Fuel Ghoul

History of the American Whale Oil Industry

Humans have been hunting whales for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence from Ulsan in South Korea suggests that drogues, harpoons and lines attached to boats and flotsam, were being used to kill small whales as early as 6000BC. Petroglyphs and carved rocks unearthed by researchers at the Museum of Kyungpook National University show Sperm Whales, Humpback Whales and North Pacific Right Whales surrounded by small boats filled with courageous people. Similarly-aged cetacean bones were also found in the area, reflecting the importance of whale meat in the diet of their coastal peoples.

 
Also called train oil, the words ‘whale oil’ have come to mean any oil derived from any species of whale, including sperm oil from sperm whales, train oil from baleen whales, and melon oil from small toothed whales. The Americans have hunted whales for over three hundred years – some of today’s largest and most successful energy firms trafficked in whale oil in the late 1800’s. Research Paragon Oil.

 
The towns of Long Island are believed to have been the first to establish a whale fishery along the shores of New England sometime around 1650. Nantucket joined the trade in 1690 when they welcomed Ichabod Padduck from England to instruct colonists in the methods of whaling. The south side of the island had wooden towers erected from which men could stand and survey the ocean – they would use lenses to look for the spouts of right whales. When they spotted such spouts they would sound a signal and small wooden boats filled with eager sailors would row against the surf toward powerful prey. If the whale was successfully harpooned and lanced to death, it was towed ashore, flensed (the blubber is removed), and the oily flesh boiled in cauldrons known as "trypots." Even when Nantucket sent out vessels to fish for whales offshore, they would still come to the shore to boil the blubber – American whalers did this well into the 18th century.

 
In 1715, Nantucket had six sloops engaged in the whale fishery, and by 1730 it had twenty-five vessels of 38 to 50 tons employed in the trade. Each vessel employed twelve to thirteen men, half of them being Native Americans. At times the whole crew, with the exception of the captain, could be natives. Most Captains operated two whaleboats, one often held in reserve should the other be damaged by an angry whale.

 
The Revolutionary War brought the Yankee whale oil industry to a complete standstill in 1778, and it wasn’t until after the War of 1812 that the industry regained its former importance and New England registers listed more than two hundred vessels.

In 1820, the American whaler Maro, with Captain Joseph Allen in command fished off of the coast of Japan and enjoyed much success. The previous year the first Yankee whale ships had visited the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, and subsequently these island's ports were used as places to obtained fresh fruits, vegetables, and men. Dry docks built here were used to repair damages sustained to whaling ships and the success of Hawaii today was founded in the whale oil industry yesterday.

There are records from Sydney Australia harbor master that give the size and description of various whaling ships from 1834. That was the year that the indigenous people of New Zealand raided the 'Whaling Stations' build on a nearby islands. Here in Sydney is an American vessel from New Bedford named the Juno and her 'hold full to capacity with nearly 1000 barrels of oil procured from her whale hunt along the New Zealand coast'.

In 1846, the total American whale oil industry numbered seven hundred and thirty five ships and 70,000 people. By the 1840's, the whale oil refining or flensing was done right inside the ships, which became more industrialized. Bright honey yellow to brown oil was rendered from the mammals’ fatty tissue on the upper-most deck of the boat and barreled below. This precious commodity would be stored in wooden casks until the cargo hold was full, at which point the whaler would turn around and head for home. Some voyages lasted over three years.

 
From 1820 to 1855 this combustible animal oil product was bottled and sold at a good profit in Boston and New York markets; demand increased as the world’s whale population was steadily reduced. Thomas Welcome Roys, in the Sag Harbor bark Superior, sailed through the Bering Strait in late July 1848 and discovered an abundance of "new fangled monsters," which were later to be known as bowheads. Bowheads are large, blue-black whales.  They form white blotches on the lower jaw as they get older.  Males can measure up to 20 m in length and weigh up to 70 tonnes. Their name comes from their upper jaw, which is curved upward like a bow. Whalers called bowheads “right” whales because they were slow and they floated when killed, making them the “right” whales to hunt. 

 

Bowhead whales were prized catches because they yielded a large amount of blubber, sometimes more than 35 tonnes, and large baleen plates, which could measure up to 4m.  In the 19th century, baleen was much sought after because it had many of the same uses that plastic does today. In 1849, the following season, fifty whalers (forty-six Yankee, two German, and two French vessels) sailed to the Bering Strait region on the word of Thomas Roy and the obvious success of his single ship.

The peak period, in terms of number of vessels and whales killed, was reached in 1852, when 220 ships killed 2,682 bowheads. Catches declined, and the fleet shifted to the Sea of

Okhotsk for the 1855-57 seasons, and once that area began to decline, they returned to the Bering Strait region.

