Industrial hemp and the drug war.

Cannabis sativa.

I came across an interesting act of activism yesterday, the CEO of a hemp soap company protesting the presidents stand on industrial hemp. The man decided to do a demonstration of harvesting the oils from probably the seeds of live hemp plants he had growing in a large metal cage.  The catcher though, he was doing it in front of the white house in Washington D.C. It seems that recently the Obama administration has said that it does not consider industrial hemp any different from the schedule 1 drug marijuana. 

This is a very saddening and misguided position to take, It seems that most people cannot distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana. About two years ago I got called out for signing a petition to legalize industrial hemp. My mother came up to me asking why in the world I had signed a petition to legalize marijuana ( I did no such thing). I tried explaining to her that industrial hemp although being the same plant was a variety that contained very little delta-9-tetrahydrocannibinol (THC) the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. Her reply"well you shouldn't be doing either one!" You cannot "do" industrial hemp, it cannot get you high no matter how much you smoke. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page for hemp, please read and educate yourself. 

Cannabis sativa is one of man kinds oldest cultivated plants, it has been used for thousands of years for paper, textiles, food, and even medicine. Many people are heavily misguided when they talk about hemp, they claim it is a different species of cannabis,that Cannabis sativa is hemp and Cannabis indica is marijuana. This concept is only partially true. There is only one species of cannabis, C.sativa with three subspecies, C.sativa subs. sativa, C.sativa subs. indica, and C.sativa subs. ruderalis.  All of which can freely interbreed with each other. For convenience people shorten it to C.sativa or C.indica, which leads to the confusion. All members of the cannabis species contain THC and a large number of other cannibinoids. There are several different varieties of the cannabis plant which in the drug community are referred to as strains. Most strains are a mix of sativa and indica and are bred to have high 

THC content, as well as CBD, or cannibidiol, which can be said to be anti THC. 

Industrial hemp is essentially just another strain usually pure C.sativa subsp. sativa. It has been bred to have an incredibly low THC content, presumably also lowering CBD content as well. The global standard for industrial hemp is .3 percent THC. Marijuana is usually between 5 and 20% THC. Most modern industrial nations produce hemp, The United States of America is one of the only modernized countries that does not. 

Under federal law all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa are schedule 1 along with drugs such as LSD and Heroin.In recent years the FDA has changed its regulations to allow for hemp products to be sold on shelves. However it is still illegal to produce hemp here in america. We import much of the supplies from Canada and other nations where it is legal. Cannabis is an interesting legal glitch, the whole plant was criminalized, not just the active constituents. Actually the active constituents are scheduled separately but in the same schedule, so not only is the drug THC scheduled the plant itself is as well. This is not true for other organisms which produce drugs, I will use here as an example Psilocybin mushrooms, the mushrooms and all parts of them are not scheduled, you can legally have magic mushrooms on your person. You would however have to have a convincing argument that you did not intend to eat them. They are considered containers of the schedule 1 drug Psilocybin.

Hemp was once one the most important crops in America, early colonists were allowed to pay their taxes in hemp, hemp produced high quality ropes for sailing vessels and fabric for the sails. It was a strong and heavy duty material used in everyday life right up until the early 20th century. 1937 the marijuana tax act was passed effectively making cannabis and hemp illegal. It was still technically legal to grow but you had to purchase a stamp for your crop, and they did not issue stamps. Then world war two came and the government temporarily reversed its decision on hemp and released the propaganda film Hemp for victory. Farmers were actually asked by the U.S. Government actually asked farmers to produce tons of hemp for the war effort. After the war the farmers were no longer allowed to grow hemp.

The seeds from these hemp plants however spread from the farms, cannabis literally grows like a weed. And wild populations of cannabis sativa popped up in several states. There is currently a large amount of feral hemp (referred to as ditch weed) growing throughout the United States.  Now bear in mind that this is the result of industrial hemp production in the 1940s the THC content in this "ditch weed" is incredibly low. You would get a headache from smoking the chlorophyll before even getting the slightest bit high. Even so, the vast majority of confiscated cannabis plants by the Drug Enforcement Agency is feral cannabis. 

Industrial hemp. Image from wikipedia.

