David Hendley on sun 10 feb 08
Hey John, Of course I'm not referencing a hard brick kiln,
but comparing a 9" thick IFB kiln and a 3" thick IFB kiln.
At cone 10 the outside of my wood kiln is barely even warm,
at cone 06 my electric kiln would cause a blister if touched for
even a split second.
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
david(at)farmpots(dot)com
http://www.farmpots.com
----- Original Message -----
> I am not going to get into which is better - electric or wood, but the
> fact that electric kilns have 3" walls of IFB vs. the 9" of Hard Brick in
> a wood kiln is not helping your argument. It takes a lot of BTU's to heat
> up hard brick so you would be using a lot more fuel, hence greenhouse
> gases, than the electric kiln heating up 3 inches of IFB. And the IFB
> would be a better insulator.
>
> But I could be wrong?
>
> John Britt
John Britt on sun 10 feb 08
David,
Correct me if I am wrong here but ...you write:
"This is certainly not true. Electric kilns produce more greenhouse
gasses than gas-fired kilns, and they are more expensive to fire.
Add the fact that most electric kilns have walls about 3" thick
and most gas or wood kilns have 9" thick walls, and the efficiency
of fuel kilns and extravagance of electric kilns is magnified."
I am not going to get into which is better - electric or wood, but the
fact that electric kilns have 3" walls of IFB vs. the 9" of Hard Brick in
a wood kiln is not helping your argument. It takes a lot of BTU's to heat
up hard brick so you would be using a lot more fuel, hence greenhouse
gases, than the electric kiln heating up 3 inches of IFB. And the IFB
would be a better insulator.
But I could be wrong?
John Britt
David Hendley on sun 10 feb 08
Hi Lili, I have to take issue with the last paragraph of your
message. I have nothing to say about elitism, or using what
tools you have, but your comments imply that electric kilns
are inexpensive and environmentally friendly:
----- Original Message -----
> What I mind--mind a lot--about the "elitism" is that it splits a group
> that
> does not need division. We have enough problems to keep us busy without
> snooting at some in our group. For most US potters today electric kilns
> are
> the best way to go--whether they prefer that method or not. Alas,
> "environmental" considerations and the high cost of wood (around here--and
> we are cheap!-- a face cord of 16" wood has gone from $15 to $40 in about
> 5
> years) will force wood firers to change. Grave grave pity, because wood
> firing creates some lovely pots. But it is a reality.
This is certainly not true. Electric kilns produce more greenhouse
gasses than gas-fired kilns, and they are more expensive to fire.
Add the fact that most electric kilns have walls about 3" thick
and most gas or wood kilns have 9" thick walls, and the efficiency
of fuel kilns and extravagance of electric kilns is magnified.
Electric companies love to tell you that electric heat is nearly 100%
efficient. Unfortunately, it's what happens before the electricity
gets to you that is not so good. It is universally agreed that
"electric resistance" is the least efficient way to heat things.
This is how electric kilns work, as well as toasters, portable
space heaters, and hair dryers. It's why heat pumps are such
an improvement when electricity has to be used for space heating.
Unfortunately, when you burn a solid fuel, the neighbors might
see some smoke and yell, "POLLUTION!". When electricity is
generated, the burning of the fuel is hidden, miles away.
Here's what a government energy site has to say:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12520
"Electric resistance heating converts nearly 100% of the energy in the
electricity to heat. However, most electricity is produced from oil, gas, or
coal generators that convert only about 30% of the fuel's energy into
electricity. Because of electricity generation and transmission losses,
electric heat is often more expensive than heat produced in the home or
business using combustion appliances, such as natural gas, propane, and oil
furnaces."
I would change the "often" in
"electric heat is often more expensive...."
to "usually" or "almost always".
"If electricity is the only choice, heat pumps are preferable in most
climates, as they easily cut electricity use by 50% when compared with
electric resistance heating. The exception is in dry climates with either
hot or mixed (hot and cold) temperatures (these climates are found in the
non-coastal part of California; the southern tip of Nevada; the southwest
corner of Utah; southern and western Arizona; southern and eastern New
Mexico; the southeast corner of Colorado; and western Texas). For these dry
climates, there are so few heating days that the high cost of heating is not
economically significant."
This reference graphically shows energy use and greenhouse gasses:
Look at the charts on page 53 of this PDF:
http://www.arkansas.gov/psc/EEInfo/AGF_Energy_Eff-Pt1.pdf
The red lines are "energy used on site", and it shows that a natural gas
furnace uses the most energy, followed by electric resistance, with
the heat pump using the least.
The blue lines, however, tell the whole story of total energy used in
production, transmission, as well as on site. Gas is the most efficient,
followed by the heat pump, with electric resistance in a distant third
place. The blue diamonds represent greenhouse gasses emitted, and,
again, gas is the most efficient, least polluting choice.
I do think that there are special situations, in places where
electricity is generated with hydro-power, for instance, where
an electric kiln could be a eco-friendly choice, but this would be the
exception, as almost all of our electricity comes from coal, gas, or oil.
As for cost of firing, the cost of the wood to fire my kiln is $0, or about
$5 a firing if you want to include the cost of driving my pick-up to
the pallet mill to pick up the wood. I heat my home and studio entirely
with wood as well, at a cost of about $5 a year (gas and oil for the
chain saw, wood already on the property). My costs have doubled
in the last few years!
Really, the increase in cost of cord wood in your neighborhood that
you cite sounds similar to the increases in the cost of energy from all
sources in the last five years.
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
david(at)farmpots(dot)com
http://www.farmpots.com
John Britt on mon 11 feb 08
David,
I thought you were talking about wood kilns in general, but I guess you
were talking about your wood kiln specifically. Most wood kilns that I
have seen are hard brick although and some have IFB on the outside. Not
too many are all IFB, at least in my experience.
My mistake,
John Britt
John Hesselberth on mon 11 feb 08
On Feb 10, 2008, at 3:06 AM, David Hendley wrote:
> This is certainly not true. Electric kilns produce more greenhouse
> gasses than gas-fired kilns, and they are more expensive to fire.
Hi David,
I don't think this is supportable with hard facts. I honestly don't
know the answer and I doubt anyone does, but let me offer the
following counterpoints to the arguments you made.
1. Electrical generating stations are much more efficient at making
use of every last btu when they burn fuel than is a fuel fired kiln.
