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an idea enterprise for the brave new world
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Through a simple investigation, discoveries are easily identified including the advantages of using cannabis biomass as a source of fuel.
Positive attributes summarized:
1. Cannabis is the most prolific of the suitable plants and grows well in almost all climates, reaching maximum biomass yield in about four months.
2. Cannabis is a low-moisture, woody plant. This means that little or no pre-drying is needed before pyrolysis (no energy needs to be expended to dry the crop, unlike sugar cane, maize, etc).
3. Cannabis biomass fuel-energy can be made immediately available in all parts of the world.
4. After the seedling stage, cannabis is very resistant to drought.
5. Cannabis, with roots penetrating 10 to 12 inches in the first 6 weeks, can survive floods. This can also have an important beneficial effect in preventing soil erosion.
6. Cannabis can survive intermittent frosts even as low as 12 degrees Fahrenheit - 20 degrees of frost.
7. Cannabis does not require fertilizer, pesticides, or herbicides. Corn and cotton on the other hand, require large quantities of herbicides and pesticides--50% of the world's pesticides and herbicides are used on cotton. There is also a substantial run-off problem for corn which is fertilizer intensive, affecting downstream waterways and marine life.
8. Cannabis flourishes even on marginal and normally unproductive land.
9. Cannabis does not deplete the soil in which it grows. In fact it can improve the soil by leaf-shedding, aeration and reducing weeds.
"Prohibition of Cannabis Sativa disallows the most cultivable, optimum dry biomass plant species on Earth, uniquely and immediately capable of the economical replacement of all Mankind's use of high-pollutant, costly fuels and uranium, for energy, petro-chemical products, gasoline and plastics." (FCDA)
According to FCDA Reports, "By pyrolysis conversion, biomass delivers 5,000 - 8,000 BTU's per pound [weight]." It is calculated that only 6 percent of the agricultural land area of the contiguous United States would now produce more than sufficient amounts of Cannabis Biomass to supply all current demands for gasoline, diesel, and oil for our energy-voracious country.
"From only 2 crops (8 months, temperate climate) each acre will produce not less than 20 tons of Cannabis Biomass, which yield 2,000 gallons of methanol."
It would be beneficial for everyone to educate themselves about biomass, biodiesel fuel, pollution, and the environment.
Everyone should support creative new uses for Hemp, and the use of Hemp as Biomass for Biofuels.
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from Spain
The use of fibre hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) for pulp and paper dates back more than 2,000 years. The oldest surviving piece of paper in the world was discovered by archeologists in 1957 in a tomb near Sian in Shensi province, China (Temple 1986). It is about 10 cm square and can be dated precisely between the years 140 and 87 BC. This paper and similar bits of paper surviving from the next century are thick, coarse, and uneven in their texture. They are all made of pounded and disintegrated hemp fibres. Paper historians agree that the earlier Egyptian papyrus sheets should not be referred to as paper, because the fibre strands are woven and not "wet-laid" (Hunter 1957). The Chinese paper-making craftsmanship was transferred to Arabic and North-African countries, and from there to Europe. The first European paper making was reported in the first half of the 16th century (Hunter 1957).
Until the early 19th century, the only raw material available for paper making was rags. Rags are worn-out clothes. Since at that time clothing was solely made of hemp and flax, sometimes cotton, almost all paper in history was thus made of hemp and flax fibres. With the industrial revolution, the need for paper began to exceed the available rag supply. Although hemp was the most traded commodity in the world up to the 1830s (Conrad 1993), the shortage of rags threatened the monopoly for hemp and flax as paper-making fibres. This was the major incentive for inventors and industries to develop new processes to use the world's most abundant and cheap source of natural fibres: our forests.
Currently, only about 5% of the world's paper is made from annual plants like hemp, flax, cotton, sugarcane bagasse, esparto, wheat straw, reeds, sisal, abaca, banana leaf, ananas and some other more exotic species. The world hemp paper pulp production is now believed to be around 120,000 tons per year (FAO 1991), which is about 0.05 % of the world's annual pulp production volume. Hemp-pulps are generally blended with other wood-pulps for paper production. There is currently no significant production of 100 % true hemp paper.
Renewed interest in hemp paper?
The recent renewed interest in hemp as a paper-making fibre seems to originate from a strong environmental motive. All primary forests in Europe, and most in North America have been destroyed, amongst others for paper production. Now we accuse the nations which still have primary forests of not guarding theirs.
In Europe all trees harvested for paper making were intended for that purpose, so there seems to be no valid reason to switch to a non-wood or "tree-free" fibre source. This of course is a little different in the Americas and in Asia and Australia, where primary forests are cleared at a huge environmental cost. In these regions hemp has a number of advantages as an alternative source of paper-making fibre. Hemp does not need pesticides or herbicides, and yields three to four times more usable fibre per hectare per annum than forests. And last but not least: paper recycling was invented to make up for the mistake of cutting down our primary forests. Technically speaking, one doesn't need to recycle hemp paper, because it is a renewable raw material.
One disadvantage of using hemp or other annual plants as fibre source is that the present pulping technology has been optimised for tree-fibre pulping, so some adjustments in the pulping processes need to be made when applying this technology to hemp fibres. Before going into technical details, we will first examine the technology of pulp and paper making.
Pulping and paper making.
Paper making is essentially the rearranging of elementary fibres from whatever source (a tree, a hemp stalk, an old pair of jeans or even a scoop of algae) into a flat thin sheet.
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Cannabis hemp is the most perfect plant on Earth. Every part has tremendous value. The leaves and flower tops are a recognized medicine. The fibers make strong, durable rope, cloth, and paper. Hemp paper will last hundreds of years without degrading, can be recycled many more times than tree-based paper, and requires less toxic chemicals in the manufacturing process than does paper made from trees. The oil from cannabis hemp seeds is one of the finest lubricants on Earth. Cannabis can grow wild almost anywhere or be easily cultivated for commercial use. Billions of people around the world sing praise to this wondrous plant which has never hurt anyone. Yet, there is a war going on right now against those who would freely trade cannabis. Uncounted millions of people have been jailed, persecuted and even killed. The American government is one of the key aggressors in this war. "Our leaders" would have us believe that cannabis is an evil that must be attacked. This is a lie born of both greed and hypocrisy. There are things YOU can do to live in a more sustainable manner Fetchen
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The intended purpose of this website is to provide a simple resource for interested individuals and for the promotion of educating oneself on other issues.
The DOE can be reached here -- http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/
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