Red, Golden Arches, and Green

MacDonald's sign in Cornwall, England, powered by solar and wind.
The sky was rather grey that day, but the wind was blowing nicely (it was raining, too!).
Pretty typical weather for Cornwall, and that wind generator was spinning like crazy!
There are so many illuminated signs in non-city areas where a panel and small turbine can be mounted near an illuminated sign or on the roof of the building.
So easy, so obvious, and a drop in the ocean for the budget of a major company.
Yet, if everyone did it, the effect would be HUGE!
Good on you McDonalds!

A Few Ideas to Make the World a Better (Greener) Place - Part 2 - Condensing Boilers

We have a modern condensing boiler.

Our boiler hangs on the wall in our kitchen.

It is a Worcester-Bosch Greenstar 30si model, with a rated efficency of 90.1%.
Our previous boiler (a late '80s Glow-worm model) had an efficiency of just 68%.
As things these days have an energy rating, our current boiler is rated as an "A" (the best), while our pevious boiler was rated as a "G" (the worst).
So, what does it mean?

Well, moving from an effiency of 68% to 90% means the boiler will use about one-third LESS FUEL, while still providing the SAME HEAT OUTPUT.

How is such an improvement possible?
Is the technology that much different?

Yes, it is.
A condensing boiler uses waste heat from the combustion to pre-heat the incoming water.
The heat-exchanger inside the boiler also has to be made of a more expensive corrosion-resistant material, due to the mildly corrosive nature of the condensed waste liquid inside the boiler, which is then drained off.
Read more about it here.

Of course, since the boiler is modern, it is also available with modern heating controls - so we got a wireless remote thermostat.
It is great, because you can put it where you want, and if you want to be sure that one part of the house has a particular temperature, then just put the thermostat there!
(in the picture, we are regulating the temperature of our house to keep our hamster warm! Of course, we also have TRV valves on our radiators)

The boiler has a snazzy little remore thermostat.
Here we are using it to keep our hamster warm enough.

So there you have it.
The same amount of heat, but from a third less gas.
That's good for my wallet, and, if not entirely good, is at least less bad for the planet!
Every little helps!

Saving fuel with careful driving

The car we use for hypermiling - a 1300kg 1600cc turbo-diesel

Apologies for not blogging much on hypermiling for quite some time.
As I mentioned in my last post, I don't drive much, having  moved my workplace during an internal re-organisation in the company I work for.
This has left me with a one mile cycle to work, rather than a twenty-five mile (each way) drive.
Saving fuel with careful driving isn't the entire answer, but it is easy enough to do, and makes a real difference, at least until better transport solutions emerge in the future.

We still use our car for some journeys, particularly the longer ones.
Recently I made three long-ish journeys in our car, and it is these that I will share with you now.

A Few Ideas to Make the World a Better (Greener) Place - Part 1 - Light Bulbs

Our table lamp with a 4 watt LED bulb.
A decent light for working near on the compter,
while giving a decent saving on electricity over our previous lamp.

We all want to pay a little less for electricity and/or cause a little less CO2, and help to do our bit, but most of us aren't ready to "put on the hair-shirt" just yet.

We want our luxuries, and see them as one of the hallmarks of our civilisation.
Indeed, for me, the three great marks of civilisation where I live are
1. The water that comes from the taps (faucets) is safe to drink

2. There is a decent public health system, so I can see a decent doctor if I am ill, without worrying about the cost.
3. Electricity is available at the flick of a switch, and it pretty much almost always works - our power locally is down for less, on average, than one hour per YEAR (based on only one decent power cut of 4 hours, and a few brief interruptions at night that cause the microwave clock to reset itself(!) in the 14 years I have lived in this town).

Still, we do all want to do our bit for "Global Warming" and/or save a bit of money on our electricity bills.

So here are a few ideas for you to think about, based on what we are doing.

Idea number 1: LED light bulbs.