As you get close to peak temperature in a fuel fired kiln most of
the btus go up the stack with that 2300F (actually it will always be
hotter than the kiln is) flue gas. In other words the efficiency of
fuel fired kilns drops dramatically with increasing temperature; the
efficiency of electrical kilns does not. Some generating stations,
after they have extracted as much as they can at high temperature,
use what is left over to generate steam for nearby industry. Yes
there are significant transmission losses in electrical, but more
than a fuel kiln puts up the stack?--I don't know and I've never seen
system analyses of the two. Have you?
2. I suspect, though I have no data, that electrical generating
stations also do a better job of controlling NOx. Coal of course puts
out some nasties which propane or natural gas do not. While much is
collected and contained you won't get any argument from me that
things like mercury are worse.
3. What happens in home heating has no bearing to high temperature
applications. It is much easier to extract thermal energy at 75F than
it is at 2000+F. The quotes you listed about home heating are simply
not relevant to kilns.
4. You are right that most fuel fired kilns are better insulated, but
it also takes more heat to heat up that insulating brick. There is
also the energy required (and the resulting greenhouse gases) that
went into fabricating that kiln. Depending on the exact circumstances
thinner insulation can be more efficient. Again I don't know how it
might apply to us--I haven't seen any analysis that would be
applicable. My only point is that it is not known that from a systems
standpoint one is better than the other.
5. Of course some potters fire their fuel kiln efficiently and some
don't. Is there unburned methane escaping from a natural gas fired
reduction kiln? Maybe, maybe not. But methane is a much worse
greenhouse gas than is C02. 20X over the first 10 years is the number
I remember-- it decomposesmore rapidly though is a lessor problem
over the centuries. As an interesting side note, have you read the UN
report that says the livestock industry puts out more greenhouse
gases than the transportation industry? If we would all stop eating
beef, sheep, and pigs we would have a major effect on reducing
greenhouse gases--more than if we stopped driving. It is because
ruminants belch a LOT of methane. Hard to believe, but that does
illustrate the complexity of the overall issue.
I wish there were data that would allow us to get a clean answer to
this issue. If there is I would certainly like to made aware of it.
It is an extremely complex systems question and would probably be a
great thesis subject for several ceramic engineers. It is comparable
in complexity to trying to get an answer as to whether corn to
ethanol makes sense. Skilled (and sometimes biased) people have been
working on that question for a couple decades and it is still not clear.
I truly believe the answer will remain unknowable for many years to
come-- and probably irrelevant in the scheme of things anyway.
Regards,
John
(I knew I got those Chem Engineering degrees for some reason)
John Hesselberth
www.frogpondpottery.com
"Man is a tool-using animal....without tools he is nothing, with
tools he is all" .... Thomas Carlyle
Taylor Hendrix on mon 11 feb 08
Hey David,
Just some thoughts:
Did you know that Texas is the top US producer of wind-generated
electricity last two years running? And I love passing by the nuclear
power plant on my drive up the coast to Texas City. The face of
commercial energy in Texas is slowly changing though I do believe your
characterization of it will be true for a long time to come. Still, in
some respects these are encouraging signs, yes?
I kind of like the notion that burning wood releases the same quantity
of carbon as the tree stored during its lifetime. These days, that's
going to be environmental carbon from our or our parent's lifetime I
would think. Hey, how many wood fire folks plant saplings to reinvest
in their craft, I wonder.
Taylor, in windy Rockport, TX
On 2/10/08, David Hendley wrote:
> Hi Lili, I have to take issue with the last paragraph of your
> message. I have nothing to say about elitism, or using what
> tools you have, but your comments imply that electric kilns
> are inexpensive and environmentally friendly:
...
Lee on mon 11 feb 08
On Feb 11, 2008 1:18 PM, John Britt wrote:
> David,
>
> Correct me if I am wrong here but ...you write:
>
> "This is certainly not true. Electric kilns produce more greenhouse
> gasses than gas-fired kilns, and they are more expensive to fire.
> Add the fact that most electric kilns have walls about 3" thick
> and most gas or wood kilns have 9" thick walls, and the efficiency
> of fuel kilns and extravagance of electric kilns is magnified."
Depends on the source of the electricity. If you are in the
pacific NW, and it is Hyrdo, it is almost zero carbon.
I saw a comparison on the cost of firing at a Japanese
web page using Babel Fish to translate.
They said fuel oil was the cheapest, but dirtiest, Electric is
cleanest but middle cost, gas is most expensive and middle carbon.
Of course, this is all at higher Japanese energy prices.
One of the diritest parts (net carbon-wise) of firing
with wood is operating the gasoline chainsaw. Small engines like
chainsaws and gasoline powered lawn mowers are much dirtier than car
engines. I use an electric chainsaw and electric circular saw to cut
my wood for my kiln.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
"Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the
tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know."
--Sen No Rikyu
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
John Hesselberth on tue 12 feb 08
On Feb 12, 2008, at 1:37 AM, David Hendley wrote:
> I like using wood, a local renewable resource, as fuel
> because at least I am not helping to deplete our diminishing
> and ever more expensive oil supplies.
David, your use of waste wood which would probably be burned
otherwise is probably one of the most environmentally sound ways of
firing of any of us. My hat is off to you. But let me expand on a
couple points I made hopefully to give better understanding of some
of the issues.
On the question of insulation, thinner can be better than thicker for
short cycling up and down. For a continuous kiln that is kept at
temperature for long periods of time, generally the more insulation
the better. The heat required to heat that kiln and make that
insulation is "amortized" over a long period of time. But that is not
the way we fire. For "up and down" situations the heat required to
heat up the insulating fire bricks can exceed that which would be
lost through thinner insulations. This was a classic heat transfer
test or homework problem when I was in school. The problem was
usually phrased to calculate the optimum insulation thickness for a
given situation. Sneakier professors would phrase it in a way that if
you didn't include the heat required to heat the insulating material
you got the wrong answer. Are we within that range where thinner is
better--I don't know. I just know that the possibility needs to be
included if one wants to objectively compare kiln types. If we were
firing up and down in an hour I am almost certain we would be. If we
were firing for a couple weeks or longer I doubt we would be. In
between--I haven't a clue. I am only saying it might happen.
To expand on the difference between fuel firing in a kiln and
electrical firing in a kiln, let me offer this. Electrical firing
results in heat transfer primarily by radiation of heat from the
elements. In a closed box that heat bounces around (uh oh, Ivor will
slaughter me for playing loose with the words here, but such is life)
until it is absorbed by the pots, shelves, or kiln body. That part of
the process for electrical firing is very efficient--the losses are
upstream primarily in transmission.
