[Guest]

I too have read dual purpose hemp is a compromise
Harvesting later for seeds also increases the lignen content making the fibre harder to process

I'm no plant expert but maybe this could be resolved through breeding - I have seen what the marijuana growers have done and its very impressive, they make the cannabis plant produce so many flowers it can't support its own weight!

Unless dual purpose becomes practical hemp oil probably won't be produced in vast quantities even though I can see hemp being grown in vast quantities for fibre/cellulose. Its unfortunate really

However hemp oil is very good for human consumption, ideal for people to grow in their gardens in case of food shortages
It might not taste good but it is one of the most nutritious oil's a human can eat
There are cases where people have lived for weeks on a handful of hemp seeds a day

The main commercial use I can see is the fibre and cellulose which can make paper, cloth and plastic
Unlike seed, its yield of fibre is very high, of good quality and has one of the highest cellulose contents for any plant
It also uses less water than cotton and requires less fertiliser and herbicides than other plants
Some very good reasons to grow lots of hemp

But yeah... I expect we will end up growing canola or sunflowers for bio-fuel
However, if we can perfect a duel use hemp technique we would get an extra bounty of oil along with the fibre

What do you think?

Martin

[Yavicleus]

Speaking from experience, *hemp* takes quite a few fertilizers to grow correctly. A brief look at hempbc or hightimes will tell you that. Sure, it's a weed, so it will basically grow anywhere, but to reach optimal yields, it needs as much nutrients and sunlight as it can get.

As much as I'd love to see hemp save the world, I don't see it happening.

Although, I must admit, a "Peak Hemp" scenario would be interesting.

Personally, I think it would be much cooler to run one's car off of hash oil.

:D

[Guest]

It does require fertiliser and pesticide but not as much as other plants
The leaves of hemp are high in nitrogen and if you leave them on the ground they self-fertilise to a certain extent

Hemp also has few natural pests so pesticides are not so important

Its just so easy to grow the damn stuff
The US government spends millions trying to kill all the ditchweed and they can't!

I have moved away from hemp as a bio-fuel, unless cellulose can be used to make petrol, can anyone help me on this one???

Hemp has highest cellulose content of any plant so its great for making plastic

Martin

[Guest]

Hemp for bio-diesel seems unlikely due to seed yield being a fair bit lower than canola and sunflowers

But what about cellulose: http://www.psrc.usm.edu/macrog/cell.htm

Hemp stems are 77% cellulose which I believe is the highest in the plant kingdom, and its an easy to grow crop. Surely this means we can use it for plastic? How much oil is used to make plastic I wonder

Also I know cellulose can be made into ethanol for fuel. When I looked into hemp diesel you could only get about 50 gallons per acre, thats about 1 barrel of oil. So 1 million acres would give you a million barrels PER YEAR!

But thats relying on millions of tiny seeds, what if you can use the rest of the plant??? What I would like to find out now is how many gallons of ethanol you could get per acre. Does anyone know how to work out how many kg/pounds of cellulose will get you a gallon???

Martin

[Codeman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Anonymous', '
')What I would like to find out now is how many gallons of ethanol you could get per acre

Martin

[capslock]

Check out this links page for info about biofuels.

There is a serious disconnect between growing biomass in an environment of abundant petrochemical fertilizers and growing without.

After peak oil, I think one can make more reasonable assessments about yields using the organic method, which would put a biomass crop in a three or four year rotation. You just can't remove 40 acres of pot plants off the farm year after year without serious soil depletion (or use petro fertilizers).

I think Brazil is well poised to take advantage of biofuels with their huge sugarcane/ethanol infrastructure already in place. And guess who is the world's largest grower of soybeans -- a good source of both oil and high-protein factory food?

Two crops worthwhile in more Northern climates are sugar beets and jersalem artichokes (which is high in the sugar inulin).

[BILL_THA_PHARMACIZT]

He says that somthing like 6 percent of U.S. land being used for hemp cultivation could "power" America...

just wondering.

