Today we are having a bank holiday in Ireland. For the commercial amongst you, it might be Halloween but in this household it is Oíche Shamhain. If your browser can't handle accents, the above title is spelt Oiche Shamhain with an accent over the i in Oiche. It is pronounced as best as I can write it as ee-kyuh shaw-un.
Samhain (saw-un) is Irish for November and is the first month of the ancient Celtic calendar. Also around this time is Féile na Marbh, which means festival of the dead. If you know Spanish/Latin American culture then you will be familiar with Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. The two are related in the mists of time. Just as our Spanish cousins do, we look back with reverence to the lives of our dear departed ones.
Bio-fuels in Ireland
Nice to see two pages of the farming supplement of the Irish Examiner newspaper covering bio-fuels. The next two years are to see a growth in the number of bio-diesel and E85 ethanol pumps on the nation's filling stations. However, it looks as though the government is tightly governing the process and making sure the finance minister gets his cut.
At the moment excise duty and VAT accounts for 60% of the price of a litre of fuel thus making it uneconomical to produce bio-diesel or bio-ethanol. Some dispensations have been given to some of the big fuel producers to have reduced excise. Bio-fuels will merely be a green option rather than a cheaper option. And, of course, in the future it will be the only option unless you can find your own supply of cheaper used plant oil
Another good thing is the fact that running your vehicle on pure plant oil is not illegal unlike some nations like the UK. There is no excise on plant oil and you take your own risk with engine warranties.
At the moment excise duty and VAT accounts for 60% of the price of a litre of fuel thus making it uneconomical to produce bio-diesel or bio-ethanol. Some dispensations have been given to some of the big fuel producers to have reduced excise. Bio-fuels will merely be a green option rather than a cheaper option. And, of course, in the future it will be the only option unless you can find your own supply of cheaper used plant oil
Another good thing is the fact that running your vehicle on pure plant oil is not illegal unlike some nations like the UK. There is no excise on plant oil and you take your own risk with engine warranties.
Five more days
October 30th will see the clocks going back an hour to GMT and then the late afternoon will be plunged into darkness. I want to cram in some more tidying up outside. Take the last of the peppers in from the polytunnel. Check that the potatoes in the clamp are fine. Hopefully do some more grass cutting for the compost heap. Three of my four compost bins look nice and full but by next year they will have shrunk down a lot and I won't have as much compost as I appear to have now.
Talking of darkness, we had our first power cut of the season. Early too. Lasted about half an hour. The winds weren't high so a cable couldn't have come down so it must have been a lack of supply from the power stations. Good job I bought those oil lamps as I couldn't find the candles. It was like a scene from bygone days, eating in front of the stove with flickering light from the fire and the lamps to see by.
During the day, I did some scratching around on the north field with a mattock and everywhere there was the clink of metal on rock. That means I will be spending the winter finding areas in the south of my property for growing willow that don't obstruct the light from hitting the polytunnel or deep beds. I will have to build soil for the north field before planting coppicing willow there. Parts of that field are okay and I am planting alder as a pioneer to create soil. I only have an acre of land but I intend planting a few hundred saplings wherever I can squeeze them in.
My boat could do with some repair over the winter. Being landed on rock beaches for driftwood collecting has created a few gashes on the bottom that need filling. The partition I am building in the hall is almost done and has already begun to make a difference in the temperature of the downstairs. I need to take a caulking gun to the front door. There are still a few draughts coming in.
Yesterday I recieved a supply of seeds. Tomatoes, aubergines, jalapeno chiles, chinese cabbage, pak choi and lettuce. I need to get some finely meshed netting if the leafy vegetables are to survive the root fly onslaught. Always something to do.
Talking of darkness, we had our first power cut of the season. Early too. Lasted about half an hour. The winds weren't high so a cable couldn't have come down so it must have been a lack of supply from the power stations. Good job I bought those oil lamps as I couldn't find the candles. It was like a scene from bygone days, eating in front of the stove with flickering light from the fire and the lamps to see by.
During the day, I did some scratching around on the north field with a mattock and everywhere there was the clink of metal on rock. That means I will be spending the winter finding areas in the south of my property for growing willow that don't obstruct the light from hitting the polytunnel or deep beds. I will have to build soil for the north field before planting coppicing willow there. Parts of that field are okay and I am planting alder as a pioneer to create soil. I only have an acre of land but I intend planting a few hundred saplings wherever I can squeeze them in.
My boat could do with some repair over the winter. Being landed on rock beaches for driftwood collecting has created a few gashes on the bottom that need filling. The partition I am building in the hall is almost done and has already begun to make a difference in the temperature of the downstairs. I need to take a caulking gun to the front door. There are still a few draughts coming in.
Yesterday I recieved a supply of seeds. Tomatoes, aubergines, jalapeno chiles, chinese cabbage, pak choi and lettuce. I need to get some finely meshed netting if the leafy vegetables are to survive the root fly onslaught. Always something to do.