What purpose does it serve to eradicate a plant that cannot even get you high? Why does the government refuse to accept its legitimacy. I have seen arguments that illegal marijuana growers could hide marijuana plants in the fields of hemp, but this is simply not the case. Hemp is grown in such a way that it is tall and lanky to increase stem length and fibre production, where as marijuana needs room and space to branch out to produce more flowers, it is the flowers or "buds" of the cannabis plant that people smoke to get high. The more buds your plant produces the more marijuana you will get, now in a hemp field you have no room for bud production and aside from that the pollen from the industrial hemp will decimate the marijuana, as soon as pollen hits the buds they begin forming seeds and the THC level drops significantly effectively ruining the marijuana. The best thing to do to stop illegal growers would be to allow industrial hemp, it would essentially force all outdoor growers inside. Where the signs of cultivation become harder to hide.  

A flowering drug variety

 As you can see in the two photos I have provided above, an industrial hemp field looks quite different from a marijuana field, The hemp plants are spaced very close together where as the marijuana plants have a bit of distance between each other. This right here is enough evidence that you couldn't hide a marijuana plant in a hemp field if your life depended on it, it would stick out like a sore thumb. It would be similar to people trying to grow in corn fields, when they do this they usually get caught. It should be noted that no police agency in any country that has legalized industrial hemp has had any problems like that, so its unlikely to occur here.

 In conclusion there is no real reason to keep industrial hemp illegal, If you disagree with me please do tell, I would love to hear your concerns. In the end the industrial hemp industry could bring us quite a few jobs, there is a clear market for hemp products, and currently it's ALL being imported. It would be advantageous for us to bring the supplies home and have domestic industrial hemp. You can produce everything from bread to plastic from hemp, you could even produce biodiesel fuel. The seed from the hemp plant contains almost all essential amino acids, it is an incredibly healthy food source.  To equate a plant with this many legitimate benefits is insane and an indignity to one of humanities oldest cultivated plants. 

Wireless electricity using Tesla coils

  A few years ago I began to experiment with Tesla coils, I was able to scrape up the required parts from around the house. From the 10,000 volt transformer to the capacitors. These coils were small but they were relatively efficient for their size and worked rather well. One day I was trying to understand how Nikola Tesla was able to transmit electric power without any wires what so ever. Now today, I have a much better understanding of what he did. I have read several of his patents and built a few of the devices but at the time I had only Wikipedia as a resource and not a rather good one at that.

My new Tesla coil with primary and secondary coils indicated.

After some research I figured out that early radio worked by using a transmitting coil which would resonate at a certain frequency and an identical receiving coil tuned to the same frequency which would pick up the signal. So on a hunch I built a coil exactly Identical to my Tesla coil only I placed an LED on the secondary coil, If you are unfamiliar with transformers there are two coils a primary and a secondary. The primary produces a magnetic field which in turn induces current to flow in the secondary coil. In a Tesla coil the primary is the short thick coil at the base and the secondary is the tall coil made of thin wire (the resonator ). In the case of the receiving coil however the primary is the resonator coil and the secondary is the thick wire at the base.

  Upon turning the coil on the LED on the receiving coil lit up. My idea had worked, I was able to get about 2 foot of distance on my original set up before the LED dimmed away. At that time I was not sure if this is how Tesla had managed his transmission. I now know that this is one of his methods. Tesla's device is shown in US patent no. 645,576. I was satisfied with my results, I had recreated on a small scale what Tesla had done more than a century before. I cut back on my experimentation mostly due to lack of materials. I kept the components and toyed around with them from time to time.

Then in college I offered to bring my coil in for a demonstration. I decided to redesign the coil as my original was kind of shoddy looking, It had been through a lot of experiments that were not all together kind to it. I decided to go this time with a three coil design similar in components to the Tesla magnifier.
This device is US patent no. 1,119,732 (you must scroll up to see the diagram). It was similar in design but not appearance. I tested it and It worked quite well, It even worked with an admittedly impromptu receiving coil. A video demonstrating my device is shown below.

During this time, I could only do it at home on the weekends as every time I ran my coil it would cause interference with my suite mates television. But I made a few improvements as well as noticed an interesting but rather difficult to reproduce phenomenon involving a single LED. At one point I was running my coil and noticed that a small red LED sitting on the table with no wires attached to it, was glowing. And when I went to pick it up it got brighter. So I fiddled with it moving it around my coil and eventually hung a length of wire acting as an antenna off from one electrode whilst holding onto the other electrode and walked away from my coil until the LED dimmed out. I made it a whole 8-9 feet. This is far further than my other method but seems quite intriguing. However this method I cant see having many practical uses.