We have started fitting LED light-bulbs into our various lamps. We had pretty much all of them fitted with Compact Flourescent tubes anyway, with just our rarely used interior porch light (there is a street light opposite our house!) having a "regular" spotlight bulb in it, and our table lamp next to this computer having a Halogen-type minature bulb with a wierd fitment.
Anyway, we decided to "make the switch", and have started purchasing LED bulbs.
As a result, that porch light now has an LED bulb (down from 60 watts to just 8 watts), and I use it more now, as I tend to switch the main room light (20 watts CF) off when I am putting my shoes on, using the porch light instead.

We have noticed that more powerful LED bulbs that would replace a 20 watt CF bulb (or a 100 watt "old-fashioned" filament bulb) are not very readily available, so this will be a long, slow upgrading process for us. As the CF bulbs fail, they will get replaced a few at a time by LEDs!

After the porch light, the other "old technology" bulb we had was the 10W bulb in that table lmap on the computer desk. It failed before Christmas, and a new bulb didn't fix the problem. After maybe 20 years, and a few falls, that lamp had had enough.
So a new lamp, bulb and fixture, it was, then.
An ideal time to switch to LED.
Now we run a 4 watt LED bulb in the new table lamp, and it is just as bright (if not brighter) than the "old" table lamp.
That lamp gets quite a bit of use, too, even in daylight, as the computer desk is in a shady part of the house!
So that's 10 watts down to 4 watts, with usage at between two and 10 hours a day.
Soon adds up!

4 watt LED bulb from our table lamp

So why are LED light bulbs better than the old light bulbs or the compact flourescent bulbs.?
The answer is easy - heat.
When I switch a light on I want it to make light with the electricity, not heat. the more the bulb heats up, the more light I am not getting for my electricity!

The old-type ("filament") bulbs (perfected, although not invented, by Edison - know your history!) work by heating a filament so hot that it glows white, and emits the light we see. So the bulbs get hot. Anyone who has even briefly touched a 60W bulb when it is on knows what I am talking about.
I used to have an old 16mm film projector with a 500 watt bulb in it, and that could heat a small room by itself when I was running film through it!


Halogen bulbs  use essentially the same basic principle as the filament bulbs - a hot wire, so hot that it emits light. Where they differ is that a halogen bulb bas a special gas inside the bulb, and the "glass" is made from quartz. The combination of the special gas (usually argon on krypton) and the quartz glass means that the bulb can run EVEN hotter. The extra heat of the filament means that more of the energy is emitted as light, and less as heat, and these bulbs look whiter (or even blue-white) compared with "regular" bulbs. Vehicle headlight bulbs switched to Halogen types 40-odd years ago.
For "domestic" household bulbs, the quartz glass of the bulb is ofetn enclosed in a regular glass bulb as well, as the sweat on skin can affect the quartz. Smaller bulbs, like the miniature ones fitted to some table lamps and reading lights don't have the outer glass cover, and a pair of cotten gloves (or similar) should be used when handling the bulb.
From an energy saving point of view, Halogen bulbs are about twice as efficient as "regular" filament bulbs.


Compact Flourescent (CF aka CFL) lights use MUCH less energy than "filament" (Edison-type) bulbs, but some folks don't like the greenish tint they often give to the light, some folks are upset by the flickering that some CF bulbs seem to undergo, some folks don't like the way that many CF bulbs start off dim, then brighten up after a bit, and to be honest, they still get quite warm!
A 20 watt CF bulb gets quite a hot tube, but nowhere near as hot as a "filament" bulb of the same light output. The different spectrum of light output means that to the eye, the difference between a "filament" bulb and a CF bulb is big, but not quite as big as a lightmeter would show - the reason being that the human eye is more sensitive to yellow light than other colours, and the "old" bulbs produce a "yellower" light!

The common energy saving quoted for CF bulbs vs "filament" bulbs is 5:1, but, in practice, I have found that my eyes prefer a 4:1 ratio.
That means a 60 watt "old" bulb should be replaced with a 15 (-ish) watt replacement, rather than the 12 watts that bulb makers generally claim.