Carrots of fire
Spent the day racing the slugs for my carrot crop. I poured slug bait on the deep bed earlier in the week and I was greeted by a massacre this morning. Dead slugs piled on top of each other. Stopped counting after a hundred. They were already there amongst the carrots, hollowing them out from the inside. I lost about 10% of the crop. Still, the donkeys in the next field were happy as they got all the spoilt ones, after I had washed the slug bait off them. The crop was then washed, sliced and frozen.
I dragged the last of the birch tree I was coppicing up from the bottom of the slope I had cut it down on. The north side of my property is a steep slope, the bottom of which is a line of birch and holly trees. I must remember to cut some green holly branches that still have berries on for the Winter Solstice. If I leave it any later then the robins will have eaten all the berries and the holly wreaths won't look so nice.
I dragged the last of the birch tree I was coppicing up from the bottom of the slope I had cut it down on. The north side of my property is a steep slope, the bottom of which is a line of birch and holly trees. I must remember to cut some green holly branches that still have berries on for the Winter Solstice. If I leave it any later then the robins will have eaten all the berries and the holly wreaths won't look so nice.
A day in the good life
I spent yesterday doing various odd jobs. The first was to coppice a birch tree. I cut off one of its boughs, cut it into 14 inch logs and put the logs into wood store for next year. I'm probably the only person in this area that seasons wood. You only have to look at the chimneys on the other houses round here to see what burning this year's felled wood does. The houses are shrouded in billowing white smoke. All the heat they generate from burning their unseasoned wood is used to boil off water. Not very efficient use of a free energy source. It also creates much more tar which is bad for the stove and chimney.
I don't see any replanting of trees round here. If seed falls and takes root then fine but the locals don't go out of their way to help things along. I've planted many trees on my land. I'm looked on with mild ammusement. I wonder who will be chuckling in the years to come?
After the coppicing I went into the polytunnel to see if any more peppers had ripened. I was having a problem with field mice eating the peppers. Actually, they were taking a nibble and then moving to the next pepper. Why do vermin like mice and slugs never sit down to a single square meal? I don't mind if they take one a night and finish it. But to ruin so many by taking a bite and leaving the rest of the pepper to rot made me mad. Slug pellets sorted out the slimey ones. A few mouse traps bagged eight of them and the mouse attacks have stopped.
The dead mice were added to the stale bread and pastry for the crows and magpies. I always make the magpie's chakka sound when I walk out with the feast so that the dinner party begins to circle above.
Unfortunately, when I checked the mouse traps yesterday a bird had been trapped and died. It was a Wren. Very beautiful it was too. I'll have to block the bottom of the tunnel door to stop birds from flying in and out.
The rest of the day was spent indoors working on the house. Later, I prepared Chinese crispy duck for the evening meal. Very nice it was too. Rosie is Chinese and was happy to know that I was online earlier ordering Pak Choi and Chinese cabbage seeds.
I don't see any replanting of trees round here. If seed falls and takes root then fine but the locals don't go out of their way to help things along. I've planted many trees on my land. I'm looked on with mild ammusement. I wonder who will be chuckling in the years to come?
After the coppicing I went into the polytunnel to see if any more peppers had ripened. I was having a problem with field mice eating the peppers. Actually, they were taking a nibble and then moving to the next pepper. Why do vermin like mice and slugs never sit down to a single square meal? I don't mind if they take one a night and finish it. But to ruin so many by taking a bite and leaving the rest of the pepper to rot made me mad. Slug pellets sorted out the slimey ones. A few mouse traps bagged eight of them and the mouse attacks have stopped.
The dead mice were added to the stale bread and pastry for the crows and magpies. I always make the magpie's chakka sound when I walk out with the feast so that the dinner party begins to circle above.
Unfortunately, when I checked the mouse traps yesterday a bird had been trapped and died. It was a Wren. Very beautiful it was too. I'll have to block the bottom of the tunnel door to stop birds from flying in and out.
The rest of the day was spent indoors working on the house. Later, I prepared Chinese crispy duck for the evening meal. Very nice it was too. Rosie is Chinese and was happy to know that I was online earlier ordering Pak Choi and Chinese cabbage seeds.
A particular favourite
I like to read a little of John Seymour's The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency almost everyday. It is not only informative but inspiring. The easy to read text and the excellent artwork make you want to go outside and live The Good Life every time you read the book.
John, like myself, moved to Ireland because he saw a land where he could achieve goals that he could not achieve if he stayed in England. Many hundreds if not thousands of us do the same each year.
Through reading this book I realised that I could achieve all that I wanted with a simple one acre farm. It's not how much land that you have that counts it's what you do with it. This book was the first thing I put in my suitcase when I decided to leave England in 2003.
John Seymour not only teaches you about vegetable growing and animal husbandry but every little thing that you might think of wanting to do in your rural idyll. Be it making jam, cheese or wine, weaving willow into baskets, using a scythe to cut grass or moving a boulder that you don't want, this book has it all.
