With petrol prices going up and up due to the volatility in oil price, VAT increases and inflation, one can't be blamed for looking at how to reduce their fuel consumption. Many motorists are, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, looking for ways to bring their fuel use down to save money and make their motoring more affordable. In this article are some tips to driving in a more fuel efficient way and techniques you can use to ensure that you don't use a drop more petrol than you have to.
To drive or not to drive?
An obvious one to start with but worth considering anyway, do you actually need to drive there? Many people use their cars to get from A to B when a 10 minute walk will achieve the same aim whilst saving you money and giving you some health-boosting exercise. Next time you want to pop down the shops, ask yourself, 'do I really need to drive there?'. You'll find that many journeys you made before this analysis of your driving behaviour were actually unnecessary and that as a result of not driving so much, your health picks up too.
Coast and Burn
A technique used by hypermilers to get the most from their petrol is called coast and burn. It's what it sounds like; one accelerates then removes their foot from the accelerator. The car will carry itself forward with it's momentum whilst it's in gear. Unlike 'normal' driving though, the time the car spends coasting on the momentum built up from acceleration uses no fuel. This is because the accelerator pedal tells the car's fuel injection system when to feed fuel to the engine. When the pedal is pressed, fuel is injected into the engine, when the pedal is left alone, no fuel is used. This can be considered free movement as the car still moves but it isn't using fuel. This only works if you don't have the clutch pedal down. The momentum of the car drives the engine but when the clutch is down, the engine still uses fuel. Continuing this cycle of coasting and burning can save you quite a bit of fuel over the course of a month. It also gives you a better appreciation of the speed at which you're travelling as you need to keep burning and coasting to ensure a decent average speed.
Coast to a stop
This one doesn't really have a name, it's more of an awareness of how you drive. It's a technique used when approaching a junction/ stop sign/ traffic lights/ etc and it's about letting the car coast along in gear with no pedals depressed so you roll up to one of the afore mentioned areas from cruising speed to a stop. This gives you 300/400 yards of free travel as the momentum of the car carries you forward as you slow down but unlike the coast and burn technique, the objective is to stop. Again, if no pedals are pressed, the wheels drive the engine and the movement uses no petrol.
Hopefully these techniques are useful to you in cutting your motoring bills.
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 August 2011
Cloud Ships
It may sound like a fantasy idea but the concept of producing clouds to combat global warming is a potential solution to the increasing global temperatures we all face. Research done in the mid 2000's showed that a fleet of ships that can produce clouds could act as an effective tool to combat increasing temperatures caused by the excess CO2 produced by human activity.
The ships are called Flettner vessels, after their designer Anton Flettner. The ships in question consist of a single hull with three rotor stacks on top, like funnels. The stacks have fins on them and are rotated by the motion of the wind. The stacks are hollow and so draw water up themselves when rotated. The water forms a spray / mist and the aerosol formed rises into the atmosphere, increasing the concentration of water in the atmosphere and increasing the likelihood of clouds forming. It's an ingenious idea but the cost $5.3 Bn is too rich for anyone's blood at the moment as this project hasn't seen any progress since 2009.
The main inhibitor to the production of these vessels is cost. The huge cost is too much for even the richest countries. It's a good concept though, built on sound engineering principles. I'd like to see some progress and the project taken forward but it's the stuff of dreams, cloud seeding ships sailing the seas on autopilot.
Read more at : http://www.zdnet.com/blog/emergingtech/1500-ships-to-fight-climate-change/1030
cloud
The ships are called Flettner vessels, after their designer Anton Flettner. The ships in question consist of a single hull with three rotor stacks on top, like funnels. The stacks have fins on them and are rotated by the motion of the wind. The stacks are hollow and so draw water up themselves when rotated. The water forms a spray / mist and the aerosol formed rises into the atmosphere, increasing the concentration of water in the atmosphere and increasing the likelihood of clouds forming. It's an ingenious idea but the cost $5.3 Bn is too rich for anyone's blood at the moment as this project hasn't seen any progress since 2009.
The main inhibitor to the production of these vessels is cost. The huge cost is too much for even the richest countries. It's a good concept though, built on sound engineering principles. I'd like to see some progress and the project taken forward but it's the stuff of dreams, cloud seeding ships sailing the seas on autopilot.
