To read this post please scroll down.

 

Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Making wood function like home heating oil

An evening pause: Hat tip Cotour.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

5 comments

  • Jeff

    In the late 70’s I worked in a cedar processing plant. Not much was wasted. Sawdust and chips were used to fire the steam boilers for facility heat ,kilns and steam extraction of cedar oils. Dried shavings bagged for kennel bedding. Prime heart wood milled for closet lining. Any unusable scraps, slabs, bark was ground up and sold as mulch. If they had electrical generators, entire facility would have been mostly self-sufficient. When I asked about that aspect was told buying electricity was cheaper. The pelletizing of wood waste was in its infancy. I’m sure the company would have managed to work that into their recycling system.

    Sadly, market changes, city growth, taxes and environmental pressures forced the closing

  • wayne

    Jeff-
    Great Story!

  • MDN

    Seems like contrived efficiency to me. That was a pretty substantial plant to generate the equivalent of 1 small tanker truck of heating oil per day (the stated 2,500 gallons). Last winter the commodity price for heating oil was about $2 per gallon (currently it’s only $0.92 presumably due to the shutdown/Saudi-Russia glut), so that means $5,000/day in revenue normally for these chips.

    And even assuming the same density as oil (which they aren’t because they float), 20 tons of these chips must require at least 4X the volume of oil to transport, so will need 4X the number of trucks and drivers to distribute. I’m sure they pay for themselves, but not much beyond that.

    They are a true bio fuel though, except for all those trucks anyway : )

  • Cotour

    This appears to be a very nice and neat and fairly complete cycle type of business model.

  • Max

    Until the 1900, biofuels what is the primary source of energy. Oil, coal and natural gas has far outpaced natural bio fuel wood products…
    Even so, biofuels still today produce more than twice as much energy as all the others (Solar, wind, nuclear, Hydro power) combined.
    https://ourworldindata.org/energy
    Natures solar powered renewable energy.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *