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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-CA link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Dear Cecil<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Here are some sets of numbers (per day) to save on a bit of paper (some are hard to find)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Donkey: output 135 Watts for 8 hours, pull of 30 kg.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Cow: output 235 Watts for 5 hours, pull of 50 kg, 0.5 m/s.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Camel: output 420 Watts, 8 hours, pull of 50 kg. 1.0 m/s. The difference from a cow is that a camel walks a lot faster.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>The donkey is the most energy efficient: 45% in terms of turning grass into energy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>In the Sahel cattle and camels are used for pumping water. Donkeys have been used in the Middle East for a long time on low power systems. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Appropriately connected, a donkey should be able to power a laptop for 4 hrs a day quite easily.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Regards<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Crispin<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Dear all,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>I remember Wendell Barry claiming he sacrificed only 10% of his hill farm in Ky to grow the feed needed for his bionic tractors who did all the all traction work on his farm. What’s more they harvest the land and fertilize it every year so the farmer does not have to waste him scarce time and energy planting, harvesting, and process his food in warmer climates (which has to be done in the colder regions of the world). How great is that? <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>There is a lot of work involved in planting, harvesting, processing, and feeding biomass into technologies that convert biomass into energy and energy into work. So we need to do the cost/benefit assessments on the resources and work in and the energy and work coming out of the farming and livelihood systems. I recall that big donkeys powered much of Middle Eastern Civilizations including pulling the chariots used in warfare. These were bred for speed, endurance and strength like we bred gigantic work horses. But it is hard to beat a mule when it comes to horse power. As a child I learned a bit about mules on the remnant of my family’s plantation in north Georgia and they are pretty easy to work with and smelled great, seriously. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>Horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen use most of the biomass they ingest just to stay alive. As long as there is no constraint on land to grow food for animal tractors that limitation does not apply because they harvest, digest, and convert biomass they require and have more than enough to left over to perform useful work. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>The challenge is to efficiently and cheaply turn that HP into useful work using modern technologies that pump water, grand grains, generate electricity, crush stone, mix feeds, make and mix fertilizers, pull wagons, cut contours, and level land for building, etc. These are all tasks that today are done using electric, diesel, and petrol. I would be interested in knowing the cost of the technology required to convert the power of “x” horses working continuously over 24 hours throughout the year to produce the different forms of energy needed to run an up to date modestly modern family farm: lights, TV, water pumping, refrigerator, plowing, grass cutting, feed grinding, mixing, hauling, etc. and how much land would be needed to feed the horse power required? These tasks will need to technologically minimized by reducing all tasks to the smallest loads possible: LED lighting, well insulated fridges and freezer, etc. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>And then of course we compare just how modern and efficient and smart we compared to modernized horse powered farming by comparing the cost/benefit performance curves on the same productive, profitable farm using income energies from horses and humans versus the present day spectrum of expensive technologies for directly harvesting energy from sun, wind, water, and biomass. It would be a technology race between different income energy harvesting technologies which compares the cost, human attention and work needed to operate a horse powered farm and family household versus a system of small scale RETs (renewable energy technologies) optimized for extracting work from particular income energies over a 12 month annual cycle.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>What about that??<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>In search, <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>CECook<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>