Read more at : http://www.zdnet.com/blog/emergingtech/1500-ships-to-fight-climate-change/1030
cloud
Sunday, 31 July 2011
Wood-burning stoves
Fuel bills have increased astronomically over the last few years. You can combat these increased costs with a dual-fuel / woodburning stove. These stoves are usually made from cast iron or steel and can be routed into existing chimney systems. They can be operated with many different kinds of fuel. From simple wood and paper fuels to woodchip and bitumen bricks. They can also burn heavy grade tar if it is first preheated in a bowl in the stove by already burning wood.
As a result, this kind of stove is really appealing to survival nuts who feel they'll need to be able to burn anything 'when the end of the world comes'. http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=11297564&fh_location=//catalog01/en_GB/categories%3C{9372014}/categories%3C{9372037}/categories%3C{9372162}/specificationsProductType=stoves/specificationsSpecificProductType=solid_fuel_stoves&tmcampid=4&tmad=c&ecamp=cse_go&CAWELAID=754382696
Fuel
For normal people, this represents a really useful stove which can provide (after purchase) nearly free heat over the winter months. I say nearly free as you must invest in a hand axe http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002W5VM8A/ref=asc_df_B002W5VM8A3821946?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B002W5VM8A to obtain the fuel for your stove. This can be any wood that isn't treated with chemicals as these will be released into the air if you burn it. You can obtain wood from fallen logs in forests and old fence posts which haven't been treated with preservative. This act also serves to protect the delicate ecosystem in a forest to
ensure that no one species get the upper hand in that environment. To ensure an uninterrupted supply of wood, pile loads of dry wood up under a water proof tarp near your house. This will make finding wood in winter easy and ensure you don't have to go for to get it.
Use
Obviously, a stove can be used to heat your home but it can also be of another use, heating water. some stoves come with a built in hotplate which you can use to heat an iron kettle. This allows you to avoid using electricity during the winter months as it is charged at a higher rate. It can be safely used as central heating overnight while you sleep too. To do this safely, you will need a carbon monoxide alarm to ensure that you're stove isn't malfunctioning. position this near the stove and test it regularly. To use overnight, simply load up your stove with fuel then close the air intake to half way. This will reduce the burn rate of your stove and allow it to burn through the night. To continue use in the morning, simply add more fuel and open the intake to full to give full burn of fuel.
Savings
Over about a two year period, your stove will have paid for itself through gas and electricity savings. This goes forward on the premise that you'll use a few hundred pounds in energy to heat your home over winter. As these stoves are normally of very high quality, you can be sure to save that figure annually. The money saved will soon mount up on paper though in reality, you'll be able to use it for other things you want, rather than need.
Environment
Some of you may think that using a woodburning stove harms the environment but consider this, a woodburning stove uses fuel from local surroundings and ensures that waste wood doesn't build up. It also takes the transport energy costs out of heating your home. What I mean is that the natural gas you would have used formally, would have come from the Middle East or Australia or Russia. At least some of this gas will have arrived via pipeline which involves large machines to compress the gas for transport. This is without mentioning the energy costs involved in obtaining the gas in the first place. Drilling for gas is very energy intensive work and is another negative which is avoided totally with the use of a woodburning stove.
As a result, this kind of stove is really appealing to survival nuts who feel they'll need to be able to burn anything 'when the end of the world comes'. http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=11297564&fh_location=//catalog01/en_GB/categories%3C{9372014}/categories%3C{9372037}/categories%3C{9372162}/specificationsProductType=stoves/specificationsSpecificProductType=solid_fuel_stoves&tmcampid=4&tmad=c&ecamp=cse_go&CAWELAID=754382696
Fuel
For normal people, this represents a really useful stove which can provide (after purchase) nearly free heat over the winter months. I say nearly free as you must invest in a hand axe http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B002W5VM8A/ref=asc_df_B002W5VM8A3821946?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B002W5VM8A to obtain the fuel for your stove. This can be any wood that isn't treated with chemicals as these will be released into the air if you burn it. You can obtain wood from fallen logs in forests and old fence posts which haven't been treated with preservative. This act also serves to protect the delicate ecosystem in a forest to
ensure that no one species get the upper hand in that environment. To ensure an uninterrupted supply of wood, pile loads of dry wood up under a water proof tarp near your house. This will make finding wood in winter easy and ensure you don't have to go for to get it.
