HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: paradis@sousa.enet.dec.com (Jim Paradis)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Chickens, chickens, and more chickens
Date: 21 Aug 92 01:12:59 GMT
Reply-To: paradis@sousa.enet.dec.com (Jim Paradis)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


In article <1992Aug20.034947.3480@athena.mit.edu>, misterl@athena.mit.edu (Lawrence P Lubowsky) writes:

>I just read an article in Fortune (I think, or it was the Boston
>Globe) how they just opened an alternative energy plant in England.
>Instead of coal, they're burning chicken s**t.  Apparently, the
>farmers love this idea, since their getting paid for stuff that they
>had to dispose of anyway.  The owners of the plant claim that this is
>a pretty efficient source of fuel.
>
>I couldn't tell if the article was a joke, but I think they were
>serious.  

Hmmm... are they simply burning the chicken droppings, or are they
maybe using them to feed a methane generator and burning the *gas*?
The latter could be done using off-the-shelf components...

Along the same lines:  what would be the issues involved in building
a *residential* methane generator in the U.S.?  Aside from the
technical issues, what are the typical regulatory issues?  Who
typically has to sign off on these things?

--
Jim Paradis (paradis@tallis.enet.dec.com) 
Working for DEC, speaking for myself.
From: mccoy@cayman.com (Michael McCoy)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Used motoroil furnace?
Date: 21 Aug 92 16:15:18 GMT
Reply-To: mccoy@cayman.com (Michael McCoy)
Organization: cayman.com

My town (Rehoboth, MA) recently purchased a used motor oil furnace for the 
Town Garage. We saw it as a win-win situation -- folks have a central 
location for dropping off used motor oil, it minimizes dumping/pollution, and 
it heats the big bays in the garage. I'll look up the details this weekend 
and provide more information next week. 

================================================
Will beta test for food...
From: bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Date: 21 Aug 92 19:46:41 GMT
Organization: University of Minnesota

In <1992Aug9.214410.18072@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) writes:


[stuff deleted]
>product which is basically a lawnmower (or brush mower) with a car type
>battery sitting on it...providing portable, rechargable power...and
>it was self propelled, etc.
oh and does it go uphills? without destroying the ground.
--
bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu
Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: hale@btree.uucp (Bob Hale)
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 19:43:20 GMT
Organization: Brooktree Corporation
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Distribution: na
Organization: Brooktree Corporation, San Diego
Keywords: 

In article <1992Aug11.195454.6194@seanews.akita.com> finneyk@seanews.akita.com (Ken Finney) writes:
>
>Of course 2 cycle engines would emit A LOT more unburned hydrocarbons
           ^^^^^^^
>than a 4 cycle engine, but exactly how harmful are they?  I'm much
>more concerned about those tiny little molecules that float up into
>the stratosphere than long-chain heavy hydrocarbon molecules that
>settle to the ground fairly rapidly.  

This true of *simple* 2 cycle engines such as are likely to be found
in weedeaters and such.  There are some really elegant 2 cycle designs
that don't emit any more crud than a 4 cycle engine would, and they
produce twice the HP of the 4 cycle engine.  They aren't out of the
development labs yet, to the best of my knowledge.

One way that clean 2 cycle operation can be obtained is to pressurize
the intake system and to use direct cylinder injection for the fuel.
The operation of such an engine is:

1. Intake and exhaust ports are open; clean intake air completely purges
   the cylinder because the intake is pressurized.

2. Piston starts to rise; clean air is compressed.

3. Fuel is injected.  Compression continues.  Fuel mixes with air.

4. Fuel is ignited; the piston starts down and delivers power to the
   crankshaft.

5. The piston gets low enough to expose the exhaust port and then
   the cycle restarts at 1.

Of course it isn't likely that such a complex beast will be used
on a weedeater.  But one never knows...

