President promotes use of fuels made from corn, soybeans
The News Review:
- President promotes use of fuels made from corn, soybeans
- EURASIA INSIGHT ARE THE USUAL SUSPECTS RESPONSIBLE FOR UZBEKISTAN’S…
- LEGAL ALIEN: Points of order, honourable members
- Home is where the hemp is
President promotes use of fuels made from corn, soybeans
USA Today – May 16, 2005
He smelled it, smiled, then held it up to show that it was still clean. “Biodiesel burns more completely and produces less air pollution than gasoline or regular diesel,” he said later. “And every time we use home-grown biodiesel, we support American farmers. Virginia BioDiesel converts soybean oil into fuel that the company says can run in any diesel engine, straight or in a blend. Soaring prices for conventional diesel fuel, together with a federal biodiesel tax credit signed into law last year, mean that biodiesel now costs consumers about the same as petroleum diesel, said Douglas Faulkner, the plant’s managing partner. The business, which uses locally produced soybean oil, turned out its first gallon of biodiesel in March 2004. It is about to double its capacity, from 1 million gallons a year to 2 million.
EURASIA INSIGHT ARE THE USUAL SUSPECTS RESPONSIBLE FOR UZBEKISTAN’S…
EurasiaNet – May 16, 2005
Though Karimov spoke of Akromiya as though it was a well-documented organization, Uzbek officials have yet to produce hard evidence of its existence. Indeed, Uzbek officials have routinely blamed Islamic radicals for a variety of bloody events — such as the four-day uprising in Tashkent in March 2004 and the suicide bombings at the US and Israeli embassies last summer without providing proof that could substantiate claims that Uzbekistan is the target of an international terrorist conspiracy. Local observers say the violent events have home-grown roots.
LEGAL ALIEN: Points of order, honourable members
Sofia Echo – May 16, 2005
Good morning and welcome, and so as better to understand what you will see this morning, first a potted history of Bulgaria. Bulgaria is an ancient country which at one point was very much in the ascendancy, which explains the Bulgaria On Three Seas t-shirts people may try to sell you this morning. However, things changed and since those heady days it has been done over by, in order: the Byzantines, the Ottomans, the Great Powers, the Kaisers Germany, the post-World War 1 powers, some of its own home-grown useless politicians, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and, more recently, a mixed performance by a further set of homegrown, useless politicians, although thanks to some of the said politicians being passingly competent, and with much outside help, and provided it can sort out minor issues like the fact its courts system doesnt work, it will join the European Union a few months from now. We are now at the Soviet Army monument, those chaps who, you may remember, were being portrayed earlier this week by Vladimir Putin as the greatest bunch of guys who ever lived and who liberated everybody at the end of World War 2. Interesting choice of verb, that, and I for one am wondering if the folks in the Baltic states and Georgia are rustling up a collection to send Vlad a dictionary. Yes, there are some communist-era monuments around, and I am sure there are those like me who would be happy to see them sent to the same place we sent the Whites Only signs after 1994.
Home is where the hemp is
Telegraph.co.uk – May 16, 2005
It is a strong, fast-growing plant and has a tough core that can be incorporated with lime to make a malleable mess; this can be slopped between two sheets of plywood shuttering to form a low wall. Once filled, the shuttering is moved up a notch, and the process repeated to build up the wall’s height. One of the pioneers of this innovation is no less than Terry Waite, the adviser to the former Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, who used the material for a renovation project at his Suffolk home. The method was first used in this country in 1996 to renovate a guest cottage in the grounds of Waite’s home. His architect, Ralph Carpenter, had just returned from France, where he had seen hemp being used to build new houses. “Some of the beams in our house date back to 1320, and at the bottom of our short garden was a dilapidated, timber-framed building used as an animal shelter. We decided to renovate it and make it somewhere for our grandchildren to stay,” says Waite, the author of several books, who works for charities including Victim Support and Hostage UK…
“The ideal, says Clark, is to grow hemp locally, process it locally and provide the blocks locally, if possible. It has to go through a hardening process for use in buildings. East Anglia, where hemp is grown, has become a testing ground, and the Essex company Hemcore is the only large-scale processor in the UK, according to Mike Duckett, the managing director. “We are quite close to producing a prototype block,” says Duckett. “About 3,000 hectares of industrial hemp were grown in this country in the past year, under contract to us. It’s a significant operation. “The use in building materials is a new market we’re keen to promote.