Use
Obviously, a stove can be used to heat your home but it can also be of another use, heating water. some stoves come with a built in hotplate which you can use to heat an iron kettle. This allows you to avoid using electricity during the winter months as it is charged at a higher rate. It can be safely used as central heating overnight while you sleep too. To do this safely, you will need a carbon monoxide alarm to ensure that you're stove isn't malfunctioning. position this near the stove and test it regularly. To use overnight, simply load up your stove with fuel then close the air intake to half way. This will reduce the burn rate of your stove and allow it to burn through the night. To continue use in the morning, simply add more fuel and open the intake to full to give full burn of fuel.
Savings
Over about a two year period, your stove will have paid for itself through gas and electricity savings. This goes forward on the premise that you'll use a few hundred pounds in energy to heat your home over winter. As these stoves are normally of very high quality, you can be sure to save that figure annually. The money saved will soon mount up on paper though in reality, you'll be able to use it for other things you want, rather than need.
Environment
Some of you may think that using a woodburning stove harms the environment but consider this, a woodburning stove uses fuel from local surroundings and ensures that waste wood doesn't build up. It also takes the transport energy costs out of heating your home. What I mean is that the natural gas you would have used formally, would have come from the Middle East or Australia or Russia. At least some of this gas will have arrived via pipeline which involves large machines to compress the gas for transport. This is without mentioning the energy costs involved in obtaining the gas in the first place. Drilling for gas is very energy intensive work and is another negative which is avoided totally with the use of a woodburning stove.
House Hunt Update
Hi, I went yesterday to the house I found on the internet and arranged to meet my contact, Jose, at elevenish. As I had arrived early in London, I had time on my hands so I scoped out the local area. I've given a quick account of the local area and my thoughts against my needs and preferences.
Quiet and Leafy
I had a slow walk around the surrounding streets and it looked like a decent area. The surrounding houses were all Victorian three storey houses and there wasn't much activity even at half past ten on a Saturday. From what I could see, there's a few older couples and young families in the area so I can only assume it has some degree of safety. This is important as I don't want to be 'locked into' an area rife with crime. There were plenty of trees and there were two parks close by. Again, an important thing for me as I like nothing more than to walk in parks when I've got a spare half an hour.
Shopping!!
Further up the road and round some corners, there's a Londis supermarket which makes two close by (I saw a discount supermarket shortly after getting off the tube). This is important too as I don't want to be walking miles / getting on many buses to get to a food shop done. In addition, there's a few restaurants, newsagents and a launderette. All these amenities being close to hand makes the property look very attractive.
The house proper
Having looked around the local area, I returned to the house to meet with Jose. The door opened to reveal a smiley character. He walked me through the house and it tallied well with the pictures that the advertiser of the house had given to me. It had a great, bright well lit living room. This is more important than anything as I tend to work, eat and generally live in there. The room was small but with a double bed so indeed, very tolerable!!
Spick and Span
As the property is rented by young professionals, there is a cleaning rota and the house was very clean and tidy when I saw it. As I'm allergic to dust and mould, this is fantastic. As I won't be busy for the whole working day like they will, I'll be able to easily achieve my cleaning commitments.
The way forward
I've indicated my strong interest in the property and I have a number for the estate agent. I'll give them a call Monday and see how I go from here.
Quiet and Leafy
I had a slow walk around the surrounding streets and it looked like a decent area. The surrounding houses were all Victorian three storey houses and there wasn't much activity even at half past ten on a Saturday. From what I could see, there's a few older couples and young families in the area so I can only assume it has some degree of safety. This is important as I don't want to be 'locked into' an area rife with crime. There were plenty of trees and there were two parks close by. Again, an important thing for me as I like nothing more than to walk in parks when I've got a spare half an hour.
Shopping!!
Further up the road and round some corners, there's a Londis supermarket which makes two close by (I saw a discount supermarket shortly after getting off the tube). This is important too as I don't want to be walking miles / getting on many buses to get to a food shop done. In addition, there's a few restaurants, newsagents and a launderette. All these amenities being close to hand makes the property look very attractive.
The house proper
Having looked around the local area, I returned to the house to meet with Jose. The door opened to reveal a smiley character. He walked me through the house and it tallied well with the pictures that the advertiser of the house had given to me. It had a great, bright well lit living room. This is more important than anything as I tend to work, eat and generally live in there. The room was small but with a double bed so indeed, very tolerable!!
Spick and Span
As the property is rented by young professionals, there is a cleaning rota and the house was very clean and tidy when I saw it. As I'm allergic to dust and mould, this is fantastic. As I won't be busy for the whole working day like they will, I'll be able to easily achieve my cleaning commitments.
