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Monday, March 30, 2015

Missionary's Position--- Wisconsin's Population Growth

A couple of days ago the Milwaukee  Journal came out with a report on the growth rate of various counties in the state. As can be expected many of the more rural counties lost population, about 32, and about 35 had small population growth. Interestingly, in 2013-2014 Milwaukee county grew by only 20 people. Places like Adams County, home of Ed Gein, lost 1.6% of its population in a one year period.

 Madison, the most active area picked up 5.6% in the last 5 years. From a pro-growth point of view population loss is probably looked at as being pretty dismal, particularly, if your are the governor, and most obviously his critics. But in truth, there are many stories to this situation, even though for the bulk of the state citizens growth is necessary and the most wonderful thing in the world. No matter who you are, it is probably being viewed as if this is the end of the world, if not the local economy. Believe me, this cuts on all side of the political spectrum. Growth, growth, growth, that is all everybody wants---even though endless growth is not possible. .



But there is another side to the story, and while it is not well excepted, there may be some good news in it, but not good news for business as usual. What is clearly happening is jobs are drying up in many of the outlying areas. Where there used to be extraction industries, there is now close to nothing. No more farming, except with a few very large dairies, some corn and bean cash cropping maybe, but no mining, no lumbering, not even much pulp cutting as many of the paper plants have moved over-seas or simply closed because of interweb communications. There simply is not much to do. Maybe some recreational/tourism related businesses, now there are even trappers, and some folks literally living a subsistence operation with odd jobs on holiday cabins.

This has been going on for some time and really hit when much of tourism was set back starting in '06. Clearly, in driving north it is easy to see some very depressed communities and lots of folks living in no more than Uni-bomber shacks.

Of course, many of those that vacated the remote places move to cites, or suburbia where they thought they could find work. Most of the jobs found were low paying, part time and with little opportunity. It is a general drop in the standard of living for what was a middle class.

It is beginning to look like this is a pattern world-wide. It is in the news everywhere, even in China and India. Here in Wisconsin . however, we may have an odd benefit in that as the people leave, it takes pressure off the environment. The forest recovers, the native plants have a way of sneaking back in and even fish populations might return--there is now a movement to get the Lake Trout back in the lake Michigan and Superior. With fewer people in these areas, it is making some breathing room for the natural world. Yes, the cities are becoming more crowded, and that is their problem because it puts more pressure on social services, crime rate, and taxes.

What it comes down to, is while some complain of this loss, others, like me, might rejoice the return of the native ground, or return to a more sustainable use (but I don't have to work). If indeed, we were to get another down-turn as may predict, the vacating of the remote areas will become greater still.

Wisconsin is fortunate in that this part of the country has only really been ravaged a few times since first settlement,so it can come back unlike many places in the world, where it has been ravaged for thousands of years there is virtually no hope. The middle east and North Africa are examples of this and the population is now flooding out of these regions as there is no way to find food, water
or shelter--there simply isn't any.

We are fortunate and I don't really see population loss as a bad thing, maybe in the long run a good thing. .

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Revolution Watch---Alternative Energy Perspective in Relation to Scale

Most recently I have noticed that there are becoming more and more shots being take at alternative energy sources. Ya, this includes me and I am not among a bunch of trolls. I might be a bit of a deep green environmentalist but I don't think I am too far out there. I do think we have to re-evaluate just what is the value of the alternatives, and just how and where they can be used.

I do like alternatives like wind and solar but have always thought they were a fun hobby for rich people and not really a solution for being able to live a business-as-usual life style. I, of course, have had PVs for 23 years including 13 of those off grid so I do have some background.

Recently, another blogger posted this picture as a way making a point but he didn't add any metrics to confirm what most of us would suspect. I don't really l think there is a need for that because the irony of it all is obvious. First off, the big turbines are much bigger than the truck, that is in height. Interestingly, I suspect the truck is actually powered by an electric motor but the juice comes form a monstrous diesel engine that burns a gallon of fuel every thirty seconds. Certainly, it would take a number of these turbines to power one truck and there would be no way to store the electric energy. Maybe hydrogen produced by electrolysis. In any case, the level of technology required would be immense, Most importantly, to actually manufacturer the beast of a machine it would require most of the turbines in the country. Just a perspective thing.

Then I began hearing about how wind turbines actually have a huge fossil fuel foot print, and this is after hearing for years this was the way to have a truly sustainable sources of energy. Well, I knew it took a certain amount to produce one of those huge devices, you know, the blades of plastic, the fiber stands and the very sophisticated engine itself. So, an article comes out with the attached photo and it almost leaves no doubt that the fossil fuels used in production is profound. In this case, the individual does provide the metrics at his site. Very unsettling. It has been stated that a single turbine will never produce enough energy to reproduce itself. Think of the steel and cement, both requiring unimaginable amounts of fossil fuels. 


