Laundry: how times have changed

As I folded the fourth load of laundry today of six loads, I pondered how laundry has changed over time from a energy-consuming chore to a time-consuming chore.

I put a load of similar laundry in the washer, drop bit of detergent in, twist a couple dials, flip a switch, and walk away.  When the washer beeps and I am good and ready, I come down, move the laundry from one machine to another, put in a drier sheet, twist a couple of dials, and push a button.  If I am so inclined, I will start another load in the washer.

After less than an hour, the clothes in the drier are ready for folding.  After putting those clothes in a basket, I’ll repeat some of the previous steps.  I’ll bring the dry clothes upstairs, fold them, and put them away.

Today I have six loads, including washing my chain saw chaps.  It’s only a bit more work than going downstairs for another snack.

When we were first married, it was a slightly different story.  We only had a wringer-washer.  After each load was washed and rinsed in the tub, we had to put each piece of clothing through the wringer.  (We was generally my wife and only occasionally me.)  Then we had to hang everything on a line in the back yard or in the basement.

But even that work was a “piece of cake” compared to what many, almost always women, suffered in the nineteenth century and even now.  In “Mina Drömmars Staden” (“City of my dreams”) by Wilhelm Möberg, one of the protagonists did laundry out on the ice.  I vaguely remember that she died doing laundry for others; if not died, it severely impacted her health.

Imagine taking every piece of clothing, getting it wet, soaping it up, beating it on a rock or the ice, rinsing it multiple times, and then finding a place to get it dry.  All on a subsistence wage, if that.

Unfortunately, there are still women all over the world that have to clean their families clothes this way.

I don’t think we should “count our blessings” as much we should appreciate that our complaints of how tough we have it are petty compared to others in other places and in other times.

Let’s Stop It with Global Warming Denial

The blogosphere is filled with nitpicking about NASA’s supposedly only 38 percent certainty about 2014 being the warmest year for recorded data.  Does it really matter if 2014 was the warmest year in recent history or the third warmest year? The trend is still up even though there may be slightly cooler years or there may be cooler spots that had been warmer.

Think of your house in winter.  Assume it is a five-room house with a basement. Assume you have no central heating and your only heat is from electric space heaters.

If you turn on one space heater in one room, you will feel warmer by the heater and colder as you move away from it.  Suppose you turn on a space heater in every room.  Each room will warm up near the space heater and be cooler away from the space heater.  If you are on the opposite side of the room, there is no room-heating!  And if you go to the basement, you have proven that there is no household warming!

What happens if you put a space heater in every corner of each room and in every corner of the basement?  You will have a very warm house, maybe an unbearably hot house.

So what happens if you have a few steam-powered factories?  Not much.  What happens if you add hundreds and thousands of steam-powered factories.  Well, the areas around these factories may be a bit warmer, but few will notice until they go into the factories.

What happens if you have a few steam-powered trains?  Not much, just like with the factories.

What happens if you have a few thousand gasoline-powered cars?  Not much.  But if you take lots of measurements, you will find that the temperatures are rising slightly around the areas where these factories, trains, and cars operate.

What happens when there are hundreds of thousands of factories and trains and millions of cars?  Where is all the heat from these going to go?  Magically back into the ground where the fuel came from?

Add to this that these factories, trains, and cars generate carbon dioxide.  Since the Earth takes in energy as ultra-violet radiation and sends out energy as infra-red radiation, you would think there would be some stability in energy.  But carbon dioxide (and other gasses) block infra-red radiation.  The more carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere, the more heat will be retained on earth.  The more generators of carbon dioxide we have, the more carbon dioxide we will have dumped into the atmosphere.

Let’s go back to our household heaters.  Nowadays, we use electric heaters.  Any carbon dioxide that results from our use is generated outside the house.  But what if our heaters are fireplaces and wood stoves?  The carbon dioxide is being generated inside our house.  If we are not careful, we could suffocate ourselves.  To make sure we have enough oxygen, we have to have leaky windows and doors or some controlled source of oxygen.