The way forward
I've indicated my strong interest in the property and I have a number for the estate agent. I'll give them a call Monday and see how I go from here.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Solar Power
I've just got back from gallavanting around the country and I've noticed that solar energy systems, harnessing the power of the sun to heat water or by converting the light into electricity, are becoming more and more popular.
I was sat on the train for a few hours ( a long, long journey) and I saw that every so often, a battery of photo-voltaic cells or a solar water heater would be mounted on someone's roof. Ironically, as I made my way north, the number and frequency of panels on rooves in residential areas seemed to increase. This was an interesting trend as it's counter-intuitive to think that it's a good idea to put solar energy systems on the roof at higher latitudes. But there they were, glinting in the sun.
This is a good example of how high energy prices are driving a domestic energy generation revolution. There has been a unilateral price increase by energy providers in recent weeks and this will serve to squeeze the pockets of the average Briton even harder than they were in the winter when prices were high and there was a massive need for fuel to rebuff the awful cold. Homeowners (as you need to own your roof to get solar panels installed on it) have been
slowly moving toward and adopting solar technology to power / heat their homes. This works well for two reasons: one - the panels on your roof remove the need to buy electricity / gas to heat water for domestic use, except on the darkest / coldest of days. This means you can have all the hot water you want without needing to worry about that next huge post-winter energy bill as it simply won't arrive. However, this is countered by the cost of installing the system in the first place.
The second point only applies to solar photo-voltaic (electricity generating) panels and it is that the energy that your panels collect which isn't used in the home can be sold back to the national
grid. The money you generate from your redundant energy is sold per kWh (kilo-Watt-hour) at pennies per unit.
This adds up over time and can, whilst cutting your electricity bill to zero, earn your household an extra £2,000 a year depending on the capacity your home can provide.
The standard set-up for an average house is a 3-5kWh system, costing around £10,000. This means that the money that your roof-based power plant provides through electricity generation will help pay off the cost of the system in around 5 years or so. Considering that by having solar panels, you can have essentially free electricity for 25 years (the average life of a system) and the potential to generate an extra income to help you live your life without money worries. The only care that either system requires is that you keep the panels clean to ensure maximum light
capture.
I was sat on the train for a few hours ( a long, long journey) and I saw that every so often, a battery of photo-voltaic cells or a solar water heater would be mounted on someone's roof. Ironically, as I made my way north, the number and frequency of panels on rooves in residential areas seemed to increase. This was an interesting trend as it's counter-intuitive to think that it's a good idea to put solar energy systems on the roof at higher latitudes. But there they were, glinting in the sun.
This is a good example of how high energy prices are driving a domestic energy generation revolution. There has been a unilateral price increase by energy providers in recent weeks and this will serve to squeeze the pockets of the average Briton even harder than they were in the winter when prices were high and there was a massive need for fuel to rebuff the awful cold. Homeowners (as you need to own your roof to get solar panels installed on it) have been
slowly moving toward and adopting solar technology to power / heat their homes. This works well for two reasons: one - the panels on your roof remove the need to buy electricity / gas to heat water for domestic use, except on the darkest / coldest of days. This means you can have all the hot water you want without needing to worry about that next huge post-winter energy bill as it simply won't arrive. However, this is countered by the cost of installing the system in the first place.
The second point only applies to solar photo-voltaic (electricity generating) panels and it is that the energy that your panels collect which isn't used in the home can be sold back to the national
grid. The money you generate from your redundant energy is sold per kWh (kilo-Watt-hour) at pennies per unit.
This adds up over time and can, whilst cutting your electricity bill to zero, earn your household an extra £2,000 a year depending on the capacity your home can provide.
The standard set-up for an average house is a 3-5kWh system, costing around £10,000. This means that the money that your roof-based power plant provides through electricity generation will help pay off the cost of the system in around 5 years or so. Considering that by having solar panels, you can have essentially free electricity for 25 years (the average life of a system) and the potential to generate an extra income to help you live your life without money worries. The only care that either system requires is that you keep the panels clean to ensure maximum light
capture.
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Pushing Economy Further
New technology to increase the fuel efficiency of fossil fuelled vehicles is coming onto the market all the time. The idea is to either tinker with the engine so one can produce a less thirsty engine or reduce the drag coefficient of the vehicle (making the vehicle body more aerodynamic so it slips through the air with less resistance). This is the approach of the car manufacturers to the new EU legislation which requires all car manufacturers to have an average emission from their range of vehicles of 130g CO2 / km or less (130 grams of carbon dioxide emitted per kilometre or less). There are many technologies already on the market as part of new cars but there are some more subtle technologies seeking to push the economy to the limit.
