[extropy-chat] Re: peak oil debate framed from a game theorystandpoint ?

[Robert Lindauer]

Mike Lorrey wrote:

>Your chemistry book deals with converting sugar. You need to turn to
>the pages where it talks about the decay products of the starches,
>fiber, protiens, and other compounds that make up plant structure.
>

It deals with that too.

> Ever
>heard of swamp gas? It's methane.
>

People have been using refuse from sugar cane for fertilizer and feed 
for centuries.  If you process the whole plant instead of refined sugar, 
you get high grade protein feed and fertilizer suitable for replanting 
and/or pig-feed which is useful out here where Lau Lau rules.  Ever hear 
the expression "happy as a pig" - comes from the pigs eating the 
still-slightly-alcohol-infused mash-waste from a distillation process.  
Makes good tasting pigs too - good food comes from happy animals :)

> Comes from when man or nature dumps
>plant waste en masse. Now considered 12 times more greenhousey than
>CO2, and plants don't absorb it from the atmosphere like they do CO2.
>  
>

Did your mother drop you on your head or something?  Alcohol or 
biodeisel procession of plant waste renders useful byproducts such as 
fertilizer and energy, making it smart and wise to convert.  Here in 
Hawaii we in fact have a major problem with excess green-waste (stuff 
grows so fast here you gotta cut your lawn twice a week just to keep it 
below your ankles - I compost it and put it on my lawn but lots of 
people don't).  If those plants were then either composted properly 
and/or processed using a nicely bred yeast we could turn our wate 
management nightmare into an economic boon.

Robbie