The first part of the book tells you what you are likely to achieve for any particular size of holding, be it an urban garden, a one acre farm or larger. Then John tells you how to manage a vegetable garden, what to grow and when. Useful tables are clearly laid out telling you what to plant at any particular time of the year.
John then goes on to animal husbandry and educates the reader in the care of many different farm animals and how to slaughter them for meat. The rest of the book is packed with how to use your produce through preparing, cooking and preserving. Many other topics are included to make your life as self-sufficient as possible. From house insulation, renewable energy, wood and metal work. No stone is left unturned.
This book is a must for the aspiring liver of The Good Life. Not for nothing do people who own this book call it "The Bible". Though it is certainly not a replacement it is certainly the number two read for anyone who owns a real bible.
John, like myself, moved to Ireland because he saw a land where he could achieve goals that he could not achieve if he stayed in England. Many hundreds if not thousands of us do the same each year.
Through reading this book I realised that I could achieve all that I wanted with a simple one acre farm. It's not how much land that you have that counts it's what you do with it. This book was the first thing I put in my suitcase when I decided to leave England in 2003.
John Seymour not only teaches you about vegetable growing and animal husbandry but every little thing that you might think of wanting to do in your rural idyll. Be it making jam, cheese or wine, weaving willow into baskets, using a scythe to cut grass or moving a boulder that you don't want, this book has it all.
The first part of the book tells you what you are likely to achieve for any particular size of holding, be it an urban garden, a one acre farm or larger. Then John tells you how to manage a vegetable garden, what to grow and when. Useful tables are clearly laid out telling you what to plant at any particular time of the year.
John then goes on to animal husbandry and educates the reader in the care of many different farm animals and how to slaughter them for meat. The rest of the book is packed with how to use your produce through preparing, cooking and preserving. Many other topics are included to make your life as self-sufficient as possible. From house insulation, renewable energy, wood and metal work. No stone is left unturned.
This book is a must for the aspiring liver of The Good Life. Not for nothing do people who own this book call it "The Bible". Though it is certainly not a replacement it is certainly the number two read for anyone who owns a real bible.
Tree coppicing for the wood stove
This is a cyclic operation depending on the wood being coppiced. Willow for example might be coppiced every 3 years for firewood or basketry whips. Hardwoods such as oak grow much more slowly and might only be coppiced from the same stool every 50 years.
We have about a quarter of an acre of rough scrub land that we intend coppicing for our hungry wood stove. It's full of brambles and gorse at the moment but that will be cleared away in the coming weeks. We need to get hold of a mattock so as to make digging the rocky earth easier. It will then be a matter of planting 10-inch cuttings from other willow trees, which are easy to propagate and grow fast.
We are looking to plant a few hundred willows and allow them to grow until we get 4 inch wide faggots (old English for small coppiced logs). Thinner sticks can be chipped for a wood chip stove should we decide to get one in the future. Quick growing hybrid willow have been sourced for cuttings. They grow in the region of 9 feet per year.
The willow will be coppiced every three or four years and allowed to grow back. This is called short rotation coppicing. Willow is a vigorous grower and grows back quickly to produce regular crops of firewood.
On another part of my land we are growing birch and alder trees, which will also be coppiced but in the region of ten yearly cycles. These trees in combination with my willow and driftwood should make us self-sufficient in firewood. Our winters are quite mild so passive solar heating should suffice most days. It's in the evenings that we need some help from a wood burning stove.
Here are some useful links.
Willow Propagation - my willow propagation activities
The Ten Dollar Wood Shed - you'll need somewhere to season your wood
The-Tree - everything you wanted to know about trees and their cultivation
Wood Heat - a guide to using wood to heat your home
Change of season - Change of focus
Autumn sees the last of the harvest. I still have pimiento peppers ripening on the bushes, with carrots and leeks in the ground for when I need them. Other than that, everything else has been dug up and is in storage. This is the time of the year when I start tinkering in the workshop.
I have been collecting what others call junk. Steel drums that once contained bulk quantities of vegetable oil from outside restaurants. No waste vegetable oil in them, the hippies got that for their diesel cars. My drums will be for experiments in wood gasification and flash boilers. I would like to make a small gasifier to make producer gas and then a small waste wood stove with a water boiler. Even though I burn wood, paper and cardboard in the stove indoors there is some of a quality that I would prefer to burn in a homebrew stove outside. If it can create a little hot water too then so much the better.
If you read this blog regularly you will know that my back yard is a haven for big blue barrels and tyres so I would like to build an experimental Savonius rotor to capture some wind power with the barrels and grow potatoes in the tyres. I read an article about how someone makes very durable sandles from old tyres. I might just do that for the hell of it. It reminds me of the people on the Aran Islands off Galway who made sandles from dried cow hide.