Already Present
Some excellent examples of this new and emergy branch of automotive engineering are the aerodynamic enhancements made by Ford to their new breed of vehicles. http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=34312 This article shows how the designers and engineers put their cars in the wind tunnel and test for drag and they work to minimise this. An excellent product of this process is the active shutting grille. At high speeds, motors at the front of the car shut the grille fins forming an air dam. This minimises air drag off the front of the car and this kind of technology is used all the time by hypermilers wishing to increase fuel economy by crazy amounts: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/effects-air-dam-ford-f350-pickup-3171.html
Another passive technology is the sculpting of the bodywork of the new vehicles to reduce disrupted airflow over the vehicle: http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/car-range
Start, stop, restart
A technology usually reserved for the higher end luxury models is the start-stop technology which involves an on board computer shutting down the engine when the car comes to a stop then starting it up again when the accelerator pedal is depressed when the lights change. This saves fuel by simply turning the engine off and this technique can be utilised by every vehicle when a lengthy stop at the traffic lights is on the cards.
A look to the future
New exhaust technology being pioneered at the Universities of Cardiff and Birmingham intends to further increase the fuel economy of vehicles by injecting fuel into a conversion unit in the exhaust, allowing it to react using the heat of the exhaust gases and then passing it through the engine. This is a more efficient way to use fuel as it converts simple diesel or petrol into carbon monoxide and molecular hydrogen which are better fuels than simple hydrocarbons. It is a 'green' approach too as it utilises the waste heat of the engine to drive the chemical reaction of conversion of the fuel. The average gains from preliminary testing are suggested to be around an extra 10% mileage with diesel engines and 20% with petrol engines. The lead scientist for this process, Stan Golunski, has been working on the concept for more than 10 years and expects the techology to be perfected and on the road before 2020. http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/on-board-fuel-reforming-could-enhance-vehicle-efficiency/1005487.article
Already Present
Some excellent examples of this new and emergy branch of automotive engineering are the aerodynamic enhancements made by Ford to their new breed of vehicles. http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=34312 This article shows how the designers and engineers put their cars in the wind tunnel and test for drag and they work to minimise this. An excellent product of this process is the active shutting grille. At high speeds, motors at the front of the car shut the grille fins forming an air dam. This minimises air drag off the front of the car and this kind of technology is used all the time by hypermilers wishing to increase fuel economy by crazy amounts: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/effects-air-dam-ford-f350-pickup-3171.html
Another passive technology is the sculpting of the bodywork of the new vehicles to reduce disrupted airflow over the vehicle: http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/#/new/car-range
Start, stop, restart
A technology usually reserved for the higher end luxury models is the start-stop technology which involves an on board computer shutting down the engine when the car comes to a stop then starting it up again when the accelerator pedal is depressed when the lights change. This saves fuel by simply turning the engine off and this technique can be utilised by every vehicle when a lengthy stop at the traffic lights is on the cards.
A look to the future
New exhaust technology being pioneered at the Universities of Cardiff and Birmingham intends to further increase the fuel economy of vehicles by injecting fuel into a conversion unit in the exhaust, allowing it to react using the heat of the exhaust gases and then passing it through the engine. This is a more efficient way to use fuel as it converts simple diesel or petrol into carbon monoxide and molecular hydrogen which are better fuels than simple hydrocarbons. It is a 'green' approach too as it utilises the waste heat of the engine to drive the chemical reaction of conversion of the fuel. The average gains from preliminary testing are suggested to be around an extra 10% mileage with diesel engines and 20% with petrol engines. The lead scientist for this process, Stan Golunski, has been working on the concept for more than 10 years and expects the techology to be perfected and on the road before 2020. http://www.theengineer.co.uk/news/on-board-fuel-reforming-could-enhance-vehicle-efficiency/1005487.article
Monday, 18 July 2011
My day at the Boating Lake
Hi guys, I went to the boating lake the other day and took some pictures of all the birds and things. Coming from at three year stint at York, it's safe to say I had a bit of a craving to see some wildfowl. Hope you enjoy.
Advances in Engineering
This is a picture of the new 480 meter long vesseldue to be comissioned by the Dutch petrochemical company Shell. It will be a floating natural gas extraction, refining and storage facility. It has been designed to meet the needs of today's natural gas market.