 Over all it is my opinion that a large scale wireless project might not be completely feasible for really whatever reason you choose, economic, efficiency, there's a number of arguments against it. Tesla I think was slightly mistaken with his theories of how his devices work, of course I am admittedly not an electrical engineer. But I do think that there is one facet of these devices that should b thoroughly explored and that is the ability to produce or stimulate telluric currents (which could have problems of its own). It is entirely possible that using telluric currents you could transmit power much further than from an aerial transmitter, thus it may still be technically possible to have true wireless electrical power. It could still be metered and the electric companies could make money off from it. But there is the question of what effect such a method would have on the environment. But we as humans are already creating telluric currents so we could study what is here and build upon it. Would be the cheapest form of energy transfer? Probably not, but the fact remains it is completely possible to transmit electricity wirelessly.

Run your car from grass clippings!

  Several years ago I became interested in the paranormal phenomenon Will-o-the wisp . A supposedly sentient light often seen by travelers in the forest. I had read that one potential explanation for the phenomenon was swamp gas. So I set out to create an experiment that would recreate the environment of a swamp I accomplished this by collecting some dirt and leaves with a few twigs and grass clippings mixed into the mix. I placed all of these into a soda bottle and filled the bottle with water and tightly screwed the cap on, I then placed the bottle where it would be in direct sunlight and let it set for three days. I observed a pocket of "air" that slowly grew over the days. It was at day 3 that the pressure began to concern me. So I took the thing inside, lit a candle and set the candle close to the bottle. I then slowly unscrewed the cap and there was a hissing noise followed by a WHOOF!!! and a burst of heat. I just sat there stunned because I did not know at the time that swamp gas was quite so flammable and I thought to myself, Why aren't we using this for something??

My propane powered lawn tractor.

    After some more research I knew that swamp gases main constituent is methane.  I then stumbled across a little known fact that you could run an internal combustion engine off from propane. I also learned of a few people who had succeeded in years past to use methane. So I knew this was possible, I began experiments using propane as an analog for methane. I ran a tube from the propane tank into the gas intake of the engine of a lawnmower. (I know very little of internal combustion engines) I turned the knob on the tank and hopped on switched the key over and it started right up. It was not as loud or as powerful as a gasoline powered engine but I think that could be solved with a simple redesign of engines. I did a few tests to make sure it was not just gasoline residing in the fuel lines by turning the knob on the tank and having the engine cut out.


   I built upon my Ideas and came up with several devices that one could build that they could empty their grass clippings into and yard debris. Wait a few weeks and have a decent fuel supply from their own back yard. I would work for fallen twigs and branches, it would work with dead leaves, just about any organic material even leftover foodstuff. I also designed a concept for methane farming with huge concrete ponds with waste material at the bottom could be anything that would normally be dumped. There would be small boats that would come through the ponds agitating the organic muck at the bottom releasing the methane up into holding tanks which could then be processed and pressurized. And when everything is all digested you end up with a rich fertilizer left over. I personally find this a much better alternative than say drilling for gas. You could even take these boats out into a swamp and harvest the natural methane at surface level no drilling and dangerous equipment involved. However I will admit I do not know the amount of methane that would be produced by these methods and whether or not it would be economically feasible to do this on a large scale. But it can be done and it is clean renewable energy. It should be noted that natural gas is primarily methane. Why not get it from the surface instead of drilling deep into the ground. Its already here and in easy reach at your nearest swamp and ponds, I have even observed it bubbling up from lake bottoms.

  One test I did was a took a modified soda bottle out into a swamp and poked a stick into the bottom to release the methane. I did this until the bottle was filled, then I turned the bottle upside down and lit a lighter near the mouth. Then I squeezed the bottle and a nice flame shot out of the bottle. This proved that natural swamp gas does actively contain methane and that my theories could work on a large scale. I never did observe any swamp gas manifesting in the form of willo-the-wisp but I did come across an interesting energy source that I would like to see replace some of our antiquated techniques.

(Edit this is actually a revisit from a previous blog that I had, I have added more information from my research and a more in depth visit of the concept.)

A walk in the woods.

Below are some photos I took while out looking for mushrooms after recent rains.

Dacrymyces palmatus

I first came across a small yellow fungus growing on a log, I have since identified the mushroom as Dacrymyces palmatus, common name witches butter. I also came across a large grouping on the side of a conifer in a small pine forest.

Quite a few specimens.

I have Identified this next mushroom as Entoloma conferendum or some other Entoloma mushroom, The common name Pink gilled mushroom. The spore print was a reddish pink. Without a microscope I can not be certain of its precise identification. But it is definitely an Entomala.

Entoloma conferendum?

#2

They're everywhere.