A simple thought experiment shows that we are definitely putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  For millennia, people cooked their food and warmed themselves with wood fires.  The wood provided the carbon for fuel and the trees absorbed the carbon dioxide to grow more wood.  This is a virtual cycle: what gets used for one purpose is recycled to produce more of the original substance.

Then people discovered coal in the ground.  This burned better than wood and was never rotten or damp.  For millennia, the techniques for extracting coal were too inefficient to provide world-wide use.

As the world population grew and agriculture spread, more trees were cleared for buildings and farms.  This meant less wood was available for fuel and alternatives were needed.  Extracting coal became more efficient.

However, its use wasn’t always efficient.  Many fireplaces and factories didn’t burn coal efficiently and much soot was dumped into the air.  This resulted in dirty laundry and more cases of pulmonary diseases.  As late as the 1940s, steam locomotives would spew cinders and other pollutants as they rumbled by.  At the time, we lived right next to the tracks in an otherwise nice neighborhood.  We would have to brush our hair after a train passed.

Coal and other fossil fuels are inefficient for another reason.  They ain’t making them anymore!  We have drained the swamps where critters large and small drowned and slowly broke down into coal and oil.  We have also “drained” the easy access to oil and coal.  Now we blow up mountains to get coal and pound the heck out of the underlying rock formations to get oil and gas.  The first has ruined towns and rivers.  The second is causing minor earthquakes.

Both of these operations remove thousands of trees and other vegetation that would absorb carbon dioxide.  Add to that we want larger and larger parking lots, wider and wider highways, and larger and larger buildings.  We will need more oil for these and will take away more of the carbon sink vegetation.  This is a vicious cycle; things only get worse.

Meanwhile we have more and more carbon being burned and many people making lots and lots of money producing carbon fuels.  To understand the denial of global warming, follow the money.  As Adam Smith wrote in his “Wealth of Nations”, those who live by profit are not to be trusted.

You can find more thoughts like this at my blog: http://magree.blogspot.com.

I give thanks for trees

I give thanks most recently for the two aspen that fell down a couple of years ago right next to a path.  One had been stuck at a forty-five degree angle in another tree, but I managed to cut it last year so the remainder was lying parallel to the ground.  This past weekend my wife and I went to cut them up into fireplace lengths.

These were nine inches and greater in diameter.  It would be much quicker to cut them up with a chain saw than with a draw saw or a bow saw.  With reason, my wife doesn’t want me to use a chain saw without adult supervision.

First step is to put on chaps.  The chaps are meant to snarl up a chain saw if it comes in contact with my legs.  Next step is to put on a hard hat with ear muffs and a face guard.  Next step is to fill the chain saw with bar oil and 50:1 gas/oil mix.  Final step is to get it started before heading to the woods.

My chain saw is labelled Easy2Start and it sort of is.  One trick is not to yank on the starter rope but pull it slowly.  Even then it can take a number of pulls in colder weather before it really starts.  Oh yes, there are a couple of important steps before trying to start a chain saw.  One, make sure the chain guard is on.  Two, make sure the chain brake is set.

Finally, the engine keeps running!  I give the trigger a few pulls to keep it running and then turn the engine off.  What?  Turn it off?  Well, I started it by a tool shed and I will be cutting several hundred feet away.  No point in carrying a running saw either in my hands or in a toboggan.

We also put in a timberjack, lopping shears, and draw saws.  Oh, yeah, don’t forget a water bottle.  We don’t carry extra gas or oil because we’ll probably run out of energy before the chain saw runs out of gas.

Actually, it was time for a coffee break before we even filled a toboggan with one layer of rounds.  A round is a short length of a log, for our purposes around fourteen inches long.  But, oh, those rounds!  They were, dry, free of bark and decay, and just the right diameter to put in our fireplace.

