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Sevenoaks CRAG meeting.
4th October 2007, at The Crown, Seal
Present: David & Mary Bassendine, Louise Shrubsole, Ian Smith
Apologies: Susan Fallman, Lisa Simmonds, Caroline Copleston
Agenda:
1. Low carbon travel
2. Six monthly footprints
3. AOB
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1. Low Carbon travel
MARY: India/Japan (www.seat61.com for these two options)
- TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY £790 return to Beijing, >1wk each way, ?? carbon
Best to book via a Russian travel agency. There are two legs:
i) London-Moscow (train): 3 days each way, £290 return.
ii) Moscow-Beijing (train): duration uncertain (dodgy line and several
transfers, including changes of rail guage!), £400 return.
iii) Shanghai-Osaka (ferry)
- ORGANISED BUS/TRAIN “HIPPY ROUTE”
Organised Overland route, mainly by bus.
London-Istanbul-Tehran-Bau-Quetta-??. There could be security concerns!
IAN: CAT Eco-cabins (see http://www.cat.org.uk/news/news_release.tmpl?command=search&db=news.db&e… )
2 cabins for 10-18 people, costing £200/day – so for groups only
(although local B&Bs are available). Each are fitted out with pv (+
diesel backup!), solar water heating, electricity monitoring gadgets,
biomass heating. Access to CAT introductory talk, community activities and CAT
exhibitions & facilities. Great walking country!
Transport by train from Birmingham New Street to Machynlleth (every
2hrs weekdays, but only one train on Sunday), then a 3-mile walk to
CAT. (also see
http://www.cat.org.uk/visitus/vc_content.tmpl?subdir=visitus&sku=VC_03)
(Add your trip to the forum thread at low carbon trips
(you need to register and join first))
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2. Six monthly footprints (4/4/2007 – 10/4/2007)
DAVID: ~1.4t (0.5t electricity; 0.9t heating; 0 car)
I have made some trips by car too, but haven’t recorded individual
trips, as I think we were following the guide’s suggestion that car
emissions should go to the owner. I’m not sure that’s fair, though, so
I’m planning to log individual mileages for the next half-year.
Average electricity use fell by a quarter! I think this can be
explained by finally getting rid of our electric shower, although it’s
difficult to tell how much gas use increased as a result. Both our
showers are now drawn from the hot water tank, whilst a nifty gadget
uses the mains cold water pressure to drive the flow (unlike a power
shower).
IAN: ~1.6t (0.85t electricity; 0 heating; 0.75t car)
Trips to take kids to Uni took their toll!
Zero figure for biomass heating, but we need a biomass conversion
factor to take account of transport, processing emissions etc.
CALCULATING FOOTPRINTS
Because we didn’t all take meter and mileage readings on the 4/4/2007,
it can be difficult to calculate this six-monthly figure. I did it by
exptrapolating my average use for the period to the 4/4 to find the
base figure.
If people don’t have meter readings on or around the 4/4, please send
me the meter readings you do have around that period, and I’ll
calculate an estimate for the 4/4 to act as your ‘baseline’ figure for
the year (I have a spreadsheet set up to do this).
In future it would be easiest to take readings on or around the 4/4 and
10/4 of each year – is this realistic and easy for people to do?
(Please add your reading to the forum thread at 1st-period-4-to-10-2007-footprints)
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3. OTHER BUSINESS
We had quite a long and interesting discussion about a few things:
- Food.
Ian said food makes up a large proportion of eco-footprints and
that it would be similar in carbon terms. There was disagreement over
whether food is included in the personal or societal part of our
footprint (probably both). Agreed that it would useful to have
lifestyle-type conversion factors for different types of diet or food
sourcing.
- Biomass.
- Sources. Established coppice is locally widespread, but labour may
be a problem in large-scale harvesting – although there may be
considerable unused wood available from established woodland management
(eg. at Bore Place). Waste wood is plentiful (from tree surgeons,
gardeners etc.), and is sometimes burnt off owing to its low value.
Could be pelleted but the quality would be uncertain.
- Home heating technologies: log woodstoves, pellet boilers, log
boilers.
Modern woodstoves are new and advanced technologies: they preheat the
air inflow so burning is much more efficient and most heat remains in
the house instead of disappearing up the chimney! Several logs at a
time will provide decent radiant heat in winter but will need feeding
more than once an hour (depending on the wood type). One log will burn
alone, for ambience only! Treated wood contains organophosphates and
shouldn’t be burnt as it releases dioxins. It is important to reduce
the water content of logs so that released energy doesn’t go into
driving off the water, and logs burn cleaner. In general, hardwoods
need two years air drying, softwoods one. We noted that woodstoves
could be complementary to gas central heating, and wouldn’t require
people to completely replace their system.
Wood pellet boilers can take delveries once or twice a year and feed
pellets automatically, so more convenient (although ash does need to be
periodically emptied). Pellets require most processing, but have better
packing density (reducing transport costs). They have highest energy
density (1/3 that of oil) and lowest water content of all biomass
types: so the only viable biomass option in urban areas.
Log boilers also drive central heating systems, but logs need to be
stacked once a day. A better financial option.