 I did not just find mushrooms, I looked up from photographing the pink gilled mushrooms to see a bright orange spot on the hillside. I climbed towards it to find an Eastern newt in the eft stage, also known as a Red eft.

Red eft.

As I continued up the hillside I came across a second younger eft.

Small Red eft.

Camera shy.

I also found numerous shelf type mushrooms, along with a few species of fern. All in all it was a rather productive walk.

UPDATE on electrostatic charge meter.

   This is an update to my post located here. http://abeatifulmorning.blogspot.com/2012/05/electrostatic-atmospheric-charge-meter.html , It describes my first time putting my invention to action during an actual thunderstorm.

Sorry there is no pictures just a wall of text as an update to how my meter performed during a storm. Well there was a very good thunderstorm a few nights ago, unfortunately I have been sick so I had to cut my observations short. My meter performed quite wonderfully. However I do not see how it can be used as a lightning strike warning system. My expectations were to see the charge rise to a certain point where a lightning strike would be inevitable and then when the lightning struck the charge would drop. This is not what I observed.

    My meter would find what I like to call a base charge where the number only fluctuates by about 10 mV per minute on average.The "base charge" for this previous lightning storm was around 32-43mV during the most intense part, it rose up to 65mV before I had to call it a night. My meter indicated two separate types of lightning strikes (I assume 1 in ground to cloud, the other is cloud to cloud). I call the first one type A, The reading on the meter spikes when there is a lightning flash. It often peaks around 300 mV for a fraction of a second before returning to within two points of the base charge. My Idea is that this is cloud to cloud lightning. The second, type B, Is the same usually peaking around 200-400mV but followed with a sudden reversal of polarity before returning to base charge all within a fraction of a second. I believe type B to be cloud to ground lightning. I did not directly observe the lightning itself other than the flash. I was busy graphing the base charge and intently watching the meter. I was ill prepared for my results and my graph does not indicate any of the voltage spikes from the lightning but instead shows the base charge as it moves up and down during the storm. An interesting thing to note is the base charge reversed polarity several times at the beginning of the storm. I had expected the charge to go to negative and stay, but it did not. It finally settled itself in the positive range and built up rather quickly.

     My device probably wont teach anything that we as humans don't already know about lightning. But it can give someone a far better grasp on the concept of whats going on in a storm.And it is a very useful tool,far simpler than the alternative. I came up with the Idea because I wanted a device to warn of lightning before it struck. One night I watched a documentary (NOVA) on lightning and saw that they were using a monitoring system to tell them when lightning was most likely to hit, so then I knew it was possible. I looked up online how to build such devices and much to my dismay found rather complicated schematics and overly expensive kits NOPE!, I said, I'll design my own and that is exactly what I did. I came up with the basic idea and the next day built and tested the prototype and it functioned wonderfully, and now it has proven itself even in a thunderstorm.

Electrostatic atmospheric charge meter.

Schematic diagram.

  Above is a diagram of an invention I came up with to monitor the charge during a thunderstorm. I wanted something that I could watch the charge to get a relatively decent idea of when lightning may strike. Sort of an early warning, just in case. The main parts of it are listed below.

A capacitor

2 resistors 

A wire loop

And a decently sensitive multimeter or voltmeter.

  The wire loop acts as an antenna and is placed some distance above ground. It is connected electrically to one plate of a capacitor in parallel and one resistor in series. The other wire is the same except instead of being connected to an antenna it is grounded. 

  The atmosphere has a constant electric charge, as one can imagine the charge jumps during a thunderstorm. My device draws a slight bit of charge out of the atmosphere and stores it on the plates of the capacitor. The voltmeter then indicated the voltage between the two plates. The resistors are a very important part of the design, without them the capacitor would discharge as soon as the leads from the meter are placed on it. That would indicate a jump in voltage followed by a slow drop off to zero (fast if using a high capacitance). The resistors give the capacitor a slower discharge rate than the charging rate. 

  A normal capacitor that one can find in many electronic devices will work but the higher the capacitance the more resistance will be needed to keep the capacitor from discharging. I used a homemade capacitor with a capacitance of about .063 microfarads. The resistance is not all too important (unless I want to standardize my device if i make more). I attached several smaller resistors that I found till I had >2000 ohms. The set up worked as soon as I put everything together.

