bio-diesel advocate for over a decade. In his 2008/9 documentary Fuel, Josh goes way beyond bio-diesel to show how the world can realistically become petroleum independent and go carbon neutral.

This film is a pleasure to watch - it has:

• Beautiful graphics,
  
• A David versus Goliath personal story,
  
• Comments from the rich, famous, and learned,
  
• A message that not all need go dark when fossil fuel runs out.

Oh, and lovely music, sung by Joshs now-wife, Rebecca Harrell.

The diesel engine was originally designed to run on a vegetable oil-based fuel. Ford originally designed his cars to run on ethanol (derived from corn). But the availability of inexpensive fossil fuel and the distribution might of Standard Oil combined to make fossil-based products the fuel of choice.

Interesting tidbit - Josh Tickell makes a case suggesting Prohibition in the United States may have become law because it made ethanol illegal. Henry Ford continued to offer the ethanol-compatible version for several years, but finally folded to economic necessity in 1932 and gave up offering the ethanol-fueled engine option. Coincidentally, Prohibition was allowed to be repealed the following year.

Josh also lays out the idea that the recent US war in Iraq was motivated by oil. This isnt a new idea, but he does a particularly good job of connecting the dots.

Back to how we move past fossil fuel towards a sustainable future - bio-diesel is a clear winner, requiring only 1 part energy to produce 3 parts diesel (ethanol requires 1 part energy to produce 1 part ethanol, and fossil fuel requires 1 part energy to produce 0.8 part fuel). Solar and wind can work, where conditions are adequate. Theres even mention of trees that were designed to remediate contaminated soils that grow to maturity in 3 years and regenerate from a cut stump, making wood-based energy creation a viable green option as well.

My only complaint is the discussion of wind didnt show my favorite wind turbine, the vertical Windspire. Traditional wind turbines kill birds due to the high differential pressures at the blade tips, not even counting the birds killed by being hit by a blade. The Windspire doesnt have this problem.

So, if talk of Peak Oil and/or soaring energy prices get you down, take a breather and watch this film. It wont make the immediate crisis go away, but does offer hope that there is a future, even after cheap fossil fuels go away.

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Is Water Flushed From A Filter Better

Ive often heard people say water flushed from a filter is better for your plants. 
I wondered how true that is.  Is It higher in Nitrate?
Heres the test.

Its higher in some trace elements, but dont count on it for Nitrate.

The problem with dumping this on your terra-garden  is that this nutrients are lost from the aquaponic system.

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Aquaponic Chemistry

I did a water test of my ponds chemistry this morning.

From left to right PH=8.0, Ammonia=0, Nitrite=0, Nitrate=0, Phosphate=5
The pond has been established for about 7 years and is pretty much care free.

It always surprises me is now low my Nitrate levels are.  Its a 1300 gallon pond containing about 70 pounds of fish which I feed 20 oz of food to every day.   The Nitrates are being consumed by about a dozed 1 gallon plants in a stream (NFT - Nutrient Film Technique).

It might be because this pond has been established for so long, but it never needs any adjustments.  I let the PH ride on the high side because its more about being a Koi Pond, and the garden is just a benefit rather than a product.

My Other systems are relatively new, and Im attempting to find a balance between fish and plants.  The PH buffering has been a difficult obstacle, and I may reduce the amount of rock in these systems to see if it becomes less of an influence.


My newest system is a combination of gravel bed and raft.  Im beginning to prefer raft systems over gravel, but I like the idea of keeping a little rock in the bottom of the raft tanks.  If buffering continues to present a problem I will convert the gravel bed to a raft tank.

I plan to purchase a test kit for water hardness in order to make a better assessment of the buffering.   Ideally I would like to keep my PH at about 6.8 in order to promote iron uptake by the vegetation.


Kobus Jooste  wrote a  very good article about water chemistry last year.
  http://aquaponicscommunity.com/profiles/blogs/water-chemistry-aspects-to

Here are some more links:
http://chicoaquaponic.blogspot.com/2012/04/nutrients.html

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The Fish are Trained

The main purpose of an aquaponics system is growing plants.

The fun part of aquaponics is feeding the fish.

When I first got my fish, they ignored chow time. Id toss pellets in the tank, and thered be no sign anyone was in there.

Now that Ive got a cover on the tank, I only ever lift the cover when Im about to feed the fish. When I lift up the lid, I find them waiting for me near the surface. Once the pellets hit the water, the water comes alive. In seconds, the fish have snatched all the pellets from the waters surface.

Sweet!

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What the doctor ordered

Egyptian symbol of Health and modern Rx

I went to the doctor today for my annual physical. When we got talking about whats going on in my life, I talked about my 3x5 aquaponics venture. Of course.

"Dont plant lettuce - plant cruciferous vegetables!" The doctor went on to extol the benefits of kale, Swiss chard, bok choi, gai lon - all of which the doctor grows at home.

Id been thinking cruciferous vegetables were necessarily varsity-level plants, ones Id want to attempt after thoroughly cutting my teeth on easy plants. But kale and chard and spinach seem pretty easy. Now to find a source for seeds this late in the year...

Update

The water is pretty clear now - you can actually see the fish swimming around all the time, now. The bell siphon goes off like clockwork. Now to start thinking about starting seeds - Ill blog about that tomorrow.

PS - Theres a nice list of Aquaponic Gardening Rules of Thumb over at Sylvia Bernsteins Aquaponics Community website - highly recommended!

