And I have felt like crap much of the week, fighting a cold or flu. That and my 'dear esposa' overstepped her bounds by taking our house off the market and telling our realtor we were done with trying to sell it. All without consulting with me first.

So she has been in the doghouse big time, adding to the lovely week I've been having.

But then I was browsing Athol Kay's site and stumbled upon this video:

This is a cute li'l French pop singer named Alizee. Watching this video, I thought, "Dayng, but she reminds me a *lot* of my wife!"

So I googled up a bunch of pictures of her and,


--------------------------
Very late update: I've been recently hit with a deluge of Google Image drive by's, looking for Alizee images to wank to. So the images have come down. Sorry boys, you'll have to shoot your pud elsewhere...

Labels: women

Ok, I've been searching for this bad boy for weeks! Finally found it. It was not cross-posted in my resources blog, nor could I locate it under the "resources" tag on this blog. I finally used the site search at the top of the page to track it. Desert Cat's Paradise

This is stuff that has to go in my FAQ with a bit more writeup.

I didn't get too far on the 120v solar circuits. I bought most of the materials for the branch circuits, but I knew I was going to be short of some of the required conduit fittings. The box is up with the circuit breakers installed, but that's as far as I got, besides making a list of conduit materials to bring for next weekend. There's only three breakers--one 30A main and two 20A branch breakers. Remember the inverter is only capable of 3500 watts total, or about 29 amps. So it doesn't really make sense to run more separate circuits. Each circuit will supply outlets along one side of the house. I will plug whatever is appropriate into those outlets and leave the rest on grid power for now. I did cut the opening for one outlet (to be located inside the solar thermal tower), but didn't get as far as setting the box and running wiring to it.

The reason why the electric project stalled is that my "flaky half" decided she would come out for just one day this weekend (after firmly committing to come out here for the weekend, she only finally showed up Saturday afternoon). So I switched gears back to princess bathroom remodeling.

But first, I installed a small window AC (salvaged from the Tucson house) into the adjacent bedroom. Last weekend I had large floor fans trying to blow cooled air into this room and it just wasn't keeping up with the humidity so high. This little AC probably uses no more electricity than the big floor fan did.

We had a little discussion wherein her demands for the bathroom nearly derailed the project entirely. She "hates" the garden tub. One of my very few requirements when we bought this house was that it *must* have a large master bath with a garden tub. She wanted a large walk-in shower there instead, and anything less was going to render the entire project "not worth doing".

Well, that thar is what y'call an Impasse!

We seem to have settled on the fact that a large "step-in" shower and garden tub combination would be acceptable to both of us. (Which is what I thought in the first place when I proposed it...)

Daisycat peeled off the rest of the wallpaper and taped some of the remaining joints, while I finished the solar tower vent framing and installed sheetrock and corner bead on the window wells.

Then we got the first coat of plaster on most of the joints before she decided it was time to go home. Strangely I seem to have lost motivation to continue after her departure...


I've got some junk to rearrange so that I can shut off a cooling unit in a storage shed that's using electricity that I could be saving.

Labels: home projects, San Pedro homestead

On the topic of alpha/beta balance in LTRs:

to whatever self be true, part 3: the formula � hempstead village renaissance
As a starting point/rough outline, there is some worth pondering here.

Update: erp, that was part three. Here is part two and part one

Labels: game, women

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

see also Mechanical Boyfriends

Labels: cats, felicity and jocularity, women

Typical married, domesticated lion before "game":


Same lion (same lioness) after learning "game":

"Yeah BABY!!"

Labels: felicity and jocularity, women

I was stood-up this weekend for the expected help on the "princess palace" project. Unfortunately I had purchased materials for this project and not for my other high priority projects, so I had little choice but to continue this project this weekend. Unless I wanted to suffer in the outdoor steam bath. Which I did not.

Sheetrock and corner bead were installed on the former doorway opening, and a beam was installed to hold the sliding door track. I ordered the track and hardware online before I got started, to assure that what I built would be correct for the hardware that I would get. For Daisycat's information, I spent nearly $100 just on door hardware. I haven't even shopped for the actual doors yet. I think I should be getting reimbursed for some of the stuff that is "special request" by the special princess. She wants a shower where the garden tub is too. This is a major undertaking, given that there is no such thing as an octagonal shower surround. Custom tile and custom shower door fabrication is the only route I can envision.