During the winter, some of these same vessels would make their way to the lagoons of Baja California. The peak began in 1855, commencing the period of lagoon whaling known as the "bonanza period," when whaleboats were crisscrossing through the lagoons, being pulled by engaged whales, passing by calves that had lost their mothers and other ship's crews hunting whales. Less than twenty years later, in 1874, the lagoon fishery was abandoned entirely, due to several years of poor catches.

Several American ships were lost during the 1860s and 1870s. During the Civil War (1861-1865) Confederate raiders such as the Shenandoah, Alabama, and Florida captured or burned forty-six ships, while the United States purchased forty of the fleet's oldest hulls. known as the Stone Fleet, to sink in Charleston and Savannah harbors in a failed attempt to blockade those ports. In 1871, thirty-two of the forty whalers comprising the Arctic fleet were lost near Point Belcher and Wainwright Inlet, while another twelve ships were damaged.

Stop commercial whaling because Fuel Ghoul loves whales.

If you love whales and want to stop commercial whaling, visit the Care2 site and sign this petition.

 

Urban Fishing in Metro Toronto

On Saturday, after watching the premier of No Country for Old Men at the Varsity Cinema in downtown Toronto, Fuel Ghoul began thinking about the rough country at the perimeter of society.  His thoughts ran loose on the frontiers of civilization where anything can happen...

 
While walking his dog in the woods that very afternoon, Fuel Ghoul found some fishermen with their lines in the shallow current of the Humber river near Scarlet Rd and Eglington Ave. 

‘Hello. Do you eat the fish you catch?’

‘Yeah you can. I do. There’s nothing wrong with it. You know what I had a good summer of catching and eating good fish from this spot right here.’ The man said. Alright... okay. that's not exactly what he said, but that was the sum of it. He was proud, and dedicated to the sport of urban fishing. Unfortunately, he was also rather camera shy.

Having spent time in Kenora Ontario, the home of really big fish, Fuel Ghoul is always keen to learn the specifics – the bait and hook combination and species related geographic considerations are very interesting to him. So FG watched (at a distance) with fascination as the man tied a second hook onto his line above the first. The long dew worm was threaded onto both hooks! The man would use the gang hook strategy to draw the worm through the shallow

Humber river against the current. It was an impressive display of superior fishing strategy and Fuel Ghoul waited with anticipation, his digital camera in hand, for a shot of him catching a fish. He waited and waited… For as long as Fuel Ghoul watched, for almost an hour, this poor sod didn’t catch a thing!

When Fuel Ghoul finally asked if maybe he could come closer and get a picture, the man yelled back ‘Please no pictures’ but the Ghoul snapped one anyway. There’s no need for anyone to be concerned – there’s no law against fishing in urban creeks, but there is a Ministry of Natural Resources advisory which I will include in this post.

The fisherman in the picture probably doesn’t have a license, or he wouldn’t have minded getting his picture taken.

The Humber River is one of two major rivers on either side of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the other being the Don River to the east. The Humber was designated a Canadian Heritage River on September 24, 1999. The Humber collects from about 750 creeks and tributaries in a fan-shaped area north of the city. One main branch runs for about 100 km from the Niagara Escarpment to the northwest, while the other major branch starts in the Lake St. George in the Oak Ridges Moraine near Aurora, Ontario to the northeast. They join north of Toronto and then flow in a generally southeasterly direction into Lake Ontario at what was once the far western portions of the city. 

Urban Fishing in Toronto – Ministry of Natural Resources has lots of good information on the subject. 

If fishing here on the Humber in Toronto, use the map above to be sure you don't trespass. Before you begin fishing, ensure that you are not trespassing on private property. Most public urban fishery sites in the Greater Toronto Area have signs designating public access. If you are unsure, check with your local municipality.

Know the rules and regulations. For many fish there are open and closed seasons and limits on quantity and possession. A free copy of the Recreational Fishing Regulations Summary with these and other rules can be picked up at any MNR office, most tackle and sporting goods stores, ie Canadian Tire.

 Know your species. Our urban fisheries are home to many different types of fish and anglers need to be able to identify what they catch. A fish identification chart can be found at the back of the Recreational Fishing Regulations Summary.

 MOST IMPORTANT! Know which fish you can eat, and what species you can't eat!  Every other year the Ministry of the Environment's Contaminant Testing Program produces a comprehensive Guide to Eating Ontario Sportfish. This is available free of charge at local beer and liquor outlets or by calling 1- 800-820-2716. Or click on the 2008 edition above...

Urban Fishing is a significant component of our future renewable resource based society. Fuel Ghoul snapped that picture because he believes this is the start of a new trend toward Urban Gaia. Imagine rooftop gardens and park lands with huge fruit orchards and garden vegetables available for any citizen’s consumption. In the future, the streams in our city will be teaming with fish and sport fishermen.

