Going Greener
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Might as well have been recycled twice used toilet paper. And it had not had much of a life lying in a corner of a seldom used room.
What is worrying are the thousands of identical ones out there waiting to electrocute people.
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Not good, seriously not good! Glad you weren't using power at the time!
The trouble with so many plastics is that even though they break apart, the tiny fragments still hang around. I read that for some reason many fish, which as species are mostly far older than humanity and have survived over millions of years, actually find micro-bits of plastic more appealing than their natural food - something to do with the smell IIRC - so die as a result, duly passing the stuff up the food chain. So sadly, horribly useless plug blocks aren't even environmentally useful.
... just cheaper to make?
(Let's not get into what happens to old caravans when they die just now! .... though no doubt greener construction methods might be possible.)
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A CL we were on had an old caravan as a chicken coop.
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I have taken these suggestions very much to heart and have decided NOT to install a tumble drier and washing machine in the Motorhome and we will continue to wash cloths by hand and put them on the (discretely located) airer when on site. We will also only go to hot places where we don't need heating and the clothes dry quickly.
We have also decided to continue to buy wine boxes in France as they are more environmentally friendly (plus they hold more and cost less than bottles). There are some very high quality wines available in boxes.
Anybody else making similar sacrifices?
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I am way past making any sort of sacrifice for anything, not worth the effort.
I suppose I might jet off somewhere hot in the next few months to save on heating the caravan?
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It's not strictly a caravan issue, but certainly of great interest, relevant to the issue of greener power, and how it's developing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0938p7z
Radio 4 "Costing the Earth" programme about very positive and exciting developments in Cornwall. And yes, batteries do come into it!
Truly one for those who shake their heads and say "It can't be done, we really need fossil fuels and nuclear power".Happy listening :-)
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I'm not going to use my data allowance to listen to a radio program but presumably this is about extracting lithium from the old South Crofty tin mine.
If only I had a quid for every time I'd heard of the latest plan for reopening South Crofty.
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To save your bandwidth, TW, here's a synopsis of the programme's points, and yes, they did mention the lithium, but read on...
Programme looked at existing places, eg large holiday park, already combining solar & biomass boiler to drastically cut use of grid.
Then Vanadium Redox “energy storage machines” - big & heavy, so not a caravan possibility! but they don't degrade like ordinary batteries, and are already improving with research. Holiday cottages able to run on combination of solar & these. Plans to have 2 lorry container sized units to power entire holiday complex,
Energy Academic accepts that we're not there yet by a long way, and currently still need power stations, but in long term, between wind, wave and sun, more localised small-scale generation and storage plants, complete sustainability without them is a real possibility within decades, even in the face of electric vehicles needing re-charging.
Basically, it's all about intelligent planning and thinking in a different way from status quo.
Something I hadn't realised is that the national energy system structure is now coming up to needing renewing anyway, so planning for long term now rather than simply replacing what's already there again seems far better.
Stresses need for politicians to realise long term goals above the next election – surely the stumbling block!
Then indeed programme moves onto lithium - didn't hear a place name, just "central inland Cornwall". Proposal to use modern bore hole extraction rather than re-opening old mines, using on-site geothermal energy power for extraction, which operators reckon will work.So lots of things which are still goals rather than already in action, but many of them seem realistically possible if only politicians can be persuaded of the need. Hopefully the increasing momentum will persuade them.... all except the ones with vested interests in nuclear and fracking, of course!
Hope this helps!
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Yes, very interesting Hedge. Not only interesting but very exciting about what is possible now and in the future. Rather than large power stations there will be millions of small generation facilities and isn't this what we with SPs are doing on a much smaller scale? It's the same thing- we are powering our holidays with sunlight- I wish I was 40 yrs younger to see what the developments would be!! I was very interested in the energy storage unit- sounds really good with being able to store during the day and release it at night when the holidaymakers come back from their day out. The Lithium part was interesting too. Just shows you how necessity is the mother of invention. Lithium batteries I understand have a less than perfect track record for safety but even this is being, or rather has been, solved. Apparently the problem was that if you wanted the battery to be powerful and hold a good charge, the electrolyte was made of a certain material - and it was this that had the potential safety problem- they can be made of safer materials but of course the battery power was reduced. Now, I believe, they have cracked the problem where you have a safe electrolyte and good power- but I read, it won't be commercially available for about 5 years- watch that get reduced! Yes, the future is bright for renewables- not sure I believe all this CO2 balony though - I happen to believe that the world is in a natural cycle and the carbon thing is just another way the political class has of doing its own extracting- money from our pockets!