Since the exit vent for the solar thermal tower will be behind the south medicine cabinet, I got a start on framing in the vent. Again I had to purchase the vent I need to assure that I was constructing something of the correct dimensions. There'd be nothing worse than estimating things only to discover I need to order something different because the one I thought I would get is no longer in stock.


Next weekend I will be returning to my long-neglected solar electric installation. All of the solar panel, charge controller, batteries and inverter equipment is installed and functional, but I have not yet wired up any circuits to start *using* the electricity being generated. My shopping list includes some of the material I need for that purpose, starting with the 120v side (because it's easier and cheaper). The 12v/24v side requires a couple of pricier specialty items as well as some custom electrical box fabrication (to make it code compliant--the battery load balancer needs to have it's fins exposed for cooling, but the terminals need to be protected for safety).

Saturday, sunset and a thunderstorm collaborated to put on a beautiful show:


Orange rain and orange rainbow:








Purple rain, purple ray-i-in!

Labels: San Pedro homestead

Linked at Vox's place, it is worth re-linking:
The American Spectator : America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution

This tells it like it is.

Labels: fascism on parade, liberal stupidity, politics, society and culture, statism

Tisha B'Av starts tomorrow evening at sunset. Sunset in Jerusalem is at approximately 8:15 PM (10:15 AM Arizona Time)

Update: With nothing of note occurring yesterday/today related to the ENPI or the Temple Mount, it may be safe to say with 90% certainty that the ENPI is not the 70th week. One item remains for that last 10% and that is the outcome of Israel's mid-term review under the ENPI. If there is nothing major in this report, then we are looking for a different 7-year period.

Labels: watching the skies

Check out the rate of fire this guy gets with his semi-automatic Saiga 12!


No, that is not an automatic weapon!

I met another of my neighbors at the gate this afternoon and we got around eventually to discussing the state of the world, firearms, mutual defense and whatnot. I told him a Saiga 12 is top on my list of "next firearms purchases". I cannot imagine anything more (legally) effective against a band of Mutant Zombie Bikers than a nonstop spray of 00 buckshot from this weapon, outfitted with a 20 rd MD Arms drum.

It is definitely kept low key and one-on-one, but I can gather from my conversations that those of us living down here definitely have the capacity to put the hurt on a group of MZB's. There are semi-annual get togethers of the people on the river here and I've been invited to attend the next one. It is my priority to continue to make acquaintance with the rest of the people I'll be defending with.

Actually I'm thrilled that even just my immediate neighbors are almost all right-wing, survival-oriented gun nuts like me. I could hardly have planned it any better if I'd tried. This particular neighbor has been busy with his own garden this spring. The reason I met him is that some cattle had broken through the fence and eaten his garden. He was hollering and chasing them and shooting his pistol at the ground to drive them away, and I came out to the gate to see what the samhill was going on.

Yes, thank you Lord for leading me to the right place!

Update: This guy does it also. 20 rounds in 3.5 seconds. That's a little over 5 rounds per second! Who needs an automatic weapon when you can have a Saiga 12 semi for a fraction of the price?

Labels: firearms, personal responsibility, preparedness

Unlike most, he is willing to pull back the curtain and point out the little man at the controls.

Struggling and Faltering to Manage Economic Recovery | International Forecaster Weekly | Bob Chapman | The International Forecaster

. This additional problem will bring on the double dip that
Wall Street and Washington so fear. As a result of this and other failures we are about to experience the worst economic collapse since 1348. The stock market is topping out readying itself for its most disastrous fall in history. The fall will be followed by years of depression, all of which has been deliberately created to bring the world economically and financially to its knees in an attempt to bring about world government by Illuminists.

1348 would have been the economic collapse caused by the Black Plague...

S'okay. There is a fate for the Harlot, stored up and ready to go.

Come out of her my people, lest you share in her plagues.

Labels: conspiracies, financial ponderings, watching the skies

...whether American oligarchs want it or not.
Suiting Up for a Post-Dollar World

Those of you who snort at Ron Paul's policy prescriptions will eventually be forced to eat your words.

Labels: financial ponderings

No, not Mexico. This is that slurpy, swirly sound the bathtub makes when it's draining, and is the sound of M3 continuing to contract:
US Money Supply Plunges At 1930's Pace And Housing Index Dives

Just a refresher course: deflation is a reduction in the supply of money and may or may not result in lower prices for specific goods. In fact if it causes businesses to fail, the reduction in supply of a particular product will likely cause the price of that product to rise.

