Jaffa's Juicy Bits

Jaffa's Juicy Bits A blog about gadgets, babies and green stuff http://www.jaffacake.net/ en-us Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:52:52 +0100 Brabantia - Solar Powered Clothes Drying Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:52:52 +0100 Brabantia will likely need no introduction to any homeowner - chances are you've got one of their waste bins somewhere in your home. In fact, the first bin I ever bought was a Brabantia - a little pedal bin for use in the bathroom in my first place after I left home.

After moving into a new home with a garden, it became clear that my green testing had become a little...how shall I put it? Ungreen! My original benchmark energy test involved washing and drying a set of towels from our weekly wash - but of course there is nothing at all eco-conscious about using a tumble dryer when the sun is shining!

Enter the Brabantia Lift-O-Matic rotary dryer.

... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=brabantia-solar-powered-clothes-drying http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/brabantia-solar-powered-clothes-drying Domestic Gadgets Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/brabantia-solar-powered-clothes-drying?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/brabantia-solar-powered-clothes-drying Brabantia will likely need no introduction to any homeowner - chances are you've got one of their waste bins somewhere in your home. In fact, the first bin I ever bought was a Brabantia - a little pedal bin for use in the bathroom in my first place after I left home.

After moving into a new home with a garden, it became clear that my green testing had become a little...how shall I put it? Ungreen! My original benchmark energy test involved washing and drying a set of towels from our weekly wash - but of course there is nothing at all eco-conscious about using a tumble dryer when the sun is shining!

Enter the Brabantia Lift-O-Matic rotary dryer.

This is like the Rolls Royce of clothes dryers with all the niggles from other models designed out. It comes with with a long steel spike for the ground, to ensure it doesn't blow over even in the strongest winds. The spike fits flush , so you can push the mower straight over it when you cut the grass - there's even a red cap to go in the top of the spike when you remove the dryer - the little slot on the cap allows you to clip it to the line when not in use. The dryer itself has an aluminium pole, making the device light and easy to lift in and out of the hole. The arm mechanism is extremely easy to open and close, the wires remain tangle free and, being the Lift-O-Matic model, you can even adjust the height of the dryer on the pole - handy for airing duvets and things. All the lines that join the dryer arms are individual, making them easy to replace should one break in the future and the lines also have quite a grippy surface - I don't even bother using clothes pegs when putting my towels out to dry. In fact, the only thing it doesn't come with is a cover, but one is available for purchase separately.

Unlike my usual product tests, this one actually saves electricity - it doesn't use any - all the spinning around it might do is purely powered by the wind and the warmth of the sun does all the drying. To test the true savings, however, I had to go back to the laundry and wash some more towels at 40 degrees, except this time I disabled the drying cycle. At the end of our wash cycle, towels still wet, my electricity meter clearly read 0.51kWh, a massive saving of 2.16kWh (81%) bringing our cost down from about 30p to just under 6 pence per wash. On a hot sunny day, the towels are actually dry in about the same time the dryer takes!

Of course we wash more than that each week. We do one load of towels, one of bedding, baby, whites, light clothes, dark clothes and underwear - 7 washes. In fair weather, these can all be dried on our washing line - our 50m model will easily hold 3 to 4 loads at once - with a saving of 15.12kWh per week, about £1.50. Even if we say the weather is only suitable for 6 months of the year, that's still a 393.12kWh/£40 a year saving.

How does that work out in saved CO2 emissions? Well, using my friend the NEF CO2 Calculator, we can calculate how much CO2 those saved kWh would have generated from UK power stations - an enormous 213kg of CO2 or about the same carbon footprint as a Nissan Leaf travelling for over 1638miles! Yes, with the electricity saved by line drying for 6 months a year, you can drive 1600 miles in a new electric car.

Backed with the usual excellent Brabantia guarantee, the Lift-O-Matic rotary dryer will pay for itself in no time and for double the savings throughout the winter months, you could look at one of Brabantia's indoor drying solutions such as their Bathroom drying rack.

Further photos of the garden installation can be viewed here. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/brabantia-solar-powered-clothes-drying http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/brabantia-solar-powered-clothes-drying?opendocument&comments ETA Green Car Awards Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:30:00 +0100 The Green Car Awards presented by the Environmental Transport Association.

I'm not entirely sure who the ETA are trying to be, they appear to sell breakdown cover, but they claim their Green Car Awards have been running since 1992. ETA SERVICES LIMITED, the company behind the awards, was actually first incorporated on the 6th February 1997 but under the name of "MOTIVESELL LIMITED". They rebranded to the ETA name on 4th August 1997 after just 6 months in business and the eta.co.uk domain was registered in the same month. Their nature of business is registered at companies house as "non-life insurance" which might go someway towards explaining how they appear to have such limited knowledge of Environmental matters.