For a fuel fired kiln the primary means of heat transfer is
convection. Convection efficiency depends on "delta T", the
difference in temperature between the heat source and that which is
being heated. Flame temperatures are hard to measure and predict, but
my 50 year old handbook says that the experimentally determined flame
temperature for propane/air maxes out at about 3500F if combustion is
perfect. For methane or natural gas it is about 100F lower. Let me
use 3000F for a typical flame temperature in a kiln operated without
precision controls. When the kiln is just started (100F) you have a
delta T of 2900F and heat transfer is very efficient. Not 100%
efficient, but very efficient. When the kiln has reach 2300F the
delta T has dropped to 700F--less than 25% of the efficiency that was
achieved at 100F. So the efficiency of heat transfer has dropped from
"very high" to 25% of very high. The very high number is similar to
what is achieved in home heating also. But when a fuel fired kiln
approaches peak temperature the efficiency of heat transfer is very
low--probably lower than that of electrical power when generating and
transmission losses are included.
Now I have been talking only semi-quantitatively. If i had to guess,
I would guess that fuel and electrically fired kilns are a wash when
it comes to environmental impact, but who knows??
And it is mainly of intellectual interest anyway. When livestock and
transportation are the biggies on greenhouse gases, that is where our
attention should be focused. We are tiny contributors to the problem.
Regards,
John
(who is surprised that no one called him on including pigs as
ruminants in my last message. They are not, but they are still big
contributors to the livestock problem because their conversion of
food to meat is low. Greenhouse-gas-wise, fish and poultry are the
meats of choice. Cattle, sheep, goats, bison, deer, and giraffes are
bad. Pigs are in between. I bet you really wanted to know that.)
John Hesselberth
www.frogpondpottery.com
"Man is a tool-using animal....without tools he is nothing, with
tools he is all" .... Thomas Carlyle
David Hendley on tue 12 feb 08
Hey Fred, you didn't read all of my "pronouncement". To wit:
>
> I do think that there are special situations, in places where
> electricity is generated with hydro-power, for instance, where
> an electric kiln could be a eco-friendly choice, but this would be the
> exception, as almost all of our electricity comes from coal, gas, or oil.
>
Electricity produced with hydro-power is a tiny percentage
of our total electric use. See
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html
U.S. Electric Power Industry Net Generation, 2006
coal 49%
natural gas 20%
nuclear 19%
other oil-based 2%
hydro 7%
other renewable 2.4%
If you fire an electric kiln, the odds are you are actually causing
coal to be burned.
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
david(at)farmpots(dot)com
http://www.farmpots.com
----- Original Message -----
> David's pronouncement that an electric kiln produces more greenhouse gases
> than a gas fired kiln is just not correct. (Sorry, David). There is much
> more to it than that. For instance, what about electric kilns fired with
> hydroelectric, wind or some other alternate energy sources? (I grew up in
> the Tennessee Valley during a time when virtually all of our electricity
> came from hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee River.) Even with coal
> fired generation, in this day of advanced emission controls at the power
> generation plants I believe the actual science might not bear out this
> claim comparing electric and gas firings.
Mark Issenberg on tue 12 feb 08
Fred ,,what do you know about fusion?
Mark
**************The year's hottest artists on the red carpet at the Grammy
Awards. Go to AOL Music.
(http://music.aol.com/grammys?NCID=aolcmp00300000002565)
Fred Parker on tue 12 feb 08
Hey John and David: I almost managed to keep out of this one but, alas,
y'all have dragged me right down into it... Now, I ain't no expert here;
but I am a skeptic with enough exposure to science to be dangerous, so
here goes:
David's pronouncement that an electric kiln produces more greenhouse gases
than a gas fired kiln is just not correct. (Sorry, David). There is much
more to it than that. For instance, what about electric kilns fired with
hydroelectric, wind or some other alternate energy sources? (I grew up in
the Tennessee Valley during a time when virtually all of our electricity
came from hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee River.) Even with coal
fired generation, in this day of advanced emission controls at the power
generation plants I believe the actual science might not bear out this
claim comparing electric and gas firings.
Also, the basic unit for comparing electric kilns and gas kilns is not
a "firing," but a "BTU" or unit of heat. An electric kiln with 3" walls
that fires for 12 hours will consume a different quantity of heat (BTU's)
than a same-sized gas kiln with 9" walls that fires for 18 hours. I don't
own a gas kiln, so I'm guessing here regarding firing times. I do know
that the 9" walls will suck up a lotta heat long before any pot's glaze
melts. Although the exterior is not as hot as that of a thinner electric,
all that heat still gets dumped into the world at large -- only slower.
It could be that under some circumstances a hot-to-the-touch electric uses
less energy than a cool-to-the-touch gas kiln of the same volume for
a "firing."
Consider the degree of combustion control most potters have over their gas
kiln's firings, which is at best pretty primitive. From what I have seen,
some potters have expensive O2 sensors but many do not. Most seem to fire
by the seats of their pants, judging visual flame length shooting out of a
peep to determine kiln atmosphere. Everybody knows that much CO2 is
generated from burning methane or propane completely in an oxidizing
atmosphere. In reduction, there is much CO generated, but much of that
picks up O2 as soon as it hits air and then it becomes CO2, which is
a "greenhouse gas."
It is a thermodynamic myth that a cool-to-the-touch kiln exterior
automatically means that kiln uses less energy for a firing than a hot-to-
the-touch kiln. With enough insulation it is possible to build a kiln
that wouldn't warm perceptably when fired. However, all that means is you
have provided so much mass that the heat is unable to move through all of
it in the time it takes to fire the load. It doesn't mean you don't have
to put a helluvalota heat into it -- and ALL of that heat will eventually
flake off into the atmosphere as waste energy during cooling. For such a
high-mass kiln you should be aware that you still have to raise the
interior temperature (including parts of those extra-thick walls) to cone
10 or whatever you want. This can take a HUGE amount of energy, which is
why many gas kilns use multiple huge burners to dump in all of the heat
needed to raise the mass of the kiln, along with the mass of the load, to
the desired level.
So, as for most ideas in potting, there usually are many answers.
Fred Parker
On Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:18:07 -0500, John Britt wrote:
>David,
>
>Correct me if I am wrong here but ...you write:
>
>"This is certainly not true. Electric kilns produce more greenhouse
>gasses than gas-fired kilns, and they are more expensive to fire.