Distance
As we have heard over and over in recent history, the earth's oil and gas are running out and as a result, more extreme enviroments must be braved to unearth the natural resources we need. This new vessel will be the first giant development to that end. The vessel, as yet unnamed, will be moored 200 miles from the northern coast of Australia to harvest gas from a natural gas field in that area. The vessel overcomes the need for pipes to be laid on the seabed. This is important because being 200 miles away from land, the gas cannot be tapped and recovered through seabed pipes. It also gives a nod to sustainable, reusable, mobile infrastructure as once the gas in the field is depleted, the huge vessel can be towed to the next field for exploitation.
Shipping and transport
The vessel, once moored, will spend 25 years working on the one field, in the same place, in open sea. This means that it needs to withstand massive storms and the gas needs to be transported to the mainland. The vessel has been designed to withstand the most ferocious of storms and the vessel's gas storage tanks are used to fill empty sea-going LNG tankers which will transport the gas to nearby China, Australia, Japan and South Korea as it's expected main buyers. After the field is depleted, it will be refurbished then sent to work on another gas field to sustain supply to buyers. Shell expects 2-3 of these vessels to be built to order from Samsung Heavy Industries Shipyards in Japan
Friday, 15 July 2011
Make your own candles
I've tried my hand at making candles and have decided to scale up the operation so that I can make some for family and friends. I realised some time ago that the candles that you can buy at the shops are generally quite pricey despite only being very simple. Also, they might only stock certain colours / fragrances and typically, the ones you want are the most expensive. C'est la vie right?
Surprise
Wrong!! You can circumvent this problem by simply making your own candles. I made some prototype candles using 50% used, cleaned and filtered cooking fat and 50% wax for stability. I added some fragrance and their colour is a good clean cream / off-white ivory colour and they look great. Not only does it give you something to add to your interior decor but it also gives a useful outlet for cooking fats and oils which avoids putting them down the sink and helps avoids slow drainage problems.
Cleaning
I made the candles after I had saved the fat from cooking meats for about 2 months. This got me about 1 litre of fats which had settled into many layers. I heated this up with the microwave to melt it. I then poured it into a plastic bottle and added very hot water. The purpose of the water is to wash the fat. Just as washing dirty clothes with water serves to give clean laundry, washing fat with water cleans it, taking both the little burnt bits and the smell of the food with it, giving clean, non-scented fat.
The beauty of this method is that the darkened, dirty water sits below the fat which becomes creamy white after a few washes. The dirty water and solids at the bottom of the bottle can be removed by inverting the bottle before opening the lid and letting the water out. Washing three times generally gets the fat as clean as it's going to get.
Create your ideal candle
This leads you on to the next step: mixing with wax then creating your candles. To do this, add your fat to a pan (it should be a semi-viscous liquid now, after taking the washing water away and cleaning it up). Then add your wax of choice (this can come from any wax source, old candles or new candle wax works just as well). Be sure to cut up the wax before adding to pan to aid the speed of the melting process. Once the wax is melted into the fat and the solution is totally liquid, take the pan off the heat and leave to one side for a moment. Now is the time to add any scents (essential oils work best ~5ml per 100g) or dyes (you may want to get 'real' candle dyes as other
pigments may create harmful when burned.
Construct your candle
Now take an clean old glass jar (an old Ragu jar washed out with warm soapy water to remove the stickers will do) and using superglue, glue a piece of string or a sliver of cotton material to the bottom of your jar. This will be your candle wick. Tie the end of the wick to a pen/ pencil
and make sure the wick is central in the jar ( if the flame diverts toward the side of the jar, it could cause the glass to crack. Now carefully pour your wax/fats into the jar.
Leave your set up as it is in a cool place and don't disturb it. The wax will set in the jar and all you have to do it trim your wick to about one centimetre in length and then you have a nice new candle.
Surprise
Wrong!! You can circumvent this problem by simply making your own candles. I made some prototype candles using 50% used, cleaned and filtered cooking fat and 50% wax for stability. I added some fragrance and their colour is a good clean cream / off-white ivory colour and they look great. Not only does it give you something to add to your interior decor but it also gives a useful outlet for cooking fats and oils which avoids putting them down the sink and helps avoids slow drainage problems.
Cleaning
I made the candles after I had saved the fat from cooking meats for about 2 months. This got me about 1 litre of fats which had settled into many layers. I heated this up with the microwave to melt it. I then poured it into a plastic bottle and added very hot water. The purpose of the water is to wash the fat. Just as washing dirty clothes with water serves to give clean laundry, washing fat with water cleans it, taking both the little burnt bits and the smell of the food with it, giving clean, non-scented fat.