The real effect where actual price reductions will occur is where credit is required for the purchase, such as houses, new cars, etc. There is scant credit available for these purposes and so prices continue to slide in the face of few buyers with cash or a sufficiently sterling credit rating to meet the new astronomical underwriting requirements.

Housing has not bottomed yet because commercial real estate has yet to crash as it must. Until all the bad CRE loans are flushed out, credit will continue to be largely unavailable for consumers and small business.

Meanwhile the banksters continue to suck the equity markets dry with their high frequency trading programs.

Labels: financial ponderings

I've been neglecting my readers here I see. Been too immersed in the comments at Vox's site lately. In the past I have typically avoided the comments section, as the usual cast of characters and the predictable trolls (atheists, feminists, science fetishists, Apple fanboys and whoever else whose cage Vox had recently rattled) bored me with their antics. Lately I've jumped in the fray on a couple of topics, most recently locking horns with one John Quincy Public regarding Vox's assertion that certain Game principles are applicable to a Christian man's self-improvement and the improvement of his long-term relationships. Never have I seen so many red herrings, mischaracterizations, false equivalencies, faulty logic and outright sophistry flung by one individual. There seems to be a frantic desperation to the rhetorical constructs he's been deploying--not up to his usual flawless logic. But he is an extremely intelligent individual nonetheless (almost on a par with me?) and substantially more practiced at this sort of thing than I, and so going toe to toe with him has been bracing, to be sure.

Nevertheless I intend to catch up on some of my doom and gloom reading to keep you all refreshed on the state of our demise over the next couple days.

Labels: blogospheric navel-gazing

Derbyshire seems to have caught on...

Bugger! I would have loved to have been wrong.

Oh, and just a reminder for the record, my analogy combined the best of automotive and aerodynamic analogies: with the short bus already over the cliff and tumbling lazily through the sky--while the "special" people onboard mash their faces against the window going "WHEE!!", I've got my parachute (such as it is) strapped on and am standing at the edge of the emergency exit...

Labels: financial ponderings, society and culture, watching the skies

For those of you still following these things, there is one last opportunity for Herb Peter's interpretation of the times and seasons to be proved valid. Tisha B'Av falls on July 20 this year, 2010. The reason that this is significant is that from July 20, 2010 to December 31, 2013 is 1260 days. Herb surmised that the European Neighborhood Policy may be the "confirmed covenant" that was to be in effect for the final "week" (7-year period) of Daniel. The confirmed ENP took effect January 1, 2007 and will end on December 31, 2013. The mid point of this "week" (3.5 years) is the time set in Daniel 9:27 for the "abomination that causes desolation" to be set up.

Revelation 13:5 counts 1260 days (42 Jewish months--30 days each--3.5 years) for the reign of the Beast. 42 months is the length of time that the Gentiles will trample the holy city and the outer court of the temple, and 1260 days is the length of the ministry of the two witnesses (Revelation 11:2-3). 1260 days is also the length of time that the Woman of Revelation 12 is protected by God in the wilderness.

Tisha B' Av (9th of Av) is the day that many calamities have befallen the Jewish people throughout history.

To me, it is a rather large and noteworthy coincidence that this date should correspond this year in such a manner with the end of the current ENP period. Watch for major events in Israel and the Middle East on this date.

If not, then this period is almost certainly invalid. It may remain to be seen if the ENP is strengthened and confirmed for another 7 year period, and who the players are at that time. For a background into what I am blathering on about, check the link on the right sidebar to the book "Recommendation 666".

Labels: watching the skies

Ok, no shirking this week. Progress pics are up.

From last week, here is the stump we dug out of the future millet bed.

No further progress on this project this week. Too damn hot/humid to even consider.

Last week I noted that I replanted some bare spots in a couple beds where the beans failed to germinate.


Here is the same bed this week. Success! So it was probably a depth of bury issue. These areas got more soil over them than others for some reason.


Elsewhere in the garden, I have one bean cover crop bed flourishing like mad:

This one did not have the same amount of soil disturbance during the septic system installation as many of the others did. So there is more quality native topsoil to start with here.