Bob Hale                                      ...!ucsd!btree!hale
...!btree!hale@ucsd.edu                       ...!ucsd!btree!hale@uunet.uu.net


Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: ghm@ccadfa.cc.adfa.oz.au (Geoff Miller)
Subject: Re: Myxomatosis
Organization: Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 03:33:27 GMT

john@n7kbt.rain.com (John Opalko) writes:

>According to the _Official_Guide_to_Raising_Better_Rabbits_, American Rabbit
>Breeders Association, Inc. 1976, "[myxomatosis] is found only along the West
>Coast, Mexico, and in South America."

Perhaps someone should advise the American Rabbit Breeders Association,
Inc, that myxo is also found in Australia and the UK  -  presumably
continentalEurope as well.

>From this, it sounds like the virus likes warm weather and the author has
>assumed that West Coast == California.
>We are in the Portland, Oregon, area and are thinking of raising rabbits.
>Is myxomatosis a threat this far north?

Here in south east Australia we get quite heavy frosts and
occasional snow in winter.  The rabbits keep warm in their
burrows.  When I lived on a farm we did nothing to introduce
the disease, but every year there were infected rabbits.
Same thing in England.  I leave you to contrast the climate
in Portland with that of the UK.

Geoff Miller  (ghm@adfa.oz.au)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: bh419@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ted B Samsel)
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 13:11:11 GMT


Yeah, I'd really ENJOY having to uncoil/coil a two mile 
extension cord..
-- 
Ted....
From: bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Date: 21 Aug 92 17:28:15 GMT
Organization: University of Minnesota

In <1992Aug10.164338.13336@infonode.ingr.com> knightf@infonode.ingr.com (Frank Knight) writes:

>In article <1992Aug8.224131.26552@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) writes:
>>
>>Did you know the EPA just came out with a report.....running a typical
>>gas weedeater for 2 hours produces the same pollution as running
>>a car.....for 3000 miles!!!!
>>think about it...then get an electric one.
>>-- 
>>            Mike Romano     Univ. Calif. Berkeley

>O.K., I thought about it, but electric ones don't work well on farms!
>BTW, I wonder how heavy a 4cyl weedeater would be? 
with or without the radiator?

bill pociengel
--
bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu
Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: scum@pcthree.com (Steve Monroe)
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Organization: PC Three
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 03:18:58 GMT

de5@ORNL.GOV (Dave Sill) writes:

>In article <1992Aug10.225040.29253@usenet.ins.cwru.edu>, bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) writes:
>>
>>Instead of a 4 cyl weedeater....etc.  how about a 4 leg goat or sheep?

>Ha, ha, ha!  If you can convince a goat or sheep to trim the tall grass along
>a fence line or clear the scrub around a pond you're a better man than I.

>I suspect you don't have much first-hand experience with these animals.

Um, are you trying to inject some reality into this?  That's what I like
see (hear?)!
-- 
Steven C. Monroe            VOICE:(703)406-2082                PC Three, Inc.
scum@pcthree.com             FAX:(703)406-2078                  P.O. Box 1644
                                                              Herndon, VA 22070
Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: ron@mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence)
Subject: Re: MTD Chipper/shredder?
Organization: Maple Lawn Farm, Stonington, CT
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 19:40:40 GMT

David Hinz Mfg 4-6987 writes:

   On the topic of chipper/shredders,

   I don't like the idea of buying yet ANOTHER engine.  Is there anyone who
   sells a unit which can run off my tractor's PTO (either belt or spline)?

I recently bought a used PTO-driven chipper, called a Lickity-Chipper,
manufactured by the Fuqua Mfg. Co. of Fuqua, Ohio.  I believe the
company is out of business.  This unit is a chipper (no shredder), and
works with steel hammers.  It has an automatic feed, and a tall
steerable chute with a blower.  The feed slot is small enough that it
seems relatively safe, as chippers go.  Branches up to 3 inches in
diameter feed through quickly.  Our JD40 (~25 hp) has just enough
power for it; the JD750 (~18 hp) isn't quite powerful enough for
bigger branches.  A unit this size would be fine for cleaning up an
orchard; I wouldn't want to use it for commercial tree surgery.  It is
useless for stuff like vines and leaves, unless they're dry; the
hammers turn green vines to slime.

