So many of the charities, and programs today, especially those ran by governments, tend to give hand outs to people. They make the people dependent on them instead of helping the people to become strong and self-sustaining. They pick the people up and carry them over the bumps that lie in life's paths and make the people weaker. What we really need is programs, policies, and charities that just give a stabilizing hand, but allow people to continue to grow and become stronger on their own.
I would like to share with you two of these that I support whole heartedly.
1. The Central Asia Institute: https://www.ikat.org/
This is a group that build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is fighting the war against terror in a much more peaceful and, I believe, sustainable way than the governments. They are teaching the girls as well, which is something that had been neglected for some time. In just a few short years they have noticed amazing growth and advancement in some of the small mountain villages...not because a different culture was taught to the kids, but just because they were given knowledge and not left ignorant. It gives these children and their families hope in life, a reason to live and something to look forward to. And this they have done with a small amount of money. If they had the funds available for building, that governments have used to destroy, I believe the middle east and central Asia could be on their way to a whole new peaceful existence...something they haven't had in centuries.
2. The Smile Train: http://www.smiletrain.org/site/PageServer
This is a group that teaches Doctors in countries around the world to do a cleft pallet repair surgery which enables an otherwise normal child to have a normal life, in place of a life of shame and abandonment. They then fund those doctors to be able to provide the surgery free of charge to the children in need. They are affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in an incomprehensible way.
I urge everyone to support these causes that help people and societies to grow and develop much more than they ever could have on there own. Not leaving them dependant on others, instead encouraging Independence.
Thanks for your support,
The King
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
America Goes Ethanol
Starting immediately, all cars will be made to run on ethanol, and systems will be put in place to retrofit existing cars with this capability. As a government we will cover this conversion from our homeland security and defense budget. Many people were hard set against ethanol because corn didn't work out well financially, but...
While almost every plant on earth has been investigated as an alternative energy resource, for some odd reason tobacco has been entirely overlooked. I call this odd because the high sugar & starch composition of tobacco is well-known, as is the very low lignin encasement of its cellulosic materials. With this data alone it should be clear to science, agriculture, and industry worldwide that the tobacco plant has a nearly ideal composition for direct digestion to ethanol, and is also an ideal candidate for biomethanation or gasification. Tobacco-based ethanol can be produced for far less cost per gallon, with far more economically valuable sidestreams, than corn-based ethanol ( see below for full details). It has also been conclusively demonstrated in lab and field trials in Europe in 2008 that by adding tobacco to manure a very, very significant enhancement of biogas production can be achieved. With biomass tobacco's demonstrated low costs of production, it is clear that biomass tobacco is the first cost-effective purpose-grown biogas substrate and ethanol feedstock. Further, it is known that tobacco is a heavily coppicing plant, enabling it to produce very high biomass tonnage, and it is also known that tobacco thrives on poor soils in a wide range of environments.
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of tobacco-based biomass fuel is that not only would tobacco fuel not take away from food crop production, as corn-based ethanol does, it would actually add immense tonnage of food-grade protein that can be extracted from the sludge remaining after ethanol is produced. Fraction-1 protein is an odorless, tasteless crystalline substance that can be extracted from tobacco, and it is a complete protein - as efficient a source of human food value as beef. It would be totally 'paid for' by the ethanol produced from the tobacco biomass, and so it would be, in effect, free food. It can be added to flour of all kinds and used to produce baked goods like bread and tortillas, adding enough high quality at no cost to these basic foods to practically eliminate protein deficiencies in even the poorest countries. Does this sound like a pipe dream? Please read on.
Another of tobacco's real advantages over all other biomass energy plants comes from its potential as a source of high quality, low cost animal feed. This property is supported by strong anecdotal evidence from commercial Tobacco farmers whose fields are sometime overrun with grazing animals who find a way in, but hasn't been proven in formal trials as far as I know. If it can be shown conclusively that cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens accept and thrive on sweet, young, zero-nicotine biomass tobacco in various forms (grazed, ensilaged, pelletized, etc), then before energy is extracted from tobacco biomass, it can be fed to animals to produce ultra-low cost meat and dairy protein, eggs and other human foods. While it is likely that many of the limitations experienced in feeding the residues of ethanol production from corn and grain to animals will apply to both fresh tobacco biomass and to the residues of biogas and ethanol production from tobacco, it is also possible that by mixing a to-be-determined proportion of fresh biomass with their conventional feed, the cost of feeding animals can be lowered very significantly.
