permaculture

["Dylan Ford" <dford@suffolk.lib.ny.us>]

> At 1:10 PM -0500 2/1/06, Dylan Ford wrote:
> >----- Original Message -----

> Well, I'm not Toby...but it seems to me that a lot of the materials
> you suggest might be better used as compost, to rebuild topsoil.

Loren, that's the beauty of it - after the fermentation process is complete,
you can still compost it or vermicompost it. The enzymes that digest the
cellulose and the process of fermenting make it even more bio-available.
Once the sugars are converted to alcohol and drawn off, the material is
still rich in everything else (proteins, minerals, vitamins, organic
material). Just like I said the other day about the farmer, after he squoze
the liquid out of the mash, the mash was sold as premium hog food. And
though the newspaper article posted the other day didn't say so, in Brazil
and elsewhere, after they strain out the alcohol from the sugar cane what is
left is called bagasse, and can be used as supplemental animal feed. (More
below)

We're still losing topsoil at an alarming rate in this country, and
> replacing it with fertilizers derived from petrochemicals.
>
> OTOH, there are probably other elements of the waste stream that
> wouldn't work as compost that *might* work for either methane or
> ethanol production.
>
> Regardless, I think that substituting ethanol for gasoline is still
> the wrong solution to the wrong problem. We need to figure out how to
> structure our lives and our cities so that we just don't *use* as
> much energy. And therein lies a very big rub.

Yes, but in the meantime we must do all we can to salvage what's left of our
planet, our environment, so there's something left of it all when finally we
mend our ways.  dylan
>
> Loren
>
> -- 
> Loren Davidson listmail@lorendavidson.com
> Folk music with tropical attitude - http://www.lorendavidson.com
> "Don't try to describe a Kiss concert if you've never seen it,
> Don't ever forget that you just may wind up in my songs" - J. Buffett
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