So why have I taken issue with these awards?
... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=eta-green-car-awards http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/eta-green-car-awards Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/eta-green-car-awards?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/eta-green-car-awards The Green Car Awards presented by the Environmental Transport Association.

I'm not entirely sure who the ETA are trying to be, they appear to sell breakdown cover, but they claim their Green Car Awards have been running since 1992. ETA SERVICES LIMITED, the company behind the awards, was actually first incorporated on the 6th February 1997 but under the name of "MOTIVESELL LIMITED". They rebranded to the ETA name on 4th August 1997 after just 6 months in business and the eta.co.uk domain was registered in the same month. Their nature of business is registered at companies house as "non-life insurance" which might go someway towards explaining how they appear to have such limited knowledge of Environmental matters.

So why have I taken issue with these awards?

Well, I don't regard myself a true global expert on environmental matters but I'm certainly ahead of the average guy on the street. One glance of the award winners gave me cause for investigation. Initially, I just didn't understand how the Honda Insight had won the "Small Family" category when it was clear there are other, more economical cars in the sector. Some information of how they reached the verdicts is provided on the website but it still wasn't entirely clear so I contacted the ETA directly and made contact with Yannick Read, who handles their external communications.

Yannick explained that the results for each car were based on 4 equally weighted factors. CO₂ output, Fuel Economy (good old cold cycle mpg), Noise (measured in dB) and power (engine capacity). I naturally sought clarification on that last point as I didn't see how power and engine capacity could be linked, or even relevant. Does the power of an engine really have any relevance to it's Environmental Credentials? Yannick explained that this factor was actually based upon the engine size of the vehicle in cc - the smallest being the most green.

Does it matter if the engine is petrol or diesel? No. Does it matter how many seats the vehicle has or how much it can carry? No. Does it matter if the car is a petrol/electric hybrid? No. Are the electric motors on hybrids factored in at all? No, not really.

So, they take all the nominated vehicles and order them based upon the CO2 output. the one with the lowest CO2 emissions wins and gets the highest score for that section. Then they do the same for mpg, noise and...engine size. So the car with the smallest engine automatically wins 25% of the vote. It doesn't matter if it pours pure un-combusted fuel out of the tail pipe onto the tarmac, as long as it has a small engine.

To put in a bit of background here, Toyota released their 3rd generation Prius in 2009. The previous model had a 1.5 litre engine. The latest model now has a 1.8 litre engine - a bigger engine. The newer car would get a LOWER score in the ETA Green Car Awards because the new engine is bigger and it would therefore rank lower than other cars in that Power (engine capacity) factor. The new car, however, has significantly reduced CO2 emissions and a much improved fuel economy - because it has a bigger, more efficient, engine. If it uses less fossil fuels and emits less CO2, how can it possibly be less green? So this is how the results worked out so odd.

Let's go back to my query about the Honda Insight. It can clearly be seen from the ETA's own site that the Honda Insight does not appear on their Ten Best Cars list for CO2 output. The Smart came first and the new Polo came 2nd. The new Toyota Prius came 3rd in this list. The Honda Insight also doesn't appear on the Ten Best Cars list for Lowest Fuel Costs. The Prius does. Smart and Polo again take the top 2 positions.

But one quick glance at the Ten Best cars overall shows the Honda insight coming second - beating the new Polo. The Prius comes 5th and the Smart is nowhere to be seen here, wiped out by a Toyota iQ that appears to have come from nowhere and won the City category.

I went back to ETA and asked them directly for a response on this planned article, specifically asking how did a car not appear in the Top 10 for either CO2 or MPG and yet still win the "greenest" car in its class? I asked how they came to the conclusion that the size of an engine, in cc, is any way directly proportional to its power? I asked how is the physical size of an engine in any way equated to a car's green credentials? I asked how the BMW 3-series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class ended up in different categories. The ETA response was...nothing. They chose not to respond to me from the moment I mentioned publishing an article about the awards.

So, if you reprinted the awards winners on your site or in your magazine without a second though about the content, shame on you. Will you just publish what anybody tells you without even vaguely questioning the accuracy of the information contained within?

