For all you environmentally concious people out there, here is a suggestion. Go and buy a real wood pellets stove, then try to finds a local carpenter who will supply you with his waste sawdust. Thensimply create you own source of fuel in the form of wood pellets. Thus saving the planet and also saving you a lot of cash. This couldn’t be almost any easier – could it?

Okay this is the perfect situation, however what is the truth about making pellets? Although in theory the procedure is fairly uncomplicated – accumulate up a large volume of wood sawdust and then set this sawdust into a wood pellet grinding machine and hey presto – wood pellets forever. In reality manufacturing pellets is not that painless.

Wood pellet mill:

The commonest type of wood pellet making machines would be the small scale wood pellet mill. Along with the mill and in order to be certain that the saw dust and pellet raw material is of the size and quality that is needed to make pellets you will need a hammer mill. These types of machines are usually large and storage is going to be a problem. Combined with storage space the noise created by these kinds of machines may lead to usage problems.

Sawdust – good quality is vital.

As strange as it may seem, not all saw dust is formed in the exact same way. The true secret to creating high-quality pellets is having quality saw dust. What exactly composes good quality sawdust? Well to begin with saw dust from hard wood is preferred. It must also have a very low moisture content.

One of the many issues that you’ll encounter whenever you create them is consistency. Should the raw material be larger than 1.5 cm in length then you’ll need to make use of hammer mill to reduce the size of the raw material so that it is powder like. This is crucial so that it the raw material can used within your mill and that it won’t block the machine.

After the raw material is prepared by your pellet machine it is heated using heavy steam and also placed directly under immense pressure. This will cause the actual saw dust to clump together. This bonded material will be crammed through a pelletizer to create stove wood pellets.

The next problem you will face is finding a suitable storage location for the pellets. The location must be warm and dry. The pellet must not be exposed to moisture. If it is there is a high likelihood that it will cause problems in your stove. This situation is best avoided if at all possible.

Nick Smith is an eco friendly author who writes regularly about Stove wood pellets on his blog. To find out more about wood pelletsvisit his blog.

Whether you prefer clear mountain air or the ozone-rich, salty air of the sea, you can find places to take your dog for a walk that are idyllic, even when you are on holiday. If you are a nature lover and a dog lover, you could choose a vacation destination with nature and your dog in mind.

City-bound hotel holidays or long, driving holidays are not very pleasurable for your dog. If a dog is going to be at home all day, he would rather be in his own home all day. Likewise, with driving. He might plead to go the mall with you in the car, but doing a coast to coast run in a scorching fortnight in June, is not really what he is all about.

Therefore, if you are arranging a vacation that you think your pet would not really enjoy, why not do him and yourself a favour and leave him at home? Place him with a dog-loving relative or friend or board him in a kennels that you have checked out well yourself.

There are literally hundreds of boarding kennels operating in every state and often there are thousands. Most of them are fine, some are outstanding and the owners of some could do with a stiff talking to. I put my dog in one once that I had not checked out well enough and went away for two weeks. When I returned four hours early, they were not expecting me and my dog looked dirty and dejected.

I felt terribly guilty and my dog would not ‘speak’ to me for a week. Really! No eye contact, no tail wagging, would not always come when called, no joyous running about, just a hang dog expression for seven days. She must have felt that I let her down badly, which of course I had, by not researching the kennels.

A fantastic place to take your dog is St Croix in the United States Virgin Islands. The US Virgin Islands are literally part of the United States of America and you can go there without a passport, with your US dollars and with your dog.

Not every hotel permits animals just as in mainland USA, but there are loads that do. There are also package holidays that will take you and your dog from the airport to the island hotel and back again all for one price.

Of the four main islands in the US Virgin Islands, St. Croix is most likely the best option for going to with a pet dog, because it is less heavily populated than the other islands and is by far the largest.

The hotel or resort will probably not provide feeding dishes, bedding and toys but they will surely have a store where you can buy such things. It is perhaps not worth bringing your own either unless you have a large suitcase and a decent weight allowance. Food for your dog will also be extensively available on the island, of course.

St Croix has various sorts of landscape and plenty of activities to take full advantage of them. There are beautiful tropical beaches just right for swimming or playing in the shallows; there are the undulating plains of the old plantations, which are perfect for long walks and there are hills, mountains and rain forest to explore with your dog too.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with St Croix Virgin Islands. If you are interested in St Croix Vacation Rentals in the US Virgin Islands, please click through to our site.

You all know the story.

The race to secure natural resources is intensifying. Particularly amongst governments and nationally-sponsored corporations. And particularly in Asia.

We�ve been seeing signs the last few years that Asian nations are stepping up their drive for oil, copper, iron and natural gas. I talked last week about India jumping into the fray in a big way for coal.

A few more indicators this week worth mentioning. Korea is upping the ante.

Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) leaked this week that it will sell between $500 million and $1 billion worth of bonds to fund its $2.6 billion hostile takeover of Africa/North Sea-focused Dana Petroleum.

The same day, the world’s second biggest smelter, LS-Nikko announced a joint venture with Korea’s top steelmaker, Posco. Under the deal, the two majors will work together on the acquisition and development of copper and iron ore projects.

These are deals of mega-proportions. So much so, the Korean government said it fears currency appreciation because of state-associated firms issuing billions in new won-denominated debt.

Not to be outdone, Japan also announced some ambitious natural resource plans this week. Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said it is aiming to take more ownership in liquefied natural gas projects around the globe.

Tepco currently sources 11% of its LNG supplies from projects in which it owns equity. Mainly Australia’s Darwin LNG facility. The company said it wants to grow this to 33% equity supply by 2020.

This is a big jump in supply. Meaning Tepco is going to have to be fairly aggressive in pursuing buy-in on new projects.

With all these plans on the books, deep-pocketed Asian governments are going to be increasingly butting heads with regular corporations as well as each other when it comes to buying resource projects. A lot of cash is being brought to bear on the sector in a great game of “chicken”, with significant implications for project valuations.

The Asian slant means projects within shipping distance of the East are going to be in demand. Pick your investment spots wisely.

Here’s to the amazing race for resources.

Get the latest information about peak oil and learn the best ways to invest in oil stocks.

Bernanke believed that University of Chicago economist, Milton Friedman, had discovered the antidote for deflationary depressions. Noting that the money supply had contracted between 1930 and 1933, Friedman theorized that if the Fed had then engaged in sufficient monetary expansion, the depression would have been averted.

The highly intelligent often mislead others as well as themselves

At Milton Friedman’s 90th birthday party on November 8, 2002, Ben Bernanke publicly thanked Friedman for his theories regarding the Great Depression:

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. [i.e. the Fed caused the depression by its monetary tightening] We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.

In one respect, Bernanke was right. The Fed had caused the Great Depression but not for the reason Friedman and Bernanke believed-the Fed had caused the Great Depression by providing the leveraged credit speculators used to drive stocks to stratospheric heights prior to the 1929 crash, a crash so spectacular it would wipe out the savings of the nation, plunging America and the world into an economic abyss from which it would recover only after WWII had wiped clean the remaining balance sheets that the Great Depression had not.

Bernanke’s public thank-you to Milton Friedman in 2002 was as premature as George W. Bush’s proclamation of a US victory in Iraq. Bernanke, however, was appointed Fed chairman in 2006 and would soon get his coveted chance at the wheel of fortune to prove Friedman right.

After the markets collapsed in 2008, last year, in January 2009 Bernanke set in motion the greatest monetary expansion in history, an unprecedented government stimulus designed to prevent a deflationary depression as Friedman forecast.

But nine months later, the US economy began to again slow; and, now, in 2010, the ECRI, the leading indicator of economic growth in America, has plunged once again into negative territory. Put to the test, Friedman’s theory is a resounding-and costly-failure.

As the below ECRI chart shows, the powerful economic expansion beginning in January 2009 resulted from Bernanke’s application of Friedman’s expensive patent medicine that month, a prescription that would cost US taxpayers more than 700 billion dollars.

But economic growth indicators peaked abruptly that same year in October 2009, beginning a year-long detumescence to a present reading of -10.1%. Ben Bernanke shot Friedman’s mighty wad and it missed.

It is rare that human beings admit to having failed. In this, Ben Bernanke is no different than the rest of humanity and although Friedman’s theory failed, do not expect Bernanke to admit it. Bernanke is a one-trick pony. He’s going to try it again.

On August 28th, Bloomberg News reported: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said the central bank has the tools to prevent the U.S. economy from slipping back into a recession… Should further action prove necessary, policy options are available.

Note: Milton Friedman, John Maynard Keynes, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, et. al. share the intellectual failing common to all modern economists, i.e. a collective denial that paper money brings in its own time its own destruction.

Learn more about peak oil and how you can make money investing in oil futures.

Gold is so misunderstood.

My colleagues and I often joke about how gold is the “all-weather” investment. When the economy is good, pundits claim gold will rise because of inflation. When the economy turns bad, gold bugs claim it will soar on safe-haven buying. According to conventional wisdom, there is no losing scenario for the yellow metal.

We saw more mis-judgement on the gold market yesterday.

Many analysts seized on the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee announcement as evidence of good things to come for gold. The Fed said in the speech that it will continue supporting the U.S. bond market, by using interest from Fed-hold mortgage-backed securities to purchase government bonds.

There was a lot of news about why this will be good for gold. Essentially that the Fed is creating money to give to the government (via bond sales). The government will spend this money, unleashing it “onto the street” where it will cause inflation. Hard assets like gold should soar.