After coffee, the timberjack came into play.  One tree had snapped about two feet above the ground, but not completely.  I cut it at the break, and the tree was now laying on the ground.  Not good for a chain saw.  To get the tree above ground to cut without cutting rocks or bending my back too far, I used the timberjack to raise the tree several inches of the ground.  You can see a picture of a timberjack at www.drpower.com under the woodcutting category.

The chain saw ran out of gas just about the time I ran out of gas.  Time for lunch!

We filled up the longer toboggan with two layers of rounds and a few in the smaller toboggan with all the tools.  You can guess who got to pull the longer toboggan.  Even lightly-loaded toboggans have a mind of their own.  When the path turns, they want to go straight.  If the snow is a lot higher than the beaten path, a toboggan can tip as you try to get it back in the path.  Fortunately, the snow was only about three inches higher than the path and no mishaps occurred.

After lunch it was time to split our harvest.  Once upon a time, I split wood with a five-pound splitting maul.  But my aim became worse and worse.  First hit, smack in the middle.  Second hit, one inch too far to the left.  Third hit, one inch too far to the right.  Maybe after ten hits I would have a round split in two.

I did buy a hydraulic manual splitter some years ago.  If the rounds are long enough and cold enough, it works quite well with one hand.  There are only two problems.  One is getting it in and out of the wood shed.  I can still manage to lift it without dropping it on my feet.  The second is to remember to close the oil valve after opening it to let the rammer return.  Many have been the times I’ve wondered why the rammer isn’t splitting the wood.  Then, blink goes the proverbial light bulb and with a few twists of my wrist, the splitter works again.

After a short chocolate break,  I had all the rounds split in halves or quarters, and my wife had it stacked in the wood shed or boxed to take back to Duluth.  Probably to those who depend on wood heat daily, we just played around.  My guess is that we cut and split almost half a fireplace cord.  A fireplace cord is eight-feet long, four-feet high stack of sixteen inch pieces.  That could heat our cabin for possibly three week-ends.

Then it was back to Duluth, light a fire in the fireplace, drink wine, and read newspapers on our iPads.  But we had no undraped window to look out at living trees.

You can find more of Mel’s whimsy at magree.blogspot.com.

This was published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, 2014-11-27 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/11/27/4415_i_give_thanks_for_trees.

If regulation is bad for business, then…

Why are so many breweries opening in Duluth and elsewhere in Minnesota?  See "Canoe give me a Bent Paddle".  Alcohol production and sale is very highly regulated.  Why are so many other small businesses opening, if they don't compete with giant corporations?  See "Big corporations hinder little corporations".

This blog entry was inspired by an interview with Niall Ferguson about his book "The Great Degeneration".  The interview was by Lauren Lyster "The Daily Ticker" and entitled "The 1.8 Trillion Tax You've Never Heard Of".  This huge tax is the supposed cost of all the government regulations.  Among other indicators for increased regulations is the increased number of pages in the Federal Regulations.

The premise is if we only cut back on regulations then we'll free up businesses to be more productive.  What Ferguson doesn't say is less regulation pushes costs off on everybody else.  Yep, if businesses were free to pollute they would be more productive and their prices would go down (or would it be the CEOs salary would go way up).  But if they were free to pollute what would our costs be in health?  If they were free of regulations in construction then rents would be less (or CEO salary…).  But if they were free of construction regulations how many of us would die when their buildings collapsed or caught fire?  Triangle Shirtwaist Factory anyone?  Bangladesh garment factory?  Salvation Army building collapse?

Regulations have increased not because government is eager to have more control.  Regulations have increased because we live in an ever increasingly complex and compact society.  Regulations increase because we understand more about the harmful effects of many activities and substances on ourselves.  Lead in gasoline was seen as beneficial because it reduced engine knock.  But then lead was seen as harmful to growing brains.  Factories could dump whatever pollutants into nearby streams and lakes, but then people realized that the pollution was killing fish and costing cities more to clean up the water for drinking.

A counter to Niall Ferguson's position can be found at "Niall Ferguson Cites Flawed Evidence to Stoke Regulation Fears", Albert Kleine, Media Matters for America.