 

Big Agriculture versus Big Oil

Newspaper reporters use the term ‘supermajor’ to properly categorize any of the six largest energy companies on planet Earth. Trading under various names all around the world, they are considered to be (in order of magnitude):

ExxonMobil (XOM)

BP (BP)

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS)

Total S.A. (TOT)

Chevron Corporation (CVX)

            ConocoPhillips (COP) 

The supermajors began to appear in the late 1990's as large petroleum companies began to merge, often in an effort to improve economies of scale, hedge against oil price volatility, and reduce large cash reserves through reinvestment. These monsters are driven by profit, and their hunger for a positive return on investment will certainly be the largest contributing factor to the costly development of any future fuels.

Big Agriculture is chipping away at Big Oil's fuel market share by growing a domestic ethanol / biodiesel industry (which is still very much it its infancy). Agriculture commodity companies like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Noble, and Cargill are investing heavily in these new 'green energy' industries, and so too are those companies that specialize in the sugar trade, palm oil, and, to a lesser extent, forestry.

Small family farms hate big agriculture - The growing defiance from small farmers illustrates their increasing frustration with rules that they say penalize them in favor of the industrial producers, who were the source of headline-grabbing disease outbreaks such as the E.coli-infected spinach that killed three people last year and last month's recall of 21.7 million pounds of E.coli-infected ground beef.

"Raising Less Corn, More Hell" is written by George Pyle and dedicated to the memory of his father, who was raised on a Kansas farm.  What the agricultural economy needs, he argues, is a truly free market -- not one kept afloat by federal subsidies and unaccounted environmental damage. The root cause of hunger, he claims, is usually a lack of money. Yet the fear of not having enough food has driven the rise of chemical fertilizers, massive machinery, genetically modified seed, and whatever else will help squeeze greater yields out of every acre.

 
Fuel Ghoul has friends in unusual places, including America’s corn fields. Recently a nice lady from the NCGA (National Corn Growers Association) wrote the Ghoul a friendly personal email wherein she asked him to investigate an interesting domain built to promote the salt of the earth – America’s corn farmers.

Farmer’s Matter is all earth tones, and has lots of pictures of kids in corn fields and it seems to be a friendly green, environmentally safe virtual world… but Fuel Ghoul isn’t fooled.   Big Agriculture is ugly too, and companies like Monsanto, and Archers Daniels Midland and Cargill are just as evil as the oil companies, Exxon Mobile and Royal Dutch Shell. Given the choice, Fuel Ghoul would encourage Big Ag and Big Oil to fight it out for

North America’s energy market - and of course Fuel Ghoul would root for Big Agriculture over Big Oil.

Our nation's corn growers have been hard at work this year. In the USA alone, farmers planted over 93 million acres of corn in 2007, and right now they are busy harvesting the largest corn crop in history.

 

These farmers have stepped up production to help ensure consumers will have enough corn to provide food for their families, feed for their livestock, and fuel for their automobiles. Advances in farming practices have increased the number of people a farmer feeds from just 19 in 1940, to 144 people today. They've been able to accomplish this while lessening their environmental footprint through smart sustainability practices – do they lessen our dependence on foreign petroleum? YES to some extent, through ethanol (corn alcohol) production and biodiesel (corn oil).

Filmmakers – A Thanksgiving Farm Contest

*** A VIDEO PRODUCTION CONTEST ***
Produce a creative video telling the NCGA what ‘are the most significant contributions made by our nation's corn growers? And thank a farmer!’ Submit your videos to www.votigo.com/thankafarmer Videos should be one to two minutes long

 
To find out more about corn growers contributions, and other interesting farming facts, visit the interactive timeline and fun facts section. (This will also give you some good information for your video production).

Fuel Ghoul believes there are a lot of good reasons for Canadians to move to biofuels: We can grow the feedstock locally and process it on site. In Canada, companies such as IOGEN are developing portable systems that can use switch grass, a plant that grows wild on the prairies, or use waste material from the forestry industry. It looks like everyone wins in that scenario, since we have a lot of plant material and new technology for processing it.

Corporate Halloween Hegemony

The Rise of Retail Helloween

Do you check the candy your child collects on Halloween? Would you let older children age 12+ go door to door unsupervised? Do you trust your neighbours?  Most people today don’t even know their neighbours, and they have no time or any desire to meet them. Those folks among us who advocate their children attend ‘safe schools’ with metal detectors and armed guards at the door, usually encourage little or no congress with neighbours between the two points. Halloween is an alien concept.

 

Every October, corporations challenge their marketing executives to extend their brand into a more logical position inside the lucrative Halloween holiday market. Just last year, the National Retail Federation of America found Halloween has become the sixth largest spending holiday in the United States behind Christmas ($457.4 billion US), Valentine's Day ($13.70 billion US), Easter ($12.63 billion US), Mother's Day ($13.80 billion US) and Father's Day ($9.01 billion US). The study found that Halloween sales have grown by about $2 billion since 2003, to just over $5 billion in 2006.

