Author: Jock Gill
I just watched “The War Room“, a film about the 1992 Clinton Campaign, for the first time since 1993.
Watching this film of politics from 15 years ago is an experience I recommend highly. In 1992, Bush, and esp. Mary Maitlan, one of his senior campaign staffers, worked […]

Author: Jock Gill
Clearly all cultures have what might be called their DNA. This cultural DNA appears to determine the nature of a culture and the boundaries within which it can “thrive”. Given that cultures, like organisms, live in an ever changing “context”, it is no surprise that the DNA of a culture is […]

Author: Jock Gill
As we consider our choices for a better tomorrow, at least a livable tomorrow, it is clear that one requirement is that we take a fresh look at how we use our resources. Are we making the best possible use of them such that they can best serve the greatest number of […]

Author: Jock Gill

The picture above, thanks to David M. Harrison, Dept. of Physics. Univ. of Toronto, is one way to look at the concept of punctuated equilibrium or the bifurcation process that is part of Chaos.
I once wrote a simple BASIC program that creates this image of a system bifurcating and then moving into chaos. […]

Author: Jock Gill
As we consider our options for our Energy Future, what sorts of criteria might we use to evaluate the various paths under consideration?
Do we want an Energy future that meets these six simple tests:
1] Design goal: a system that is at least 85% efficient end to end;
2] A robust and resilient network with […]

Biofiber pellets are green coal: Stored solar energy, a useable form of recent sunlight. Coal is just ancient sunlight. This makes me think of steam as in engines. This leads to green coal powering steam engines for combined heat and power, perhaps even Micro-CHP.
A “2-cylinder, 3 horsepower steam […]

The promoters of poisonous black seeds from jatropha [and here and here] “weed” have, so far, yet to imagine, see, the cooking fuel before their very eyes: double pressed oil seed cake [the residual fibers after the oil has been extracted]. When run through the oil press a second or third time, the […]

But Only
“In the Box Solutions”
are offered up by our would be presidents and their parties.
A few of our Out of the Box Problems:
Global Climate Change
Peak Oil
Bird Flu
Global Credit Crisis
Backwards Communications Infrastructure.
An electrical system that wastes at least 70% of the energy it uses
Smoldering National Urban Crisis
A corrupt, profit driven election process
The attack on […]

Over the last 40 years or so we have too often heard from the champions of unregulated free market capitalism that “the government can do no right”. Or that “the magic of the market is always the best and proper answer to every problem.” Or the so called ‘joke’ “I’m from the government and […]

July 17, 2007
The biomass energy activities at the recent UVM/Governor’s Institutes engineering camp demonstrate what Jock Gill has been talking about.
On July 3, students came to Votey Hall with displays of bagged biomass pellets, posters about various “cocktails” of mixed biomass they’d tested, and homemade pellet burners. Jock was there to explain biomass potentials, […]