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Genetic Modification of Organisms

Today my son-in-law suggested I watch the film The Future of Food online with him.

The film clearly has the worldview that corporations have taken immoral measures to consolidate power and reap profit via biotechnology. The film makes no attempt to find any virtuous motive for the technological tinkering corporations have been conducting with biological organisms. For this post Ill ignore the legal and market implications, and focus on the biological implications of genetic modifications.

To create a genetic modification, they invade the original DNA with foreign genes. This part I actually dont mind.

Often the invasion is done by linking the gene with a viral delivery system. This I mind.

To mark the fact that the gene splice has worked, they include an anti-bacterial marker. This I mind.

And for an un-known motive, they are now including a termination function, rendering future seeds infertile. This I wouldnt mind *if* biology was controllable.

The result engineered plants that:

1. Aggressively crowd out natural plants,


2. Arguably reduce consumer resistance to antibiotics, and


3. Produce sterile seeds, so future seeds must be bought from the corporations.

Resistance to Anti-biotics. Beginning with Louis Pasteur, mankind was able to curb infection with antibiotics. Over time, however, bacteria evolve, so that some strains are no longer harmed by antibiotics that killed earlier generations of bacteria.

Future infections will eventually have full power to kill again, as the vast majority of bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. Broadcasting antibacteria-imbued matter like so much seed corn across millions of acres cant have a zero impact on creating that resistance.

Viral invasion of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). Biology is messy. The film shows multiple cases where GMO crops have shown up in fields where they were never intentionally sown. A discussion of genetically modified salmon projected the modified salmon could crowd out all the native salmon in a matter of 40 generations.

The very modification was inserted by linking it to a viral component. The viral component in something good at invading cells, like E. Coli. GMOs are intended to thrive, to be stronger, better, more aggresive than the native parent organism.

Over time one could imagine the GMO variant replacing the native parent crop, as well as the native variants of the crop, leaving a monoculture. This biological Ponzi scheme eventually defrauds humanity of the biological diversity that protects us the way a diversified financial portfolio protects and investor from failure of any one monetary asset.

The Irish potato famine happened because blight killed the near-monoculture potato crop. A million lives were lost.

But its OK if we design GMOs to self destruct, right? Recently an additional bit of genetic stuff gets added when organisms are modified. After the GMO seed has grown, produced, and died, the seeds of the GMO are sterile.

This works just fine for the corporations selling GMO. That way customers always have to come back to buy, year after year.

If this self-terminating gene remains in the GMO and doesnt contaminate other organisms, were good. In fact, this could be a great way to eliminate all GMO from world food production. Stop allowing sale of GMO, and the seeds from existing GMO will fail to reproduce.

But what if the self-terminating gene cross-pollinates into native stock. What if, after years and decades and centurys, weve created a world where the plants and animals we eat cannot reproduce without the technological interference of man?

Evils and Designs of Conspiring Men. I now understand why members of the European Union and other nations adamantly oppose allowing GMOs into their food supplies.

I understand afresh the concern about buying non-organic food.

And I read with new eyes a warning we Mormons believe God gave over 150 years ago [D&C 89: 4, 10-11]:

In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you...

God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof...

Those who first heard this could hardly have imagined a world where produce travels on average 1500 miles from farm to plate, where less than 3% of the population is involved in farming, where people consume food without thought for what season or continent is actually appropriate for that food.

Every time we purchase food, were voting with our wallets. Those planes and trains and combines are forcing world food supplies to do un-natural things because of how we choose.

Let us choose wisely. Else a just God will lay blame for the consequences at our feet.

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Subterranean Heating and Cooling

Installing a Subterranean Heating and Cooling System

Last night CTD commented on my post "If I could design a system from scratch...," saying:

You may have already thought about a subterranean heating and cooling system, but if not, heres a couple of links. Im considering one of these for its year-round efficiency (off grid if I can get the math to work out) and possibly a small rocket mass as a supplement for those really cold stretches...

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=672EC08E98ABA0FD
http://www.sunnyjohn.com/indexpages/shcs.htm

Such cool stuff! The subterranean heating/cooling system is primarily three layers of Underground Air Circulation Tubing (UACT), 4 inch thin-walled perforated drainage tubes (less than $6 per 10 foot length at Home Depot). The tubes are spaced about every 2 feet horizontally in each layer, and the UACT layers are each a foot deep. The tubes are connected to a plenum (e.g., a 55-gallon drum) at each end, and a fan blows the entire volume of the greenhouse through the underground tubing every 10 minutes.

During days when it gets toasty in the greenhouse, air enters the system warm and moist and comes out cool and dry, leaving the moisture and heat energy in the soil. When the greenhouse air gets colder than the soil (e.g., winter nights), the fan pumps cool air through the ground and it comes out warmer and moister.

John Cruickshank of SunnyJohn.com says hes created greenhouses in Zone 4 (average minimum temperature of -25 degrees F) that maintain a Mediterranean environment all year round without any supplementary heat.

I still want to include a rocket mass heater. One, I like to burn things (wood). Two, I like to cook things (pizza...). Three, my greenhouse isnt a double-glazed marvel of heat retention, so it will probably need supplemental heat, even though Im in Zone 7 (average minimum temperature of 5 degrees F).

Here are some sketches of how I think I could have both a Subterranean Heating and Cooling System (SHCS) and a Rocket Mass Heater (RMH).

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