 

Fuel Ghoul can see that Halloween is growing in all the wrong places. Most folks living today don’t know anything about how the pumpkin came to become the ubiquitous welcome lantern at over 100 million homes across North America, or why October 31^st is sometimes called All Hallow’s Eve. The myth is being masticated by merchants in a sales trend called the ‘Christmas creep’.

 

Fuel Ghoul shudders with rage and conviction when he thinks about his own sister and her children; they won’t be frolicking down lamp lit residential lanes this year, they won’t be crossing dark streets or taking candy from strangers. They’ll be heading for the West Chester Mall, a shopping center near their home, to trick-or-treat among the stores there. “I’ll take them to Reggie and Carol’s and to Rob’s mom’s house, but we’re going to the mall,” She said to him, and when he asked why not meet some of the neighbours on her street she protested, saying that “the kids want to go to the mall. Its fun, convenient and most importantly it is safe.”

In Fuel Ghoul's opinion, it’s also fundamentally wrong. He loathes corporate ad bucks promoting retail trick-or-treating as a safe alternative to walking about your neighborhood. Shopping malls offer a stale, pedestrian-only, lights-on, shallow smile sales-clerk kind of experience. All spookiness has been exorcised -most shopping malls insist that no scary costumes or masks be worn.

Come to K-mart and get your free bag of Halloween candy on Oct31st. Retailers use candy to bait strangers. Sugar coated offerings lure potential new customers into a venue where they've never shopped before. And even if the families don’t buy anything on Halloween, they’ll remember the store when shopping for Christmas.

Corporate hegemony is hurting Halloween. Unwarranted issues of safety and morality are spiked home by media scares. Watch the papers the week before Halloween, there is at least one ‘it could be your neighbour’ story presented to plant seeds of doubt and sell more copy.

 
Yesterday, a ‘human interest’ story in an American newspaper advertised the fact that the SPCA would not allow black cats to be adopted in the month of October, fearing perhaps local residents might be tempted to use the creatures in Satanic rituals. I checked Toronto; it’s true. The Toronto Humane Society will not allow black cats to be released from their protective custody this month either. (I was actually going to write a piece on that, but then found myself on the wrong side of the media – a story like that would help foster the myth of fear away from neighbourhood trick or treating).

Beware the ‘razor blade in the apple’, and fear the possibility of eating adulterated candy is the message promoted by retailers, and this is the most pervasive of all corporate lies; there is little or no substance to this tenacious urban myth. Yes, it happened once in 1974: An 8 year old boy died from a cyanide-laced candy which he picked up at Halloween. Investigations revealed however that the boy’s own father had intentionally spread cyanide on the candy in order to kill his son. He wanted to collect the insurance. He was charged, tried, convicted and executed.

 
In 1982, fifteen kids and one adult became ill at a school Halloween party. It might have been caused by the candy and cakes that they ate. But the newspaper reports of the lab tests on the food are contradictory. Although nobody died, the story hasn’t been forgotten and is preserved by our fear of predators.

 
Fuel Ghoul is greatly discomfited by the general trend away from neighborhood-based trick-or-treating.  He would like to see consumers simplify their lives and buy fewer disposable goods, and he believes that trick-or-treating in shopping centers replaces community with commercialism, and soon children will begin to associate Halloween with local retailers, rather than with local friends and neighbours. As an alternative, FG suggests community-center costume parades, school carnivals and block parties. Can you find a destination where the myth and stories of Halloween can be shared? Yes he's sympathetic to parents’ concerns, but can you not celebrate Halloween safely without salespeople?

Shopping mall trick-or-treating is scary because it’s hurting Halloween. Media fed urban myths propagate fear and destroy neighborly interaction, the very thing that makes the holiday such a great asset to society. Many people don’t realize the importance of knowing and trusting those who live near their residence. There may come a time when you need each other, whether its to mobilize together to face an environmental disaster, create a crime watch, find a baby sitter, or borrow a ladder - Halloween helps.

What's the Deal with Myanmar?

Fuel Ghoul wonders, what’s up with Myanmar? Even the country's name is controversial. The ruling junta calls their nation ‘Myanmar’, which is a close approximation of its 13th century name, while all others, including the USA still officially recognize the country as ‘Burma’ – the nation’s ruling generals changed the state name in 1989 and then promptly dissolved parliament before the change could be properly ratified by its people.

Exports of natural gas from Myanmar (which generates twenty percent of all electricity in Thailand and keeps the lights on in Bangkok) fuels one of the world’s most oppressive military governments. This valuable gas, and the $2.8 billion US dollars it costs Thailand, is the largest single contribution to Myanmar's otherwise impoverished economy. Largely because of the gas deal, Thailand is Myanmar's biggest trade partner, not China, as is widely reported. 

