They say Capitalism is about to collapse. Lets give it a push! Time to jump in! Only if we all jump together can we change the lunatic system we live under.
For an end to debt and money… No leaders , No parties, just us.. For a co-op world!
The map now marks 648 Occupations and demos, with 4 days to go!
Destroying the Banks in favour of a phased in Money-Free system. Banning Hierarchical, sexist and homophobic organizations. A minimum world wage, or free rations of basic goods. Abolishing armies and war. Community Co-operatives instead of companies. Phasing out of the Oil Economy in favour of renewables and NH3 fuel. Banning GMO’s. Collectivising excess private property. Abolition of the Prisons and police system….
El 15 de Octubre del 2011 va a ser una fecha inolvidable para la raza humana. Este sera el primer encuentro UNIVERSAL de ciudadanos por un mundo mejor.
NO es un tema de ideas políticas, religión o filosofía.
El asunto es sobre cuanto nos importa nuestro futuro y el futuro de la Tierra
For nearly 100 years we have been forced to use petroleum, causing environmental devastation, runaway climate change and the agonizing deaths of countless millions of us through air pollution.
Now at last, with Climate Chaos becoming a daily reality, people are starting to ‘discover’ that a CO2, NOx and SOx FREE alternative has existed all along.
We are doing a micro campaign on this blog in favour of this CO2-free fuel. It’s a reformist solution, but one that’s available NOW
The criminal oil industry wants to close blogs like this, afraid prices would collapse if we started making NH3 car fuel.. locally with just wind, air and water
Please can you help? We need lots of free publicity and to persuade ‘respectable’ blogs, magazines, etc to write about it.
I’ve done some research and lots of posts and links you can view HERE (click below if you’re not already in this section)
NH3 is the closest thing to a perfect transportation fuel.
NH3 is an ultra-clean, energy-dense alternative liquid fuel.
Along with hydrogen, NH3 is the only fuel that does not produce any Greenhouse Gases (GHG) on combustion.
NH3 combustion: 4NH3 + 3O2 2N2 + 6H2O (nitrogen and water vapor)
NH3 is Practical
The first utilization of liquid NH3 as a fuel for motor-buses took place in Belgium during 1943. The motor-bus fleet logged 1,000’s of miles during WWII.
18% hydrogen by weight
NH3 is a liquid fuel at ambient temperatures and moderate pressures (~125 psi)
NH3 has 52% of the energy density of gasoline, and is over 50% more energy dense per gallon than cryogenic liquid hydrogen
Can be used to drive fuel cells, and fuel internal combustion engines (ICE) and combustion turbines
Converting gasoline and diesel ICEs to run on NH3 is relatively straightforward
Can be economically and safely stored and delivered in large quantities
A sustainable, carbon-free fuel for back-up and ‘peaker’ eletricity capacity generation
Will help free us from dependence on imported oil – fossil fuel
I found it, thanks to Proton Ventures http://www.protonchemie.com/NFUEL.htmlThis is it, a process that is CO2 free, which makes a fuel that’s also CO2 free when burned.And it’s cheap and safer than petroleum. Free also of NOx and SOx pollution that KILLS millions of usPlus ALL combustion engines can be adapted to run on it.Q E D… This is a viable answer to cut CO2 emissions by 30% plus (transport)The rest is politics, capitalism, greed and criminal trashing of the planet.
Why NH3?
Our Mission
The mission of the NH3 Fuel Association is to promote the implementation of NH3 as an affordable, sustainable, carbon-free fuel for transportation and stationary power applications, thereby enhancing economic security, reducing fossil-fuel dependence, and helping save the environment.
Addiction to imported petroleum carries with it huge economic, environmental and security risks . The search for a domestically produced, economical and environmentally friendly fuel has led to one acceptable solution: anhydrous ammonia (NH3). Also known as “the other hydrogen” NH3 is the closest thing to a perfect transportation fuel.
NH3 is an ultra-clean, energy-dense alternative liquid fuel.
