Biodiesel to Make You Barf, Healthcare Gets Personal, Horton Who?, ColdFlow Biodiesel
Stafford 'Doc' Williamson
March 10, 2009
It has been an exciting week around here, indeed this has been an "interesting time" as the old Chinese curse says: I had a heart attack. And not being one to do things by half measure, it appears I had a second one as well. Not only that, but I didn't even notice them. According to the EKG strip they ran on me, it looks like these heart attacks happened 6 to 18 months ago. I received a referral to a cardiologist to investigate further the status of my cardiac health. That appointment will be in this coming week. Ah, but we are not finished yet, because the clinic, being staffed by suitably cautious and conservative folks, ordered an x-ray of my chest. Logical enough I thought. Shortness of breath had been the principal complaint among my symptoms, at least until after they ran the strip of EKG, and it made sense to see if there might be some other contributory problem, like some "left over pneumonia" (from a sudden onset case last September/October time period). The radiologist's interpretation of the x-ray has not come back but the x-ray tech let me see why she had had me take some extra "deep breaths" while taking the images. (There were digital x-rays, which was kind of cool, since I don't recall having seen that technology in person before.) The x-ray results? The official interpretation won't be back until Tuesday, but what I saw was fairly scary! The lower lobes of BOTH my lungs were so clouded that the x-ray tech initially thought they weren't there, and asked for a second shot and a bigger deep breath. There was some good news with all of that, which includes that the head of the clinic normally reviews all the x-rays before they leave the clinic to go to the radiologist and will, reportedly, remark on any that look like they require urgent attention. I haven't heard anything from her. And there was more good news, but not before another little disaster.
Literally while I am on the examination table at the doctor's office, my wife calls my cell phone to tell me she has had to take her mother to the hospital, and so far the morphine has not relieved her pain. Fortunately over the course of the last two days, they have relieved her suffering, and given antibiotics for an infection, so that although her prospects are at best guarded due to underlying conditions, at least she is currently relieved and likely to go home again in a day or two. At the age of 96 that's a very good result. Under the umbrella of Medicare, the financial consequences are not a complete disaster either.
It's been a long time since I wished I was older than I am. Time rushes by quite quickly enough, thank you. But in this case, my mother-in-law's Medicare coverage is looking mightily attractive compared to my commercial health insurance, which was costing about US$6,000/year even with a US$5,000 deductible before they shell out a nickel. (I actually checked my policy, and the one really "lucky" break of the week is that a year or so ago I revised the coverage to just $1000 deductible, which is why the premiums went over $6000 per year, but it does seem now that it was a prudent move.) Which of course, brings me to the political topic of the week, the "health care crisis."
You have probably heard it tossed around that nearly one half of all bankruptcies in the US are a direct result of massive medical bills. And you may not have heard that even among those bankruptcies two thirds of those people actually HAD health insurance of some kind but for various reasons, (claims denied, coverage exceeded, technical procedural errors, pre-existing conditions, or whatever) it was not enough to prevent their financial ruin. You almost cannot have missed the news that President Obama held a "health summit" this past week. Generally speaking the pundits and analysts are optimistic that we may get a national health care plan. The usual opposition from the insurance companies is greatly subdued this time around. They are not pleased about some provisions about having to get more competitive in offering add-on plans to supplement Medicare, although they are reportedly far from happy about the proposal to eliminate their highly profitable wrap-around plans called "Medicare Advantage" plans which, though strictly regimented by the government (there were 13 plan specifications last time I looked though that may have grown in the last 18 months) divert the primary Medicare premiums directly to the insurance companies in exchange for these extended coverage provisions. The fundamental problem with "for profit" health care insurance, whether or not it is based around Medicare, is that the company's best interest is NOT the same as the patient's best interest.
The insurance company wants to pay the least it can, and, if possible, avoid having to pay for medical procedures entirely. The beneficiaries of this approach are the shareholders of the insurance companies. The policy holder's best interest can to some extent be served by such policies in that they can hold down costs for medical insurance, which helps hold down insurance premiums, but they rapidly diverge from that "best interests" objective when it comes to things like excluding well established procedures as "experimental" even though they have been conducted safely for a decade or more. Insurance companies want the "cheapest" effective treatment. Doctors and patients want the most effective treatment that is also safe. I have always been impressed by the staff of the clinic we used when they really take the time to find the generic versions of medicine during those times when I (and often my wife) did not have medical or drug insurance coverage. Drug companies spend a great deal of money on advertising their latest and greatest products, you've seen that trend in television advertising where drug ads have replaced many of the car ads, not to mention most of those ads for beer and other forms of alcohol, and all the (long ago banned) cigarette advertising. Keeping their products not only in the minds of consumers, but to make them the fast and easy alternative for doctors to prescribe means larger shares of the market for them, but at the cost of these hugely expensive advertising campaigns. That is not a great way to contain the costs of health care.