The manure from protein production can then be used as a rich energy feedstock for either liquid fuels or methane gas, and as a chemical feedstock for other co-products. It is this dual-use potential of biomass tobacco, combined with the economics and environmental advantages of production, which I believe makes it such an attractive candidate for investigation.
Here, briefly, are some of the major facts. When grown as biomass rather than for smoking, tobacco yields between 100-200 Tons/Acre of low-cost high value biomass materials. This production range, and fully accounted costs of @$1500-$2000/acre (USD) have been established in university trials. When grown as biomass there are none of the high costs, labor requirements, chemical inputs, or geographic restrictions associated with conventional tobacco production - in fact, we might as well be talking about two entirely different plants.
Tobacco biomass has multiple high value economic uses in renewable energy and sustainable food production, as well as in industrial agriculture applications. The dry weight yield for biomass tobacco is between 10-20% of wet weight, yielding 10 at a minimum and up to 40 at a maximum Dry Tons/Acre. This material is 25-28% highly digestible sugars, and 20-25% high quality protein. Tobacco's 40% cellulose is very low in both hemicellulose and in lignin. This means that Tobacco's cellulose is readily available for chemical digestion, like ethanol production without expensive added enzymes, or natural digestion, like for animal feed.
As livestock feed, biomass tobacco will probably cost well under $10/ton. With costs this low for high quality livestock feed, truly cost-competitive electric power production from manure becomes feasible. Also when directly digested for ethanol, the fermentable materials in tobacco biomass extrapolate to between 700 - 2500 gallons/acre, and the digested sludge remains an economically valuable material. Most of the world's agricultural regions are already familiar with production of commercial smoking tobacco, so a shift to production of tobacco as an energy crop would require minimal additional infrastructure/capital requirements and would produce minimal disruption to existing work patterns.
Everything considered, I believe that biomass tobacco production can mean between $4000-$6000 per acre net profit for any farm cooperative and even for many individual farmer/rancher/growers, depending on their available acreage. (Special thanks to our ministry of agriculture for uncovering this valuable information)
We can also use many other crops more sparingly that we already grow here in america such as: soy bean, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar beets, and sugar cane, depending on the region where particular crops grow best. These we will use more sparingly because they are food related but the tobacco (which again we already produce massive quantities of) will hence forth be used exclusively for ethanol.
This will free us from disputes with the middle east, help us to be more self-sufficient, and allow us to seek peaceful arangements with the middle east with more leverage. It will also help us live a more sustainable lifestyle environmentally.
Thank you for your continued support,
Your King
While almost every plant on earth has been investigated as an alternative energy resource, for some odd reason tobacco has been entirely overlooked. I call this odd because the high sugar & starch composition of tobacco is well-known, as is the very low lignin encasement of its cellulosic materials. With this data alone it should be clear to science, agriculture, and industry worldwide that the tobacco plant has a nearly ideal composition for direct digestion to ethanol, and is also an ideal candidate for biomethanation or gasification. Tobacco-based ethanol can be produced for far less cost per gallon, with far more economically valuable sidestreams, than corn-based ethanol ( see below for full details). It has also been conclusively demonstrated in lab and field trials in Europe in 2008 that by adding tobacco to manure a very, very significant enhancement of biogas production can be achieved. With biomass tobacco's demonstrated low costs of production, it is clear that biomass tobacco is the first cost-effective purpose-grown biogas substrate and ethanol feedstock. Further, it is known that tobacco is a heavily coppicing plant, enabling it to produce very high biomass tonnage, and it is also known that tobacco thrives on poor soils in a wide range of environments.