Along with hydrogen, NH3 is the only fuel that does not produce any Greenhouse Gases (GHG) on combustion.
Hydrogen combustion: 2H2 + O2 2H2O (water vapor)
NH3 combustion: 4NH3 + 3O2 2N2 + 6H2O (nitrogen and water vapor)
NH3 is Practical
The first utilization of liquid NH3 as a fuel for motor-buses took place in Belgium during 1943. The motor-bus fleet logged 1,000’s of miles during WWII.
18% hydrogen by weight
NH3 is a liquid fuel at ambient temperatures and moderate pressures (~125 psi)
NH3 has 52% of the energy density of gasoline, and is over 50% more energy dense per gallon than cryogenic liquid hydrogen
Can be used to drive fuel cells, and fuel internal combustion engines (ICE) and combustion turbines
Converting gasoline and diesel ICEs to run on NH3 is relatively straightforward
Can be economically and safely stored and delivered in large quantities
A sustainable, carbon-free fuel for back-up and ‘peaker’ eletricity capacity generation
Will help free us from dependence on imported oil – fossil fuel
NH3 is Available
Current worldwide annual production is -130 million tons – primarily produced from natural gas and coal. China is the #1 producer at 30 million tons annually
20 million tons of NH3 and NH3-based fertilizers are consumed annually in the US as fertilizer (equivalent in energy to ~3.5 billion gallons of gasoline)
Storage and delivery infrastructure of pipelines, barges, rail and truck already exists (3,000+ miles of pipeline in the US; retail outlets exist in practically every state, 800 outlets in Iowa alone)
Can be produced cleanly from coal and natural gas with carbon sequestration, and also from biomass, renewable energy sources and nuclear power, using nitrogen from the air
Can be recovered from agricultural animal waste
Naturally produced in legumes (via nitrogenase bacteria)
Is an alternative fuel under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, allowing NH3 vehicles to qualify for fleet sale
NH3 is Low Cost
Comparable to or lower in price than gasoline on an equal energy basis
NH3 produced using renewable or nuclear source electricity will be stable in price and increasingly cheaper, per BTU, than fossil based fuels.
NH3 is Environmentally Friendly and Safe
Zero carbon, no resultant Greenhouse Gases (GHG) on combustion
NOx is easily neutralized (NH3 is used as the active chemical reactant in NOx reduction, and CO2 and SO2 capture)
If released NH3 in an accident NH3 is very difficult to ignite, is lighter than air (dissipates upwards), and its odor alerts
NH3 is not a Greenhouse Gas (GHG)
Will not damage the ozone layer
The X-15 rocket plane set speed and altitude records in the 1960s powered by NH3. Wind-generated electricity can be locally converted to NH3 for fertilizer and fuel, without expansion of the electricity transmission grid.
NH3 pipelines and storage terminals cross the agricultural midsection of the United States – an example of existing infrastructure that allows low cost, safe distribution of NH3. Storage is in refrigerated, liquid, above-ground steel tanks. NH3 is also transported by a broad array of existing rail, ship, and truck transports.
What if we do not need to wait for the hydrogen future of the year 2030? What if our hydrogen future is within our grasp right now?
It is.
The one pollution free, hydrogen-based renewable fuel we could begin using today on a large scale is anhydrous ammonia, one of the most commonly synthesized chemical compounds on the planet. Anhydrous ammonia is already used worldwide as fertilizer for its nitrogen content, and delivered by a well-established and safe infrastructure. Due to its hydrogen content, anhydrous ammonia (NH3) can be used in both gas and diesel internal combustion engines with minor modifications, can be used in direct ammonia fuel cells, and can provide hydrogen feedstock for standard hydrogen fuel cells…..
At the same time, improved technologies are coming on-line including lower cost electrolyzers and an approach called solid-state ammonia synthesis (SSAS), which makes ammonia without making hydrogen as an interim step.Even with the existing electrolyzer and Haber-Bosch process, ammonia is cost competitive with gasoline retailing at prices above $3 per gallon.