I have failed to get a new cover crop of beans into the wheat field as I intended. I have also failed to get three of the garden beds turned over for a summer bean cover crop. I am pushing against heat exhaustion any time I spend more than a couple hours outdoors this time of year. This weekend was abysmal. The temperatures were only in the 90's, but the humidity was way up to Houston levels. The monsoon season is here in force. Today there were thunderstorms all around us, and standing still in the shade was enough to cause a downpour of sweat to begin. So I am going to have to accept my failings in the garden for now, and pick up where I left off come September.

The same goes for the solar thermal towers. There's simply no way I can tolerate the heat working on them at all past 10 AM. And that's hardly worth getting started on for that limitation. I am just not an early riser enough to be able to take advantage of relatively cooler temperatures in the early morning.

For now, the workshop chaos will probably remain chaotic, as my time out there will be limited also. However when Daisycat is not here and other projects are not calling, I must stay on this task for my sanity's sake, as well as the goal of having everything where it is supposed to be.


Friday's and Saturday's efforts were driven by the impending foreclosure sale. Friday I went to the Tucson house and loaded a large potted plant, a couple smaller plants and a bunch of pottery that remained in the yard. I also purchased a pond liner to house the goldfish that still live in the backyard in Tucson. Installing that pond liner was...painful. I hauled a large floor fan out there to help cool me off, but it was still brutal. I dug where I had previously been permitting a trickle of water from the well to create a puddle. There was a dense matrix of roots beneath this puddle, as well as some hard packed clay beneath and adjacent to the puddle.

This is just a start--enough to receive the goldfish next weekend. I will be landscaping around it more at a later date. The logs are to help the turtle out of the water if she falls in again. Right after installing and filling the pond Saturday I came back to find a box turtle splashing, sputtering and struggling to get out. The slick plastic sides make it impossible and she would have likely eventually drowned. She can grip the logs and climb out on her own now. During construction I also disturbed one of the giant toads that always make their appearance down here at the start of the rainy season. He lurched away, but is doubtless lurking nearby, pleased to see a deeper body of water for his enjoyment.

Here are the cabinets I hauled from the Tucson house last weekend. The wall cabinets are now taking up a bunch of counter space, while the large freestanding cabinet is sitting close to it's final location. That large cabinet will house some of my short-term food storage when I get it set up properly.


More chaos, more projects.

So-o...what am I doing now that outdoor projects have become nearly impossible do work on past noon? Why I'm starting on *yet another* project, of course!

Recall I told Daisycat I would work on her priorities if she is willing to come out here and work with me on them? So late yesterday and this morning we got started on the interior remodel of the far west end of the house--the west bathroom.

Linen cabinets were removed:


Medicine cabinets taken down:


All the batten strip trim was removed in preparation for tape and texturing, and millions of little nails pulled or driven flat to make way for plastering efforts.

After she left I started pulling off the existing wallpaper. I would have left it except it is a vinyl wallpaper that will be resistant to paint and plaster adhering properly.


The sink countertops have been given the stinkeye too. They will probably be replaced.


So how many irons can a man have in the fire before he abandons all hope?

Labels: San Pedro homestead

Coffee, hardtack, parched corn, and pemmican, according to this article:
The Frontier Diet: The Proven High Speed, Low Drag Travel Foods, by Hambone - SurvivalBlog.com

I need to go through my B.O.B. and repack it for storage in my Mitsubishi. It is high on my list (next weekend?), but right now it is still in the wrong vehicle. When I do, I may consider replacing expired foodstuffs with some of these items.

Labels: preparedness

Yeah I have some. I was up to my ears in bulk breakfast cooking Monday night right up until bedtime, so I never uploaded them as I usually do at the end of the weekend (or extended weekend).

Not that there was major progress in any case. It was partly a weekend consumed by minutiae. I hauled some large cabinets and modular shelving out of the Tucson house Friday, ahead of the foreclosure sale date coming up. By early afternoon I was completely woofed from the heat. The later part of the afternoon was just housecleaning ahead of a Daisycat visit. I did get some of the bare patches in the garden beds replanted.

Daisycat fed turtles part of the day Saturday. Much of the rest of the day was consumed by repairing/reconstructing a defective pulley on her gas bike. I had her standing by to fetch me tools and look on lovingly while I worked (my sole requirement for compensation). Sunday morning we dug out the stump in the future millet beds and began the process of leveling the area for a flood irrigation experiment.