What else am I going to fiddle with? I promised someone I would roll a newspaper log and see how long it burned. I haven't forgot. I promised Rosie I would make soap from waste vegetable oil and caustic soda. The boat could do with some oiling of the wood to preserve it. And I still have the upstairs of the house to build. That little lot should keep me busy until it's time to plant out next year's seedlings. That reminds me, I must plant a few more spring onion seeds
I have been collecting what others call junk. Steel drums that once contained bulk quantities of vegetable oil from outside restaurants. No waste vegetable oil in them, the hippies got that for their diesel cars. My drums will be for experiments in wood gasification and flash boilers. I would like to make a small gasifier to make producer gas and then a small waste wood stove with a water boiler. Even though I burn wood, paper and cardboard in the stove indoors there is some of a quality that I would prefer to burn in a homebrew stove outside. If it can create a little hot water too then so much the better.
If you read this blog regularly you will know that my back yard is a haven for big blue barrels and tyres so I would like to build an experimental Savonius rotor to capture some wind power with the barrels and grow potatoes in the tyres. I read an article about how someone makes very durable sandles from old tyres. I might just do that for the hell of it. It reminds me of the people on the Aran Islands off Galway who made sandles from dried cow hide.
What else am I going to fiddle with? I promised someone I would roll a newspaper log and see how long it burned. I haven't forgot. I promised Rosie I would make soap from waste vegetable oil and caustic soda. The boat could do with some oiling of the wood to preserve it. And I still have the upstairs of the house to build. That little lot should keep me busy until it's time to plant out next year's seedlings. That reminds me, I must plant a few more spring onion seeds
Where the money is
When we choose to live The Good Life the first thing we do is grow as much of our own food as we can. Does it make a difference to our lives? Well, the food tastes good, it's fresh and it costs nothing but the price of seed. However, unless we produce absolutely everything we are going to eat and drink then the savings are not going to be that great. It is unlikely that we will produce everything we need either because what we want just won't grow or live where we live or it is just too complicated or expensive to produce ourselves.
Look inside our cupboards here and you will see spices, olive oil, salt, pepper, flour, black beans, rice, chile sauce, orange juice, milk. The list is long and expensive. For now we just produce vegetables. The future might see hens producing eggs and meat. Maybe we might fatten a pig up. But, even if we did all this there would still be need for orange juice, coffee, tea and many other things that we can't produce. We are still reliant on others to produce this for us and there is the cost of raw materials, production and distribution.
Even if we did cut back on absolutely every food item that we couldn't produce ourselves it wouldn't make much of a dent in our spending. That is because we are modern people. Food is basic. It's the non-basic items that really soak up our cash. Number one is the car. Then comes household energy. Those items are the sinks into which we pour our hard earned money. But would we forego those as easily as we would an item of food?
Look inside our cupboards here and you will see spices, olive oil, salt, pepper, flour, black beans, rice, chile sauce, orange juice, milk. The list is long and expensive. For now we just produce vegetables. The future might see hens producing eggs and meat. Maybe we might fatten a pig up. But, even if we did all this there would still be need for orange juice, coffee, tea and many other things that we can't produce. We are still reliant on others to produce this for us and there is the cost of raw materials, production and distribution.
Even if we did cut back on absolutely every food item that we couldn't produce ourselves it wouldn't make much of a dent in our spending. That is because we are modern people. Food is basic. It's the non-basic items that really soak up our cash. Number one is the car. Then comes household energy. Those items are the sinks into which we pour our hard earned money. But would we forego those as easily as we would an item of food?
Permaculture
Permanent agriculture (permaculture) is agriculture that can be sustained in the same place indefinitely. It is about giving back to the land as much as taking from it. Looking after the soil, protecting it from erosion, providing it with nutrients. So long as you work in a balanced way then there is no reason why you shouldn't cultivate the same land year after year.
Contrast that with the use of chemicals, over production and profit chasing. I highlighted one example in Spain recently in a right way and a wrong way. I myself live on a single acre of land. It might not sound much compared with farmers with many thousands of acres. However, I don't regard their work any differently to the work I used to do in the city. They are as trapped in the rat race as I was in London. Commercial farmers have to use chemicals to get unnatural yields from their land. The land can't handle it unless it is doused in chemicals, which isn't good for the land in the long term, for the food it creates or the people that eat it.
Of my acre of land, only a small part of it is set aside for vegetable growing. Another small area for six apple trees. I live in a valley that once had mile high glaciers flowing through it. You can still see boulders perched in odd places. My land is consequently very poor. Mostly rock. Any soil is very poor as it is just ground up boulders with very little humus. Consequently I have to make my own soil through composting. Vegetable scraps, tea bags, egg shells, seaweed, weeds, grass and wood chips all go into my compost bins and a few months later I have humus with which to improve my soil with.
There is no point digging through the back breaking rock so I just pile my home-made soil on top using the no-dig method. I also use containers and tyres fro growing in too. I have a large supply of big blue barrels. They are about the same size as 55-gallon drums and are always breaking free from the mussel farms where they hold ropes, upon which the mussels grow, anchored to the sea bed. Tyres are great for growing potatoes.