I paid $500 used, towed it down from Western Massachusetts, replaced a
couple of drive belts, and spent another $50 getting a local machine
shop to make two replacement hammers from heat-treated tool steel.

New PTO-driven chippers are expensive.

-- 

				Ronald Florence
				ron@mlfarm.com
Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: bailebn@mail.auburn.edu (Bliss Bailey)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Keywords: solar energy
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:18:35 GMT
Reply-To: bailebn@mail.auburn.edu
Organization: Auburn University

In article mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU, mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>Wind and solar power are not, contrary to claims, `environmentally neutral'.
>Both forms of energy production cause a considerable amount of impact to the
>environment where they are deployed.  When you consider how relatively small
>the energy output is, the environmental impact caused by these fringe forms of
>energy is quite severe by comparison.
>
>The same anti-scientific `common sense' that lead to `split wood not atoms'
>(and is now a leading cause of air pollution in Puget Sound and other areas)
>is behind the push for wind and solar.  How much desert are you willing to
>tear up to install solar cells?  How much treeless land are you going to take
>up with windmills, and what about the effect of flying critters as well as the
>noise pollution?
>
>Remember, we're talking about generating terawatts of energy!

Gee, that's funny... The solar system I spec'ed out for my home will fit
neatly in a space smaller than my house.  The option I have considered is
mounting it on my roof, so that it takes up no extra space, and causes no
more "environmental damage".  

The idea of centrally locating all means of power production and then 
distributing that energy sort of misses the point with solar and wind power,
doesn't it?  It is my understanding that a significant amount of power is lost 
in the transmission process.  Producing locally and eliminating the transmission
line costs, transmission inefficiencies, and environmental damage related
to the installation and maintenance of the transmission system seems to
be a reasonable alternative.

I realize that there is no perfect alternative for every climate and situation,
but to discount one set of ideas (solar and wind) just because another 
idea (wood-burning) hasn't worked out seems counter-productive.  I would be 
willing to bet that with a concentrated effort by our government and industry,
we could make all three work out in the long run.

Bliss Bailey
Network Support Services
Auburn University
bailebn@mail.auburn.edu
From: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Date: 17 Aug 92 00:04:30 GMT
Organization: University of Washington
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Mime-Version: 1.0

Wind and solar power are not, contrary to claims, `environmentally neutral'.
Both forms of energy production cause a considerable amount of impact to the
environment where they are deployed.  When you consider how relatively small
the energy output is, the environmental impact caused by these fringe forms of
energy is quite severe by comparison.

The same anti-scientific `common sense' that lead to `split wood not atoms'
(and is now a leading cause of air pollution in Puget Sound and other areas)
is behind the push for wind and solar.  How much desert are you willing to
tear up to install solar cells?  How much treeless land are you going to take
up with windmills, and what about the effect of flying critters as well as the
noise pollution?

Remember, we're talking about generating terawatts of energy!
Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu ()
Subject: Re: Ban Gas Weedeaters
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 19:58:08 GMT

In <1992Aug10.224357.28807@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) writes:


>Unfortunately it is those "stupid overpopulated Californians" who buy
>a heck of a lot of the agricultural produce....grown by you care-less
>farmers out there.
yea thats right we should stop feeding these idiots who grow 'grass'??
of what usefull purpose is grass? to mow! weeds are far better at erosion
control. yea down with the chem-lawn type folks.

>I don't like it here and expect to leave soon myself.
>The point is..for those of you who move to the country for hobby
>farming, homesteading, commercial farming, etc....it seems like
>pollution should be concern...if not because you will notice very
>little of its effects...but because
this is the air we breathe, the water we drink.

>as we used to say in the 60s:  what goes around, comes around.
>Currently 200 acres per hour of land in the US alone is removed from
>natural or agricultural use for development.
so whats your beef? you admit that your grabbing productive oxygenating
land to be tarred over.

