Text 16898, 95 rader
Skriven 2007-06-18 10:08:38 av hap newsom
     Kommentar till en text av Glen Jamieson
Ärende: RE: DRYING  70617
=========================
Hullo Glen!
-> 
->  ->  ->  -> Industrial drying of fruit, and USAn drying of everything is
->  ->  ->  -> done using fossil heat.   In the tropics, coconut meat is dried 
to 
-> 
->  ->  ->  HN> Matters of scale and time from harvest to market Glen, It 
could 
->  ->  ->  HN> done here, but would take extra time and space. I'm sure 
that 
->  ->  ->  HN> Oz, the commercial growers of apricots don't use solar to dry 
->  HN> them.
->  ->  -> 
->  ->  -> Curious, I rang our largest commercial producer, Angas Park Fruit
->  ->  -> Company, in the Barossa Valley.  I was assured that all of their
->  ->  -> products - stone fruit, apples, grapes, sultanas - are still
sun-dried
->  ->  -> in racks after sulphuring.  Exactly the same method my father used 
-> 
->  HN> Now, how many million metric tonnes does Angas Park Fruit produce a
->  HN> year? -> 
-> 
-> I tried phoning, but they are closed on Sundays (in the Barossa, all
-> good Lutherans go to church on Sundays). Although it is our biggest
-> dried fruit processor, I doubt if it would produce in the Megatonne
-> range.  After all, the population of the state is less than 2 million -
-> but they are all important!  :)
-> 
Thanks for making my point for me (grin)! In my town alone we have a 
population of over 250, 000 and twice that in the environs. And we are only a 
middling sized city.  You have much more "space" than people and we have 
much more people than "space".

->  -> Rain at the wrong time, just before harvest, can ruin a wheat crop.
->  -> Solar drying is the simplest and most widely used method of food
->  -> preservation, which has been used by humans "forever".
->  -> 
->  HN> And will continue to be used where it is feasable. 
-> 
-> And even more in the future as fossil fuels run out.
-> 
Yep, indeed, and even though we still have a very vocal segment of our 
population who deny global warming, and the fact that fossil fuels are a finite

resource!

->  ->  HN> the USA as well....many large dairy operations use the "cow pies"
->  ->  HN> (remember  them? (GRIN)) and digesters to create methane 
which is 
->  ->  HN> used to power  farm equipment, and/or generate electricity for 
the
->  -> 
->  -> That is reasonable when the cows are kept in stalls or small yards and
->  -> fed prepared diets.  Not so easy where they are grass fed all year, and
->  -> roam over the wide open paddocks.
->  -> 
->  HN> You'll notice I said "dairy operations" where the cows are usually in
->  HN> barns at 
->  HN> night and during twice daily milkings...believe me they generate
->  HN> enough cow  crap even in those short periods that it is entirely
->  HN> workable! Many places that 
->  HN> don't use digesters and generate power from the waste will add water
->  HN> to it so  that they have a "slurry" and pump it into trucks and spray
->  HN> it back over the  fields as fertilizer. 
-> 
-> Our dairy cows normally only come in for milking morning and evening,
-> and the rest of the time stay out in the paddocks distributing
-> fertiliser.  No snow here, although it does get down to freezing at
-> night occasionally in Winter.
->  
You are allowed to be much less restricted by governmental intrusions into 
business...health and safety laws are much more restrictive to the dairy 
industry here.

->  -> As the cost of traditional forms of energy increases, all this makes
->  -> sense.  Here, large sewage treatment works are usually self-powered 
by
->  -> methane, and I have seen one small power station run from gas 
collected
->  -> from fermenting underground garbage deposits.  Many of our buses run 
on
->  -> compressed natural gas.
->  -> 
->  HN> As do many of ours!
-> 
-> There is still a long way to go to replace dwindling fossil fuel, but
-> South Australia is well placed for the future, with the largest
-> deposits in the world of uranium ore, lots of sunlight, and deposits of
-> hot rocks.  We are just chronically short of fresh water.
-> 
Solar distillation plants can convert a lot of that salt water into fresh !
chat with you soon
hap 
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