The good news, as Karen Tummulty, of Time Magazine, one of the panelists on Washington Week on PBS said, "all the same faces" from the time in 1993 when the Clinton administration tried to get comprehensive health care reform through Congress were present in the Obama Administration "health summit", "but this time they were all in the same room." That bodes well for the hope that we might have a national health care plan at the end of this.
Present at the summit was Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, who said, "The stakeholder community is no longer organizing to say 'no,'" and she also told President Obama that, "You have our commitment to play, to contribute and to help pass health-care reform this year." That in itself is a remarkable statement if it truly reflects that organization's position. It appeared that the summit demonstrated, "insurers, drugmakers, doctors, hospitals and employers, as well as consumers, are more optimistic that a prescription can be found," to create workable, affordable national health care coverage. One of the major cost containment aspects is that uninsured people would no longer be, ending up using extraordinarily expensive emergency room care." However Karen Tumulty also warns that AHIP has proposed to take all of this, "out of the hands of Congress," and put it under the control of a commission who would then bring back a whole "take it or leave it" package on which Congress would then have to vote to implement or not. The strategy, Tumulty explained, was likely that AHIP felt that they could have more influence over a commission than over the entire Congress.
Howard Dean, or rather, Dr. Howard Dean (better known as a one-time contender for Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and as head of the Democratic Party for 4 years since then) said in an interview in The Progress Report (I'm going to use an extensive quote here)
"So what you cannot do is create some system that is going to scare people." Dean argued that free choice and competition should be the cornerstones of health reform. "The brilliance of Barack Obama's plan on the campaign trail was a) no one has to change if they like what they've got and b) if you want to, you could essentially buy into Medicare," Dean said. "I don't think we should impose a single payer on everybody, but I do think we should give Americans the choice of having one if they like it. If it works for them, that's what they´ll choose; if it doesn't work for them, they'll choose the private sector."
I rather expect that this is the kind of compromise that insurers and doctors, patients and hospitals can all live with in the long run, and that business can get behind if it can really be convinced that it will help to contain costs. This kind of national health care system could be the one key item that could restore the Detroit Big Three to something closer to viable economic health without a formal bankruptcy that will free them from the burden of excessive health care costs for both employees and retirees. Indeed Detroit automaker spokespersons are pointing to the significant cost savings that they have in being able to build a vehicle cheaper in Canada than on this side of the border in Detroit.
Really great news for the biodiesel industry is a technique that allows for greatly reduced "cloud point" temperatures! Indeed the publicity surrounding the Indiana Soybean Alliance's test of what they call "Permaflo (TM) Biodiesel" in Alaska claim that they have achieved cloud points of Celsius -55 degrees (that's -67 in Fahrenheit degrees). The Alaskan tests include both vehicles and static diesel engines, at least one of which they plan to test above the Arctic Circle. Braver (??) than I they plan to camp one night using a generator powered by their own Permaflo (TM) fuel.
The remarkable part, to me, is that it is simply a "refining" process that produces the low-temperature diesel. Professor Bernie Tao of Purdue University tells me, Ryan West of the Indiana Soybean Alliance is in charge of commercialization of this refining technology if you want to contact him. Bernie is a kind and generous fellow, and as it says in the biographical page linked above: "Bernie also has a strong interest in science education for young students and has developed K-9 hands-on science kits highlighting the use of safe, natural materials in teaching chemistry, physics and biology." Elsewhere, however, I found a generic description of the process which states that it is mainly a matter of separating the saturated from the unsaturated oil molecules. This is essentially the reverse of how they make soy oil into margarine, which is to say that the more saturated the oils become the higher temperature at which they resemble globs of butter rather than free flowing oils. That process is known as "hydrogenation" and you need to get the oil pretty close to fully saturated to have it remain in solid form. Indeed, because butter contains more saturated fats it stays "stiffer" at higher room temperatures than margarine, and is one of the reasons they started marketing "soft margarine" as a "feature" of margarine rather than a shortcoming.