>It won't be long before even the remotest farmers will feel the toxics.
>Why not farm according to an eco-moral standard?
why not live according to an eco-moral standard, leave the frigging water
in mono lake, the colorado river, etc, etc, etc. desalinante the ocean
if your thirsty.

>Especially if it is not significantly costly.
what do you care about the cost? if the price of your food went up you'd
bitch so fast. in america we pay significantly less to feed ourselves
than anywhere else in the non agricultural world. see i to can quote
without giving the source.
bill pociengel
--
bill@chaos.cs.umn.edu
From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: LA on the Tundra
Date: 21 Aug 92 06:05:33 GMT
Organization: Elegant Communications Inc., Ottawa, Canada

In article <53iuPB2w164w@coldbox.cojones.com> system@coldbox.cojones.com (Bryan Lockwood) writes:
|hinz@picard.med.ge.com (David Hinz Mfg 4-6987) writes:
|> What do you use for motor oil?  Antifreeze?  Etc?  The antifreeze bottle I
|> have here says it's ok down to -40 (f or c, doesn't matter at that point).
|> If it gets colder, what happens?

|It turns into a slushy substance. Luckily, the engine generates heat, so it
|quickly warms up, if you were lucky enough to get the thing started in the
|first place.

|How do you get it to start? Lot's of KW's! The truck I drive (which belongs
|to my employer) uses more electricity on average than does my house, just to
|keep it warm enough to start. Two engine block heaters. Pad heaters glued to
|both the oil pan and the transmission pan. Battery blankets for both
|batteries. Finally, a circulating heater (2000 watts) to keep the antifreeze
|warm.

At the Polaris mine (on Little Ellesmere), they solve this a different
way.  They never turn their engines off except inside heated buildings
when maintenance is to be done on the vehicle.  And every vehicle
is a Toyota diesel pickup.  Musta got a bulk deal ;-)
-- 
Chris Lewis; clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca; Phone: Canada 613 832-0541
Psroff 3.0 info: psroff-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
Ferret list: ferret-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
From: hinz@picard.med.ge.com (David Hinz Mfg 4-6987)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Used motoroil furnace?
Date: 21 Aug 92 09:33:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: mr.1992Aug21.093335.4785
Organization: GE Medical Systems, Magnetic Resonance
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Tom Monson (monson@hpsad.sad.hp.com) wrote:
: Does anybody know of a proven design for a heater/furnace that burns used motor
: oil?
:                                      Thanks,      TC Monson

Alternately, is it safe/advisable to dump my used motor oil into my fuel-oil
tank for my furnace?  The furnace burns deisel fuel (more or less), would a
bit of motor oil (synthetic) hurt it?  Enquiring minds want to know <tm>.

--

Dave Hinz  -  Opinions expressed are mine, not my employer's.  Obviously.
hinz@picard.med.ge.com
From: system@coldbox.cojones.com (Bryan Lockwood)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: LA on the Tundra
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 22:49:44 PDT
Organization: The Generation Gap

clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) writes:

> At the Polaris mine (on Little Ellesmere), they solve this a different
> way.  They never turn their engines off except inside heated buildings
> when maintenance is to be done on the vehicle.  And every vehicle
> is a Toyota diesel pickup.  Musta got a bulk deal ;-)

The same solution is used over in Prudhoe Bay. They keep several people
employed, just driving fuel trucks around and keeping all the tanks topped
up, fluids checked, etc.

Since the folks at who work at Prudhoe don't live there, they work various
rotation schemes, a common one being one week on shift, one week off shift.
So two people fill out one job.

Many times I have witnessed a truck just sitting and idling in the parking
lot for weeks at a time... never moving (you can tell by the mound of ice
that grows under the tailpipe). I can only surmise that some person or job
position was terminated, and the management forgot to wonder what happened to
that particular truck!

Heavy equipment was always left to idle in the same manner.. presenting some
interesting opportunities in the long arctic darkness, especially for the
night shift workers. A common way of killing boredom was to move someone's
truck to a different location, switch trucks, etc. I once had a hand in the
"borrowing" of a squirt-boom crane, which was used to lift a certain
supervisor's truck and place it on the roof of his office.  He searched
frantically... finally finding it when maintenance was called to track down
the strange rumbling noises in the office. I understand that maintenenance
took over an hour to diagnose the problem: truck on roof.