>Add the fact that most electric kilns have walls about 3" thick
>and most gas or wood kilns have 9" thick walls, and the efficiency
>of fuel kilns and extravagance of electric kilns is magnified."
>
>I am not going to get into which is better - electric or wood, but the
>fact that electric kilns have 3" walls of IFB vs. the 9" of Hard Brick in
>a wood kiln is not helping your argument. It takes a lot of BTU's to heat
>up hard brick so you would be using a lot more fuel, hence greenhouse
>gases, than the electric kiln heating up 3 inches of IFB. And the IFB
>would be a better insulator.
>
>But I could be wrong?
>
>John Britt
>
>__________________________________________________________________________
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Lee on tue 12 feb 08
On Feb 12, 2008 9:03 AM, John Britt wrote:
> David,
>
> I thought you were talking about wood kilns in general, but I guess you
> were talking about your wood kiln specifically. Most wood kilns that I
> have seen are hard brick although and some have IFB on the outside. Not
> too many are all IFB, at least in my experience.
My woodkiln kiln is lined with super duty IFB. The arch is the same
with a blanket of fiber insulation on top. The fireboxes are
hardbrick as is the exterior and floor. I burn 400kgs of wood to
hit cone 12\13 in 16 to 18 hours. It can fire much faster, but then
you would have to glaze everything and it would look like a gas
firing.
I met Harry, Japanese-American retiree, about 6 years ago when he
visited Mashiko and my studio with a group. He has a softbrick car
anagama. He fires it for 5 days to a week, closing up at night and
then starting stoking in the morning where the temp is still around
1600*F I is a an efficient way to fire a kiln for many days,
but get to a normal sleep and not have to have a large crew to fire.
See photos here:
http://www.harrynakamoto.com/id11.html
--
Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
"Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the
tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know."
--Sen No Rikyu
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
David Hendley on tue 12 feb 08
I agree with John H - I don't know of any reliable data that
compares different kilns in terms of energy use, gasses
emitted, etc. And, there are so many variables, I don't see
how studies, if they were done, could be generalized to cover
the many varieties and variations of kilns.
Using common sense, however, I don't see how it can be
argued that thinner insulation can be more efficient than
thicker insulation. All you have to do is pull out a IFB spy
brick at cone 10 and you will see that it is bright red on
one end, maybe a couple of hundred degrees 3 inches in,
and absolutely cool to the touch 6 inches from the hot face.
No energy is being used to heat the outside half of a 9"
thick IFB kiln because the bricks are not hot on the outside.
The outside of my wood kiln is warmer the day after a firing
than when energy is being used during the firing. In contrast,
my electric kiln, with 3" thick walls and top spends all day
heating the ambient air when it is firing. It is too hot to touch
when the interior is under a thousand degrees and it can heat
my studio on a cold day with just bisque temperatures!
People on Clayart have documented the energy savings
they achieved by adding more insulation to their electric
kilns.
Common sense also tells me that, indeed, heating living
spaces and kilns are pretty different jobs, but they not
totally unrelated. An electric kiln element is just a heating
element that is left on for a long time and enclosed in a
small insulated box, and the burner on a gas furnace looks
pretty much like a small kiln burner.
Just as I'm sure there are principles that are the same for
a jet engine as for a moped engine, the laws of combustion
and electrical resistance are constant.
In the meantime, what's potter to do? I don't know, but as
others have mentioned, pottery kilns are not significant
sources of pollution. There are probably other things in
your life that you could change that would have a much
greater impact than how you fire your work. A potter flying
from California to NCECA in Pittsburg and back could
possibly be responsible for creating more greenhouse
gasses than her kiln would contribute in a year of firings?
I like using wood, a local renewable resource, as fuel
because at least I am not helping to deplete our diminishing
and ever more expensive oil supplies.
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
david(at)farmpots(dot)com
http://www.farmpots.com
Lee on tue 12 feb 08
On Feb 12, 2008 5:43 AM, Taylor Hendrix wrote:
> electricity last two years running? And I love passing by the nuclear
> power plant on my drive up the coast to Texas City.
This is the dirtiest fuel on the planet. We need an Apollo
project to develop clean nuclear fusion. When I go up North to St.
Cloud or New London, I always get the Willies when I go by the nuclear
electricity plants.
>
> I kind of like the notion that burning wood releases the same quantity
> of carbon as the tree stored during its lifetime.
Actually, you leave 2/3rds the carbon a tree captures in the woods
in the form of roots, leaves, twigs, etc.
If you raise trees on a tree lot for fuel, you are taking
twice as much carbon out of the air as what you will put in burning
the wood from that lot.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
"Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the
tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know."
--Sen No Rikyu
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
James and Sherron Bowen on wed 13 feb 08
John said:"who is surprised that no one called him on including pigs as
ruminants in my last message. They are not, but they are still big
contributors to the livestock problem because their conversion of food to
meat is low. Greenhouse-gas-wise, fish and poultry are the meats of choice.
Cattle, sheep, goats, bison, deer, and giraffes are bad. Pigs are in
between. I bet you really wanted to know that."
I think bad is a relative term when used to compare livestock production
since each type of animal culture has many varieties. Sheep can be raised
and adequately fattened by grazing them on appropriate crops or they can be
fattened in a feedlot environment. They can be very efficient converters of
fed, possibly as low as 3:1. Good suffolks can attain weights per day of age
of one pound meaning they can be slaughtered at ninety to one hundred twenty
days with a single ewe raising triplets, commonly. Cattle are generally
assumed to convert somewhere between 8:1 and 10:1 but that depends on the
quality of the feed stuff. Certainly there is a market for cattle raised
entirely on pasture and food processing by products. Some forms of
aquaculture are very polluting and dangerous to native fish stocks, for
example Atlantic Salmon farming on the Pacific coast. Chickens can attain
rates of gain approaching 1:1 but that is pretty much in factory farm
situations. I think the real problems in livestock production are in the
concentrations of animals in large operations. Economics of scale also
produces huge concentrations of pollutants.
JB
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Hesselberth"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2008 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: Clay mythology --- electric kilns vs. gas and wood
vpitelka on wed 13 feb 08
John Hesselberth wrote:
"On the question of insulation, thinner can be better than thicker for
short cycling up and down. For a continuous kiln that is kept at
temperature for long periods of time, generally the more insulation
the better. The heat required to heat that kiln and make that
insulation is "amortized" over a long period of time. But that is not
the way we fire. For "up and down" situations the heat required to
heat up the insulating fire bricks can exceed that which would be
lost through thinner insulations. This was a classic heat transfer
test or homework problem when I was in school."