Then today, Mr.Musk comes out and makes a statement that they now have a battery capable of powering a single house. Yes, the power will have to come from alternatives, like wind and solar, or I suppose, hydroelectric. So I go on the interweb and try to find the price for one capable of running my enter house and learn that ones like it, but made by other, and the Tesla battery are priced a comfortable $12-14K and that doesn't include the $25K of soar panels needed to fire up the batteries. 


So what we have here is some misleading information, some information that might be useful going ahead. Just what is real? The worst part is there is very little talk about consuming less which is as near as I can tell is the best way to be slightly sustainable. There is a group out there now called Downshifters trying to encourage just that. Me, I putter along trying to keep my electric consumption between 3-5 KWH per day of grid power. I will be trying to off grid this summer--it will require in one of my hit and miss engines, however---but that is at least fun to watch. 



Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Gathering Maple Sap with the Grandkid

Jim mentioned this was his thirty-ninth year of making maple syrup and there are a few others around here who have been at it longer. Most folks that start doing this spring ritual seem to follow through year after year as if their very souls were in need of some sort of rebirth, and maybe sugar coating after a long cold winter. Maybe a re-introduction to the pleasures of the soil. Clearly, there is a pull of new life.

Each spring, the first inkling of anticipation is met with a familiar conversation, a conversation which is usually preceded by ears being directed skyward. One can almost detect the sugaring crowd walking around ears canted to the sky, their heads tilted and moving form side to side much like a dog trying to conjure the meaning of life. They are listening not to the sound of dripping sap but for the return of the Sandhill Cranes.


“Heard any Cranes yet?” that is the question. The phone will ring and instantly there will be the excited declaration “I heard ’em. They’re back.” It is time for the maple trees to emit their tears of joy.

It is not unusual for the maple tappers to have there set ups in place before the arrival of the Sandhills but for some reason the likelihood of actual flow is not great until the Cranes are back.

This year out of the bitter cold, came a number of warm days that caught the sugaring crowd with a pleasant surprise, so, in a fit, most headed to the woods to hang the buckets and run the lines only to find the ground so frozen nothing flowed and all the anxious winter-fed desires put on hold. Where were the Cranes? They, it seemed,  had not arrived and were still lingering to the south not trusting the sudden switch.

The waiting game began as the weather did a few dips and doodles. In our case the arrival of our grandchild also approached and the dipping and doodling added to the apprehension for this would be his first chance to gather the nectar of the midwest forest and, most importantly, to fire up the boil to render the golden treasure. Jake, the eight year-old kid, is a fire bug, so this was going to be a blazing opportunity and also the first year in what one would hope to be the first of many to come.

A few days before his arrival, we heard drifting snippets among the locals that Sandhll Cranes were around, but we had yet to hear one even though the geese were on the move giving us hints. Still, the Sandhills must have been here because the sap was now running and by the time the tow-headed child arrived we had a good start on the project with twenty-five gallons. Once the kid was given the sugaring lecture, we tripped around the neighborhood gathering the day’s flow, all the while listening to tales of rock-hounding and fishing.


Once face into a half-filled bucket, what got his attention was the sweetness of the sap itself. He initially put his finger under a tap and tasted the dripping nectar but then decided that was too slow and just opened his mouth right under the tap, and slurped it up like a little bird in a nest. For some reason this years sap was heavily graced with sugar---even the Red Maples that tend to run stingy, ran high. Back at the sugar shack (house), he proceeded to fetch a cup and simply dip it in the bucket and pour it down his gullet.

While he was constantly distracted by another inferno he had going, in the fire pit, the blaze under the boiling pan was well fed by all the scraps of wood he scrounged up under the local vegetation. The steam billowed off the pan, the fire leapt from the brick burning pit and as the day wore on, the smell of maple syrup drifted around the buildings and across the lawn. Occasionally off in the distance, a Sandhill Crane would let out a spring-time bellow. The kid ran around tending both fires, bringing in accumulating sap and throwing objects for the dog--all as the spring blossomed.

Thus ended his first sugaring here in Wisconsin. Today it will be forty seven, the grass is greening, the sap still flows but the yard is quiet as the eight year old has returned to his home in Colorado. It would be a great thrill to think he could come close to Jim’s thirty-nine years of springtime joy.




Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Bomb Trains and Our Bridges

I just have to stay on this issue because it is close at hand. As I have mentioned before, these bomb trains are moving through our town to the tune of 6-8 a day when only a few years ago there were virtually none. They are carrying frack oil and possibly a liquid form the tar sands. This is generally described as bitumen but in order to get it to flow they have to add natural gas condensates and natural gas liquids--both of which are volatile and thus explosive.