   I tested the device using a 60,000VDC power supply. I measured the charge in the air around the electrodes, I did not connect it directly as that would have blown everything. I did have some issues with the testing where at one point I had a small spark hit the wire loop. This ruined the capacitor and I had to make a new one. I used coaxial cable to keep the losses low, as the voltage from the loop is in the milivolt range. I installed the antenna outside and sufficiently grounded the device. The capacitor is inside resting by a window with the wires leading out to the outside components. So far I have not had a decent thunderstorm to test it with, I just had one tonight, It started at 30mV and then after 10 minutes of measurment it jumper to 93mV and has since peaked at 101mV (it occasionally measures >150 on humid nights). It showed no fluctuation with lightning strikes, although there were none that were close.

Multimeter during thunderstorm.

  One day while watching you tube this teenager had a device which he claimed was a Tesla radiant energy receiver, I looked at it and his set up was roughly the same as my design except without the resistors and with an aluminum foil plate. This intrigued me so I did some research and it turns out Nikola Tesla came up with the same circuit in the late 1800s for utilizing radiant energy from the atmosphere. 

  I read his notes and patents pertaining to the device and built a mock-up using a microwave oven capacitor rated at 1microfarad (measured .97) at 2100v and carefully built an aluminum foil plate and connected the whole thing together very carefully. Tesla had said that it would work with the Tesla coil so I gave it a shot and tested it using my larger Tesla coil. 

   At first I got very good results in the 50VDC range, I also got results in AC. I ultimately found out that because I was using an electronic meter is was picking up interference from the coil even with nothing connected to it. I got slight results when I allowed the capacitor to charge while running the coil with the meter disconnected and measure it afterwards. The voltage wasn't very high and it discharged as soon as I put my meter to it. Leading me to believe that this device would not be a very efficient power collection apparatus.(sorry Tesla) The circuit however seems to work very well for the purpose of my meter. I was slightly disappointed that I was not the first one with the idea but I am honored that the first was Tesla. 

I may or may not add some photos of the rest of the device. Seeing as it is already set up I will only be able to get the individual components separately.

<a href="http://www.hypersmash.com">HyperSmash.com</a>

Excelsior Glen. And the True Painted Rocks of Seneca lake

Location of Excelsior Glen.

       There is another glen in the region that is far lesser known than even Havana. This is Excelsior glen, I first read of this glen from an article in an old magazine (1870s) I believe it was I don't have the pdf on this computer so I do not recall the date. I also don't recall the names of all of the waterfalls. It is the smallest of the three out of Watkins, Havana, and Excelsior.

     

      The glen is located just outside the town of Watkins Glen along Rt 414. It is on the right of the road and if you aren't paying attention you will miss it. A portion of the Finger lakes trail runs along side the glen allowing access to it. The history of the glen includes being a launching spot and hunting camp for the Native Americans. There is a local legend about some rocks on the side of Seneca lake with a painting of an american flag on it.  You can read some info here . The story is most certainly a fable invented to gain passengers on the ferry up the lake when the railroad was introduced. However within the entrance of Excelsior there lies the inspiration for the tale. The true painted rocks of Seneca lake.

One of the marks showing vandalism.

A series of marks high up on the cliff.

A solitary mark.

    The idea behind these marks is that they were a system of communicating from one group of hunters to the other. Perhaps they are to show the number of people in a party. These are little snippets of history that are still there today is you want to find them they are on the north wall of the glen before any waterfalls. When I first read of them I was not sure if they were still there because the report I read was from the early 60s I believe. So When I went to the glen I was sure to look for them and after about  10 minutes of searching the cliff face I finally found them and documented them as best I could. The first one I found showed some signs of vandalism which disappointed me quite a bit. But I found some that were a bit out of reach of vandals and should be well protected in the years to come.

First waterfall.

  The first waterfall is a unique waterfall, at one point in time a boulder became lodged in the crevice of the rock. A space underneath the bolder allows for water to flow through.

Second fall.

     The second water fall lies a short distance beyond the first. It is a nice cascade with the water slowly falling over the rock face to a very shallow crystal clear pool at the base.

A small water fall 

  The third waterfall is a rather small waterfall and was rather obnoxious to navigate past. 

A mineral spring of some sort.

Empire fall.

        Empire fall is the largest waterfall in the glen, and is quite a walk from the other three. But it is well worth the walk.Empire fall is at least 150 possibly even 200 feet in height. According to the article the proprietor of the glen at the time claimed it to be the tallest fall in New York state. It is quite the impressive water fall with a fairly deep pool at the base. There is very little water that comes over the falls so the water moves very slow and thus the pool is stagnant. This is the furthest I have made it in the glen but I have read that there is one more waterfall further up.