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of tobacco-based biomass fuel is that not only would tobacco fuel not take away from food crop production, as corn-based ethanol does, it would actually add immense tonnage of food-grade protein that can be extracted from the sludge remaining after ethanol is produced. Fraction-1 protein is an odorless, tasteless crystalline substance that can be extracted from tobacco, and it is a complete protein - as efficient a source of human food value as beef. It would be totally 'paid for' by the ethanol produced from the tobacco biomass, and so it would be, in effect, free food. It can be added to flour of all kinds and used to produce baked goods like bread and tortillas, adding enough high quality at no cost to these basic foods to practically eliminate protein deficiencies in even the poorest countries. Does this sound like a pipe dream? Please read on.
Another of tobacco's real advantages over all other biomass energy plants comes from its potential as a source of high quality, low cost animal feed. This property is supported by strong anecdotal evidence from commercial Tobacco farmers whose fields are sometime overrun with grazing animals who find a way in, but hasn't been proven in formal trials as far as I know. If it can be shown conclusively that cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens accept and thrive on sweet, young, zero-nicotine biomass tobacco in various forms (grazed, ensilaged, pelletized, etc), then before energy is extracted from tobacco biomass, it can be fed to animals to produce ultra-low cost meat and dairy protein, eggs and other human foods. While it is likely that many of the limitations experienced in feeding the residues of ethanol production from corn and grain to animals will apply to both fresh tobacco biomass and to the residues of biogas and ethanol production from tobacco, it is also possible that by mixing a to-be-determined proportion of fresh biomass with their conventional feed, the cost of feeding animals can be lowered very significantly.
The manure from protein production can then be used as a rich energy feedstock for either liquid fuels or methane gas, and as a chemical feedstock for other co-products. It is this dual-use potential of biomass tobacco, combined with the economics and environmental advantages of production, which I believe makes it such an attractive candidate for investigation.
Here, briefly, are some of the major facts. When grown as biomass rather than for smoking, tobacco yields between 100-200 Tons/Acre of low-cost high value biomass materials. This production range, and fully accounted costs of @$1500-$2000/acre (USD) have been established in university trials. When grown as biomass there are none of the high costs, labor requirements, chemical inputs, or geographic restrictions associated with conventional tobacco production - in fact, we might as well be talking about two entirely different plants.
Tobacco biomass has multiple high value economic uses in renewable energy and sustainable food production, as well as in industrial agriculture applications. The dry weight yield for biomass tobacco is between 10-20% of wet weight, yielding 10 at a minimum and up to 40 at a maximum Dry Tons/Acre. This material is 25-28% highly digestible sugars, and 20-25% high quality protein. Tobacco's 40% cellulose is very low in both hemicellulose and in lignin. This means that Tobacco's cellulose is readily available for chemical digestion, like ethanol production without expensive added enzymes, or natural digestion, like for animal feed.
As livestock feed, biomass tobacco will probably cost well under $10/ton. With costs this low for high quality livestock feed, truly cost-competitive electric power production from manure becomes feasible. Also when directly digested for ethanol, the fermentable materials in tobacco biomass extrapolate to between 700 - 2500 gallons/acre, and the digested sludge remains an economically valuable material. Most of the world's agricultural regions are already familiar with production of commercial smoking tobacco, so a shift to production of tobacco as an energy crop would require minimal additional infrastructure/capital requirements and would produce minimal disruption to existing work patterns.
Everything considered, I believe that biomass tobacco production can mean between $4000-$6000 per acre net profit for any farm cooperative and even for many individual farmer/rancher/growers, depending on their available acreage. (Special thanks to our ministry of agriculture for uncovering this valuable information)
We can also use many other crops more sparingly that we already grow here in america such as: soy bean, potatoes, sweet potatoes, sugar beets, and sugar cane, depending on the region where particular crops grow best. These we will use more sparingly because they are food related but the tobacco (which again we already produce massive quantities of) will hence forth be used exclusively for ethanol.
This will free us from disputes with the middle east, help us to be more self-sufficient, and allow us to seek peaceful arangements with the middle east with more leverage. It will also help us live a more sustainable lifestyle environmentally.