Ammonia has a long and successful history as a substitute for petroleum based fuels……
Of course, ammonia is not without its challenges. Ammonia is an inhalation hazard and must be handled with respect. But, the world ammonia industry produces and delivers 130 million tons a year with an exemplary safety record. About 20 million tons of ammonia is consumed in the U.S. annually, largely as fertilizer, and delivered by truck, rail, barge, and 3,000 miles of small-diameter, underground carbon steel pipeline in the U.S. agricultural heartland. Ammonia is not classified as a flammable liquid by the DOT, and does not have the fire and explosion hazard of gasoline, natural gas, propane, or hydrogen. Although hazardous when inhaled, it is lighter than air and disperses into the atmosphere when released, and without residual harmful effects. Ammonia is not a greenhouse gas, and does not attack the ozone layer.
For ammonia to be in wide use as a transportation fuel, design standards for on-board ammonia fuel tanks must be established as well as procedures for ammonia transfer from storage to vehicle tanks, however much of this work is already in place…..
The best features of ammonia are those it shares with hydrogen: it can be used both in internal combustion engines and in fuel cells, it produces no greenhouse gasses on combustion, and it can be produced from a wide variety of renewable energy resources…..
If hydrogen is the answer to the energy challenge of peak oil, then there is absolutely no reason to wait. The better hydrogen future is ready right now with proven
Developing new carbon fuels will KILL US ALL
technology, from production and distribution to storage and engine modification. An aggressive program to use wind and solar power to generate this carbon-free fuel can create a sea of change in our energy policy. Ammonia fuel is not the one single answer to peak oil, because there is no single answer. But as an existing implementable strategy to cut greenhouse gases, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and create new green collar jobs, ammonia is the stepping stone to the hydrogen future that up until now seemed decades away. ….
Larry Bruce is an international consultant in strategic planning and enterprise development and Marketing Director of StrandedWind.org. Joe McClintock is a physicist investigating alternative fuels. John Holbrook is Director of AmmPower LLC and Chairman of the Ammonia Fuel Network.
New Zealand said it was preparing for an environmental disaster Friday as a container ship stranded off the North Island threatened to break up and spill oil into the pristine Bay of Plenty.
Source: Supplied by John Mathieson Rena, the ship stranded off the coast of Tauranga after striking the Astrolabe Reef
The 47,000 tonne container vessel “Rena”, which hit a reef off the coast of Tauranga earlier this week, has already created an oil slick more than five-kilometres (three miles) long that has killed a number of seabirds. Continue reading “New Zealand: Oil disaster on Tauranga reef”
As Occupy Wall Street protests intensify around America, it’s important to examine possible solutions
Eric Blair Activist Post ( shortened and slightly adapted, with thanks)
Barack Obama and his 2008 presidential challenger John McCain both received more money from Wall Street donors than their combined lifetime government salaries. It was a billion-dollar-plus campaign. In fact, all of Congress makes more from Wall Street and corporate campaign contributions than their public salaries.
So what could be done if a huge movement could really force change??
Complete Debt Forgiveness:
I have been one of the advocates for a complete write-off of all fraudulent debt, essentially hitting the economic reset button. This act would zap all of the power that the banking cartel has over governments and individuals. Although I truly believe this to be the only way out of this mess, it may require an entirely new free and fair financial structure in place when the button is pushed, or the same group of thugs will likely maintain their control over the system. (blogger’s comment: Seems to me impossible, if most US debt is ‘owned’ by the Chinese, they’re hardly likely to forfeit their savings .)