And finally, if you were an ETA Green Car Award winner, just remember, all that glitters is not Green. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/eta-green-car-awards http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/eta-green-car-awards?opendocument&comments Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise Sat, 5 Jun 2010 15:44:26 +0100 Image:Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise

Image:Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise

When Honda UK invited me to a press event for their new CR-Z hybrid vehicle, I didn't know what to expect. As you grow up, you tend to get exposed and influenced by the cars of friends & family. Despite probability claiming the opposite, I never actually knew anybody with a Honda.

Back in 2001, I once considered a Honda Accord Type R to replace my MX-5 but a divorce ruled family life off the agenda for a while so I bought a Mazda RX-7 Twin Turbo instead. When I'd had enough of that, I considered an Integra or Civic Type R to replace it but ended up with a Golf R32 instead as I just didn't like that torque steer feel of a high power front-wheel drive car. The CR-Z would be the first Honda I had driven since that rainy Civic test drive in 2004.

I learned in the press briefing that the CR-Z is a 2+2 sporty hybrid coupe. They didn't make a big deal about the back seats, but did point out that ISOFIX anchors for a child seat are there if required. They didn't oversell the hatchback luggage space, in fact the 401-litres of boot space with the seats folded down even includes some pretty useless looking cubby holes under the boot floor. They didn't even make wild claims about the performance of the car, with a quoted 0-60mph of 9.9secs. To my continued amazement, they didn't even ram it's 117g/km green credentials down my throat.

All of the above have taken a small hit to produce a vehicle that surprised me big time. They could have made it a little quicker, but it wouldn't have qualified for VED band C car tax at £30/yr - many of it's close competitors end up in the considerably more expensive D or E bands. They could have made it more economic, lowering it's tax banding, but that wouldn't have made it as much fun. They could have made the boot or back seat bigger, but it's a nippy, fun little car and I'm glad they stuck to these goals.

The CR-Z, they tell me, is the "21st century rethinking" of the Honda CRX from the 1980s and they do indeed have a lot in common when it comes to exterior styling - but you don't read my site to read copy/pasted chunks from a press release. I'm not a car journalist, I don't do this for a living and I test drive a car like I would be considering a purchase for myself. I could talk about the looks or how it drives, but all these things are very subjective and do you care if I tell you that I could provoke almost no over-steer, even when slamming the throttle shut at speed on a high speed roundabout?

If you're young, free and single, you won't care about any of the compromises of this car. If you are, however, you'll have a number of questions that aren't normally answered by a brochure or a website. Things like:

- What if I have to pick up my child from nursery?
- Will our child seat fit in the back seat?
- Will our full size modern buggy or pram fit in the boot?
- Will I have to fold the seats to get it in? If so, where does the child seat go?
- What does the stereo sound like?
- What is visibility like?
- What brand of tyres are fitted as standard? (OK, you don't care about that, it's just an interest of mine)
- What about the eco-side of things? How is the car made greener?

Well I asked these questions, so you don't have to.

Babies

After the briefing, whilst other journalists were rushing to the cars and pulling out of the car park, I returned to my own car to pick up a few things. My wife thought I'd brought her and the baby on a nice weekend away and didn't realise it was all a thinly veiled excuse to put the baby seat and buggy in the car. Like many parents these days, we have a Maxi Cosi baby seat with the ISOFIX base unit. But would it fit? Well, it was quite some effort. First I had to move the passenger seat to the very front of its rails and then pull it forward to get rear seat access - the mechanism didn't seem too easy for this, a lot of 2-door cars have a single mechanism that will both slide and tilt the seat back. I had to mess around with 2-levers to get it in the right position and, even then, the gap wasn't huge. But, as confirmed by the photos, you'll see I got it in.

I didn't have the actual car seat with me, baby was asleep in it, but it would have been a serious squeeze to get the actual seat through the gap between the front seat and the door frame. Had it not fitted, there is always the easier option of mounting the child carrier on the passenger seat using the seat-belt. A door key secured switch allows the front passenger air-bag to be disabled if required for this and offers the increased advantage of being able to fold the rear seats for extra luggage space whilst carrying the child.

If the Honda reps weren't concerned when I appeared with an ISOFIX seat base, they certainly were when I returned with an iCandy Peach Stroller. The Peach chassis has folded measurements of 30 x 60 x 70 cm. The seat unit measures up at 16 x 42 x 89. Would it fit in 225-litres of VDA bootspace without using the 19-litres of it that are below the floor? As any parent will know, there's only one real way to find out and here it is:
Image:Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise

add in the seat unit:
Image:Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise

So it's not the biggest bot in the world, but you can get plenty of shopping in and, if necessary, pick you child up from nursery in it. So a big practicality tick in the box for a 2nd vehicle.