I've been reading a book from the turn of the century about dryland farming, and I intend to combine the millet growing experiment with these farming techniques. If they are applicable to the Sonoran Desert (and I suspect they are, as the Tohono O'Odham use a variant on this method), then I've got a great way to ramp up future small-scale farming efforts without a huge investment in irrigation infrastructure.

The theory is, with a deep soil it is possible to store an entire growing season's worth of moisture in the top several feet of soil. Planting grains and other species that are capable of deep root growth together with the use of "dust mulch" techniques on the surface, will allow a crop to mature from a single massive watering at the start of the season.

In practice, this will require the construction of shallow, level basins that can be flooded for a couple days from the well output after being seeded into the dry soil. In areas of somewhat greater rainfall, there are other techniques to store natural rainfall in the soil for later crop use with a fallowing rotation, but that is not applicable to my area. Another alternative that is applicable here is the capture and retention of floodwaters. That's what the O'Odham do, and I've been mulling how to employ these techniques on my parcel for some time now.

In many ways, this is the opposite of the biointensive methods that Momcat is using for her vegetable garden and that I am developing in my garden. But each technique has it's place. Grain and legume crops can be grown using more land extensive methods such as these dryland techniques, while vegetables are more suited to intensive beds. I have enough space to do both.

Daisycat still thinks I'm spending too much effort on essentials such as food production and alternative heating/cooling/electric/hot water systems rather than fluff like palace building, but at this point that's her problem and not mine. If she's willing to pitch in, I'm ready to drop my other work to do interior redecorating with her.

I am nearly at the point of giving up on doing the radiant heating floor at this time. I do have the option of later installing the heat pipes from underneath at the same time as I replace the underbelly insulation, so it would not be a matter of giving up on radiant heat entirely--just a means to expedite other work. It will still require a second subflooring layer (OSB most likely), and perhaps still a cement board underlayment before tiling.

I am still committed to ceramic tile, as I don't consider any of the "wood" flooring products that are within financial reach to be sufficently durable. Sure a real hardwood floor might be nice, but is *way* cost-prohibitive. I grew up on hardwood floors, but back in the day they weren't so ridiculously out of reach. We are both in agreement that carpet is out--hate it!

Think about it--you are essentially laying down a rag that, for about 5 to 10 years or so will serve to soak up all of the filth that falls on it. Vacuuming never removes it all and neither does steam cleaning, because when you finally pull it up to replace it, you see all of the disgusting allergens underneath the pad that have accumulated over the years. Bleagh!!

Labels: San Pedro homestead

"Ooh! Hi dere! My name's Tigger--that's T-I-double-Guh-Er, and that's Me!"

"I know...you've bounced me lots and lots of times..."

"Yeah, hoo hoo! Fun, ain't it?"

Maybe I'll nickname Daisycat "Pooh-Bear" ;)

boing...boing...boing...boing...boing...boing...


wait...wait...*shh*, I can hear her response........
"try NOT to, ji-m'LOO-is!"

Labels: earworm, morning mood

"Preparedness--where to begin?"

Many people who become aware of the seriousness of our economic situation and the potential for widespread social breakdown, look into various preparedness and survival guides and become immediately overwhelmed at the scope of what could go into a full-scale survival retreat. Unfortunately the response of all too many to this overwhelming task is to tuck their head back into their shell and try hard to forget what they know is true.

This is bad, for obvious reasons, and because even a little bit of preparation is better than none. Where to begin and how to prioritize are the challenge. In this guide I hope to sort out some basics and point you in the right direction.

The first objection I hear from some folks is that they have no money to get started preparing, so what's the use? This is not a valid objection unless you are a homeless guy living under the bridge. Backwoods Home Magazine had an excellent article a while back on how to get the ball rolling on pocket change:
Start your food storage on $10 a week
Very few people cannot manage this amount, and those that cannot may find that switching to these basic staples for their regular meals may free up enough cash each week to start putting away an equal amount. If you don't know where to start, then go, read that article, make your shopping list and go buy the first week's worth.

Now, gather up water containers of various sorts. These do not have to be expensive specially-made water storage containers--empty, rinsed soda bottles make an acceptable alternative. Five gallon HDPE camping water containers are great, if you can afford a few. Fill these with clean tap water, enough so that each person in your family has one gallon per person per day, for seven days (7 gallons per person). Add a few drops of plain chlorine bleach (*not* the stuff with scent or suds) to each container to help keep it fresh. Store these in the back of a closet together with your food. Check the containers every few months or so to make sure the water hasn't started getting stale smelling or growing any bacteria. Dump and refresh, adding chlorine as before if so.