End the Wars:
Yes, yes, and yes. End the foreign wars. End the phony war on “terror”. And end the war on drugs. They only benefit those funding the wars (with interest) and the pirates who the government gives the spoils to. Because no average citizen ever wants war, it leads some to believe that all wars have been baited by these beneficiaries — and they wouldn’t be wrong. Unfortunately, for too long we have taken the bait and they have gotten their spoils. It is time to stop this insanity. Significantly, this is one of the only practical solutions that will have minimal blowback. It will save trillions in public spending and immediately bring more harmony to the planet. However, America will face the very real challenge of creating new employment for returning soldiers, contractors, and laid-off weapons manufacturers, as well as DEA agents, prison guards and others who participate in perpetuating the war on drugs. So, even though ending all wars is the only sane policy, by itself it is not a silver bullet for economic woes………
WASHINGTON, Oct 1, 2011 (IPS) – Home to a fast-growing network of farmers’ markets, cooperatives and organic farms, but also the breeding ground for mammoth for-profit corporations that now hold patents to over 50 percent of the world’s seeds, the United States is weathering a battle between Big Agro and a ripening movement for food justice and security.
Conflicting ideologies about agriculture have become ground zero for this war over the production, distribution and consumption of the world’s food. One camp – led by agro giants like Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta – define successful agriculture and hunger alleviation as the use of advanced technologies to stimulate yields of mono-crops.
The other side argues that industrial agriculture pollutes, destroys and disrupts nature by dismissing the importance of relationships necessary for any ecosystem to thrive. At the heart of this struggle is the debate about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which were given the green light in 1990 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated, “(We) are not aware of any information showing that GMO foods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way.”
The Pitfalls of Terminator TechnologyAccording to Frees, one of the worst manifestations of GE/M is the use of Terminator technology, used to cause seed sterility and forcibly eliminate seed saving.
“Terminator is a biological means to enforce intellectual property rights, and its introduction into developing countries that rely on saved seeds for 80 to 90 percent of planting could mean elimination of farmers’ right to save seeds; dramatically higher seed costs; and poor farmers’ inability to survive,” he said.
“Terminator is morally reprehensible and must be banned,” Frees told IPS. Lovera added that between 2001 and 2007, annual U.S. glyphosate use on GE crops doubled to 185 million pounds.
“Ubiquitous Roundup application has spawned glyphosate-resistant weeds, driving farmers to apply even more toxic herbicides, according to a 2010 National Research Council report,” Lovera told IPS.
“Farmers may resort to other herbicides to combat superweeds, including 2,4- D (an Agent Orange component) and atrazine, which have been associated with health risks including endocrine disruption and developmental abnormalities.”
“In the United States, irrigated corn acreage increased 23 percent and irrigated soybean acreage increased 32 percent between 2003 and 2008,” she added. “The rising U.S. cultivation of GE corn and soybeans further threatens the strained High Plains Aquifer, which runs beneath eight western states and provides nearly a third of all groundwater used for U.S. irrigation,” Lovera said.
“Ninety-seven percent of High Plains water withdrawals go to agriculture, and these withdrawals now far exceed the recharge rate across much of the aquifer.”
“The worldwide expansion of industrial-scale cultivation of water- intensive GE commodity crops on marginal land could magnify the pressure on already overstretched water resources,” Lovera warned. “But these are the crops the biotech industry has to offer.”
In addition to wreaking havoc on land, GE/M has also filtered into the oceans, with the attempted introduction by Aqua Bounty of GE salmon engineered with a growth hormone gene to grow faster.
“Studies suggest that the salmon could be more susceptible to disease; and if it’s grown in pens in the ocean and [inevitably] escapes, it could mate with wild salmon and make them less fit, potentially devastating wild salmon populations,” Frees told IPS.
But a report released Wednesday by the Washington- based Food and Water Watch (FWW) on the destructive impacts of GMOs added fuel to a two-decades-long fight by farmers, economists and experts against the FDA’s conclusions.
“Genetically Engineered Food: An Overview” details how the genetic engineering of seeds, crops and animals for human consumption is not the foolproof answer long championed by agribusiness and biotechnology industries to feeding the world.
To the contrary, the study found that genetically engineered/modified (GE/M) organisms do not out-perform their natural counterparts, and their proliferation into vast tracts of cropland have caused a slew of environmental and health crises, and actually increased poverty by forcing millions of farmers to “buy” patented seeds at exorbitant prices.