The Stereo

Image:Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise

The old saying "never judge a book by its cover" could not be more true for this car. It's possibly the cheapest, nastiest looking head unit I have ever seen. Every button and switch on the device says cheap, and this is the premium model with the Sat Nav! So, fearing the worst, I connected up my mp3 player. I'm one of these people who cares about audio quality and I ripped my CD collection in a high bitrate because the serious Mark Levinson premium sound system in my Lexus really shows up the differences. I didn't expect it to make any difference whatsoever in the CR-Z - how wrong I was. Kicking in "Meet me Halfway" by the Black Eyed Peas allowed me to hear Fergie's loud vocals without any distortion along with a thumping bass from a sub-woofer than I didn't know Honda had concealed in the rear of the car. Turning the volume up further shows that this is no ordinary sound system and worth every penny.

Some manufacturers may offer premium audio options, like B&O or Bose, but this unbranded Honda set-up sounds every bit as good as any one of them. Major kudos to Honda for fitting this as standard.

Visibility

Seems to be a common problem in modern cars, with their thick A-pillars to allow for higher crash safety - you can't see out of them. In it's defence, I didn't find the CR-Z forward visibility to be so bad but side and rear view have a lot to be desired. Pulling out of an angled t-junction, like several on our test route, was very difficult as you simply can't see over your shoulder as you emerge. I almost resorted to sticking my head out of the window at one point when merging with a fast road. If the doors were a bit longer, this would have been improved and, with the baby section in mind, have improved access to the rear seats.

Rear vision is infected with that Japanese plague that is the split rear window. You have a small rear window then, just where you want to look, is the opaque boot lip. Below that is another piece of glass which adds more to available light than actual visibility. Of most annoyance to me was the glass used for the lower window, my polarised sun glasses showed up a very distracting pattern in the glass that couldn't be seen with the bare eye.

Tyres

Image:Honda CR-Z - Conscience without Compromise

The standard tyres fitted on the model I drove are 16" Bridgestone 195/55R16. Why should you care? Because you'll likely have to replace them at some point. An on-line quote from a local supplier gives me a replacement cost of £94.92 per tyre, fully fitted.

The Green Bit

You may hear people say that the Honda CR-Z is a hybrid. Some may say it's not a "full hybrid", you may wonder what that means? Let me try and explain in a clear way how the CR-Z may differ from some of these other "full hybrid" vehicles.

The CR-Z is a 2+2 hybrid sports coupe - this makes it pretty unique on the market. It's also the first generally available hybrid with a manual gearbox, most hybrids use automatic CVT based gearboxes. This kind of car would traditionally have been fitted with a 1.8 or 2.0 litre petrol engine. By making the engine a bit smaller, in this case a 1.5, you significantly improve fuel economy and reduce emissions. This ruins all the fun though, as the economic engine is a bit slow, so they add a 2nd motor under the bonnet that is powered by electric from a bank of batteries located under the vehicle. This gives the car a much needed boost, particularly at low revs and make the car a lot more fun to drive with little expense on fuel economy - the batteries are charged using waste energy as you drive along - a bit like a dynamo powering lights on a bike.

In the case of the CR-Z it has a little electric motor that is purely there to supplement the power from the small engine. By contrast, a "full hybrid" has a much larger motor that is capable of moving the car on it's own - without the petrol engine running at all. So cars, like my own Lexus hybrid, are capable of driving a couple of miles down the road without starting the engine at all. Of course, to do this, it needs larger batteries that are heavier and take up more space in the boot.

One big change comes with air conditioning. On a normal car, the A/C compressor is belt driven from the engine. In a "full hybrid" this wouldn't work as quite often the engine isn't running at all. As a result, a full hybrid system usually contains an electric air conditioner that is driven from the batteries. In the case of the CR-Z, not being a full hybrid, the A/C will only work when the engine is running. On a normal day, you'll notice when you stop at the traffic lights that the engine stops, to improve economy, and then the fan stops. It will begin to get warmer in the car, then the green light appears, you put the car in gear, the engine starts and you pull away. The fan then starts back up and all is fine. On hotter days, as this isn't acceptable to passengers, the engine continues to run and power the A/C. The end result is that emissions are higher on these warmer days. Likewise, even on full hybrids, the engine may continue to run to keep you warm on very cold days.