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Newsgroups: misc.rural
From: knightf@infonode.ingr.com (Frank Knight)
Subject: Re: L.A. Tundra
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, AL.
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 12:51:45 GMT

In article <1992Aug17.035256.4899@math.ucla.edu> ramirez@julia.math.ucla.edu (Alice Ramirez) writes:
>Dan Loewus writes "why not scrape off LA and build an environment dome there."
>
>I would suggest instead that if by some happy miracle L.A. WERE scraped
>off the face of the planet, we wouldn't need to build an environment dome.
>Nature would clean up the mess in a few years.

'Course it may be more of a "shake" than a "scrape"! :-)
From: dan@eye.com (Dan Loewus)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: LA on the Tundra
Date: 18 Aug 92 13:57:33 GMT
Organization: 3D/EYE, Inc.  Ithaca, NY

In article <1992Aug17.221319.15166@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) writes:
>
>to all those born to shop, etc....It could look like a mall but
>actually be a Biosphere.

I do not know if the following still exists or not, but back in the 70's I 
lived on Cape Cod and in Mashpee there was a farm called the New Alchemy 
(spell?) Farm.  They did research in solor energy, green houses, closed 
systems, and organic farming.  One item which was real interesting was a 
solor heated green house.  It was designed to be a closed system.  There was 
a man made stream within it that used some type of solor pump mechanism 
( gets sketchy at this point ) to pump the water from a pond at the base 
of the stream.  The pond held fish that could be eaten.  The stream part 
was used to filter out waste from the water.  The waste was used as fertilizer 
on plants grown along the stream and the stream irregated the plants.  
I never got to ask any detail questions at the time and its been a long time 
so I can not say much more then this and I may have gotten parts of it wrong.  
If they still do exist I am sure the Farm is probably very much involved in
stuff similar to this and other discussions ( i.e. weedeaters ) going
on here.  I also remember they were experimenting in growing fish in big
clear plastic water cylinders that were solor heated.  They had many wind 
machines scattered about the place.



-- 
"A typical half brick half wood New York house in a typical New York
 suburb with ginkgo trees scattered conservatively about."

 DL
From: system@coldbox.cojones.com (Bryan Lockwood)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: LA on the Tundra
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 23:38:39 PDT
Organization: The Generation Gap

hinz@picard.med.ge.com (David Hinz Mfg 4-6987) writes:

> Something I've always wondered is:
> 
> What do you use for motor oil?  Antifreeze?  Etc?  The antifreeze bottle I
> have here says it's ok down to -40 (f or c, doesn't matter at that point).
> If it gets colder, what happens?

It turns into a slushy substance. Luckily, the engine generates heat, so it
quickly warms up, if you were lucky enough to get the thing started in the
first place.

How do you get it to start? Lot's of KW's! The truck I drive (which belongs
to my employer) uses more electricity on average than does my house, just to
keep it warm enough to start. Two engine block heaters. Pad heaters glued to
both the oil pan and the transmission pan. Battery blankets for both
batteries. Finally, a circulating heater (2000 watts) to keep the antifreeze
warm.

We use a special grade of oil (made by Chevron) for the Arctic. It is 0-30
SAE weight. We often use this in winter as gear lube also (transaxle). Oil
itself goes solid, so we use Slick-50 treatments on the engine. And, (get
this!) did you ever notice the small flat spot at the bottom of your tire? In
the real cold, it takes a while for the tire to warm up enough for that spot
to go away. So the ride is very bumpy for the first mile or three. I have not
seen it, but I know people who claim to have *broken* tires in the intense
winter cold.

But at 40 below, we try not to drive the thing. That kind of cold is VERY
hard on machinery. I've seen snapped flex plates, teeth broken off ring
gears, bendix gears ruined, etc. Once snapped a tie rod when trying to turn a
tight corner in the cold!

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