The beauty of this method is that the darkened, dirty water sits below the fat which becomes creamy white after a few washes. The dirty water and solids at the bottom of the bottle can be removed by inverting the bottle before opening the lid and letting the water out. Washing three times generally gets the fat as clean as it's going to get.
Create your ideal candle
This leads you on to the next step: mixing with wax then creating your candles. To do this, add your fat to a pan (it should be a semi-viscous liquid now, after taking the washing water away and cleaning it up). Then add your wax of choice (this can come from any wax source, old candles or new candle wax works just as well). Be sure to cut up the wax before adding to pan to aid the speed of the melting process. Once the wax is melted into the fat and the solution is totally liquid, take the pan off the heat and leave to one side for a moment. Now is the time to add any scents (essential oils work best ~5ml per 100g) or dyes (you may want to get 'real' candle dyes as other
pigments may create harmful when burned.
Construct your candle
Now take an clean old glass jar (an old Ragu jar washed out with warm soapy water to remove the stickers will do) and using superglue, glue a piece of string or a sliver of cotton material to the bottom of your jar. This will be your candle wick. Tie the end of the wick to a pen/ pencil
and make sure the wick is central in the jar ( if the flame diverts toward the side of the jar, it could cause the glass to crack. Now carefully pour your wax/fats into the jar.
Leave your set up as it is in a cool place and don't disturb it. The wax will set in the jar and all you have to do it trim your wick to about one centimetre in length and then you have a nice new candle.
Sunday, 10 July 2011
Race to the poles
Freezing temperatures, fatal falls through the ice, any body parts not covered by thick thermal clothing quickly, painfully, turning black. This isn't Captain Scott's race to the South pole, it's the reality of energy resource extraction. Energy companies are increasingly braving these dangerous conditions in the hope of realising the massive untapped potential for fossil fuels extraction.
Energy woes
In recent years, energy prices have been rising incredibly. This has been hurting many motorists at the pumps and families when their energy bill arrives in the post. This may seem like a general trend which is unavoidable and should be borne as another one of life's constants but the bigger picture is much more grim.
Volatility
Within the sphere of general fuel price rises, there are the ups and downs over monthly periods
due to wholesale gas / oil price rises and falls. This volatility is not due to supply and demand and there physically being more oil extracted from one day to the next but due to futures markets and speculation ( the selling of the oil produced in a country at a later date, at the price that it was at today). This allows traders to make short term gains on the highs and lows of oil prices. Oil and gas spot prices (price at any one time on the oil / gas market) are also affected by the news and industrial data concerning the performance of a well or the confidence of the market in a ability of a company to satisfy the demands of their energy consumers.
Conflict
A major factor in the price of energy on the market is the conflict and military activity in an area.
The recent conflicts in northern Africa (specifically Libya and Bahrain) are a prime example of what conflict and warring can do to the price of energy. Libya exports 2% of the world's oil. This may seem like a small amount in the big picture but when it was revealed that during the Gaddafi conflict that oil exports were stopped or seriously reduced, the oil price shot up as there was increased competition between the nations of the world for the oil that remained on the market at that time. It's no secret that the increased economic activity of China and India has created a greater demand for more fossil fuels at a time when their production is reaching an unavoidable plateau using traditional sources.
Innovation
To circumvent the problem of limited capacity and dwindling confirmed resources, energy companies have been looking in more and more extreme environments from which to extract the remaining oil from the earth. This search for the remaining pockets has led energy companies to the poles. A few years ago, there was a furore between the UK government and the
Argentinian government over the sovereignity of the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas to the Argentines). The Falkland Islands are close to Antarctica. The same islands were fought over decades ago by the same countries but for different reasons. Now the reason is oil. After preliminary tests and drilling, it appears that there are oil reservoirs in earth under the sea in the territorial waters of the Falkland Isles. This means that the UK government can sell / lease the fields to private industry to generate income and energy. Not surprisingly, the Argentine government wanted in on the action as it has suffered from a collapsed economy in recent times.
A clear and present danger
This leads us from the South to the North pole, energy companies have been scouring the globe for easy energy deposits and the other major location for exploitation is the area around the North Pole and Northern Canada. There has been much made of the extraction of oil and gas from the tar sands of Canada and Alaska but more recently, the focus has been the drilling for oil in the waters around the North Pole and the resulting mini oil spills that result during the erection of the drilling rig and initial well tapping.