The report also says that three U.S. federal agencies – the FDA, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – are complicit in these crises due to shoddy oversight, weak enforcement of regulations and a complete absence of coordination.
It found that Big Agro spent half a billion dollars between 1999 and 2009 on lobbying to ease GE regulatory oversight, push GE approvals and prevent GE labeling.
This, after attorney Steven Druker in 1999 obtained 40,000 pages of FDA files containing “memorandum after memorandum warning about the hazards of (GE) food,” including the likelihood that they contained, “toxins, carcinogens or allergens” and testified that GE foods violated “sound science and U.S. law”.
Ceci King, a member of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association, told IPS that in 2011, an estimated “60 to 70 percent of all processed foods in the U.S. contain at least one GE element.”
“Eighty-four percent of GM crops in the world today are herbicide- resistant soybeans, corn, cotton or canola, predominantly Monsanto’s ‘Roundup Ready’ varieties that withstand dousing with herbicide,” Bill Frees, science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and author of ‘Why GM Crops Will Not Feed the World’, told IPS.
“Pesticide and chemical companies like Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer have bought up many of the world’s largest seed companies, and now call themselves biotech companies – this represents a historic merger of the pesticide and seed industries, which allows them to profit twice by developing expensive GM seeds that increase use of the company’s herbicide products,” he added.
Seed patents, an off-shoot of the “agro-biotech revolution” that also spawned GE/M, have had two negative consequences since their original issuance by the U.S. Patent Office in the mid-1990s, Frees told IPS: “They enticed pesticide companies to buy up seed firms; and they led to criminalisation of seed-saving.” “Farmers have saved seeds from their harvest to replant the next year for millennia,” he added. “Monsanto is changing that. The company has already sued thousands of farmers in the U.S. for saving and replanting its patented seeds and won an estimated 85 to 160 million dollars from farmers, in lawsuits that have ruined farmers’ lives, and (partially explains) why we have ever fewer farmers in America.”
The fightback
Ray Tricomo, a mentor at the Kalpulli Turtle Island Multiversity in Minnesota, told IPS, “People of colour must re-radicalise themselves and go on the offensive including the return to land bases, from Turtle Island to Africa and Asia.” “Ancient knowledge systems are to be painstakingly recovered, even if it takes centuries,” he added. And this is exactly what is happening.
Despite the deep pockets and aggressive efforts of Big Agro, a major pushback from a broad coalition of forces has limited 80 percent of GE/M planting to just three export-oriented countries: the U.S., Brazil and Argentina. Nearly two dozen other countries, including the European Union and China, have passed mandatory GE/M labeling, and millions around the world are refusing seed patenting and developing seed banks to protect, share and preserve their seeds.
In Florida, the 4,000-strong Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is organising to resist farm wage-slavery and “seed-servitude”. The Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil has organised 400,000 peasants to join forces with the nearly half-billion farms around the world that are responsible for producing 70 percent of the world’s food. Navdanya, an organisation in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh, has united 500,000 farmers in their struggle to fight chemical dependency and save indigenous seeds, including preserving over 3,000 varieties of rice. “For five years, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (CSD) had indigenous farmers from all over the globe come to speak against destructive farm practices and GMOs,” King told IPS.
“During the Indigenous People’s Permanent Forum, there were complaints about the harm caused by industrial agriculture and the acts in the name of agribusinesses. Farm workers like the (CIW) are protesting their fate,” she added. “They are picketing companies like Trader Joes and Whole Foods, letting the public know that their tomatoes were picked from workers who are basically slave labour.” “Third World Network is fighting back by exploring the problem of GMOs and publishing findings that scientists working on GMOs are capitalists using humans as guinea pigs in a global lab experiment,” she added.
“[Numerous] deaths and disabilities have been traced back to a GM product emulating tryptophan. It took nearly 20 years to find the source of the problem,” King told IPS. “GM technology i antithetical to an agroecological approach to agriculture, our only hope for truly sustainable food production,” Frees told IPS. “Without radical change we will continue to have famines,” he added. “Haiti is a good example of what happens when a country’s farmers are put out of business by cheap, subsidised imports from a rich producer nation (here the U.S.).”