I have already posted some spectacular photos of explosions, the one in Canada killed 47, the others no fatalities but one hell of an environmental mess. This includes burning rivers  and streams.

Why I get revved up is that when they pass through town the go over three different over-passes, all of which seem very old and clearly in bad repair.



If a person looks closely at this photo it is easy to notice areas where the rusted re-bar is protruding from the cement, but the most interesting part of the photo, and really the bridge in its entirety, is the cracking. Now, if the crack were just on the surface, then no real big deal. In close examination, clearly, water full of carbonate is seeping through the cracks meaning the water is passing through the entire concrete mass, getting loaded with dissolved parts of the concrete. It is widely known the bridges of this type are steel reinforced---we can see the re-bar.


So as the water passes through the mass it goes by, over and very much in contact the re-bat rusting it just like the visible reinforcement. Rust weakens steel and this has been going on for how many years? Maybe 75, maybe more. Does that over-pass have the same strength it did 40 years ago? Not likely.

These trains are now very heavy from loaded tank cars, much more than box cars, or the automobile cars, lumber cars. How much additional pounding does the bridge take. I don't like it one  bit so I am making a stink.

Friday, March 6, 2015

Revolution Watch---Education and Wsconsin

This Illustration in a 1933 newspaper rather says it all. It says it then for the same reason it is pertinent today. It seems there is always an effort out there to lower the quality of public education. I probably shouldn't say always because there was a time, I suppose many times, when education was heralded as the single most important aspect of a good and just society.


Right from the get-go in this country, the founding fathers realized there had to be an informed electorate if we were to have a viable democracy. I believe it was Tocqueville who thought the masses too stupid to govern themselves and worried about the tyranny of the masses. But we showed them it could be done and have successfully managed to educate the masses to an exceptionable level---most of the time.

Generally, it has worked, that is public education, and every citizen, and some non citizens, have managed to get a decent educational opportunity. One must realize that it was not until only a few decades ago this has been improved as folks of color were clearly getting the short end of that stick and if we go back not real long so were women. Still, we as a nation pulled it off. We had an informed electorate because of our education system.

As the 1933 illustration implies there has always been some efforts out there to get rid of this educational system either by making it privatized and too expensive for some of the less fortunate, or  to decrease the quality in general there-by dumbing down the population and making them easier to manipulate. The hopes, I suspect, was to simply get citizens so uninformed they would know enough to prevent themselves form being bamboozled by shucksters (the same jackasses doing the destruction of education).

Well, here we are again. This time with a completely uneducated governor trying to trash our public education by pulling the funds and demeaning our educators. The efforts of this moron are relentless right along his equally idiotic buffoons in the state house. Call the professors lazy, cut the funds form the Universities, take monies form research institutions like the school to study alternative energy, label class room teachers as spoiled and over-paid. I not even talking bout the attach on labor, which is nonsensical.

What is odd is that Hitler pulled the same nonsense. Went after labor, after professors, educators, writers (oh shit), artist (oh shit again), religious leaders and any ethnic group he could find (check out Kansas). This is a really big OH SHIT!. Time to wake up. ( I did not check out this quote but he sure as hell did it)



How do these people get elected? Well one thing for sure it is easier to do if the electorate is ill informed and uneducated--they now are voting against their own better interest. Go figure? What would Horace Greeley say? What does any well-educated person say. I suspect we are not saying enough and letting ourselves being over run by the uneducated and those that want to control our every behavior. I'm getting pissed.

Bomb Trains---Bad sign for a Good Revolution Watch

So a week ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the Stevens Point Journal about these bomb trains going through our town and Stevens Point. They did a great job of putting the item on the web page and loaded it up with photos. I was very impressed that they did so well.

So today I went on the news channels and what do you suppose we have, another explosion of a Bomb Train. This time it is Galena Illinois---but in the country. Same old big mess with burning stuff and what appears to be a stream close by which I would imagine by now is burning with great flame. This damn sustainable revolution is just not gong so well. Ann and I  are down to using 5 or less KWH/Day  but so what?! We, as a country and world,  continue to use more and more fossil fuel every day.

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What about the Bomb Trains in Portage County?

It seems appropriate for numerous reason, citizens begin to become aggressively concerned about the frack oil “Bomb Trains” that are moving daily through Portage County. On Monday a train just like the ones going through Amherst and Point, ( possibly it did) blew up in West Virginia threatening an entire community with monstrous flames, and billowing clouds of toxic pollution, the same pollution scientifically proven to be contributing to Climate Change.

Fortunately there was no loss of life, unlike the blow up in Quebec that killed 47 in a community just like Amherst. What gets my goat is that these trains are going over three concrete trestles in the center of town. From casual appearance, these trestles seem old and in very poor shape. There are cracks everywhere with seeping water. As these heavy, multi-engined monsters lumber through town, the entire place shakes---and that includes those lame trestles. Has there ever been a complaint about the Bomb Trains?