Not digging up the soil is the best thing for the soil. Every time you put your spade into the ground you are destroying tunnels created by earthworms and dislodging fungus and bacteria that break down dead organic matter into nutrients for plant roots. It's best off leaving it be and letting nature handle things itself. It was doing fine before man came along.
Remember that although man makes compost nature doesn't. It mulches. Dead things fall on the ground and nature breaks it down into nutrients. To that end always heed the saying, "Feed the soil and the plants will feed themselves." Earthworms will drag down what you place on top of the soil and nature will take care of it from there. It's also a lot less hard work!
Some useful links.
Permaculture Books
Dig the no-dig
Keep them old car tyres!
Composting
Contrast that with the use of chemicals, over production and profit chasing. I highlighted one example in Spain recently in a right way and a wrong way. I myself live on a single acre of land. It might not sound much compared with farmers with many thousands of acres. However, I don't regard their work any differently to the work I used to do in the city. They are as trapped in the rat race as I was in London. Commercial farmers have to use chemicals to get unnatural yields from their land. The land can't handle it unless it is doused in chemicals, which isn't good for the land in the long term, for the food it creates or the people that eat it.
Of my acre of land, only a small part of it is set aside for vegetable growing. Another small area for six apple trees. I live in a valley that once had mile high glaciers flowing through it. You can still see boulders perched in odd places. My land is consequently very poor. Mostly rock. Any soil is very poor as it is just ground up boulders with very little humus. Consequently I have to make my own soil through composting. Vegetable scraps, tea bags, egg shells, seaweed, weeds, grass and wood chips all go into my compost bins and a few months later I have humus with which to improve my soil with.
There is no point digging through the back breaking rock so I just pile my home-made soil on top using the no-dig method. I also use containers and tyres fro growing in too. I have a large supply of big blue barrels. They are about the same size as 55-gallon drums and are always breaking free from the mussel farms where they hold ropes, upon which the mussels grow, anchored to the sea bed. Tyres are great for growing potatoes.
Not digging up the soil is the best thing for the soil. Every time you put your spade into the ground you are destroying tunnels created by earthworms and dislodging fungus and bacteria that break down dead organic matter into nutrients for plant roots. It's best off leaving it be and letting nature handle things itself. It was doing fine before man came along.
Remember that although man makes compost nature doesn't. It mulches. Dead things fall on the ground and nature breaks it down into nutrients. To that end always heed the saying, "Feed the soil and the plants will feed themselves." Earthworms will drag down what you place on top of the soil and nature will take care of it from there. It's also a lot less hard work!
Some useful links.
Permaculture Books
Dig the no-dig
Keep them old car tyres!
Composting
Fuel cells
A BBC news story covering fuel cell technology. A very expensive technology at present but if the price can be reduced then it will save us all from the expense of batteries. The one thing that is stopping me from going off-grid or building an all-electric car.
Tomatoes by the tonne
vegetable gardening / tomatoes
All of them green. It's too late in the year to expect the sun to ripen them so I took them all in. I will either try and force some of them to ripen in the dark or start making green chile salsa. Next year I shall plant them in much bigger pots as the plants were rather pot bound. Also I might take them outside to ripen because I'm thinking that the semi-opaque plastic sheet covering the polytunnel is not letting enough light in for these Mediterranean pasata tomatoes that I'm trying to grow.
All of them green. It's too late in the year to expect the sun to ripen them so I took them all in. I will either try and force some of them to ripen in the dark or start making green chile salsa. Next year I shall plant them in much bigger pots as the plants were rather pot bound. Also I might take them outside to ripen because I'm thinking that the semi-opaque plastic sheet covering the polytunnel is not letting enough light in for these Mediterranean pasata tomatoes that I'm trying to grow.
Alternative vehicle fuels
One of our biggest cash drains is for that infernal combustion engine sitting outside. Who owns who? We are slaves to a car more than anything else. About 25% of our out-goings goes on petrol, vehicle tax, insurance and maintenance. Enough is enough!
However, it's not that easy to replace your vehicle fuel. There are many options and you have to make the right choice so that you are not setting yourself up for more problems in the future. Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better just to go back to a horse and cart. I don't think the locals would be too keen on seeing carts back on the roads as many of them only just did away with their donkeys and carts twenty years ago.
There are quite a few of what are called hybrid cars these days. One such is the Toyota Prius, which has both a petrol engine and an electric motor. A computer determines which to power your car with though many owners are modifying their cars just to run on electric power.
This brings us to those who have done away with the infernal combustion engine altogether and have converted cars to electric drive only. For me this is not an option. Mainly the cost. A conversion would cost thousands and you have to buy those damned batteries. I hate batteries. I'm not entirely sure they are a sustainable technology but please do convince me they are and are going to drop in price. A lot!