More than 700 people from the Occupy Wall Street protest movement have been briefly arrested for marchimng on New York’s City’s Brooklyn Bridge, police say.
They were part of a larger group crossing the bridge from Manhattan, where they have been camped out near Wall Street for two weeks.
“We are unions, students, teachers, veterans, first responders, families, the unemployed and underemployed. We are all races, sexes and creeds. We are the majority. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.” read more at Occupy Wall Street website and occupytogether.org.
UPDATE, 6:07 pm Kristen reports via text: ”Now it’s raining. There are still hundreds of us, people are putting backpacks on their fronts, so cops don’t take them when we’re arrested.”
She says that rumors in the crowd include the suggestion that the Lawyers Guild is working on bail money for the arrested protesters and negotiations with the cops. She says, “a friend told me there’s a rumor this is over. It’s not over.”
As for morale? The remaining protesters are huddled together under umbrellas singing “this little light of mine.”
A Massive Union Just Voted To Side With Protesters
According to Daily Kos, The New York Transit Workers Union (TWU) voted to support the Wall Street Protestors at their meeting last night. A member of TWU Local 100 told a reporter that they would join the protest Friday at 4PM.
Here’s more about them from their website: The TWU has four main divisions: Railroad; Gaming; Airline; Transit; and Utility, University and Service. The Union has 114 autonomous locals representing over 200,000 members and retirees in 22 states around the country.
Occupy Wall Street has been picking up some decent support from unions in the past few days. Yesterday we reported that the Teamsters Union declared their support for protestors, and we also found out that the United Pilots Union had members at the protest demonstrating in uniform.
Today we learned the Industrial Workers of the World put a message of support on their website as well.
UPDATE: Verizon union workers have joined the protestors in NYC.
Several thousand anti-Wall Street protesters marched through downtown Manhattan on Friday night to protest against incidents of police brutality at a previous demonstration.
The group was part of the Occupy Wall Street movement which has camped for almost two weeks in a New York square to protest against the finance industry, among other grievances.
The group had attempted a march last weekend which ended in scores of arrests. Numerous incidents of police roughing up protesters were caught on film including one senior officer spraying mace at several female demonstrators being kept behind a police barrier.
Video of that attack went viral on the internet prompted mainstream media – which had mostly ignored the protests – to give them sympathetic attention. Computer hackers also released the name and address of the officer caught on film. Since then the occupation has garnered many new supporters and global press attention.
It has attracted celebrity visits from liberal figures such as filmmaker Michael Moore and actor Susan Sarandon. On Friday an apparently false rumour that the band Radiohead were to play an impromptu gig at the square caused a temporary Twitter storm.
But Friday night’s march was aimed at highlighting the police violence at the previous protest. A long line of placard-carrying demonstrators wound the short distance from Zuccotti Park where the protesters are camped near Wall Street to Police Plaza, where the New York Police Department has its headquarters.
The march was led by a group of elderly grandmothers wearing yellows bibs emblazoned with the words: “Grannies for peace”. That seemed to symbolise the protest’s good-natured mood which appeared to be matched by the police’s willingness to give the group the freedom to demonstrate.
Michele Moore, a former bank worker from Georgia, said she had been on the previous week’s march that had ended in violence. “The videos of those events were completely accurate,” she said. But she added that Friday’s protest had felt completely different. “Everything I saw today was peaceful and positive. It was delightful,” Moore said.
The protest was filled with the usual mix of Occupy Wall Street supporters. But there was also a smattering of people wearing T-shirts with trade union logos as well as ordinary working New Yorkers
The map now marks 648 Occupations and demos, with 4 days to go!
NH3 is Practical
NH3 is Low Cost
NH3 is Environmentally Friendly and Safe
The X-15 rocket plane set speed and altitude records in the 1960s powered by NH3. Wind-generated electricity can be locally converted to NH3 for fertilizer and fuel, without expansion of the electricity transmission grid.
The Free 