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Science/Tech See other Science/Tech Articles Title: Facts you should know about hemp Fuel: * Planting 6% of the continental U.S. with biomass crops would satisfy all America's energy needs. * Hemp is Earth's number-one biomass resource; it is capable of producing 10 tons per acre in four months. * Biomass can be converted to methane, methanol, or gasoline at a cost comparable to petroleum, and hemp is much better for the environment. * Hemp can produce 10 times more methanol than corn. * Hemp fuel burns clean. Petroleum causes acid rain due to sulfur pollution. * The use of hemp fuel does not contribute to global warming. Food: * Hemp seed can be pressed into a nutritious oil, which contains the highest amount of fatty acids in the plant kingdom. Essential oils are responsible for our immune system responses, and clear the arteries of cholesterol and plaque. * The byproduct of pressing the oil from hemp seed is high quality protein seed cake. It can be sprouted (malted) or ground and baked into cakes, breads, and casseroles. Hemp seed protein is one of mankind's finest, most complete and available-to-the-body vegetable proteins. * Hemp seed was the world's number one wild and domestic bird seed until the 1937 Marijuana prohibition law. Four million pounds of hemp seed for songbirds were sold at retail in the U.S. in 1937. Birds will pick hemp seeds out and eat them first from a pile of mixed seed. Birds in the wild live longer and breed more with hemp seed in their diet, using the oil for the feathers and their overall health. Fiber: * Hemp is the oldest cultivated fiber plant in the world. * Low-THC fiber hemp varieties developed by the French and others have been available for over 20 years. It is impossible to get high from fiber hemp. Over 600,000 acres of hemp is grown worldwide with no drug misuse problem. * One acre of hemp can produce as much usable fiber as 4 acres of trees or two acres of cotton. * Trees cut down to make paper take 50 to 500 years to grow, while hemp can be cultivated in as little as 100 days and can yield 4 times more paper over a 20 year period. * Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc. * Hemp paper is longer lasting than wood pulp, stronger, acid-free, and chlorine free. (Chlorine is estimated to cause up to 10% of all Cancers.) * Hemp paper can be recycled 7 times, wood pulp 4 times. * If the hemp pulp paper process reported by the USDA in 1916, were legal today it would soon replace 70% of all wood paper products. * Rag paper containing hemp fiber is the highest quality and longest lasting paper ever made. It can be torn when wet, but returns to its full strength when dry. Barring extreme conditions, rag paper remains stable for centuries. * Hemp particle board may be up to 2 times stronger than wood particleboard and holds nails better. * Hemp is softer, warmer, more water absorbent, has three times the tensile strength, and is many times more durable than cotton. Hemp production uses less chemicals than cotton. * From 70-90% of all rope, twine, and cordage was made from hemp until 1937. * A strong lustrous fiber; hemp withstands heat, mildew, insects, and is not damaged by light. Oil paintings on hemp and/or flax canvas have stayed in fine condition for centuries. Medicine: * Deaths from marijuana use: 0 * From 1842 through the 1880s, extremely strong marijuana (then known as cannabis extractums), hashish extracts, tinctures, and elixirs were routinely the second and third most-used medicines in America for humans (from birth through old age). These extracts were also used in veterinary medicine until the 1920s and longer. * For at least 3,000 years prior to 1842 widely varying marijuana extracts (bud, leaves, roots, etc.) were the most commonly used real medicines in the world for the majority of mankind's illnesses. * The U.S. Pharmacopoeia indicated cannabis should be used for treating such ailments as fatigue, fits of coughing, rheumatism, asthma, delirium tremens, migraine headaches, and the cramps and depressions associated with menstruation. * In this century, cannabis research has demonstrated therapeutic value and complete safety in the treatment of many health problems including asthma, glaucoma, nausea, tumors, epilepsy, infection, stress, migraines, anorexia, depression, rheumatism, arthritis, and possibly herpes. * Deaths from aspirin (U.S. per year): 180 - 1,000 + * Deaths from legal drugs (U.S. per year) at doses used for prevention, diagnosis, or therapy: 106,000 Industry: * Almost any product that can be made from wood, cotton, or petroleum (including plastics) can be made from hemp. There are more than 25,000 known uses for hemp. * For thousands of years virtually all good paints and varnishes were made with hemp seed oil and/or linseed oil. * Hemp stems are 80% hurds (pulp by-product after the hemp fiber is removed from the plant). Hemp hurds are 77% cellulose - a primary chemical feed stock (industrial raw material) used in the production of chemicals, plastics, and fibers. Depending on which U.S. agricultural report is correct, an acre of full grown hemp plants can sustainably provide from four to 50 or even 100 times the cellulose found in cornstalks, kenaf, or sugar cane (the planet's next highest annual cellulose plants). * One acre of hemp produces as much cellulose fiber pulp as 4.1 acres of trees, making hemp a perfect material to replace trees for pressed board, particle board, and concrete construction molds. * Heating and compressing plant fibers can create practical, inexpensive, fire-resistant construction materials with excellent thermal and sound-insulating qualities. These strong plant fiber construction materials could replace dry wall and wood paneling. William B. Conde of Conde's Redwood Lumber, Inc. near Eugene, Oregon, in conjunction with Washington State University (1991-1993), has demonstrated the superior strength, flexibility, and economy of hemp composite building materials compared to wood fiber, even as beams. * Isochanvre, a rediscovered French building material made from hemp hurds mixed with lime petrifies into a mineral state and lasts for many centuries. Archeologists have found a bridge in the south of France from the Merovingian period (500-751 A.D.), built with this process. * Hemp has been used throughout history for carpet backing. Hemp fiber has potential in the manufacture of strong, rot resistant carpeting - eliminating the poisonous fumes of burning synthetic materials in a house or commercial fire, along with allergic reactions associated with new synthetic carpeting. * Plastic plumbing pipe (PVC pipes) can be manufactured using renewable hemp cellulose as the chemical feed stocks, replacing non-renewable coal or petroleum based chemical feed stocks. * In 1941 Henry Ford built a plastic car made of fiber from hemp and wheat straw. Hemp plastic is biodegradable, synthetic plastic is not.
Poster Comment: In high school I thought the only use for hemp was getting high...and now in the last several years I find it is probably the most useful plant in the world.
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#1. To: YertleTurtle (#0)
I can't find any evidence that this is a viable process. I've got to head off to work, but it seems that there isn't enough sugar content in hemp to create methane fuel and I don't think there is enough oil in it to produce diesel fuel. The production of methane fuel would also require the use of huge amounts of precious fresh water. If you know of any nation already doing something with this - let us know.
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