Moving in the opposite direction, one wants to get rid of those saturated oils, and the process sounds fairly simple and straight forward (although not one you would want to advertising as part of your food making process, or cookie recipe), just add pure urea. Now, mind you, that's not the same as getting a bunch of your rowdy friends loaded with beer and point them at your refining vats. We are talking PURE urea here. But apparently the urea bonds to the saturated oil molecules but not to the unsaturated ones. These heavier molecules will then precipitate out, and the remaining fuel can be almost entirely unsaturated oils, and therefore survive without gelling down to those mighty chilly temperatures on a cold night in Fairbanks.
Okay, I have been neglecting my duty to report on the quality of entertainment that is available to be enjoyed (or not), so here's an update on a relatively recent release on DVD, Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!. So with that title I hardly need to gild the lily by telling you that this is a classic of children's "literature" or at least of children's books. Calling Dr. Geisel's writing "literature" or even "poetry" stretches the term somewhat. But even with the heavy adaptation of the movie version which aims (and aims well) to exploit the talents and quirks of a thoroughly quirky cast it is as delightful as the first time reading it as a child. Jim Carrey "stars" as the voice of Horton, and Steve Carell is the little "who" (the Mayor of Whoville) who hears Horton (and vice versa, of course). Seth Rogen plays the voice of the "sidekick" mouse Morton, and Carol Burnett played the Kangaroo (the "villain" of the story played with such chilling voice accuracy I swore she sounded like my step-mother, the grouchy, domineering, school teacher). For the young kids who may not have enjoyed the decades of hilarity Ms. Burnett brought into our living rooms, she was the one comedienne in television history who came close to the dominance of the airwaves that Lucille Ball did during the medium's earliest days). Mr. Rogen's part was a little "small" (pun intended) for his talents, but every one of the top-billed actors did a marvelous job, and the animators did not stint of imitating the rubbery Mr. Carrey in the depiction of Horton's elephant body. A little further down the list of voice cast were also Amy Poehler (of Saturday Night Live fame) and playing Vlad the hunchbacked, henchman vulture was Will Arnett another export from Toronto (as is Jim Carrey) who appears closely associated with Ms. Poehler and at least acquainted with Tina Fey from the pictures on his IMDB page. Arnett's Vlad was absolutely delightful amid a cast doing a consistently excellent job all around. See it soon. Buy a copy if you have young children.
A positive note to end on? Well, how about "trap grease"? Also known as "brown grease" (especially once it has lain around rotting for a few weeks) it was described to me as "worse than sewage". And why is that a "positive" note to end on? Well, my horizons have been broadened by some friends who have become frustrated with delays in the world of jatropha projects and branched out to the field of processing "trap grease", and the remarkable thing about this "product" is that it is essentially only coincidental to the potential profitability of this stuff that you may get a hefty portion of it to serve as feedstock for biodiesel. It certainly got me reading and exploring pretty quickly. And it didn't take long to discover that the Gaston County school district has begun processing the grease from their school kitchens into biodiesel where they expect to save some $125,000 a year in fuel costs. If you've ever smelled sewage or trap grease, it would be hard to imagine that either of them would produce such a sweet smell of success.
Until next time, "May your cesspool never clog."
Love and warm wishes,
Sincerely,
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
http://daochienergy.com
Literally while I am on the examination table at the doctor's office, my wife calls my cell phone to tell me she has had to take her mother to the hospital, and so far the morphine has not relieved her pain. Fortunately over the course of the last two days, they have relieved her suffering, and given antibiotics for an infection, so that although her prospects are at best guarded due to underlying conditions, at least she is currently relieved and likely to go home again in a day or two. At the age of 96 that's a very good result. Under the umbrella of Medicare, the financial consequences are not a complete disaster either.
It's been a long time since I wished I was older than I am. Time rushes by quite quickly enough, thank you. But in this case, my mother-in-law's Medicare coverage is looking mightily attractive compared to my commercial health insurance, which was costing about US$6,000/year even with a US$5,000 deductible before they shell out a nickel. (I actually checked my policy, and the one really "lucky" break of the week is that a year or so ago I revised the coverage to just $1000 deductible, which is why the premiums went over $6000 per year, but it does seem now that it was a prudent move.) Which of course, brings me to the political topic of the week, the "health care crisis."