[Agren]

6% of what US land? the total land-mass? might very well be, there's a lot of land over there...

But that statement is also meaningless, current farmland in the US is nowhere nerer 6 % of total landmass if Im correclty informed (from nationmaster.com for example) . More details please, and preferably a link to where he say it

[Devil]

According to various sources, about 19 - 25% of the land in the contiguous 48 states is arable and farmed. A large portion of this is in the wheat/corn belts and this represents an important export economy. If 1/3 - 1/4 of the arable land were converted to hemp (which is not the best oil crop, anyway), then the US balance of payments would suffer, even if considered that less crude oil would be imported (a bbl of food is more valuable than a bbl of oil!).

Without having seen the doc, or even heard of the author, I suggest that he may be smoking the stuff!

Another factor to consider is that crude oil consists of a mixture of different fractions, which are easily cracked to provide a product mix about equal to the demand. Vegetable oils from a single species consist essentially of a few molecules, largely isomeric and refining them to a similar product mix would not be very easy and certainly much more costly. Just heating them will create some polymerisation, especially hemp and linseed oils, which are used in paints and varnishes as "drying oils" for this very reason. This happens even at ambient temperature, albeit more slowly. This forms what is technically described as crud. It would be much better to use oils which do not polymerise readily.

[Agren]

problems with the zeros it seems, that's what happens when I'm trying to do things in a hurry
ok, around 20% seems to be the figure for arable land in the US.

So, if someone can show that the use of 6% of that land (ie. about 1% of the arable land) would give enough fuel it might be interesting. If it's 6% of the total land it's probably meaningless (as you say). I find it hard to belive the 6% of the arable land figure

[BILL_THA_PHARMACIZT]

Actually , my badd .. I Expletive deleted. up. the other night I printed out a bunch of articles about hemp .. and I got this one: link confused with some jack herer Expleive deleted..
anyway....feel free to read it... im just curious regarding peoples responses. also, the author of the article doesn't say arable land ... they say "contiguous". anyway, still ..it can't hurt to read. peace

[BILL_THA_PHARMACIZT]

btw I didn't type the word "doo doo" I typed the word Expleive deleted. jack herer isn't doo doo...

[big_rc]

Bill,

This hemp idea is not bad. I doubt it would perform as wonderfully as oil but like the article said hemp grows very well in marginal places unsuited for food production. Anybody have any EROEI numbers on hemp/biomass? It probably won't be able to "replace" oil and gas but I like the thought of everyone raising hemp in the big suburban backyards. Post more hemp info if you have it and let's flush this idea out a bit further.

[Devil]

I read your link, which seems to be a smokescreen for growing it for other purposes. The real problem is that one cannabis sativa plant looks very much the same as another. You would inevitably find that a 10 hectare field of hemp would have a square in the middle, growing the much more profitable varieties and no one could tell the difference.

I didn't follow the details, so what I say may not be exact, but commercial hemp growing was permitted a few years ago in the Canton of Valais, Switzerland, on condition that the varieties used were low in THC (?sp). Exactly what I described above happened and all hell broke loose. Other cantons were closely following the evolution and, as a result, have passed even more stringent laws forbidding cannibiculture. I think quite a few farmers saw bars at their window, apart from having their fields destroyed with weedkiller.

[The_Virginian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou would inevitably find that a 10 hectare field of hemp would have a square in the middle, growing the much more profitable varieties and no one could tell the difference.

[Devil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('The_Virginian', '
')The question should be put, are we willing to soften laws on ALL types of Canibis in order to help aleviate some of the peak oils effects?

[Guest]

no offense.. but who givesa Expleive deleted. if people grow weed to smoke it.... decriminalize it and it won't be such a big deal where people are sneaking around like little kids that stole a cookie from the cookie jar....

[Thomas]

Dear All,

It is an interesting debate you have here - however, I strongly suggest that you all read one book, which will really open your eyes:

'The Emperor wears no clothes'.