Due to these slight differences, "full hybrids" are generally more efficient than the equivalent basic hybrid model but can be more compromising, usually by having a smaller boot to allow for the bigger batteries. It's fair to say that if it were a "full hybrid" that the CR-Z would be more efficient and may even qualify for a lower VED band due to lower emissions but a "full hybrid" wouldn't suit the manual gearbox without which the car would be all but ruined. Additionally, the required bigger batteries would make the car too heavy and ruin all the fun.

Summary

Potential buyers should see the car for what it is, not what it isn't. It's a sporty car that's every bit as fun to drive as my old Toyota Celica but, unlike the Celica, it's still on sale and easily complies with all modern EU emissions legislation. If everybody swapped their old mid-price 2+2 for one of these, they'd have as much fun and contribute towards saving the planet. For me, being green isn't about changing the way you live your life - it's about taking the greenest option that doesn't require compromise. For me, the Honda CR-Z is one of those options.

I took more photos that I didn't include here, feel free to browse my photo album to see them and if you have any questions feel free to post a comment or drop me an email.

Thanks to Steve Kirk at Honda UK for the invitation for an early drive of this great car. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/hondacrz http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/hondacrz?opendocument&comments Nissan Leaf - Charging on Economy 7 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:25:33 +0100 did the maths.

The Nissan Leaf UK tour came to the O2 last week and a group of journalists and fleet reps came to see the new car and learn about the stats. Some correspondents told me that Nissan were still claiming £1 for a full charge, so I probed further.The end result was that @UKNissanLeaf responded: "We estimate the cost to fully charge a LEAF overnight would be in the region of £1 to £1.50 using low rate Economy 7 electricity".

So there we have it. To get charging costs as low as the claimed figures, you may need to be on a different retail tariff for your electricity. But how will that affect your overall electricity bills? Read on...
... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=nissan-leaf-economy-7 http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-economy-7 Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-economy-7?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-economy-7 did the maths.

The Nissan Leaf UK tour came to the O2 last week and a group of journalists and fleet reps came to see the new car and learn about the stats. Some correspondents told me that Nissan were still claiming £1 for a full charge, so I probed further.The end result was that @UKNissanLeaf responded: "We estimate the cost to fully charge a LEAF overnight would be in the region of £1 to £1.50 using low rate Economy 7 electricity".

So there we have it. To get charging costs as low as the claimed figures, you may need to be on a different retail tariff for your electricity. But how will that affect your overall electricity bills? Read on...

An Economy 7 tariff offers cheaper "overnight" electricity to customers, usually from 10.30pm to 12.30pm and then from 2.30am to 7.30am. Seven discounted hours, hence the name Economy 7. As demand is much lower then, there is a much lower cost for the wholesale electricity you are being supplied and this is passed on to you, the consumer.

Looking at a current published price with a major supplier, their Economy 7 cost is 5p/kWh - a saving of around 50%. So on first inspection, you could very wrongly believe that it would cost you 5p x 24kW = £1.20 to fully charge the Leaf overnight, instead of the previously calculated £2.40. But, on closer inspection, there are MAJOR hidden costs here.

Using figures I have to hand for EDF electricity, on their STANDARD tariff I'm seeing a cost of 17.15p/kWh for the first 900kWh followed by a cost of 11.76p/kWh for the remaining units. Switch that to Economy 7 and it's a very different story. As you've agreed to use electricity overnight, then you day right rockets upwards. 17.15p/kWh becomes 20.30p/kWh and not for 900 kWh of units, actually for the first 1000. After that the day rate clocks in at 12.44p/kWh.

So yes, the Leaf will be cheaper to charge overnight but your existing electricity costs could rise something like 20%.

The first 1000 units on the standard tariff would cost you 900 x 17.15p + 100 x 11.76p = £166.10

The exact same electricity on economy 7 would cost you 1000 x 20.30p £203.00 an increase of £36.90

But that only covers the first 1000 units, my bills in comment 1 here show a usage of around 2000 units per quarter - let's call it 7000 units per year. So that's 6000 more units at the increased Economy 7 day rate.

On Economy 7, these will cost me an extra 0.68p/unit, or 6000 x 0.68p £40.80 per year.

So, overall, switching to Economy 7 might cost me 36.90 + 40.80 = £77.70 extra, each year...just so I can charge my car a bit cheaper?

With a saving of only £1.20 for each charge, I'd have to fully charge my Nissan Leaf 65 times a year to break even and save the increase in costs by switching my electricity to the new tariff.

