Food dyes are everywhere: A surprising amount of the food we consume contains various compounds to add color. Marshmallows look white, but they contain blue coloring (to keep them from growing less bright as they sit on shelves). Starbucks uses food coloring in its strawberry drinks. And frozen meat, like fish and crab meat, contains red food coloring to make it more appealing . Red dyes, in particular, have had a colorful history. The Aztecs crushed an insect, the cochineal, which produces a nasty-tasting compound called carminic acid, which can make up as much as 24% the body weight, dunked the product into an acific solution, mixed it with salts, and produced  carmine dye , which is a vibrant red color. Then there is Red Dye #3 In 1856, William Henry Perkin, at the age of 18 in Germany, was the first to synthesize a a dye.  Experimenting with derivatives of coal tar, he produced mauveine, a purple dye. In 1876, Swiss chemist Karl Kussmaul of Switzerland created erythr...

The American Energy Society regularly sends info on the full range of energy and minerals. Which countries are exporting Liquified Natural Gas?  The leading suppliers are Qatar, Australia and the USA. Qatar is really small, occupying only 4468 square miles.  The entire Big Island of Hawaii is 4028 square miles.  Australia is 664 times larger than Qatar, and the USA is 850 times bigger in land area.   A good rule of thumb is that LPG is 10% of natural gas and 3% of crude oil. Coal is the worst fossil fuel for global warming, right?  Yes, by far.  However, coal-generated eletricity is up 8% this year, and has doubled in the last 20 years.  India is the fastest growing market .  India now has more people than China. Wind energy turbines kill birds, right?  Yes. But cats 2000 times more birds than wind turbines. Vehicles kill 654 times more birds than wind turbines. Here is how the American Bird Conservancy responds. While this report is d...

But first, a news flash:   DONALD TRUMP FOUND GUILTY.  E. JEAN CARROL IS AWARDED $5 MILLION .  What will this mean to his presidential candidacy?  Well, the worst is yet to come.  Democrats will try to delay any further prosecution of this heel, for they want him to screw up the Republican Party. My very  first posting occurred on 29 April 2008 .  It was entitled SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth and Humanity, the title of this blog.  I said: Some relative costs per gallon: Gasoline in USA $ 3.50 Gasoline in Hong Kong $ 7.50 (similar to Europe) Scope Mouthwash $ 15.00 Gallon of Beer in Restaurant $ 20.00 Evian (naïve backwards) $ 21.00 Brake Fluid (mostly oil) $ 34.00 Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch $ 160.00 Vick’s Nyquil $ 180.00 Channel #5 Perfume $4000.00 Computer printer ink $5000.00 I further said the price of petroleum just shot past $110/barrel, but that is only $2.62/gallon.  Energy is expensive, but cheap.   If you sc...