But 4:1 is still a CONSIDERABLE saving on electricity!

LED lights produce a more yellow colour of light, and with their almost instant start-up they produce pretty much full light as soon as switched on.
LED lights tend to have an efficiency improvement on the "old" type lights of 5:1 to 6:1, but because of their more "yellow" light output, they can be replace an "old" bulb at that ratio (i.e. 8 watts replaced 40 watts, rather athn a 10 or 11 watt CF bulb) The problem is that LED lights in higher wattages aren't commonly available yet.

We use LED lights in our lower power applications, and have several. Three have "regular" bulb shapes, and are interchangeable with CF or "filament" bulbs.

4 watt dual-LED bulb as used in our table lamp

We have a 10 watt LED bulb in our floor lamp, an 8 watt LED lamp in our porch, and a 4 watt LED bulb in the table lmap next to this computer.
We also have several reading lamps that each have a non-replaceable 3 watt LED light in them, and they have a tightly focussed beam, and are great for reading in bed! The brightness of light that illuminates my book from that little 3 watt LED lamp is actually more than that from the main light in the room, but then, of course, the little reading lamp is only trying to light one small area, while the bigger lamp has to light an entire room!

Summary: 

For the same amount of light, as perceived by the human eye, the approximate efficiency of the various types of lights are as follows:
Regular, filament, bulb: 60W (the reference level!)
Halogen bulb: 30W
Compact Flourescent bulb: 15W
LED: 10 to 12 W

In each case, I have given an equivalent for the same usage of the bulb.
A spotlight gives a more focussed beam, and should be considered against other designs of spotlights, rather than "general" lights, or the bulbs for "table" lamps.
Of course, part of the solution is to choose the most appropriate light fitting in the first place - a little reading light at the bedside is a much better way to read in bed than lighting the whole room to the same level of illumination!

The Sinclair C5 - the "green" vehicle that was way ahead of its time

The Sinclair C5 - shown here superinposed with a "Mini" for size comparison.
Picture from the official press release that accompanied the launch of the C5 on 10th January 1985
(and, therefore, as it was part of a press release,
my use of it in this article would appear to be both legal and ethical)

Read my C5 review here.

The Sinclair C5 was released in Britain on the 10th of January 1985, and initailly priced at about 400 pounds (640 dollars, 480 euros, at current exchange rates, but not allowing for inflation!).

Although it was a commercial failure, it is a very good case study of a "green" vehicle.

I remember the original release (I'm nearly 50 years old!), and later, the C5s being sold at half-price to get rid of the stock.

I didn't buy one, as back in January 2005, I was a clerk at the Ministry of Defence (if you're an American, think Department of Defense, and you're pretty close!), and iirc, my MONTHLY wage was about 400 pounds before taxes etc. and about 300 pounds by the time it actually reached my bank account, so being priced at five-and-a-half weeks pay, the Sinclair C5 (at the original price) wasn't exactly cheap!

Iirc, about 10 or 15 years, some C5s were uprated to have solar panels on them and were sold in iirc California.

I am posting this article because it might inspire someone to design a practical, modern, "green" vehicle, but do read my review first, for my comments on actually driving (riding?) the Sinclair C5!
Anyway, onto the dimensions.
There are a few link at the end of this piece where you can go to download manuals etc. for the Sinclair C5.


Size

• Overall length: 1.744m (5' 9")

How many wind farms is too many?

As brought to my attention by the BBC, some politicians think that there are too many applications to build wind farms in Scotland.

So how many is too many?

Caravanning by bicycle?

These days lots of folk are trying to be more "green" - lower their carbon footprint, live sustainably, etc. etc.
We all like our holidays (especially us Europeans who seem to get twice as much vacation time as most Americans - don't blame me, because you voted for the folks that made it so, not me!), so how can we combine our increasing environmental awareness with some much needed time away from the office and the home?

Here's an idea for you!