John -
I expect that you could do the calculations to prove the above, but I am
having a hard time wrapping myself around it. If you have the same density
of insulation brick in both situations, then an equivalent amount of heat
will penetrate 2.5" of thickness (assuming a 2.5" wall on the electric kiln)
in the same amount of time. In the case of the electric kiln, the energy
that passes beyond that point will heat up the metal kiln jacket and then
dissipate into the air outside the kiln. Anyone who runs a kiln in a closed
room with a downdraft vent system knows that a LOT of heat is dissipated
into the atmosphere during the latter part of a midrange firing.
But with the thicker wall, the heat that penetrates 2.5"is absorbed as it
slowly penetrates further into the wall, whether it is 4.5" thick or 9"
thick, and everything I know about IFB and heat absorption tells me that the
amount absorbed beyond 2.5" is going to diminish rapidly as it penetrates
further. I think of the amount of heat radiated by a standard toploader
electric during the significant portion of the firing when it is basically
acting as a radiant heater for the space around it, and I cannot believe
that the IFB past 2.5" into the wall from the hotface is going to absorb a
fraction of that heat.
Here's a little tidbit that might serve as positive proof. Some of the
electric kilns with 2.5" walls claim to be able to reach cone 9 or 10, but
it is always a struggle to get them to do that, especially when they have
some age on them. The exact same kiln, with the same heating elements, but
with 4" of the same IFB will reach cone 9 or 19 easily, because so much more
heat is being confined within the firing chamber. The truth of this
situation is what inspired so many kiln manufacturers to start making kilns
with thicker walls.
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft
Tennessee Tech University
vpitelka@dtccom.net; wpitelka@tntech.edu
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka
Dannon Rhudy on wed 13 feb 08
John said:
<<<> ruminants.... they are still big
> contributors to the livestock problem because their conversion of
> food to meat is low. Greenhouse-gas-wise, fish and poultry are the
> meats of choice. Cattle, sheep, goats, bison, deer, ......
I actually DID want to know that. After a fashion. I
take particular interest in deer, as they are a prime nuisance
here, destroying new trees, gardens, etc. So - guess they
ought to be harvested. Or culled. Or something. Can
only eat so much, though. The herd is way out of hand, and
even though there are coyotes everywhere, they seldom
take deer. Sometimes some of the soup kitchens are glad
to get venison, so - have to see what the options are.
Thanks, John.
regards
Dannon Rhudy
Eva Gallagher on thu 14 feb 08
Hi Lee,
Just to clarify - fusion involves heavy hydrogen (deuterium - one neutron -
H-2) and heavy, heavy hydrogen (tritium - two neutrons - H3). H3 is
radioactive and is a gas. Much more difficult to handle than soid ceramic
fuel and it very quite biologically active as you can imagine - how many
hydrogen atoms do we have in the body? Biological half life of tritium is
somewhere of the order of a few weeks. The joke among nuclear workers for
getting an slight overexposure to tritium is to drink a lot of beer - flush
out that hydrogen containing water. (Regular fission nuclear plants release
small amounts of tritium.)
Remember the nuclear fuel used today is actually a ceramic - apart from some
gaseous fission products (most of which will have decayed in a few hundred
years) most of the fuel (as most ceramics) is very insoluble. So long as it
is isolated, it is by far least likely of any toxic wastes to enter the
environment. Radioactive materials are very easy to detect - at extremely
low levels so we can always easily detect them if there is a problem and
correct it - unlike non radioactive ones - for which you have to do tests -
take water samples, etc.
How long do arsenic wastes remain toxic? Forever. Any toxic material will
not be a problem as long as it does not move into the environment and the
nuclear industry is the only industry that has come up with a permanent
solution to the wastes. Deep burial in areas where there is very little
ground water. Then even if the ground water does move in after a few hundred
years, the wastes are very insoluble and the short lived gaseous products
will have decayed to non-radioactive ones, so will not be problem.
Eva Gallagher
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 6:45 PM
Subject: Re: Clay mythology --- electric kilns vs. gas and wood
On Feb 13, 2008 8:20 AM, Mark Issenberg wrote:
> Fred ,,what do you know about fusion?
>
I couldn't see that anybody mentioned fusion but myself.
Japan and France were competing for the International fusion power
program called ITER. It is made up of European Union, Japan, the
People´s Republic of China, India, the Republic of Korea, the Russian
Federation and the USA. France won out and the research center is
being built in the south of France..
http://www.iter.org/
Fusion is what fuels the Sun. The process does not cause a lot of
radioactive waste material like nuclear fission does and it uses water
(Deuterium extractefd from sea water) as its fuel.
Read how it works here: http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_2.htm
As much as I hate to say it, but because we have been so
recalcitrant in dealing with global warming, we may have to depend on
fission for a short period of time, until get get things like fusion
working. But before we build a single new nulcear plant, we must
demand that the storage of waste products is dealt with first.
--
Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
"Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the
tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know."
--Sen No Rikyu
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
______________________________________________________________________________
Clayart members may send postings to: clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
You may look at the archives for the list, post messages, change your
subscription settings or unsubscribe/leave the list here:
http://www.acers.org/cic/clayart/
Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
melpots2@visi.com
Fred Parker on thu 14 feb 08
The heat discussion is well-stated, John. Made my palms get a little
sweaty from the reminder...
Fred Parker
Pfeiffer Fire Arts on thu 14 feb 08
90% of all greenhouse gas is water. 4% is CO2. Half of this is make by bugs.
CO2 is not a linear curve making for more heat trapped as the percent goes
up, has a very very slow increase after 12ppm. The question is if you fall
for this hoax is what are you doing to reduce you release of water into the
air? I think you should cut back on breathing and maybe stop taking a bath,
that should help a lot.
Dan & Laurel
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.20.5/1278 - Release Date: 2/14/2008
10:28 AM
Lee on thu 14 feb 08
On Feb 13, 2008 8:20 AM, Mark Issenberg wrote:
> Fred ,,what do you know about fusion?
>
I couldn't see that anybody mentioned fusion but myself.