You have probably heard it tossed around that nearly one half of all bankruptcies in the US are a direct result of massive medical bills. And you may not have heard that even among those bankruptcies two thirds of those people actually HAD health insurance of some kind but for various reasons, (claims denied, coverage exceeded, technical procedural errors, pre-existing conditions, or whatever) it was not enough to prevent their financial ruin. You almost cannot have missed the news that President Obama held a "health summit" this past week. Generally speaking the pundits and analysts are optimistic that we may get a national health care plan. The usual opposition from the insurance companies is greatly subdued this time around. They are not pleased about some provisions about having to get more competitive in offering add-on plans to supplement Medicare, although they are reportedly far from happy about the proposal to eliminate their highly profitable wrap-around plans called "Medicare Advantage" plans which, though strictly regimented by the government (there were 13 plan specifications last time I looked though that may have grown in the last 18 months) divert the primary Medicare premiums directly to the insurance companies in exchange for these extended coverage provisions. The fundamental problem with "for profit" health care insurance, whether or not it is based around Medicare, is that the company's best interest is NOT the same as the patient's best interest.
The insurance company wants to pay the least it can, and, if possible, avoid having to pay for medical procedures entirely. The beneficiaries of this approach are the shareholders of the insurance companies. The policy holder's best interest can to some extent be served by such policies in that they can hold down costs for medical insurance, which helps hold down insurance premiums, but they rapidly diverge from that "best interests" objective when it comes to things like excluding well established procedures as "experimental" even though they have been conducted safely for a decade or more. Insurance companies want the "cheapest" effective treatment. Doctors and patients want the most effective treatment that is also safe. I have always been impressed by the staff of the clinic we used when they really take the time to find the generic versions of medicine during those times when I (and often my wife) did not have medical or drug insurance coverage. Drug companies spend a great deal of money on advertising their latest and greatest products, you've seen that trend in television advertising where drug ads have replaced many of the car ads, not to mention most of those ads for beer and other forms of alcohol, and all the (long ago banned) cigarette advertising. Keeping their products not only in the minds of consumers, but to make them the fast and easy alternative for doctors to prescribe means larger shares of the market for them, but at the cost of these hugely expensive advertising campaigns. That is not a great way to contain the costs of health care.
The good news, as Karen Tummulty, of Time Magazine, one of the panelists on Washington Week on PBS said, "all the same faces" from the time in 1993 when the Clinton administration tried to get comprehensive health care reform through Congress were present in the Obama Administration "health summit", "but this time they were all in the same room." That bodes well for the hope that we might have a national health care plan at the end of this.
Present at the summit was Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, who said, "The stakeholder community is no longer organizing to say 'no,'" and she also told President Obama that, "You have our commitment to play, to contribute and to help pass health-care reform this year." That in itself is a remarkable statement if it truly reflects that organization's position. It appeared that the summit demonstrated, "insurers, drugmakers, doctors, hospitals and employers, as well as consumers, are more optimistic that a prescription can be found," to create workable, affordable national health care coverage. One of the major cost containment aspects is that uninsured people would no longer be, ending up using extraordinarily expensive emergency room care." However Karen Tumulty also warns that AHIP has proposed to take all of this, "out of the hands of Congress," and put it under the control of a commission who would then bring back a whole "take it or leave it" package on which Congress would then have to vote to implement or not. The strategy, Tumulty explained, was likely that AHIP felt that they could have more influence over a commission than over the entire Congress.
Howard Dean, or rather, Dr. Howard Dean (better known as a one-time contender for Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and as head of the Democratic Party for 4 years since then) said in an interview in The Progress Report (I'm going to use an extensive quote here)
"So what you cannot do is create some system that is going to scare people." Dean argued that free choice and competition should be the cornerstones of health reform. "The brilliance of Barack Obama's plan on the campaign trail was a) no one has to change if they like what they've got and b) if you want to, you could essentially buy into Medicare," Dean said. "I don't think we should impose a single payer on everybody, but I do think we should give Americans the choice of having one if they like it. If it works for them, that's what they´ll choose; if it doesn't work for them, they'll choose the private sector."
I rather expect that this is the kind of compromise that insurers and doctors, patients and hospitals can all live with in the long run, and that business can get behind if it can really be convinced that it will help to contain costs. This kind of national health care system could be the one key item that could restore the Detroit Big Three to something closer to viable economic health without a formal bankruptcy that will free them from the burden of excessive health care costs for both employees and retirees. Indeed Detroit automaker spokespersons are pointing to the significant cost savings that they have in being able to build a vehicle cheaper in Canada than on this side of the border in Detroit.
Really great news for the biodiesel industry is a technique that allows for greatly reduced "cloud point" temperatures! Indeed the publicity surrounding the Indiana Soybean Alliance's test of what they call "Permaflo (TM) Biodiesel" in Alaska claim that they have achieved cloud points of Celsius -55 degrees (that's -67 in Fahrenheit degrees). The Alaskan tests include both vehicles and static diesel engines, at least one of which they plan to test above the Arctic Circle. Braver (??) than I they plan to camp one night using a generator powered by their own Permaflo (TM) fuel.