Thailand's natural gas deal highlights the dilemma facing China, India, Singapore and Malaysia, among other countries, as they vie for Burma's hardwoods, minerals, gems - and access to its market of 47 million people.

At a time of spiraling energy prices, the prospect of extracting such resources appears to override the ignominy of dealing with a despicable military government that has attracted world wide notoriety. The countries that have the most leverage over Burma seem the most reluctant to use it, Fuel Ghoul notes.

Fuel Ghoul understands exactly what’s going on here - from the perspective of Myanmar's leaders, the gas purchases by Thailand are only the beginning of what could be a massive infusion of cash; the country will soon announce the winner of a concession in the large Shwe gas fields off its western coast. Companies from India, China and South Korea have placed bids for those contracts.

The latest protests began Aug. 19 in response to sharp, unannounced fuel price increases of up to 500 percent, immediately raising the prices of goods and transportation.

They were led at first by former student protesters and other activists, but most of the leaders had been arrested or were in hiding when the monks began their protests last Tuesday. 

The monks were apparently motivated at first by an attack on a small demonstration at which security officers fired shots into the air and beat protesters with clubs.

 
At a recent academic seminar in Singapore, while his fellow Burmese reeled from the shock of fuel price increases of between 100 and 500 percent, Soe Myint waxed eloquently about Burma’s future as an energy “bridge.”

 
“We hope to become a sort of [energy] bridge between Southeast Asia and South Asia,” he told a select gathering at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in late August. “Our dream is that Myanmar will eventually become a major energy supplier in this region.”

Burma also plans to become a major biofuel producer and exporter, said Soe Myint. Without giving specific details, Soe Myint told the Singapore seminar that Burma has oil reserves of more than 500 million barrels and another 100 million barrels off shore.

Natural gas reserves are much higher, he said—about 16 trillion cubic feet.  If true, this would put
Burma among the world’s top 10 holders of known gas resources.

Unfortunately, the rich natural resources of the country are nowhere near helping fuel
Burma’s energy needs, or delivering hard currency income which could enable the government to import larger amounts of refined oil fuels at affordable domestic prices.

The A-1 and A-3 blocks of the Shwe field, about 60 kms off the Arakan coast near the port of Sittwe, hold as much as 7.7 trillion cubic feet (220 billion cubic meters) of recoverable gas, says South Korea’s Daewoo International, the main developer.

But behind-the-scenes political and financial wrangles over who will be allowed to buy this gas have been going on for more than a year, with at least five countries bidding for the rights. Both India and China want to build pipelines costing more than $1 billion to import the gas to power their growing economies.

“The signals coming out of the Burma government on this Shwe gas are very confused and not good for the international energy industry that might be looking to invest in the country,” said Bangkok commodities researcher Sar Watana. “Add to this Daewoo’s issuing statements that it is in charge of picking a buyer—it’s a mess.”

 
In the murky world of the Burmese government, it’s unclear who really has the final say on the Shwe gas field, although it is expected that the state owned and operated Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise will partner with whoever wins the prize.

 
Whatever the difficulties and risks of dealing with the junta, it clearly hasn’t discouraged a string of foreign investors from seeking a portion of Burma’s riches. A range of small, sometimes obscure companies, from Singapore to Russia, have also won both onshore and offshore exploratory drilling concessions.

 
Burma’s future role as a key energy supplier to Asian countries is not in doubt. The question is can the regime put together an efficient mechanism to exploit its natural resources in a way that truly benefits the Burmese people?

 

A Whale of a Cover Up: Pacific Oil Spills

Listen up. There has been another oil spill in BC. Have you heard this in the news? Probably not... For two months there has been a potentially very hazardous oil spill near the north shores of Vancouver Island. On August 20th, 2007, a barge carrying logging equipment and a fuel truck with 10,000 litres of diesel fuel spilled its cargo into the pristine waters of Michael Bigg Ecological Reserve off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island. The Reserve is a sanctuary to one of the largest resident Orca populations in the world.

Imagine highly trained people in wet suits swimming around a big dirty fuel truck trying to get a sling under its belly before it spills more of its deadly poison into the water... well you can imagine it all you want because it hasn't happened yet.

 

I read a nice piece on the history recent oil spills in Puget Sound in Washington State.

 
Then I started to wonder about how many oil spills occur off US waters every year. Remarkably I found this fascinating account labeled Oil Spills in US Waters - Calendar Year 2004

 
Fuel Ghoul wonders if the Orca will survive? Up until this summer they had a pristine habitat north east of Vancouver Island. After the spill of August 2007, Greenpeace, the Living Oceans Society, and local whale watching companies called on the Federal and Provincial Governments to conduct an underwater investigation to determine the state of the wreckage and whether there is potential for further leakage from the fuel truck, which may still contain up to 9000 litres of diesel.  Click here now to help Greenpeace work to stop further damage to the Orcas and their habitat!