Correct me if I'm wrong, the Nissan Leaf is a low range car aimed at low mileage drivers who apparently don't like petrol stations. Are they really going to need to fully charge their car more than once a week? If you believe the hype, 65 full charges would equate to a potential distance of 6,500 miles a year. Seems a lot for the aims of this car. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/nissan-leaf-economy-7 http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-economy-7?opendocument&comments Nissan Leaf - Hidden Emissions Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:54:56 +0100 Nissan Leaf running cost article I wrote last week, I've had a number of people asking about its Green credentials and what kind of carbon footprint it might create for a potential owner. I thought I may as well get my calculator out and do some more sums.

Just to clarify, the Nissan Leaf doesn't have a combustion engine. It doesn't have an exhaust pipe. It's just a milk float style vehicle that is charged from the owner's electricity supply. So driving the car creates no direct emissions and it's CO2 output could be considered as nil, but not if that electricity is sourced using fossil fuels.
... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=nissan-leaf-hidden-emissions http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-hidden-emissions Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-hidden-emissions?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-hidden-emissions Nissan Leaf running cost article I wrote last week, I've had a number of people asking about its Green credentials and what kind of carbon footprint it might create for a potential owner. I thought I may as well get my calculator out and do some more sums.

Just to clarify, the Nissan Leaf doesn't have a combustion engine. It doesn't have an exhaust pipe. It's just a milk float style vehicle that is charged from the owner's electricity supply. So driving the car creates no direct emissions and it's CO2 output could be considered as nil, but not if that electricity is sourced using fossil fuels.

If, like me, you're based in the UK; you'll find that the majority of your electricity comes from traditional Coal fired power stations. We do have a bit of nuclear and a bit of wind power but, overall, most of it is generated using steam turbines powered by burning coal and emitting CO2. For this reason, many people have been buying electricity saving devices for the home. For example, Bye Bye Standby allows you to quickly and easily turn off the power to appliances in your home remotely. This reduces your electricity bills and helps save the millions of kWh of electricity wasted each year by appliances left on stand-by unnecessarily. The same electricity you were trying to save will be used to power your electric car.

@NeilatNissanEU tells me "using electricity to power cars remains vastly less polluting than petrol" but is this the case for owners of the Nissan Leaf in the UK? For "normal" cars, taxation is usually calculated using CO2 output figures. This applies to both VED and company car BIK calculations. Drivers of a hybrid, like me, have discovered that driving a low emission hybrid vehicle can save the owner a lot of money in this area as a result. The Nissan Leaf, being electric, is regarded as not having a CO2 output, exempt from London congestion charges and, presumably, will have zero car tax. But what if we factored in that CO2 output from electricity generation? Well, let's do the maths.

I'll be using figures from the National Energy Foundation (NEF) who have a rather handy CO2 calculator on their site. Using this, and the numbers from the running cost article, we will easily be able to create an equivalent figure for grammes per km CO2. This may allow green drivers to make a more informed decision before buying their next vehicle.

As you likely already know, the Nissan Leaf battery pack stores 24kWh of electricity which provides a max range of about 100 miles. According to the NEF calculator, generating 24kWh of electricity in the UK creates approximately 13kg of CO2 emissions. So, with a bit of simple maths, that's 13,000g for 100miles or 130g per mile of CO2. There are 1.6km in a mile so 130/1.6 = 81.25g per km CO2.

So 81.25g of CO2 per km for a Nissan Leaf on a warm sunny day that doesn't require the air conditioning. Don't get me wrong, this is still very low emissions, and fully establishes the Leaf's green credentials but, if electricity usage increases by just 10%, due to the heater, air-con, headlights, radio, going uphill etc. then it's CO2 output will be no better than the larger Toyota Prius and it's 800+ miles range. It's certainly not "vastly less polluting" in my eyes.

As with the running cost calculations I did last week, I personally think that the Leaf may be too big a compromise for too small a gain. Sure, when we switch to more renewable sources of electricity and our power supply generation becomes greener, then things will be different - but I see this as being over a decade away. The government were recently giving people cash incentives to scrap 10 year old cars so, using that as the lifetime of a car, I don't see the current generation Leaf ever being a viable option for me.