Congratulations! You are now ahead of 3/4 (or more) of the population of this country!

Now keep doing the shopping noted at that article until you have about three months worth of food stored up. Be sure you start eating this food, rotating the oldest out first. You will find that your food bill will go down (and your waistline may also) by eating these basics instead of pre-packaged, ready to eat, loaded with sugars, simple carbs, additives, etc. junk. Do not go beyond about 6 months worth of this kind of stored food. Many of these foods are not meant for storage in the long run, and storing and rotating these foods can become burdensome. What you need next are foods (and storage methods) meant for longer term storage.

During this time you can increase your water storage as well. Water storage is somewhat problematic in that the volumes required make months worth of water storage impractical. You might reasonably get a month of water per person stored up (30 gallons), but beyond that you need to think about ways to gather and purify water supplies that may be available to you. Do you have lakes, streams, springs, runoff from roofs into rain barrels, etc. available? What would it take to make this water drinkable? A little research should lead you to some reasonable water collection and purification methods. A sediment filter, a charcoal filter to remove many impurities, and perhaps a permeable membrane to remove remaining impurities and pathogens, should be sufficient for all but the most contaminated water. There are such outfits for sale, albeit not that cheap. A solar water still is another option, and one can be cobbled together out of minimal materials in a crunch. The simplest one consists of a plastic sheet suspended over a shallow pit into which contaminated water is poured. A clean container is set in the pit at the center of the plastic sheet (the sheet can be weighted down at that point with a small stone. The sun will evaporate the contaminated water, which will condense on the plastic sheet and trickle down, dripping off the sheet at the low point in the center to collect in the clean container. A plastic tube can be inserted under the sheet and into the clean container to serve as a straw, and the clean water can be sipped through the tube. It may take several small pits constructed in this manner to supply enough water per person, but in a crunch, plastic sheeting is cheap and tin cans (for water collection) are free.

If you get this far, congratulations! You are ahead of 99.5% of the population!

Next up: storing foods for the long term and preparation for deeper catastrophes (to be continued in a separate post).

Labels: preparedness

I was digging through my archives for some preparedness material for Doom, and I stumbled upon this post from three years ago:

Conversation

Desert Cat: "Am I a Tigger? Or more like Hobbes?"


Daisy Cat: "You're more like Fleshy, I think."



(This is so cruel it's hilarious.)

--------------
Update:

Uh oh...EARWORM!!!!



Too many broken hearts have fallen in the river
Too many lonely souls have drifted out to sea,
You lay your bets and then you pay the price
The things we do for love, the things we do for love

Communication is the problem to the answer
You've got her number and your hand is on the phone
The weather's turned and all the lines are down
The things we do for love, the things we do for love

Like walking in the rain and the snow
When there's nowhere to go
And you're feelin' like a part of you is dying
And you're looking for the answer in her eyes
You think you're gonna break up
Then she says she wants to make up

Ooh, you made me love you
Ooh, you've got a way
Ooh, you had me crawling up the wall

Like walking in the rain and the snow
When there's nowhere to go
And you're feelin' like a part of you is dying
And you're looking for the answer in her eyes
You think you're gonna break up
Then she says she wants to make up

Ooh, you made me love you
Ooh, you've got a way
Ooh, you had me crawling up the wall

A compromise would surely help the situation
Agree to disagree but disagree to part
When after all it's just a compromise of
The things we do for love, the things we do for love

Labels: felicity and jocularity, women

You thought it was dead and gone years ago.

It lives on: Hamster Dance

Labels: art appreciation, blogospheric navel-gazing, earworm, felicity and jocularity

The real thing.

Didn't this used to be something of a "Holy Grail"--something on the order of turning lead into gold? Where are the blazing headlines? Why is this tucked into the back of an obscure industry publication?
Frog’s foam fashions fuel (Photonics Spectra | Jun 2010 | GreenLight)

The researchers now say that they have fashioned an artificial photosynthetic material that can convert solar energy and carbon dioxide into sugars with an efficiency rate approaching 96 percent.

Ninety-six freaking percent efficiency! This where traditional methods of growing and processing crops for biofuel production is as low as five percent efficient! And it is supposed to be scalable to commercial-level production.

Labels: nature, omg teh SCIENCE111