Go to any chip shop or restaurant around here and you won't find what you would normally find elsewhere. Waste vegetable oil. Used by many as a replacement for diesel or as the main ingredient for bio-diesel. Therefore we have no way of making bio-diesel or running a diesel on waste vegetable oil. That particular avenue is shut to us because the supply is not reliable. If we bought a diesel car we would either have to run it on petro-diesel, which is the same price as petrol (no saving) or have the car converted to run on clean vegetable oil.
Vegetable oil is half the price of diesel so it is worth considering. There are many diesel engined cars around here but I never see one queuing up for diesel at a petrol station. Everyone has a heating oil tank here. Supposedly to run the household boiler. Quite a few have petrol station nozzles attached to them. I'll say no more. The fine probably makes that avenue a no-go too but according to the Irish Inland Revenue there is no duty payable on vegetable oil. So, if we do get a diesel engined car then that is the best route. I hear that Volkswagen TDI diesel engines are the best for running on vegetable oil.
But I'm the kind of person who wants to take things to their logical conclusion. If I'm buying vegetable oil to power my car then Mr Businessman is still getting my cash. Admittedly only half of what he got if I had bought petrol or petro-diesel. Still, I would prefer that he didn't get a penny from me. With that aim in mind I have been researching other avenues. Still early days and I have made very few experiments. Further work will have to wait until I have completely secured the house from the coming winter's cold weather.
I am currently reading up on hydrogen and wood gas. Hydrogen can be easily created with some aluminium (the insides of orange juice cartons are donating freely), some sodium hydroxide (also called caustic soda or lye) and water. You even get plenty of heat into the bargain as well. Storage is a little difficult. Hydrogen molecules are very small. They can work their way through anything. Even the metal in a gas tank. Progress is being made in that area though.
The hydrogen you make can be used in two different ways. One expensive, one not so. The expensive option is to buy a fuel cell, which reacts hydrogen with oxygen to create electricity and water. Isn't that eco-friendly! You get power for an electric motor and a nice clean glass of water to refresh you. No pollutants. The trouble is fuel cells are very expensive.
An alternative way to use hydrogen gas is in that infernal combustion engine. They don't just run on petrol. Some people have already converted their engines to run on LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) but that is a very expensive conversion. I don't like having to spend so much money getting someone else to do a job I think I could do myself and I can't make and store the fuel myself.
Infernal combustion engines can run very easily on hydrogen gas, liquids like ethanol and wood gas, which contains hydrogen too and a few other gases given off during the gasification of wood. Storage is still a problem for gases. You either have to store enough of it, and that means doing so under pressure, which is dangerous in itself. Or, you have to produce the gas as you drive, which presents yet more problems. Liquids like ethanol are easier to store but I ethanol production is lengthy with fermentation and then distillation. What I like about hydrogen and wood gas is that I can produce it myself easily and for next to nothing. The conversion of the car will no doubt be difficult. I will try and convert the lawnmower first. Hydrogen or wood gas? Store or produced on the fly? I don't know the answers to these questions but with the price of petrol as is I'm going to find out soon enough.
Here are some useful links.
1993 Update: Dave Arthurs' Amazing Hybrid Electric Car - DIY hybrid car
AVT - all-electric car
Eilish Oil - Ireland based diesel to vegetable oil conversion
Ethanol still (free plans) - once you've fermented your ethanol you need to purify it
Hydrogen delay - my thoughts on why hydrogen is taking so long to get to the market
Hydrogen generator - even amateurs are getting results when using hydrogen in their cars
Make your own biodiesel - as it says
Make your own fuel - how to make ethanol
Mother's Wood Burning Truck - running a vehicle on wood gas
Vegburner - diesel to vegetable oil conversion
Wood Gas - a website dedicated to all things wood gas
However, it's not that easy to replace your vehicle fuel. There are many options and you have to make the right choice so that you are not setting yourself up for more problems in the future. Sometimes, I wonder if it would be better just to go back to a horse and cart. I don't think the locals would be too keen on seeing carts back on the roads as many of them only just did away with their donkeys and carts twenty years ago.
There are quite a few of what are called hybrid cars these days. One such is the Toyota Prius, which has both a petrol engine and an electric motor. A computer determines which to power your car with though many owners are modifying their cars just to run on electric power.
This brings us to those who have done away with the infernal combustion engine altogether and have converted cars to electric drive only. For me this is not an option. Mainly the cost. A conversion would cost thousands and you have to buy those damned batteries. I hate batteries. I'm not entirely sure they are a sustainable technology but please do convince me they are and are going to drop in price. A lot!
Go to any chip shop or restaurant around here and you won't find what you would normally find elsewhere. Waste vegetable oil. Used by many as a replacement for diesel or as the main ingredient for bio-diesel. Therefore we have no way of making bio-diesel or running a diesel on waste vegetable oil. That particular avenue is shut to us because the supply is not reliable. If we bought a diesel car we would either have to run it on petro-diesel, which is the same price as petrol (no saving) or have the car converted to run on clean vegetable oil.