Due to changing weather conditions, an investigation needs to be done immediately !

Greenpeace plans to locate the wreckage using sonar technology. Then they will perform a visual investigation using a Remote Operated Vehicle and turn all data over to the Ministries of Environment and the Coast Guard. This is the only way to determine if the fuel truck is a ticking time bomb…

 
What would 9,000 litres of diesel fuel seeping into a marine ecological reserve do to the resident pods of Orca whales?  Sadly, we are going to find out.

 

Future in a Fuel Cell

In the age of climate change, everyone is keen to help promote an alternative future for automotive transportation.  The Oil Age may soon be over, and the time of cheap oil has definitely come to a close. Innovation demands a new source of power for humanity’s cars and trucks. Biodiesel, ethanol, solar electric, compressed air and even steam powered systems are being rushed into development as the world consumes 85 million barrels of crude oil everyday.

 
Fuel Ghoul believes that mankind’s next energy source will be wonderfully simple and infinitely practical, totally green and one hundred percent renewable. Hydrogen fuel cells might form half of the solution – extracting the hydrogen (to power the fuel cells) is the other half of the equation.

 
When Fuel Ghoul asks scientists 'What is the perfect automotive energy source?’ they inevitably answer, ‘hydrogen’. And when Fuel Ghoul asks them how they would turn that element into energy they simply reply ‘fuel cells’, even though the science isn’t one hundred percent obvious yet, and the process of securing the hydrogen has yet to become cost effective.

 
Today, fuel cells are often mentioned in the news. Some say hydrogen fuel cells will be the most widely used. Others say methanol or ethanol would be more appropriate for the transportation sector. And there are even some visionaries who believe mankind will be refining gasoline for a long time yet, and that fossil fuels will only be eclipsed by the dawn of fusion power.

 
With an eye on the future, Fuel Ghoul took the time to read up on fuel cells. These handy devices are designed similar to batteries except they don’t store energy – they convert the chemical energy of the input material directly into electricity. The principle of the fuel cell was developed by William Grove in 1839.  

What is a hydrogen fuel cell?

 
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity, with water and heat as its by-product.  As long as fuel is supplied, the fuel cell will continue to generate power. Various types of fuel cells exist, but the one automakers are primarily focusing on for fuel cell cars is one that relies on a proton-exchange membrane, or PEM.

 
A simple hydrogen fuel cell consists of two conductors (an anode and a cathode) separated by an ionic conductor – an electrolyte (eg, a salt solution). Hydrogen is pumped to the anode, and oxygen to the cathode. Hydrogen reacts with charged particles (ions) in the electrolyte, producing water and electrons. The electrons leave the fuel cell along wires; this is the DC electricity generated by the cell.

 
The electrons return to the fuel cell cathode where they combine with oxygen and water to form ions which replace those consumed at the anode. And so the cycle continues, with hydrogen and oxygen being turned into water while generating electricity.

 
Fuel cells in space

One hydrogen fuel cell can generate up to 1.2 volts of DC electricity. Individual cells can be wired together to produce greater voltages or higher current. The space shuttle has 96 individual cells arranged in three stacks. When hydrogen and oxygen are pumped into the shuttle's fuel cells, they generate 28 volts of direct current as well as heat and water. The heat is put to good use, vaporizing the liquid fuels before they reach the fuel cells. Water flows into storage containers for drinking and other uses.
 

Fuel Cells: Chapter Two

 
Today, hydrogen and oxygen are commonly used as the fuel and oxidant. The electrodes are made of porous carbon plates which are laced with a catalyst (a substance that accelerates chemical reactions). The electrolyte is usually potassium hydroxide. At the anode, the hydrogen gas combines with hydroxide ions to produce water vapor. This reaction results in some left over electrons. These excess electrons are forced out of the anode and produce DC electric current. At the cathode, oxygen and water plus returning electrons from the circuit form hydroxide ions which are again recycled back to the anode. The basic core of the fuel cell consisting of the manifolds, anode, cathode and electrolyte is generally called the stack.

 
There are three types of fuel cells that appear to be the most promising. The Solid Oxide Fuel Cell or SOFC is the most likely contender for both large and small electric power plants. The Direct Alcohol Fuel Cell or DAFC appears to be the most promising as a battery replacement for portable applications such as cellular phones and laptop computers. The Alkaline Fuel Cell AFC has been used in space applications where hydrogen and oxygen are available.

 
Its easy to see why scientists love fuel cells – they have a lot of obvious advantages. Firstly, fuel cells produce almost no emissions at the tailpipe (securing the hydrogen could be messy though) and secondly the technology is safe and reliable, modular, lightweight and quiet. Fuel Cells really are tomorrow’s perfect power plants.

What’s the Future of Toronto’s Trash?

Toronto is a big city that makes a lot of garbage. According to this municipal website, Toronto sent approximately 750,100 tonnes of waste to a Michigan landfill site in 2005.