There has been a multitude of derailments of these large tanker trains. The frequent cause, extreme heat caused by global warming. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-warp-railroad-tracks-sun-kinks-17470

To top it off, the oil being hauled is frack oil from the Bakken. It is widely known this light crude is highly volatile and explodes easily. If the cars tip and rupture, as they did in West Virginia, the toxic oil, heads for the river, if burning, making it look like the Cuyahoga River in Iowa.

What it comes down to is we Americans, we members of Portage County need to get real serious about our use of oil, particularly as we are now scraping the bottom of the barrel and going after the stuff in extreme places be it tar sands in Canada, ultra deep in the Gulf (remember Horizon) or in the short-lived frack wells.

To make it even more interesting we now are about to have a major pipeline going through the heart of Wisconsin--carrying frack oil and tar sands bitumen spiked with volatile natural gas condensates.
http://www.wisconsingazette.com/wisconsin/xxlbreakwisconsin-pipeline-dwarfs-keystone-and-affects-every-waterway-in-the-state.html?fb_action_ids=10206002156244117&fb_action_types=og.comments

If you have grandkids you should be worried.



Is Going Backward going Forward

Degression----Going Backward is going Forward?
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I recently read an interesting article about a process, or idea,  the writer was calling degresson. The guy is clever and is always looking for new ways to view the world and maybe how to improve some aspects of it. He says he is a Druid so I always find myself just wondering, “what am I dealing with here,” but he is a clever druid. What he points out is, there may have been inventions, technological developments in the past, and he appears to mean at any time in the past, that literally are better than some of more recent counterparts.

Obviously, he was making this point because he doesn’t think some of the items or processes we do, or use today are all that beneficial and we may be enamored by them simply because of hype being thrown at us day in and day out. One example he gave was that of the cheap plastic razor which is in common usage now, but in the past was represented by the safety razor. The older model was made of steel and only the thin blade was thrown away and was used for decades.

The shaving cream was in a ceramic mug and was nothing more than a soapy bar when brushed made a froth. There was no expensive can of air powered shaving cream, that in the end, and not too many shaves later had to be discarded. Lots of production cost and lots of environmental issues, much greater than simple blade and mug with brush inducing foam.

I thought it interesting as I threw away another plastic devise and then an empty can of foam. While there might be grounds for debate on that, I thought I might take the concept a bit farther.

Right off, I have to make a confession.  I am, in part, doing this because I have way too many old things that appear to have no function other than entertaining me in my semi-retirement. These items include an Associated Hired Man hit and miss engine of 2.25 horse power and a generator from a Model M Farmall tractor, vintage 1945 or so.

In addition, I have an electric generating photo voltaic and battery storage system of the most modern design. Occasionally in winter, I have to charge up my battery bank with a generator, in my case 3500 watt Yamaha. So I was thinking I should use the hit and miss to drive the Farmall generator to power up the batteries directly with direct current. All indications were, the one hundred year old motor was actually more efficient for a number of reasons. First off, it will burn anything from bad whiskey to kerosene and it will run continually for years if not decades---and by all appearances, it has.

In addition, it can be easily repaired at very little cost. It will never be something to consider throwing away. It will run forever. The generator is also of that mode but slightly more suspicious, as an alternator might be a better choice. Maybe one from Freightliner.

So the plan is to hook up a line shaft that will go overhead to a position in the shed where the alternator is mounted. This will require a couple of those large flat belts seen mostly in photographs of old threshing machines. The motor is mounted outside and has a flat belt attached to a line shaft that runs the power inside where there is another flat belt directing the power to the alternator. I should be clear, most of these kinds of contraptions are of interest to me because I am a pathetic motor head and find myself being easily amused by engines, cast iron
pullies, huge belts and spinning alternators, not to mention the quiet thumping of a 300 rpm, 100 year old engine.

The idea here is to get the entire thing set up and have the alternator moving at 1500 rpms producing 100 amps of twelve volt juice. Once this is all done, which I will now admit it is not, then the wire, after running through a change controller, goes directly to the battery bank. From the battery bank to an inverter that changes it to alternating current and then into our home to power us in a comfort we have become accustomed.

The big test will be if the old system, the highly visually intensive, slow moving, hundred year old, three hundred pound stationary engine costing lets say, three hundred dollars (used), can match the performance of the screaming, short lived modern power generator that in reality only will produce 1200 watts at full revolution. We will not mention the cost of the new generator but it will be more by many fold than the relic, and if the new one breaks, the repair may match the cost of buying a new one--it might get chucked. So this is my test of degress. Will it match the progress? If it does, which I suspect it will, What is the implication?