It tell the incredilbe story about the history of hemp and about lots of uses of this "best of all" plant.

Believe me, once you have read this book - all facts are proven - you might get the feeling that we must change this world immediately - we could solve most of our environmetal and poverty problems within a few years.

One fact: Enough oil could be produced to satisfy the need of petrol and diesel in the US, If hemp was grown on 6% of the US land.

- quote -

http://www.sensiseeds.com/ml/shop.asp?M ... PluNr=5050

The first big picture book on the most useful plant of our planet: Cannabis. More than 200 colour pictures from history and present. On hemp as a resource, medicine and stimulant.
More than half a century attention focused on hemp only because of the intoxicating effects of its blossoms and any other aspect of the plant was almost completely ignored. This book will try to put the whole plant back into the picture, its multiple uses, its long history and most of all its return as one of the planets most useful resources. It will show the cycle of its growth on the fields, the people and machines working with hemp and the wide variety of products coming out of this.
Mathias Broeckers co-authored the German edition of Jack Herers milestone-book on Cannabis: 'The Emperor wears no clothes'.

'Raising general awareness about the limitless aspects of the cannabis plant is a cause that is of interest to all. Besides contributing toward this process, Cannabis is also a beautiful reference book that will look good on any reading table.' - Sensi Seeds

This book is written in 4 languages, please click here for a description of the contents in German, English, Spanish or French.

Author: Mathias Broeckers
224 pages, hardcover.

- unquote -

Pls. read it and write your comments on this page. It made me almost cry out loud.

Regards
Tom

[DevilHouse]

If you're all up in arms about finding a viable plant based diesel, the proverbial "they" are very, very close to perfecting a 100% soy based diesel that could be a very plausible substitute. Energy efficiency matters I'm not certain of, but from what I've heard it'd be possible to use the excess of heat plants as fuel to produce it. Perhaps someone else has more details on it.

[Sololeum]

G'Day from Oz,

Guys - you have a good level of energy in the debate. Just a couple of points I'd like to make.

There are two ultimates to consider.
1. Yield - oil - biodiesel is far more efficient than ethanol due to the engine
and
2. Energy Profit Ratio.

First Yield..
Canola or Rape or Mustard yield almost a ton of oil on good country per hectare. The US only uses 20% diesel in its fleet but with the fleet size that is a considerable 4 to 5 million barrels per day.
We'll say that is 182 million barrersl each year or over 200,000 megalitres.
at 1000 litres per hectare is 200 million hectares or over 20% of your land area. I don't know what your arable is but the figure required would be around half or more!

Now EPR.
Depending on the reports ethanol is either an energy loss or a slight energy profit. Most say it has an EPR of 2. 1 barrel in and get two back.
Biodiesel is better - say 3 or 4. Still not really good.

If you go to a tree crop you can get an EPR of around 20 - that is why the CSIRO here is working on planted forests to supply methanol.
I am promoting an a cultivar of an Australian Native I have identified that gives a yield of 4 to five tons per hectare and not on good arable country - on grazing country! I do not have an accurate assessment of its EPR but it is better than methanol!!

Tree crops are essential as they preserve soils and have a lower energy requirement than annual cropping.

If there are any boffins out there who do EPR Calcs leave a message and I will get back to you. Similarly we are looking for a sophisticated investor or two to help fund the ramping up of vegetatively propagated stock so we can supply a million seedlings per annum.
Eventually we will supply the Gulf States and South America.

The important thing is to have diesel for agriculture and transport - It may be hard but people will get over the shock of not being able to drive tractors (SUV'S) and have to take public transport. It is a little more difficult to get over not eating!

You can forget about the Moon for energy, hydrogen and other scams - they just cost too much energy. The best nuclear has an EPR of 2 and that is over 30 years!!! the average are still in deficit!!

It is not about money it is about energy and trees are the best way to capture the energy from the sun!

In Vi Et Silva