But this is not the case. The Fed is not creating new money. It is using interest payments on mortgage securities to buy bonds.

These interest payments come to the Fed from one of two sources. Either from government agencies who issued the securities, or from the private sector who own the underlying assets.

This means whenever a payment goes to the Fed, it is being taken off the street. Either drained from government coffers (in the case of payments from agencies), or from the economy (in the case of private-sector payments).

The Fed then turns around and buys bonds. Injecting this money back into the government, and (possibly) eventually into the economy.

But the net sum of money out in the world remains the same. For every dollar unleashed on the planet, a dollar is siphoned out of the system.

Creating money is inflationary and good for gold. Cycling money between different hands is not.

Here’s to doing the money shuffle.

Learn more about peak oil and how you can make money investing in oil futures.

I’ve been talking a lot about coal lately.

Specifically, how India’s need for thermal coal imports is going to tighten this market, both in terms of prices, and bids for coal deposits within shipping distance of Asia.

India simply doesn’t have enough coal. As of yesterday, one-third of the nation’s coal-fired power plants were running at “critical” levels of coal stocks (meaning less than seven days of supply). And 10% are at “super-critical”, with less than four days of stock.

I’ve been on this theme for about six months. And finally some of the signs of India’s “dash for coal” are starting to appear.

First, buy-outs of coal deposits. Last week, Canadian-listed coal developer CIC Energy received a $400 million takeover offer from a “multi-billion dollar Indian conglomerate”. CIC is moving forward the Mmambula coal field in southeastern Botswana (thanks for the heads-up, Saee).

India is even getting active in the junior side of the coal business. This week India’s Bhushan Steel announced its intent to buy a stake in Bowen Energy, an Australian coal explorer and developer with projects in the Bowen Basin.

Then there’s the signals from the coal market itself. This week, the chairman of the Indonesian Coal Mining Association told attendees at the Coaltrans Upgrading Coal Forum in Jakarta that India will pass Japan as Indonesia’s biggest coal export customer by 2011.

“In the past, India only bought high-quality coal, but now they started buying a lot of low-rank coal also because of an increase in domestic consumption,” chairman Bob Kamandanu said. He predicted India’s coal imports from Indonesia will rise to 70 million tonnes, up from 40 million tonnes this year.

In addition, Bloomberg reported this week that traders handling Richards Bay, the biggest export port for South African coal, believe rising demand from India could push coal prices at this locale to a two-year high.

The piece also quoted T.K. Chatterjee, procurement manager at Indian power major NTPC, as saying, “India will be importing in a big way… This will lead to an increase in prices.”

Signs, signs, everywhere signs.

Here’s to fields of coal.

Get the latest information about peak oil and learn the best ways to invest in oil stocks.

Body wraps are made of a wide range of materials and while the majority of them are safe, if varying degrees of useful, a few ingredients are dangerous. These ingredients are prevalent in home made recipes for body wraps and largely in recipes found online where this is no regulation for such things. It is important to be cautious about recipes for homemade body wraps and watch for damaging oils.

Canola Oil

Canola oil has been touted as healthy oil, but it is actually anything but. The seeds which the oil is made from are considered waste products and are some of the most toxic in the plant world. Canola is problematic in the body because it clots up blood cells and can cause anemia and blindness. It is no good to eat and it is not good to put in your skin; remember, whatever you put on your skin will be absorbed into the rest of your body. However, canola oil persists because of claims that it is high in Omega-3 fatty acids and because it is cheap. Do not use canola oil in a body wrap!

Soybean Oil

Another oil which has so many people fooled is the soybean oil. Soy is one of the foods which has reached superfood status, but it has also been undermined by other nutritionists. The fact is, soy is a waste product; it is grown merely to replenish nutrients to soil (like clover) and is not actually fit for human consumption. Soy has been linked to thyroid issues, cognitive issues and even heart problems and if you put in on your skin, you are putting it in your body!

Store Bought Oil

Many oils in grocery stores are not fit for body wraps, not because they are unhealthy per se, but rather because they are not very effective. These oils have been too highly processed and have had all of the nutritional value stripped from them, so your body and skin will not get much out of it. Instead, look for virgin or extra virgin oils, unrefined or cold pressed; these oils will not be too stripped and can still give your skin benefits. Try a health food store over a traditional grocery store.

Many people do not consider the fact that their skin is actually a giant organ and what goes on it goes to the rest of the body. With something like body wraps, not considering this becomes a dangerous mistake. Be very careful of your homemade body wrap recipes to ensure that they will not turn around and hurt you more than help you.

If you want to lose inches, look slimmer, and rejuvinate your skin, then you should try body wraps; learn all albout them at http://www.bodywrapsathome.com.