Thank you for your continued support,
Your King
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
An end to the storm...Soothing the Middle East
Founded by the Turks, the Ottoman Empire was the dominant power in the Middle East for centuries. Its power peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries but it wasn't cut up until after World War I, where it had fought with the losing side. At that time, the Ottoman Empire wasn't cut up geographically, or religiously, or politically. It was drawn up by Britain and France, the victors of the war. The resulting nations of Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Palestine, Turkey, and Syria were a fight waiting to happen. Britain and France had purposely built instability into the region to keep their enemies week…A good move to keep themselves in powerful positions, but not a good move for world peace.
One example of such built in failure is Kurdistan...a country that doesn't exist...but should. It comprises an area shared by Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.
This area where the Kurds live has its own language, related to but distinct from Persian (Farsi). They have a different monetary system, their own army, and more or less their own governmental structure. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, although Iran's are more likely to be Shi'ite. They follow a less strict form of Islam as the women don't wear the traditional clothing.
At several times they have tried to form their own country. From 1922 to 1924 there was a Kingdom of Kurdistan in Iraq but it was crushed by British and Iraqi forces. Another country with the same name lasted only two months in Turkey. One other attempt in Turkey lasted four years. The U.S.S.R. helped establish a Kurdish state in Northern Iran to destabilize Iran but then pulled out and left them to be massacred by the Iranians. The U.S. then tried the same thing in Iraq, causing a Kurdish uprising then leaving. Saddam Hussein who was at the time running Iraq, went and smothered the rebellion eventually killing as many as 200,000 Kurds...as would have any leader of any country. Then, after not giving the Kurds support in the uprising the U.S. incited, the U.S. declares Saddam Hussein as committing genocide and starts a War on Terror (War on Saddam's Iraq). I'm not trying to say that one side was right or wrong, I'm just saying the whole thing was a bad situation that could have been avoided through a simple restructuring of badly placed boundaries. Of course the Kurds want to rule themselves...and of course the Leaders of the several countries want to put down rebellions and stabilize their countries.
Today we will be meeting with Britain, France, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and most importantly the Kurds, to clear up this problem area. We will not close this meeting until we have found a feasible way to make Kurdistan a reality, creating a more peaceful Middle East, and a more peaceful world.
Love to all,
Your companion,
The King
One example of such built in failure is Kurdistan...a country that doesn't exist...but should. It comprises an area shared by Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.
This area where the Kurds live has its own language, related to but distinct from Persian (Farsi). They have a different monetary system, their own army, and more or less their own governmental structure. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, although Iran's are more likely to be Shi'ite. They follow a less strict form of Islam as the women don't wear the traditional clothing.At several times they have tried to form their own country. From 1922 to 1924 there was a Kingdom of Kurdistan in Iraq but it was crushed by British and Iraqi forces. Another country with the same name lasted only two months in Turkey. One other attempt in Turkey lasted four years. The U.S.S.R. helped establish a Kurdish state in Northern Iran to destabilize Iran but then pulled out and left them to be massacred by the Iranians. The U.S. then tried the same thing in Iraq, causing a Kurdish uprising then leaving. Saddam Hussein who was at the time running Iraq, went and smothered the rebellion eventually killing as many as 200,000 Kurds...as would have any leader of any country. Then, after not giving the Kurds support in the uprising the U.S. incited, the U.S. declares Saddam Hussein as committing genocide and starts a War on Terror (War on Saddam's Iraq). I'm not trying to say that one side was right or wrong, I'm just saying the whole thing was a bad situation that could have been avoided through a simple restructuring of badly placed boundaries. Of course the Kurds want to rule themselves...and of course the Leaders of the several countries want to put down rebellions and stabilize their countries.
Today we will be meeting with Britain, France, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and most importantly the Kurds, to clear up this problem area. We will not close this meeting until we have found a feasible way to make Kurdistan a reality, creating a more peaceful Middle East, and a more peaceful world.
Love to all,
Your companion,
The King
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