Vegetable oil is half the price of diesel so it is worth considering. There are many diesel engined cars around here but I never see one queuing up for diesel at a petrol station. Everyone has a heating oil tank here. Supposedly to run the household boiler. Quite a few have petrol station nozzles attached to them. I'll say no more. The fine probably makes that avenue a no-go too but according to the Irish Inland Revenue there is no duty payable on vegetable oil. So, if we do get a diesel engined car then that is the best route. I hear that Volkswagen TDI diesel engines are the best for running on vegetable oil.
But I'm the kind of person who wants to take things to their logical conclusion. If I'm buying vegetable oil to power my car then Mr Businessman is still getting my cash. Admittedly only half of what he got if I had bought petrol or petro-diesel. Still, I would prefer that he didn't get a penny from me. With that aim in mind I have been researching other avenues. Still early days and I have made very few experiments. Further work will have to wait until I have completely secured the house from the coming winter's cold weather.
I am currently reading up on hydrogen and wood gas. Hydrogen can be easily created with some aluminium (the insides of orange juice cartons are donating freely), some sodium hydroxide (also called caustic soda or lye) and water. You even get plenty of heat into the bargain as well. Storage is a little difficult. Hydrogen molecules are very small. They can work their way through anything. Even the metal in a gas tank. Progress is being made in that area though.
The hydrogen you make can be used in two different ways. One expensive, one not so. The expensive option is to buy a fuel cell, which reacts hydrogen with oxygen to create electricity and water. Isn't that eco-friendly! You get power for an electric motor and a nice clean glass of water to refresh you. No pollutants. The trouble is fuel cells are very expensive.
An alternative way to use hydrogen gas is in that infernal combustion engine. They don't just run on petrol. Some people have already converted their engines to run on LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) but that is a very expensive conversion. I don't like having to spend so much money getting someone else to do a job I think I could do myself and I can't make and store the fuel myself.
Infernal combustion engines can run very easily on hydrogen gas, liquids like ethanol and wood gas, which contains hydrogen too and a few other gases given off during the gasification of wood. Storage is still a problem for gases. You either have to store enough of it, and that means doing so under pressure, which is dangerous in itself. Or, you have to produce the gas as you drive, which presents yet more problems. Liquids like ethanol are easier to store but I ethanol production is lengthy with fermentation and then distillation. What I like about hydrogen and wood gas is that I can produce it myself easily and for next to nothing. The conversion of the car will no doubt be difficult. I will try and convert the lawnmower first. Hydrogen or wood gas? Store or produced on the fly? I don't know the answers to these questions but with the price of petrol as is I'm going to find out soon enough.
Here are some useful links.
1993 Update: Dave Arthurs' Amazing Hybrid Electric Car - DIY hybrid car
AVT - all-electric car
Eilish Oil - Ireland based diesel to vegetable oil conversion
Ethanol still (free plans) - once you've fermented your ethanol you need to purify it
Hydrogen delay - my thoughts on why hydrogen is taking so long to get to the market
Hydrogen generator - even amateurs are getting results when using hydrogen in their cars
Make your own biodiesel - as it says
Make your own fuel - how to make ethanol
Mother's Wood Burning Truck - running a vehicle on wood gas
Vegburner - diesel to vegetable oil conversion
Wood Gas - a website dedicated to all things wood gas
How self-sufficient am I?
Not very is the honest answer. Looking at food alone there is the problem that some ingredients are imported due to the impossibility of growing them here. Yesterday's meal was okay. Rosie is Chinese so she cooked chicken in black bean sauce. The onions, peppers and carrots came from the garden. The chicken we bought but that could be locally produced. The black beans however came from the orient. I doubt that they could be grown here and if we are moving into a post oil age then they could well be off the menu in future.
Today's meal is worse. Chile con carne with turkey mince for meat. I could produce my own turkeys so that wouldn't be a problem. The tomatoes will be coming out of a tin. I tried growing plum tomatoes this year but without success. The growing season is pretty short here and plum tomatoes are grown in the Mediterranean where there is warmth and sunshine in abundance. The chile also contains red kidney beans, another import. Thankfully the onion is from my kitchen garden. However, the chile powder and chile sauce are also imported. For the sake of health we always cook with olive oil. We couldn't grow olives here so we would have to use less healthy cooking oils.
I wonder how our diet would change in the future if, as some predict, life gets harder in a post oil world. I like spicy foods as I get bored with traditional Irish fare and start supplementing with junk food laced with fats and sugars. That's not good for someone whose cholesterol level is too high as mine is. One of the reasons for moving here was for me to grow my own healthy food and to get plenty of exercise whilst doing it. I don't fancy a constant diet of potato, onion, carrot and leek soup. Though if my ancestors managed it then maybe I should just be grateful.