Japan and France were competing for the International fusion power
program called ITER. It is made up of European Union, Japan, the
People=B4s Republic of China, India, the Republic of Korea, the Russian
Federation and the USA. France won out and the research center is
being built in the south of France..
http://www.iter.org/
Fusion is what fuels the Sun. The process does not cause a lot of
radioactive waste material like nuclear fission does and it uses water
(Deuterium extractefd from sea water) as its fuel.
Read how it works here: http://www.iter.org/a/index_nav_2.htm
As much as I hate to say it, but because we have been so
recalcitrant in dealing with global warming, we may have to depend on
fission for a short period of time, until get get things like fusion
working. But before we build a single new nulcear plant, we must
demand that the storage of waste products is dealt with first.
--=20
Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
"Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the
tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know."
--Sen No Rikyu
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on fri 15 feb 08
Hi Eva,
Fun and interesting mentions...
Enjoyed your post...
I remember the 'Duck-and-Cover' drills in 'school'...so...this is always an
inviting topic to my interests...where, while
I am only far at the back-of-the-class on this stuff, I do find it dear,
and,
enthralling...
I used to joke about how my two semi-ancient ( well, circa 1958 or so ) roof
mount 'Swamp Coolers' were
a poor man's Dee-Two-0h concentrator, and, likely, after running
a Summer, they indeed quite effeciently were, too...
I just drained them at Season's end, same as anyone of course...but at least
all those little Molecules got to have a family reunion for a while anyway,
till scatter and disperse again they would, back into the public water
supply.
Adventure-Misadventure which is properly Radiological though, poor Mr.
Slotin's foray remains among the more memorable to me,
as for the larger and enchanting Romance of the Nuclear Age -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin ( in case it is an unfamiliar
reference to anyone...)
An other of most-favorite storys, was those kids in Brazil or where-ever it
was, latter 1980s, who found the Cannister of Cesium 137 and were throwing
handfulls of it
into the air and rubbing on their bodys and Eye Lids to admire the faint
'Blue' and 'sparkley' effects...
Lead Coffins for them, and a couple hundred 55 gallon drums for all the
compacted contents of their houses, floors, carpets, clothes, Toys, drapes,
sheets, blankets, shoes, and, a few feet
worth of their front and back yards...too. Dogs and Cats and Chickens died
from drinking from yard puddles after Rains...and into the 'Drums' with them
too...
I think finaly, after being razed, several square Blocks were eventually
just encased in thick 'Concrete'.
Oh well...
Another good one -
[quote]
3 January 1961
A reactor explosion (attributed by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission source to
sabotage) at the National Reactor Testing Station in Arco, Idaho, killed one
navy technician and two army technicians, and released radioactivity
"largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy
Commission) to the reactor building. The three men were killed as they moved
fuel rods in a "routine" preparation for the reactor start-up. One
technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a
control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later.
The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be
buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were
interred in lead coffins.
[end quote]
Was this the one where the huy was distraut from his girlfriend nagging him,
so he decided to pull a few 'rods' by hand to end-it-all? I forget...
"Six days later"...
Yeeeeeeeesh...wonder if there were a lot of 'hot' buzzing Flies by then?
( from ) http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html
I imagine Mdmme Curie looks on from the 'beyond' with decided scorn and
silent smouldering
rebuke...while...
No doubt, the ghost of 'oppie' looks on approvingly, hands on his hips,
rocking back on his heels like a small town Mayor ready for his fourthofjuly
attaboy Rotary Club speech, faintly mouth-echoing his mantra, afterall, of
"I am LOTHAR! King of the Hill People!"...as kalidescopic vignettes of
Joshua Trees and flying Birds that caught
fire in the Air and folded into bubbling globs, in the Arc-Welding-like
quivvering
light-moment of that pre-dawn Desert landscape of
'tinity'...and Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and on, and on, and on, and on, and
on...and on...from there, in
one place after another...and in endless sublimations...since...
Oye...
A Legacy...
A Heritage...
The "Gift that keeps on Giving"...
Best wishes...
Phil
l v
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eva Gallagher"
> Hi Lee,
> Just to clarify - fusion involves heavy hydrogen (deuterium - one
> neutron -
> H-2) and heavy, heavy hydrogen (tritium - two neutrons - H3). H3 is
> radioactive and is a gas. Much more difficult to handle than soid ceramic
> fuel and it very quite biologically active as you can imagine - how many
> hydrogen atoms do we have in the body? Biological half life of tritium is
> somewhere of the order of a few weeks. The joke among nuclear workers for
> getting an slight overexposure to tritium is to drink a lot of beer -
> flush
> out that hydrogen containing water. (Regular fission nuclear plants
> release
> small amounts of tritium.)
> Remember the nuclear fuel used today is actually a ceramic - apart from
> some
> gaseous fission products (most of which will have decayed in a few hundred
> years) most of the fuel (as most ceramics) is very insoluble. So long as
> it
> is isolated, it is by far least likely of any toxic wastes to enter the
> environment. Radioactive materials are very easy to detect - at extremely
> low levels so we can always easily detect them if there is a problem and
> correct it - unlike non radioactive ones - for which you have to do
> ests -
> take water samples, etc.
> How long do arsenic wastes remain toxic? Forever. Any toxic material will
> not be a problem as long as it does not move into the environment and the
> nuclear industry is the only industry that has come up with a permanent
> solution to the wastes. Deep burial in areas where there is very little
> ground water. Then even if the ground water does move in after a few
> hundred
> years, the wastes are very insoluble and the short lived gaseous products
> will have decayed to non-radioactive ones, so will not be problem.
> Eva Gallagher
Lee on fri 15 feb 08
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Eva Gallagher wrote:
.
> How long do arsenic wastes remain toxic? Forever. Any toxic material will
> not be a problem as long as it does not move into the environment and the
> nuclear industry is the only industry that has come up with a permanent
> solution to the wastes.
We don't currently have an effective system of handing
wastes. Most are simply stored in pools near the reactors.
We have to keep the wastes in isolation for spans of time we
can't actually understand and spans that no know civilization has
survived. (the half life of some radiocative wastes is 100,000
years.) Now that you have helped me think of it more carefully, we
probably shouldn't have any new fission plants at all.
And the ceramic waste, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg:
".In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states that
there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as
"thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge
quantities of contaminated soil and water".[2] "
--
Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
"Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the
tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know."
--Sen No Rikyu
"Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
Edouard Bastarache Inc. on fri 15 feb 08
James,
plain common sense !!!