This article cites an Office of Management and Budget report of the costs and benefits.  Two of my selections from this report follow.

"The estimated annual benefits of major Federal regulations reviewed by OMB from October 1, 2001, to September 30, 2011, for which agencies estimated and monetized both benefits and costs, are in the aggregate between $141 billion and $691 billion, while the estimated annual costs are in the aggregate between $42.4 billion and $66.3 billion. These ranges are reported in 2001 dollars and reflect uncertainty in the benefits and costs of each rule at the time that it was evaluated."
"It is important to emphasize that the large estimated benefits of EPA rules are mostly attributable to the reduction in public exposure to a single air pollutant: fine particulate matter. Of the EPA’s 19 air rules, the rule with the highest estimated benefit is the Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule, issued in 2007, with benefits ranging from $19 billion to $167 billion per year. While the benefits of this rule far exceed the costs, the cost estimate for the 2007 Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule is also the highest at $7.3 billion per year. In addition, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CAIR Replacement Rule (2060-AP50)) has benefits ranging from $20.5 to $59.7 billion and costs of approximately $0.7 billion."
- 2012 Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations and Unfunded Mandates on State, Local and Tribal Entities

Solyndra loan, just the facts, ma'am

The Republicans have been jumping all over the Obama administration for the collapse of Solyndra; Paul Ryan accusing the Obama administration of "crony capitalism".  Guess which administration actually approved the loan?  The Bush administration!  The loan was not actually made until Obama was in office.  See "Clean Energy: Obama Says It's the Future, Paul Ryan Calls It a Fad", Stacy Curtin, Daily Ticker, 2012-08-16.

Meanwhile, the Republicans don't seem to notice the subsidies to oil, gas, coal, and nuclear.

Ryan also said, "We want to get Washington out of the business of picking winners and losers."  He seems to forget that the last great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, was very much in the business of picking winners and losers and providing subsidies.  What would this country be like if he hadn't pushed the Transcontinental Railroad with "subsidies" of bonds and free land?

BTW: one of the commenters asked where Paul Ryan called clean energy a fad.  Given how quotes of any kind get distorted and go viral, it is hard to find sources for a supposed quote.  What Ryan said was "fads like Solyndra" on "60 minutes" with Bob Schieffer.  I can't find a direct quote from 60 minutes, but dozens of repeats by many sites, each with its own particular bias.

Whatever, the fact is the Bush administration approved the loan.  Now the Republican Party has morphed to promote only fossil fuels and nuclear energy and to disparage any alternate sources of energy.

Tired of pouring gas on your shoes?

How often have you poured gas into your lawnmower or snowblower, looked down at your shoes or the tires, and seen gas dribbling on them?  Gosh, darn, you tightened the spout on as much as you could.

Somehow, a couple of years ago, after decades of frustration, I came upon a little trick to get the spout on really tight.  Most of the time, that is.

Place the spout 1/4 turn counterclockwise from where you want it, place the screw ring around the spout, hold the spout a bit up and in its turned position, and tighten the screw ring as best you can.  Then without holding the spout, tighten the ring even more.  The spout should turn close to the desired position.

Now, maybe, just maybe, the spout should be the gas can sufficiently tight so that no gas dribbles out.

Of course, all bets are off with these new "safety cans" with their little stops to prevent accidental opening.  Of course, they also deter planned opening.  How can something be safer if users become so frustrated using it that they become careless in some other aspect?

How to reduce the price of gas

The quickest way to reduce the price of gasoline is to stop driving. Unfortunately, too many people would rather drive than take the bus. The next quickest way is to price gas in liters. Just think, the current $3.459/gal. in Duluth could become $0.909/liter.

This has the added benefit of making comparison with other countries easier. One would only have to convert euros or yen or whatever to dollars instead of first converting liters to gallons and then currency to dollars.

A third benefit, probably short-lived, is that gas would once again be below $1.00 per unit.