A bushel (abbreviation: bsh. or bu.) is an imperial and US customary unit of volume, based upon an earlier measure of dry capacity. The old bushel was used mostly for agricultural products, such as wheat: in modern usage, the volume is nominal, with bushels denoting a mass defined differently for each commodity.
The name "bushel" is also used to translate similar units in other measurement systems.
The Han dynasty (202 BC β 220 AD) was the second imperial dynasty of China, following the Qin dynasty (221β207 BC). It was divided into the periods of Western (Former) Han (202 BC β 9 AD) and Eastern (Later) Han (25β220 AD), briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty (9β23 AD) of Wang Mang. The capital of Western Han was Chang'an, and the capital of Eastern Han was Luoyang. The emperor headed the government, promulgating all written laws, serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and presiding as the chief executive official. He appointed all government officials who earned a salary of 600 bushels of grain or more (though these salaries were largely paid in coin cash) with the help of advisors who reviewed each nominee. The empress dowager could either be the emperor's actual or symbolic mother, and was in practice more respected than the emperor, as she could override his decisions; she could even make decisions on behalf of the emperor in dilemma matters of the country or for the order and continuation of the dynasty. If necessary, with the support of the courtiers, she would decide on his successor or his dismissal, although such a challenge was only raised by the empress dowager to the emperor during the emperor's youth or incapacity. The emperor's executive powers could also be practiced by any official upon whom he bestowed the Staff of Authority. These powers included the right to execute criminals without the imperial court's permission.
Near the beginning of the dynasty, semi-autonomous regional kings rivaled the emperor's authority. This autonomy was greatly diminished when the imperial court enacted reforms following the threats to central control like the Rebellion of the Seven States. The end of the Han dynasty came about during a time of civil, military and religious upheaval, which resulted in the period of Three Kingdoms.
Kokudaka (η³ι«) refers to a system for determining land value for taxation purposes under the Tokugawa shogunate of Edo-period Japan, and expressing this value in terms of koku of rice.
One koku (roughly equivalent to five bushels) was generally viewed as the equivalent of enough rice to feed one person for a year. The actual revenue or income derived from a holding varied from region to region, and depended on the amount of actual control the fief holder held over the territory in question, but averaged around 40 percent of the theoretical kokudaka.
Winchester measure is a set of legal standards of volume instituted in the late 15th century (1495) by King HenryΒ VII of England and in use, with some modifications, until the present day. It consists of the Winchester bushel and its dependent quantities, the peck, (dry) gallon and (dry) quart. They would later become known as the Winchester Standards, named because the examples were kept in the city of Winchester.
A chaser bin, also called grain cart, bank out wagon or (grain) auger wagon, is a trailer towed by a tractor with a built-in auger conveyor system, usually with a large capacity (from several hundred to over 1000 bushels; around 15 tonnes (33,000Β lb) is average).
Ethanol fuel is fuel containing ethyl alcohol, the same type of alcohol as found in alcoholic beverages. It is most often used as a motor fuel, mainly as a biofuel additive for gasoline.
Several common ethanol fuel mixtures are in use around the world. The use of pure hydrous or anhydrous ethanol in internal combustion engines (ICEs) is possible only if the engines are designed or modified for that purpose. Anhydrous ethanol can be blended with gasoline (petrol) for use in gasoline engines, but with a high ethanol content only after engine modifications to meter increased fuel volume since pure ethanol contains only 2/3 the energy of an equivalent volume of pure gasoline. High percentage ethanol mixtures are used in some racing engine applications since the very high octane rating of ethanol is compatible with very high compression ratios.
Food versus fuel is the dilemma regarding the risk of diverting farmland or crops for biofuels production to the detriment of the food supply. The biofuel and food price debate involves wide-ranging views and is a long-standing, controversial one in the literature. There is disagreement about the significance of the issue, what is causing it, and what can or should be done to remedy the situation. This complexity and uncertainty are due to the large number of impacts and feedback loops that can positively or negatively affect the price system. Moreover, the relative strengths of these positive and negative impacts vary in the short and long terms, and involve delayed effects. The academic side of the debate is also blurred by the use of different economic models and competing forms of statistical analysis.
Biofuel production has increased in recent years. Some commodities, like maize (corn), sugar cane or vegetable oil can be used either as food, feed, or to make biofuels. For example, since 2006, a portion of land that was also formerly used to grow food crops in the United States is now used to grow corn for biofuels, and a larger share of corn is destined for ethanol production, reaching 25% in 2007. Oil price increases since 2003, the desire to reduce oil dependency, and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation have together increased global demand for biofuels. Increased demand tends to improve financial returns on production, making biofuel more profitable and attractive than food production. This, in turn, leads to greater resource inputs to biofuel production, with correspondingly reduced resources put towards the production of food. Global food security issues may result from such economic disincentives to large-scale agricultural food production. There is, in addition, potential for the destruction of habitats with increasing pressure to convert land use to agriculture, for the production of biofuel. Environmental groups have raised concerns about these potential harms for some years, but the issues drew widespread attention worldwide due to the 2007β2008 world food price crisis.
A peck is an imperial and United States customary unit of dry volume, equivalent to 8 dry quarts or 16 dry pints. An imperial peck is equivalent to 9.09218 liters and a US customary peck is equivalent to 8.80976754172 liters. Four pecks make a bushel. Although the peck is no longer widely used, some produce, such as apples, are still often sold by the peck in the U.S. (although it is obsolete in the UK, found only in the old nursery rhyme "Peter Piper" and in the Bible β e.g., Matthew 5:15 in some older translations).
The United States became the world's largest producer of ethanol fuel in 2005. The U.S. produced 15.8 billion U.S. liquid gallons of ethanol fuel in 2019, up from 13.9 billion gallons (52.6 billion liters) in 2011, and from 1.62 billion gallons in 2000. Brazil and U.S. production accounted for 87.1% of global production in 2011. In the U.S., ethanol fuel is mainly used as an oxygenate in gasoline in the form of low-level blends up to 10 percent, and, increasingly, as E85 fuel for flex-fuel vehicles. The U.S. government subsidizes ethanol production.
The ethanol market share in the U.S. gasoline supply grew by volume from just over 1 percent in 2000 to more than 3 percent in 2006 to 10 percent in 2011. Domestic production capacity increased fifteen times after 1990, from 900 million US gallons to 1.63 billion US gal in 2000, to 13.5 billion US gallons in 2010. The Renewable Fuels Association reported 209 ethanol distilleries in operation located in 29 states in 2011.