This has the potential to create an environmental catastrophe on the scale of the Gulf disaster of 2010 or the Exxon -Valdez disaster of Alaska not too long ago. History has many examples of oil drilling gone wrong but there is not a lot of scope for cleaning up a disaster on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon rig in an environment as raw and difficult to work in as the icy Northern wastes.
The future is uncertain
As energy prices go up, more work goes into trying to discover more sources of fossil fuels to help bring the price of energy down. The sporadic, desparate nature of new oil discovery will mean that in the near to mid future, black-outs and times of limited electricity supply will become the norm. To avoid this embarrasing situation, more and more money will be diverted to helping solve the supply problem. This will, as it does now, often involves oil companies aggresively lobbying governments to pass legislation to permit more drilling in the previously off-limits areas, this sort of activity looks set to contine. Don't be surprised if, as a result of desparate attempts to obtain more fuel, we see more animals coated in oil on our TV screens and blighted oil-slick seas.
Energy woes
In recent years, energy prices have been rising incredibly. This has been hurting many motorists at the pumps and families when their energy bill arrives in the post. This may seem like a general trend which is unavoidable and should be borne as another one of life's constants but the bigger picture is much more grim.
Volatility
Within the sphere of general fuel price rises, there are the ups and downs over monthly periods
due to wholesale gas / oil price rises and falls. This volatility is not due to supply and demand and there physically being more oil extracted from one day to the next but due to futures markets and speculation ( the selling of the oil produced in a country at a later date, at the price that it was at today). This allows traders to make short term gains on the highs and lows of oil prices. Oil and gas spot prices (price at any one time on the oil / gas market) are also affected by the news and industrial data concerning the performance of a well or the confidence of the market in a ability of a company to satisfy the demands of their energy consumers.
Conflict
A major factor in the price of energy on the market is the conflict and military activity in an area.
The recent conflicts in northern Africa (specifically Libya and Bahrain) are a prime example of what conflict and warring can do to the price of energy. Libya exports 2% of the world's oil. This may seem like a small amount in the big picture but when it was revealed that during the Gaddafi conflict that oil exports were stopped or seriously reduced, the oil price shot up as there was increased competition between the nations of the world for the oil that remained on the market at that time. It's no secret that the increased economic activity of China and India has created a greater demand for more fossil fuels at a time when their production is reaching an unavoidable plateau using traditional sources.
Innovation
To circumvent the problem of limited capacity and dwindling confirmed resources, energy companies have been looking in more and more extreme environments from which to extract the remaining oil from the earth. This search for the remaining pockets has led energy companies to the poles. A few years ago, there was a furore between the UK government and the
Argentinian government over the sovereignity of the Falkland Islands (Las Malvinas to the Argentines). The Falkland Islands are close to Antarctica. The same islands were fought over decades ago by the same countries but for different reasons. Now the reason is oil. After preliminary tests and drilling, it appears that there are oil reservoirs in earth under the sea in the territorial waters of the Falkland Isles. This means that the UK government can sell / lease the fields to private industry to generate income and energy. Not surprisingly, the Argentine government wanted in on the action as it has suffered from a collapsed economy in recent times.
A clear and present danger
This leads us from the South to the North pole, energy companies have been scouring the globe for easy energy deposits and the other major location for exploitation is the area around the North Pole and Northern Canada. There has been much made of the extraction of oil and gas from the tar sands of Canada and Alaska but more recently, the focus has been the drilling for oil in the waters around the North Pole and the resulting mini oil spills that result during the erection of the drilling rig and initial well tapping.
This has the potential to create an environmental catastrophe on the scale of the Gulf disaster of 2010 or the Exxon -Valdez disaster of Alaska not too long ago. History has many examples of oil drilling gone wrong but there is not a lot of scope for cleaning up a disaster on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon rig in an environment as raw and difficult to work in as the icy Northern wastes.
The future is uncertain
As energy prices go up, more work goes into trying to discover more sources of fossil fuels to help bring the price of energy down. The sporadic, desparate nature of new oil discovery will mean that in the near to mid future, black-outs and times of limited electricity supply will become the norm. To avoid this embarrasing situation, more and more money will be diverted to helping solve the supply problem. This will, as it does now, often involves oil companies aggresively lobbying governments to pass legislation to permit more drilling in the previously off-limits areas, this sort of activity looks set to contine. Don't be surprised if, as a result of desparate attempts to obtain more fuel, we see more animals coated in oil on our TV screens and blighted oil-slick seas.
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