Gis la revido,
(A la revoyure)
Edouard Bastarache
Spertesperantisto
Sorel-Tracy
Quebec
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30058682@N00/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/potier/20321056/
http://perso.orange.fr/smart2000/livres.htm
http://www.pshcanada.com/Toxicology.htm
http://myblogsmesblogs.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: "James and Sherron Bowen"
To:
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2008 10:29 AM
Subject: Re: Clay mythology --- electric kilns vs.
gas and wood
> The simple solution regarding electrical
> generation is for each facility to
> be located as close as possible to the end
> users, and to store the waste on
> site. What we see instead is the generation
> facilities being developed a
> considerable distance from the end user (the
> prime beneficiary) and the
> energy is transported via transmission lines.
> That leads to ridiculous
> situations like we have here where coal is
> transported by train from the
> Powder River Basin in Wyoming down the front
> range of the Rockies right
> through Denver and the front range cities, who
> will be the users of the
> energy generated, then across the Eastern plains
> to the Southeastern part of
> the state hundreds of miles from the front range
> to a power plant that
> contaminates the are lakes with mercury. The
> power generated will go right
> back to the front range via high lines that
> don't even use the same right of
> way that the trains used to bring in the coal.
> This necessitates putting up
> hundreds of miles of towers that disrupts
> farming operations, and kill
> migratory waterfowl. The sensible solution it
> to generate the power (using
> coal gasification technology) at the mine in
> Wyoming and run the
> transmission lines instead of the trains down
> the front range to the cities.
> JB
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lee"
> To:
> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:01 PM
> Subject: Re: Clay mythology --- electric kilns
> vs. gas and wood
>
>
>> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Eva Gallagher
>> wrote:
>> .
>>> How long do arsenic wastes remain toxic?
>>> Forever. Any toxic material
>>> will
>>> not be a problem as long as it does not move
>>> into the environment and
>>> the
>>> nuclear industry is the only industry that
>>> has come up with a permanent
>>> solution to the wastes.
>>
>> We don't currently have an
>> effective system of handing
>> wastes. Most are simply stored in pools near
>> the reactors.
>>
>> We have to keep the wastes in isolation
>> for spans of time we
>> can't actually understand and spans that no
>> know civilization has
>> survived. (the half life of some radiocative
>> wastes is 100,000
>> years.) Now that you have helped me think
>> of it more carefully, we
>> probably shouldn't have any new fission plants
>> at all.
>>
>> And the ceramic waste, of course, is just
>> the tip of the iceberg:
>>
>> ".In the United States alone, the Department of
>> Energy states that
>> there are "millions of gallons of radioactive
>> waste" as well as
>> "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and
>> material" and also "huge
>> quantities of contaminated soil and water".[2]
>> "
>> --
>> Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
>> http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
>>
>> "Tea is nought but this: first you heat the
>> water, then you make the
>> tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all
>> you need to know."
>> --Sen No Rikyu
>> "Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
>>
>> ______________________________________________________________________________
>> Clayart members may send postings to:
>> clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>>
>> You may look at the archives for the list, post
>> messages, change your
>> subscription settings or unsubscribe/leave the
>> list here:
>> http://www.acers.org/cic/clayart/
>>
>> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may
>> be reached at
>> melpots2@visi.com
>>
>>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Clayart members may send postings to:
> clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list, post
> messages, change your
> subscription settings or unsubscribe/leave the
> list here: http://www.acers.org/cic/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be
> reached at melpots2@visi.com
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 /
> Virus Database: 269.20.5/1279 - Release Date:
> 2008-02-14 18:35
>
>
James and Sherron Bowen on fri 15 feb 08
The simple solution regarding electrical generation is for each facility to
be located as close as possible to the end users, and to store the waste on
site. What we see instead is the generation facilities being developed a
considerable distance from the end user (the prime beneficiary) and the
energy is transported via transmission lines. That leads to ridiculous
situations like we have here where coal is transported by train from the
Powder River Basin in Wyoming down the front range of the Rockies right
through Denver and the front range cities, who will be the users of the
energy generated, then across the Eastern plains to the Southeastern part of
the state hundreds of miles from the front range to a power plant that
contaminates the are lakes with mercury. The power generated will go right
back to the front range via high lines that don't even use the same right of
way that the trains used to bring in the coal. This necessitates putting up
hundreds of miles of towers that disrupts farming operations, and kill
migratory waterfowl. The sensible solution it to generate the power (using
coal gasification technology) at the mine in Wyoming and run the
transmission lines instead of the trains down the front range to the cities.
JB
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee"
To:
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:01 PM
Subject: Re: Clay mythology --- electric kilns vs. gas and wood
> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Eva Gallagher wrote:
> .
>> How long do arsenic wastes remain toxic? Forever. Any toxic material
>> will
>> not be a problem as long as it does not move into the environment and
>> the
>> nuclear industry is the only industry that has come up with a permanent
>> solution to the wastes.
>
> We don't currently have an effective system of handing
> wastes. Most are simply stored in pools near the reactors.
>
> We have to keep the wastes in isolation for spans of time we
> can't actually understand and spans that no know civilization has
> survived. (the half life of some radiocative wastes is 100,000
> years.) Now that you have helped me think of it more carefully, we
> probably shouldn't have any new fission plants at all.
>
> And the ceramic waste, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg:
>
> ".In the United States alone, the Department of Energy states that
> there are "millions of gallons of radioactive waste" as well as
> "thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel and material" and also "huge
> quantities of contaminated soil and water".[2] "
> --
> Lee in Mashiko, Tochigi Japan
> http://mashikopots.blogspot.com/
>
> "Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the
> tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know."
> --Sen No Rikyu
> "Let the beauty we love be what we do." - Rumi
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Clayart members may send postings to: clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list, post messages, change your
> subscription settings or unsubscribe/leave the list here:
> http://www.acers.org/cic/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
> melpots2@visi.com
>
>
Ivor and Olive Lewis on sat 16 feb 08
Dear Dan and Laurel Pfeiffer,
Perhaps you would like to provide references to support you statement =
"...90% of all greenhouse gas is water...."
As I understand the atmosphere, condensed water vapour in the form of =
clouds creates a reflective layer that returns IR radiation back into =
Space. If water continues to evaporate into the atmosphere the =
increasing cloud cover will cause significant cooling. The onset of an =
Ice Age or Glacial Period is just around the corner.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
South Australia.
