Cannabis Connection
Industrial Hemp
Hemp Strengthens Levees: Prohibition
Page 17
pyrolysis facilities need to be within 50 miles of the energy crop to be cost effective, many new local and rural jobs will be created, not to mention the employment opportunities in trucking and transportation. Hemp vs. Fossil Fuels
Has Worsened Flooding By Waves Forest Dikes and levees have been used for thousands of years to protect settlements and farmlands from floodwaters. Originally, hemp was widely used on levees for reinforcement. Hemp was widely recognized as ideal for erosion control. Hemp’s roots hold the soil and rock from washing away. Water might overtop the levee, but it is rarely able to open large gaps.
Pyrolysis facilities can use the same technology used now to process fossil fuel oil and coal. Petroleum coal and oil conversion is more efficient in terms of fuel-tofeed ratio, but there are many advantages to conversion by pyrolysis.
This principle was understood and used in the early days of the American levee system. It still is followed in India and elsewhere, though many countries have caved under pressure from transnational resource monopolists, exerted through their proxies in the US government, and eliminated or greatly reduced hemp cultivation.
2) Ethanol, methanol, methane gas, and gasoline can be derived from biomass at a fraction of the cost of the current cost of oil, coal, or nuclear energy, especially when environmental costs are factored in. Each acre of hemp could yield about 1000 gallons of methanol.
Bangladesh offers a chilling example of this. The country’s name actually means “hemp land people”, but in 1964 they were coerced into halting hemp production, and it’s been downhill for their topsoil ever since. Without hemp protecting their slopes, millions of tons of topsoil have washed away and out to sea. People who’ve tried to follow the topsoil out onto the unstable deltas where it’s accumulated, basically at sea level, have been repeatedly displaced by flooding, with many lives lost, all due to the suppression of hemp. A flooded village in
Most of the Bangladesh. Floods in recent “ditch weed” years have worsened, which is likely due, in part, to the found in elimination of hemp on levees. many American floodplains spread from the hemp that originally was planted on the levees to strengthen them. In modern times buffalo grass is commonly used, but it’s a poor substitute. Willows are better, but not as effective as hemp, and they take longer to establish.
1) Biomass has a heating value of 5000-8000 BTU/lb, with virtually no ash or sulfur emissions.
Decortication with a conveyor belt and combine harvester: agricultural machines with a new function in the production of hemp bast would be part of a new economy based on hemp.
Hemp was a vital part of the original design of our flood-control system. When we are forced to leave out a crucial component of a large-scale engineering project, we might as well be building bridges out of tinfoil. In this century alone, thousands of citizens have lost farms, homes and lives to floods caused by the failure of levees with no hemp to protect them. They are yet another major group of casualties of hemp prohibition.
Hemp as a Fuel / Energy Source
Many Americans still have trouble understanding why hemp needs to be fully legalized. The leveeprotection issue is a piece of the story that they should be able to appreciate, if enough hemp activists help spread the news.
Hemp seed oil can be used as is in bio-diesel engines. Methyl esters, or bio-diesel, can be made from any oil or fat including hemp seed oil. The reaction requires the oil, an alcohol (usually methanol), and a catalyst, which produces biodiesel and small amount of glycerol or glycerin. When co-fired with 15% methanol, bio-diesel fuel produces energy less than 1/3 as pollution as petroleum diesel. Energy and Fuel from Hemp Stalks through Pyrolysis
Thanks once again to Dave Seber for bringing this to our attention. Waves Forest is a DJ on TakilmaFM.com radio and co-host of the show 'Soul Washing Sounds' 2PM to 5PM on Sunday afternoons. and a longtime Hemp advocate and activist. He lives in Josephine County, OR.
By Jeremy Briggs Hempphasis.net
3) When an energy crop is growing, it takes carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, and releases an equal amount when it is burned, creating a balanced system, unlike petroleum fuels, which only release CO2. When an energy crop like hemp is grown on a massive scale, it will initially lower the CO2 in the air, and then stabilize it at a level lower than before the planting of the energy crop. 4) Use of biomass would end acid rain, end sulfer-based smog, and reverse the greenhouse effect. Coal
Biodiesel fuel from Hemp Seed Oil
Unlike petroleum reserves, America has enough coal to last 100-300 years, but burning it for electricity puts sulfur (toxic to every membrane in which it comes in
Pyrolysis is the technique of applying high heat to biomass, or organic plants and tree matter, with little or no air. Reduced emissions from coal-fired power plants and automobiles can be accomplished by converting biomass to fuel utilizing A hemp field in Alber ta, Canada. Hemp is still not legal to grow in the U.S. and must be impor ted from other pyrolysis technology. The process hemp producing nations. Notice the hawk at the top of can produce, from lingo-cellulosic the photo. Image from gbrojges at Panoramio.com material (like the stalks of hemp), charcoal, gasoline, ethanol, noncontact, especially the simplest life forms - into the air, condensable gasses, acetic acid, acetone, methane, and which leads to acid rain, which lills 50,000 Americans, methanol. Process adjustments can be done to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol, with 95.5% fuel- and 5,000 - 10,000 Canadians, annually, and destroys the forests, river, and animals. to-feed ratios. Around 68% of the energy of the raw Charcoal can be created from biomass through biomass will be contained in the charcoal and fuel oils -pyrolysis (charcoaling), which has nearly the same renewable energy generated here at home, instead of heating value in BTU as coal, virtually without sulfur. overpaying for foreign petroleum. Pyrolysis facilities can run 3 shifts a day, and since
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