Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for August, 2008

Building Mag responds

Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , on August 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

In response to my post about his 20-mile claim, Michael Willoughby at Building has responded extensively in the comments – definitely worth a read. The carbon effectiveness of biomass is quite a hot topic so if you’ve got comments or information, please get stuck in.

Read Full Post »

battle of the brands

Posted in uncategorized on August 22, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Phil was musing about whether his blogging activities might undermine his employer’s brand. On the topic of brand erosion, I’d like to point out that Bill Price, one of the Directors at engineers WSP, plays bass in a band called Wild Sex Party. Relatively speaking, I think you’re in the clear Phil – write whatever [...]

Read Full Post »

Building Mag says biomass only efficient if used within 20 miles

Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , on August 21, 2008 | 6 Comments »

There’s a short video on the Building website of Phil Clark and Michael Willoughby discussing biomass. At one point Michael claims “it’s not efficient to transport biomass more than 20 miles.” Holy smokes, where does this fact come from? I took a stab at the numbers and came up with a figure of 3000km (1900 [...]

Read Full Post »

I’ll be just fine, says planet

Posted in climate change, energy, tagged on August 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

Excellent article, via Bealers, from the Daily Mash.

Read Full Post »

being an economist is so easy

Posted in climate change, energy, tagged , , on August 14, 2008 | 3 Comments »

I’ve been listening to the excellent Radio 4 series, Our Food Our Future, over the past two weeks. In episode one they interview Alan Swinbank, an economist from University of Reading, who argues that following the current spike, food prices will resume their general downward trend.
In support of his argument, he pulls out the increasingly [...]

Read Full Post »

FEMA says: convert your car to wood gas

Posted in biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , on August 5, 2008 | 2 Comments »

On a project at Fontenergy we’re looking at some small scale gasifiers that claim to have overcome the traditional problems associated with wood gasification. While doing some research I came across this manual from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the US, with detailed instructions of how to convert your car, truck, or tractor to [...]

Read Full Post »