Next time you see a website claiming "zero emission" think again. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/nissan-leaf-hidden-emissions http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf-hidden-emissions?opendocument&comments Nissan Leaf - The Maths Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:00:00 +0100
The Leaf is entering a new market for Nissan in that it, like a milk float, will be powered completely on electricity from on-board batteries. Between uses it will be charged from the mains and the stored charge will be enough to give the car a claimed range of around 100 miles. They also claim (through @neilatnissaneu on twitter ) that a full charge will cost "something like 1.20 Euros". This left me wondering, after all electricity is many things but it really isn't cheap. Would 1.20 Euros really get a UK owner 100 miles? What will the true running costs be? Let's do the maths...
... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=nissan-leaf http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf
The Leaf is entering a new market for Nissan in that it, like a milk float, will be powered completely on electricity from on-board batteries. Between uses it will be charged from the mains and the stored charge will be enough to give the car a claimed range of around 100 miles. They also claim (through @neilatnissaneu on twitter ) that a full charge will cost "something like 1.20 Euros". This left me wondering, after all electricity is many things but it really isn't cheap. Would 1.20 Euros really get a UK owner 100 miles? What will the true running costs be? Let's do the maths...

There are 2 ways to charge the Leaf. There is a 50kW "quick charger" that will charge the car to 80% in about half an hour. Of course, in a UK domestic set-up, this kind of power draw might blow a few fuses as our 220V sockets are limited to 13amps of current - a maximum 3kW. For these purposes, a 220v plug-in charger is supplied which takes around 8hrs for a full charge. Not really handy for a quick top-up, but OK to leave overnight for use the next day.

It's easy to verify these claims. The on-board battery pack stores 24kWh of charge, with a 50kW charger it's obviously going to take about half an hour to charge fully. With the 3kW plug-in charger, 8hrs is a fair estimate as it will charge up to 3kW each hour it's plugged in. Notice here that 3kW is the maximum current draw from a domestic socket, similar to that used by a kettle - so charging this think is like boiling your kettle for 8 hours solid. Still sound green? Well it didn't to me, so I did some more maths.

From my latest electricity bill, e.on charge me about 10 pence per kWh of electricity used. This only applies after the first 900 units which are charged at a higher rate of 24p/kWh. This is my standard domestic tariff before discounts like dual fuel but inclusive of VAT @5%. Notice here that domestic fuel doesn't command the full 17.5% rate of VAT, it's discounted as it's essential for people to stay warm and stay alive. This is in direct contrast to petrol/diesel which is taxed very heavily as a luxury. I wonder what might happen to VAT in the future if people start powering their vehicles from it.

So, back to the maths, the cost for a full charge is pretty easy to work out. 24kWh x 10p = £2.40 - Somewhat more than the claimed 1.20 Euros but still pretty reasonable. If you're a light electricity user, the higher rate would apply, putting the price of a full charge charge up to £5.76. With some clever timing, you could work Economy 7 discounts in here, but it would require some inconvenience and only charging the car during off-peak hours. In my experience, with an electric heater, running 3kW through a plug-in timer isn't ideal and may actually melt or catch fire - I speak from experience. For these reasons, I think it's fair to ignore Economy 7 discounts and work on a full charge cost of £2.40 to £5.76 depending on total power usage in your home.

This full charge may get you around a claimed 100 miles. I'm assuming this excludes any current usage from headlamps, wipers, air-con, electric windows, heaters etc. Without a combustion engine on board, heating is going to be a considerable cost to the on-board batteries - although the car can be pre-heated, at additional cost, from the mains charger. Pre-heating won't be an option in office or supemarket car parks so we'll take 100 miles range as an absolute maximum. Note, this is each way...a 50 mile return journey - unless you have the ability to charge at the destination.

So, up to 100 miles on a minimum of £2.40 - which would buy you 2 litres of petrol at today's prices. I make that an easy comparative figure of 50 miles per litre - a very impressive claim.

Unlike many, I'm not going to draw a comparison of this to a standard petrol car, instead I'll compare it to a modern hybrid - in this case the 3rd Gen Toyota Prius, which has an official figure of 72.43mpg or 3.9litres per 100km. A quick search (many people clicking that link are going to be introduce to the god-like Google Calculator) and we can equate this to a figure just over 19miles per litre of petrol. Of course, in the case of the Prius, I know this to be not a claim but a real-life figure. My father in-law takes his Prius hybrid from Weybridge to Basingstoke and back with a genuine 70+ mpg...in Winter...using headlights, heaters etc.

The Prius is bigger than the Leaf and has a petrol fuel tank that is 45 litres in size offering a range of (45 x 19) 855 miles. Based on the (almost) current price of £1.20/litre, that's a £54 fill from empty or £6.32 for 100 miles of range equivalent to that claimed by Nissan for the Leaf.

I'm trying not to draw too many conclusions here but you can take a car, with 100 miles of range that costs £1.20 to £5.76 to refill and can only be charged in selected locations or take a bigger, more practical, car that currently costs £6.32 to go the same distance but can go over 800 miles and be filled up at any petrol station.