Ivor and Olive Lewis on sat 16 feb 08
Perhaps Kilns are obsolete ! ! It would seem that precision parts are =
being manufactured from porcelain feedstock which includes Silicon =
Carbide as an ingredient by a process known as Laser Micro Sintering. =
This is described as a "Generative Freeform Fabrication Technology".
Interesting.
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
South Australia.
sandy miller on sun 17 feb 08
Hello all,
let's see if the powers that be post this one!
guess Joyce didn't like my caustic sense of humor in my last
post........ too bad.
I have not posted to clayart in a very long time as I am about done
making pots.
but on this note of Electric kilns......... I had a wonderful
conversation with Frank Tucker
last year in Louisville. The guy builds one of the best if not THE
best kiln on the market!
The guy understands energy efficiency, insulation and bought his
company back from
Shimpo; this guy has integrity. If he is in Pittsburgh, look for him!
I have a Cress with 3" brick and an L&L DaVinci (which I hate and
will be selling soon!)
neither is what I would call energy efficient. Most of the heat is
lost through the bottom
of the kiln or the top.
When I started down the road of oxidation I did what everyone did;
flip switches and walk away.
After many years of this practice I read MC6G and scratched my head.
I longed to buy a gas
kiln but started getting some great glazes out my electric. Then I
got to thinking I should be firing
that electric kiln like we fire gas kilns. Every gas kiln I ever
worked around you had to baby sit and
let's not even talk about wood-firing!
So I started to baby sit my electric kiln; soak at the top, let it
drop fast, take it back up, soak it again
and on and on...... fired some of my glazed 5 times to see what would
happen. Wow! great stuff.
Now I am in a fight to stop a coal burning mega watt plant from being
built on the Ohio River in
Meigs county, Ohio. A true disaster in the making, as if blasting
off entire mtn. tops isn't bad
enough. I am into this fight up to my eyeballs with a bunch of other
folks. I now know where
my power is coming from when I flip a switch and I just don't have
the stomach for it.
Donna is right about a nuclear and if you want a good lesson on
nuclear energy talk
to Tom Buck when you are in the clayart room at Pittsburgh this year!
and whatever happened to Lowell Baker and his sawdust injection kiln?
I cannot justify making the pots I have been making for 25 years. It
just doesn't fit into
the scheme of things anymore. Here in my neck of the woods we are
bracing for deregulation
and electric bills to triple in the next few years. Then what will
happen to the studio potters or
the lady in the basement? Who will be able to fire and how much is
that mug going to cost?
The Princess Potters will probably be fine and still pay their bills
but the potters who need to
support families and pay for health insurance will up a creek. We
are going to need to go to
single firing, in which case Dick Aernie will be a God! We will need
to go to super insulated kilns
and we are going to need to get a bit smarter with our resources.
Paul Borian is onto waste
oil firing down in Ky. and we need to hear from him.
yours in compost
Sandy Miller
Michael Wendt on sun 17 feb 08
Sandy,
It saddens me to think you would stop making
pottery.
Please read Michael Critchton's book
"State Of Fear"
Copyright 2004
Take time to really explore the references
he lists at the back and decide for yourself
if he is telling the truth.
Funny, I read it after my comments about
fear driving talc and other materials with
the potential to cause harm off the market.
Even the History Channel has gotten into
the act about energy.
A recent article about ethanol production
pointed out that 1 gallon of fossil fuel is
consumed for every 1.2 gallons of ethanol
produced and that the actual energy in the
alcohol is less than the fossil fuel it took to
produce it.
Since I don't know for sure if this is true, it
drives home a fundamental point Critchton
makes:
Policies and actions are being taken without
regard to cost:benefit analysis.
Do you like having electricity?
Then how do you propose it be made in lieu
if coal?
Regards,
Michael Wendt
Wendt Pottery
2729 Clearwater Ave.
Lewiston, Id 83501
U.S.A.
208-746-3724
wendtpot@lewiston.com
http://www.wendtpottery.com
http://UniquePorcelainDesigns.com
Sandy wrote:
I cannot justify making the pots I have been making for
25 years. It
just doesn't fit into
the scheme of things anymore. Here in my neck of the
woods we are
bracing for deregulation
and electric bills to triple in the next few years.
Then what will
happen to the studio potters or
the lady in the basement? Who will be able to fire and
how much is
that mug going to cost?
The Princess Potters will probably be fine and still
pay their bills
but the potters who need to
support families and pay for health insurance will up a
creek. We
are going to need to go to
single firing, in which case Dick Aernie will be a God!
We will need
to go to super insulated kilns
and we are going to need to get a bit smarter with our
resources.
Paul Borian is onto waste
oil firing down in Ky. and we need to hear from him.
yours in compost
Sandy Miller
Pfeiffer Fire Arts on tue 19 feb 08
Most of my numbers come from Wikipedia and a number of friends who work in
the climate field. I quick check of Wikipedia today showed a different set
of numbers but still have water as the major greenhouse gas.
Dr. Roy Spencer a local NASA climate Science type has a very good paper on
the subject of water at
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm.
You are right in that water is what keeps the planet as cool as it is. It
should be about 400 deg. without water doing its thing.
Lots of junk science out there. If you have not already found it
http://www.junkscience.com/ is very good to find out about what does not
make the news.
This is good as well:
U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global
Warming Claims in 2007
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport
I would bet on a glacial period getting here before the much hyped global
warming although we would be better off if it did get warmer. A lot more
people die from cold then overheating.
Dan & Laurel
>>>
Perhaps you would like to provide references to support you statement =
"...90% of all greenhouse gas is water...."
As I understand the atmosphere, condensed water vapour in the form of =
clouds creates a reflective layer that returns IR radiation back into =
Space. If water continues to evaporate into the atmosphere the =
increasing cloud cover will cause significant cooling. The onset of an =
Ice Age or Glacial Period is just around the corner. >>>
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10:55 AM
Ivor and Olive Lewis on thu 21 feb 08
Dear Dan & Laurel,
Thank you for your response
Had a look at some of that information. Via a different source I can =
confirm what you say about the nature of water vapour in the atmosphere. =
Greenwood and Earnshaw suggest that without water vapour, carbon dioxide =
and other natural greenhouse gases the average global temperature would =
plunge down to minus 18 deg Celsius as against the current +15 deg C.
Nothing like a Hot Water Bottle to prevent the shivers
Best regards,
Ivor Lewis.
Redhill,
South Australia.
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