The remarkable part, to me, is that it is simply a "refining" process that produces the low-temperature diesel. Professor Bernie Tao of Purdue University tells me, Ryan West of the Indiana Soybean Alliance is in charge of commercialization of this refining technology if you want to contact him. Bernie is a kind and generous fellow, and as it says in the biographical page linked above: "Bernie also has a strong interest in science education for young students and has developed K-9 hands-on science kits highlighting the use of safe, natural materials in teaching chemistry, physics and biology." Elsewhere, however, I found a generic description of the process which states that it is mainly a matter of separating the saturated from the unsaturated oil molecules. This is essentially the reverse of how they make soy oil into margarine, which is to say that the more saturated the oils become the higher temperature at which they resemble globs of butter rather than free flowing oils. That process is known as "hydrogenation" and you need to get the oil pretty close to fully saturated to have it remain in solid form. Indeed, because butter contains more saturated fats it stays "stiffer" at higher room temperatures than margarine, and is one of the reasons they started marketing "soft margarine" as a "feature" of margarine rather than a shortcoming.
Moving in the opposite direction, one wants to get rid of those saturated oils, and the process sounds fairly simple and straight forward (although not one you would want to advertising as part of your food making process, or cookie recipe), just add pure urea. Now, mind you, that's not the same as getting a bunch of your rowdy friends loaded with beer and point them at your refining vats. We are talking PURE urea here. But apparently the urea bonds to the saturated oil molecules but not to the unsaturated ones. These heavier molecules will then precipitate out, and the remaining fuel can be almost entirely unsaturated oils, and therefore survive without gelling down to those mighty chilly temperatures on a cold night in Fairbanks.
Okay, I have been neglecting my duty to report on the quality of entertainment that is available to be enjoyed (or not), so here's an update on a relatively recent release on DVD, Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!. So with that title I hardly need to gild the lily by telling you that this is a classic of children's "literature" or at least of children's books. Calling Dr. Geisel's writing "literature" or even "poetry" stretches the term somewhat. But even with the heavy adaptation of the movie version which aims (and aims well) to exploit the talents and quirks of a thoroughly quirky cast it is as delightful as the first time reading it as a child. Jim Carrey "stars" as the voice of Horton, and Steve Carell is the little "who" (the Mayor of Whoville) who hears Horton (and vice versa, of course). Seth Rogen plays the voice of the "sidekick" mouse Morton, and Carol Burnett played the Kangaroo (the "villain" of the story played with such chilling voice accuracy I swore she sounded like my step-mother, the grouchy, domineering, school teacher). For the young kids who may not have enjoyed the decades of hilarity Ms. Burnett brought into our living rooms, she was the one comedienne in television history who came close to the dominance of the airwaves that Lucille Ball did during the medium's earliest days). Mr. Rogen's part was a little "small" (pun intended) for his talents, but every one of the top-billed actors did a marvelous job, and the animators did not stint of imitating the rubbery Mr. Carrey in the depiction of Horton's elephant body. A little further down the list of voice cast were also Amy Poehler (of Saturday Night Live fame) and playing Vlad the hunchbacked, henchman vulture was Will Arnett another export from Toronto (as is Jim Carrey) who appears closely associated with Ms. Poehler and at least acquainted with Tina Fey from the pictures on his IMDB page. Arnett's Vlad was absolutely delightful amid a cast doing a consistently excellent job all around. See it soon. Buy a copy if you have young children.
A positive note to end on? Well, how about "trap grease"? Also known as "brown grease" (especially once it has lain around rotting for a few weeks) it was described to me as "worse than sewage". And why is that a "positive" note to end on? Well, my horizons have been broadened by some friends who have become frustrated with delays in the world of jatropha projects and branched out to the field of processing "trap grease", and the remarkable thing about this "product" is that it is essentially only coincidental to the potential profitability of this stuff that you may get a hefty portion of it to serve as feedstock for biodiesel. It certainly got me reading and exploring pretty quickly. And it didn't take long to discover that the Gaston County school district has begun processing the grease from their school kitchens into biodiesel where they expect to save some $125,000 a year in fuel costs. If you've ever smelled sewage or trap grease, it would be hard to imagine that either of them would produce such a sweet smell of success.
Until next time, "May your cesspool never clog."
Love and warm wishes,
Sincerely,
Stafford "Doc" Williamson
http://daochienergy.com