In 2005, an average of 86 truck loads of Toronto’s garbage was transported 500 plus miles (round trip) into Michigan everyday – the only good news is that this amount was down from an all time high of 142 trucks a day in 2003.

TRASH COLLECTION DAY IN TORONTO

Fuel Ghoul can see the bins at the base of the apartment buildings along Jameson Ave. and below the towers on Trethway and at Jane and Eglington Avenue – these giant black industrial bins are usually overflowing with garbage by the weekend, and are heaped high by the time they are collected midweek. The low income residents of these low rent apartment buildings do not recycle their trash – and they eat a lot of fast food in Styrofoam containers and drink water out of small plastic bottle and then dispose of everything in their household garbage. They indiscriminately dispose of all plastics, newspapers and aluminum cans without giving any thought to recycling the goods as that would mean carrying the items downstairs and sorting them into the appropriate bins.

ALUMINUM CANS are the most profitable component of any modern recycling program- they simply must be recycled. Did you know that 95% less energy is used to make new aluminum cans out of old recycled cans? Throwing away a single aluminum can is like pouring out six ounces of gasoline.

Today, sending more of Toronto's trash to Michigan is not an option. Two US Senators recently brokered a deal to plug the hole and stop the flow.

The deal calls for waste shipments to be reduced by 20 per cent by the end of 2007, by 40 per cent by the end of 2008 and then fully eliminated by the end of 2010. Earlier this year, the government streamlined the environmental approval processes to allow dumps to be built faster.

Toronto and neighboring municipalities have developed a plan.

Toronto has an effective garbage plan designed to punish big polluters in the pocketbook. At the June 20, 2007 City Council meeting, Councilors approved a new plan to achieve 70% diversion from landfill by 2010. The plan includes a new funding system to pay for the additional programs and services.

New Garbage Cans and Custom

IN 2007 city council will be distributing new garbage cans while promoting a new waste disposal system.
The new plan is simply that every household will buy a new trash bin. The smallest size (about one and a half garbage bags every two weeks) is free. Larger bins are more expensive. Any solid waste that can't be fit into the containers will cost residents approximately $2.00 per bag extra upon collection.

Here's how it breaks down,

75-litre (one bag) - less than $209
(no charge on bill)

120-litre (1.5 bags) - approximately $250
($250 minus $209 = $41 on bill)

240-litre (3 bags) - approximately $310
($310 minus $209 = $101 on bill)

360-litre (4.5 bags) - approximately $360
($360 minus $209 = $151 on bill)

 

Fuel Ghoul believes the City of Toronto will be sending each resident four free passes in the mail.  READ MORE  Fuel Ghoul loves the idea and supports the new Toronto trash plan!

RECYCLING WORKS

75% less energy and 50% less water is used to make paper from recycled paper versus raw wood fiber. Recycling one tonne of old newspapers saves 19 trees. Toronto typically recycles 100,000 tonnes of newspapers annually; the city's recycling program saves more than two million trees annually.

30% less energy is used to make glass from recycled crushed glass cullet versus new resources.

74% energy reduction is achieved by reusing steel cans and every tonne of recycled steel cans saves 1.36 tonnes of iron ore.

 
A 33% energy reduction is seen when new products are made from recyclable plastics.

In 2007 polluters should be more aware of the trash they create and the trek that trash makes everyday - the transport of trash is tragedy.

Fuel Ghoul still says : Reduce Reuse and Recycle

 

 

What's the frequency Kanzius?

When Fuel Ghoul heard about the Pennsylvania man that managed to set fire to a vial of salt water with a homemade radio frequency generator, he went online to find the answer to one simple question - what‘s the frequency?

 
But the media bytes for this story are all the same. The same video is embedded in every blog   and the same data has been recycled all over the internet. Nobody knows the frequency… and nobody seems to care.

The First Law of Thermodynamics states that the increase in the internal energy of a thermodynamic system is equal to the amount of heat energy added to the system minus the work done by the system on the surroundings.

 
No law abiding scientist would ever think that perhaps radio frequencies could create a shortcut around the age old ‘conservation of energy’ fundamentals. But yet that’s what the ultra positive newspaper reporters and bloggers want you to believe is the truth.

 
Perhaps I should explain the whole situation. When John Kanzius tried to desalinate seawater with a device he had created to (supposedly) treat cancer, he found he could keep the water burning like a candle as long as it was exposed to the proper frequencies.

 
Not surprisingly, most of the scientific community initially dismissed Kanzius' claim as a hoax. However, when Rustum Roy (a chemistry professor at Penn State University) took John up on the challenge, and attempted to recreate the experiment, he was amazed to see that it actually worked.

 
Of course the salt water itself isn't actually on fire. No, what’s happening is that the radio frequency’s resonance weakens the water molecule and its constituents separate into oxygen and hydrogen. Bombarded by intense radio waves, the salt water comes to a boil producing a spray of salt water, which then provides a conductive path for RF arcing, similar to arcing from a tesla coil.