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This may get moved as strictly speaking unless you use your caravan at home for a cuppa (which I do sometimes) it isn't really relevant :- In an attempt to help my daughter save some of her hard earned cash on bills I have been wondering if it would be better for her to use an electric kettle or a kettle on the gas. Per Kw her gas is about 1/3 of the price of electricity. I asked an electrician and he said it depended how quickly the gas boiled the water - well that would depend on which ring I chose - small medium or large? Anyone any helpful answer? I am pretty confident that my Safefill gas would work out cheaper than electricity but am I right?
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On UK mains gas and electricity, even if boiling the kettle on gas is only 50% efficient, it will still be cheaper to use gas. In winter when you are heating that area by other means, even the other 50% is not wasted as it will to a tiny extent reduce the heating demand ..... assuming efficient temperature controls.
I actually went through the exercise of comparing the use of bottled gas versus metered electricity when in Spain. At the (regulated) price for butane of EU14 for 12.5kg; and the campsite metered rate of 30cents/kWh ..... using bottled gas works out a fair bit cheaper. (In Spain lpg at a filling station is actually more expensive than exchange bottles ...so I'm afraid SafeFill would be no advantage!)
Of course as far as boiling a kettle is concerned, the biggest waste of all comes from people boiling far more water at a time than they actually need
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Thanks Vic I thought I was correct and the large gas ring on her cooker is pretty quick. Yes I am always on at her not to boil too much! However its really annoying if you boil too little as I have done this week twice! But it doesn't take long for the top up to boil in a hot kettle I suppose!
I have LPG heating and cooking in winter - a Rayburn - at home I suppose I should really use it for cooking in Summer as well but last time I asked the price to run a pipe was ridiculous.
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I'm amazed that with all the electric used on sites (and that's without charging cars and bikes more in the future) that the Caravan club hasn't put solar panels on all of it's buildings. There are so many toilet block roofs out there that are bare tiles. If they committed to using more solar power I'm sure it would have a massive effect on costs as well as making the club more green.
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Yes and yes again to that!
As to the gas v electricity at home question, the equation does change if you have solar panels on the roof, though kettles do take a huge whack of power. We installed them while we were both working, partly on principle, partly so that as we get ever more retired we enjoy the benefit of the cheaper bills and money back on what we generate at a time when we're earning less.
Even with all 16 panels enjoying full sun, they're only just equal to a sprinting kettle, but if we used a lower wattage kettle we'd have free hot water a lot of the time. Maybe we should use the caravan kettle and patience at home!
Meanwhile, since we're doing home matters just for now, we have a Thermos kettle which boils the water then keeps it hot for ages, so it's worth boiling a full one if you're going to need more any time fairly soon; even an hour or two later it takes less time to blast up if you didn't use it all.
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HH doesn't the low wattage use the same amount of lecky over the longer term? I think this cropped up in a discussion before. My daughter does have solar panels but she is seldom in the house when they are at their peak so that doesn't apply to her cuppas. But she does use them for an immersion heater midday in the summer and for running the washing machine on a delayed setting. The Thermos kettle sounds a great idea - although the tea purists would tell you it has to be freshly boiled water! I don't drink tea!
I couldn't agree more about the Club using Solar panels they certainly missed out back in the day when the subsidies were higher than now. There is a huge bank of panels at the Exeter Racecourse site but presumably that belongs to the Racecourse not the Club.
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Hi Pippah45, and of course you're right, it will take roughly the same amount of power in total. But boiling it slower wouldn't take it all at once in such a blast. While the roof's only producing 250W at present - it's dark grey and actively raining out there - yesterday it was over 3KW for much of the day, and in high summer, more. So I reckon anything taking less than 3KW is free at such times, if you don't mind mind it taking a bit longer.
We're thinking of getting a lower power, slower immersion heater for the same reason, so we can use it on average days without the grid having to cut in. It's lovely using a washing machine and watching the meter going nowhere!
And yes, tea purists demand freshly boiled, but it still tastes pretty good to me, and if needed, it's only a few seconds to zap it back up to boiling.
It would be dangerously close to getting political here to comment that the gov't has seemingly done a lot to kill the growing solar power industry just as it was progressing closer to a stage where subsidy wouldn't be needed.1 -
Looked to be an interesting program on solar, battery technology and electric cars this morning on the BBC's Click program. I only caught the shortened version but looked worthwhile watching the full version on catchup when available.
peedee
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Very good point HH I hadn't thought about the heavy draw and solar panels. I looked at my capacity a few weeks ago when the sun was very hot and found the battery for the solar was very low - then I remembered the immersion heater was on. As you say its a pity many have missed the boat with solar support but I won't get political either! Except to say I would rather the NHS got the money!
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Thanks Peedee, I'll have to look into that. We'll have electric towing cars yet!! (I just can't afford one until they come a long way cheaper, but they're growing.)
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