Other areas of our lives here are also dependent on outside sources. Petrol for the car. Electricity from the power station. No life can be truly self-sufficient. We have cut back on many things. The wood stove is reducing our heating oil requirement. I hope to eliminate the need for it entirely with solar, waste oil and wood heat as hot water heating replacements. We could go off-grid and produce our own electricity but then there is a big start-up cost and the cost of new batteries every so often so it is probably cheaper to remain on-grid. And what of battery manufacture in the future if oil is depleted and electricity rationed in factories making batteries?
Who knows that the future holds. We just have to save where we can now and bend with the wind when the future shocks come.
Today's meal is worse. Chile con carne with turkey mince for meat. I could produce my own turkeys so that wouldn't be a problem. The tomatoes will be coming out of a tin. I tried growing plum tomatoes this year but without success. The growing season is pretty short here and plum tomatoes are grown in the Mediterranean where there is warmth and sunshine in abundance. The chile also contains red kidney beans, another import. Thankfully the onion is from my kitchen garden. However, the chile powder and chile sauce are also imported. For the sake of health we always cook with olive oil. We couldn't grow olives here so we would have to use less healthy cooking oils.
I wonder how our diet would change in the future if, as some predict, life gets harder in a post oil world. I like spicy foods as I get bored with traditional Irish fare and start supplementing with junk food laced with fats and sugars. That's not good for someone whose cholesterol level is too high as mine is. One of the reasons for moving here was for me to grow my own healthy food and to get plenty of exercise whilst doing it. I don't fancy a constant diet of potato, onion, carrot and leek soup. Though if my ancestors managed it then maybe I should just be grateful.
Other areas of our lives here are also dependent on outside sources. Petrol for the car. Electricity from the power station. No life can be truly self-sufficient. We have cut back on many things. The wood stove is reducing our heating oil requirement. I hope to eliminate the need for it entirely with solar, waste oil and wood heat as hot water heating replacements. We could go off-grid and produce our own electricity but then there is a big start-up cost and the cost of new batteries every so often so it is probably cheaper to remain on-grid. And what of battery manufacture in the future if oil is depleted and electricity rationed in factories making batteries?
Who knows that the future holds. We just have to save where we can now and bend with the wind when the future shocks come.
Babington oil burner
A Babington oil burner is a device for burning waste vegetable or petrochemical oil. Designed by the US military it is now in the public domain and is very useful for burning waste oil quickly and simply for space heating. It could easily be incorporated into a water heating system too.
The principle innovation is that oil is dripped onto a metal ball and forms a thin film upon it. The metal ball has a small aperture drilled into it and the ball is pumped with compressed air through another (larger) hole. This creates a mist of oil as the air is forced through the small aperture and the thin film of oil covering it. The thin film is ignited with a blow torch or similar and the resulting flame is directed onto a metal surface which heats up and when hot enough sustains the flame without external assistance.
Some useful links,
A Homemade Waste Oil Burner
Babington
Babington Burner
Waste Oil Heater Plans
The principle innovation is that oil is dripped onto a metal ball and forms a thin film upon it. The metal ball has a small aperture drilled into it and the ball is pumped with compressed air through another (larger) hole. This creates a mist of oil as the air is forced through the small aperture and the thin film of oil covering it. The thin film is ignited with a blow torch or similar and the resulting flame is directed onto a metal surface which heats up and when hot enough sustains the flame without external assistance.
Some useful links,
A Homemade Waste Oil Burner
Babington
Babington Burner
Waste Oil Heater Plans
Savonius wind turbine
Invented by the Finnish engineer S J Savonius in 1922, a Savonius rotor is a vertical axis, drag-based (as opposed to lift-based propellors) wind power machine using two (sometimes three) scoops to catch the passing wind and convert it to rotational energy. This energy can then be used to turn a generator for electrical power or used to drive a mechanical pump.
The advantage of a Savonius is its simplicity of construction, which appeals to DIY wind power builders as not everyone has the time or knowhow for building the more complex horizontal axis wind turbines.
A disadvantage of the Savonius is its use of drag to turn the rotor. This makes it less efficient than vertical axis wind turbines and other horizontal axis devices that use aerodynamic blades to create lift such as the Darrieus and H-rotor.
Savonius links
The Savonius Super Rotor
Wind Tunnel Performance Data for Two and Three-Bucket Savonius Rotors (pdf document)
The Lenz turbine - though not a Savonius it is inspired by it and offers higher efficiency at the cost of a higher level of construction competence.
The advantage of a Savonius is its simplicity of construction, which appeals to DIY wind power builders as not everyone has the time or knowhow for building the more complex horizontal axis wind turbines.A disadvantage of the Savonius is its use of drag to turn the rotor. This makes it less efficient than vertical axis wind turbines and other horizontal axis devices that use aerodynamic blades to create lift such as the Darrieus and H-rotor.
Savonius links
The Savonius Super Rotor
Wind Tunnel Performance Data for Two and Three-Bucket Savonius Rotors (pdf document)
The Lenz turbine - though not a Savonius it is inspired by it and offers higher efficiency at the cost of a higher level of construction competence.
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