Yes, it still obeys the laws of thermodynamics because the energy input via RF waves is greater than the energy released in the form of heat and light.

 
There’ll be more data on this story in the mainstream media next week, after Rustum Roy meets with officials from the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to try to obtain research funding.

 
The scientists want to find out whether the energy output from the burning hydrogen  (which reached a heat of more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit) would be enough to power a car or other heavy machinery.

 
Fuel Ghoul  just wants to know the frequency.

APEC has no effect on Climate Change

On Sept 7-10th 2007, leaders of 21 nations, including the USA, China, Japan and Canada met at the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Sydney, Australia. This gathering could have helped environmentalists set binding global targets to avert catastrophic climate change… but it didn’t. The Americans and coal rich Australia instead pushed voluntary "aspirational goals" which you and I both know will amount to nothing more than CO2 rich hot air.

Fuel Ghoul has received a number of email messages asking for more details about Bush's climate plan, the one he is rallying polluters around the world to support. The core of the issue is that George Bush opposes the most critical and effective element of a global treaty: emissions targets that actually count.

 
Perhaps that's why US president George Bush has mounted a push for a process outside of the UN negotiations. In fact, he has just recently invited the world's biggest polluting nations to a summit this September to discuss his toothless approach to climate change.

 Are US politicians now thinking outside the box?

 
George Bush acknowledged the fears of some policy makers that the United States is trying to construct a successor to the Kyoto Protocol outside of international efforts already under way. The Bush administration does not support any agreement that does not included developing nations, like China and India, which are the world’s fastest growing energy consumers.

 "We agree these issues must be addressed in an integrated way," he said. "We take climate change seriously in America." But America is all talk and no action. The United States never ratified Kyoto, which requires 35 nations to cut emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. And some press reports have indicated that the American delegation has no less than twelve SUVs (and those are just the ones on camera) while other visiting nations are content to bring two or three vehicles to the conferences.

 
Now the Bush administration has unveiled plans for global warming talks later this month that will bring together the world's biggest polluters to seek agreement on reducing greenhouse gases. The United States, one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases (if not the largest), made no statement at Tuesday's sessions, and has repeatedly rejected firm targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining this would hurt the US economy. A senior U.S. official has said that the current administration stood by its opposition to mandatory economy-wide caps. Many climate experts say that without binding U.S. emissions targets, the chance for significant progress is limited.  

Washington calls for voluntary rather than mandatory emissions cuts.

As mentioned earlier, both the USA and Australia hope the next climate change treaty will address the growing energy consumption, and resultant pollution of China and India.

China's President Hu Jintao gave only qualified support to Australia's initiative on climate change, while some developing nations criticized Australian and US moves to put their vision of climate change at the top of the agenda at the gathering in Sydney.

 
After meeting Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Mr Jintao said he preferred the UN framework for handling climate change proposals compared with the Sydney Declaration.

He added: "We very much hope that this Sydney Declaration will give full expression to the position that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change would remain the main channel for international efforts to tackle climate change."

 
The declaration should also reflect UN principles of "common but differentiated responsibilities" towards lowering harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

 
Malaysia Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz said the leaders at the APEC should not be dealing with emission targets at all, while ministers from the Philippines and Indonesia also questioned the approach.

 
Climate control was supposed to top the agenda at APEC.

High-level discussions at APEC could have shaped new talks at a U.N. conference in December in Bali, Indonesia. Many pray that future conference will chart a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The U.S has called for a Sept. 27-28 conference in Washington of the 15 biggest polluters.

 
Stephen Harper hopes we'll all forget his dismal record.

While on the subject of aspiration goals and hot air, Prime Minister Stephen Harper went on record to say that simply getting the world's biggest emitters to start talking about a post-Kyoto climate change plan is a big step forward.  And that's  it.

 
Harper says nations representing two thirds of global emissions essentially "opted out" of the Kyoto protocol. "So we have to do a better job next time," says Harper. But what does that mean?  Fuel Ghoul hopes that Stephen Harper is not involved in the process. Its a well known fact that Canada also opted out of Kyoto’s emission targets when Stephen Harper’s Progressive Conservatives, bent by the resolve of some powerful Canadian corporations, released a Clean Air Act that will actually allow Canada's biggest polluters to increase their emissions !!!

 
Scientists agree, now is humanity's window of opportunity to stop a climate catastrophe.

Over 400,000 people signed Avaaz.org’s APEC petition.   On Saturday, these environmentalists are going to launch a massive 144-square meter floating canvas "target" at Sydney's iconic Bondi Beach where it will be taken out to sea by surfers and then eventually floated over the Great Barrier Reef which many experts believe will be completely destroyed by climate change by the year 2030.