After discussion with my wife, she pointed out that 100 miles wouldn't even get her to Bluewater and back so I'd be a dead man if I got her one of those...even if my credit card bills may be easier to settle ;O)

Note: I've completely overlooked exhaust emissions in this article. Whilst the Leaf doesn't directly generate any emissions, the majority of electric power in the UK currently comes from coal fired power stations which have their own exhaust that is high in CO2, NOx and SOx. It is this authors current belief that, if we switched all vehicles in the UK to EVs overnight, the output of these gases would not go down and would potentially go up with the extra electricity that would need to be generated. In the future, for sure, renewable energy will help with this scenario, but we aren't there yet and won't be for a long time.

Update: I've now done some comparitive figures for CO2 emissions resulting from running a Nissan Leaf in the UK. The article can be found here. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/nissan-leaf http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/nissan-leaf?opendocument&comments Televised Football - A Solution Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:00:00 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=televised-football http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/televised-football I Hate Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/televised-football?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/televised-football
But it all changed, mainly due to Sky Sports who bought the rights to televise all the big football games. People flocked to satellite TVs which quickly started racking in massive revenues, which allowed them to buy more sport, and the cycle continued. Now pretty much all sporting events are on Sky for a ridiculous price and people are now paying around £70/month for the top packages. The old BBC coverage used to cost us about £5/month as part of the TV license. It's also now affecting other TV shows as many of the latest popular TV shows are exclusive to channels like Sky One - the buying power of Sky is so massive, it's hard to compete. It seems to be a fixed destination journey with all roads leading to Sky. There may be options for how to receive it, cable or satellite, but the source broadcaster is the same and the price is still high. Setanta Sports tried to compete but proved that there is pretty much a monopoly in televised sports these days. So what is the solution?

I propose the solution is to pass legislation that introduces compulsory secondary broadcast rights for all televised games. These rights would come into effect from the moment the full-time whistle is blown. So Man U are visiting Chelsea and the game is being filmed by the crew at Stamford Bridge. Sky, due to their buying power, would most likely own the rights to the live broadcast and it would go out on Sky Sports just as it does now. They may concurrently broadcast some other games live on other channels too, as they do now. Where things would change would be that the remaining channels, like the former Setanta, or even BBC/ITV could purchase the rights to broadcast the game with a time delay. A 3pm kick off would be done and dusted by 5pm at which point the kick-off could be shown on the secondary broadcast. The same game, in full, just not live.

How would this change things? Well, for those unable or unwilling to pay Sky, it would mean they could see the full game in the daytime; instead of edited highlights on Match of the Day. The broadcaster, if it's not free to air, may charge a fee for the channel but, as it's not live, it's going to be a LOT cheaper. Likewise, as they'd only have exclusivity for 90 minutes, Sky would be willing to pay much less for their rights which could make their channels cheaper too. Less money for TV rights would mean less money for Football Clubs who could no longer afford to pay such ridiculous transfer fees for players and bring the football economy down to earth a little. Nobody can argue that football players don't earn too much.

I understand business and I understand the need to let them have "exclusive live" contracts which means they are the only broadcaster for that match but my legislation, in summary, would revoke that exclusivity the moment the match ended. This would introduce forced competition into the market and a better, more affordable, "2nd class" option for sport viewers. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/televised-football http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/televised-football?opendocument&comments Could Dirty Nappies Fuel a Car? Fri, 5 Mar 2010 09:53:35 +0100 conservation of energy - a c ... ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=could-dirty-nappies-fuel-a-car http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/could-dirty-nappies-fuel-a-car Baby Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/could-dirty-nappies-fuel-a-car?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/could-dirty-nappies-fuel-a-car conservation of energy - a consequence of this law is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed from one state to another. You can apply a similar rule to most stuff on planet earth and, for example, when you use petrol in a car it isn't gone...it's merely transformed from one form to another. You take a fuel, composed of carbon and hydrogen (hydrocarbons) and combust them in air (oxygen). The end result of this reaction is carbon with some oxygen attached, CO2, and hydrogen with some oxygen attached, commonly known as water.

These principles apply across the board and everything you see around you is nothing more than something else that has changed form. Give a tree some CO2 and Water and it will rebuild hydrocarbons and grow more wood. That can then be used as fuel and the cycle goes round and round.

Last year, whilst waiting for the birth of our first child, the subject of nappies came up. When we were kids, parents used cotton nappies and these were boil washed and reused. Today, in total contrast, we live in a disposable world and the majority of parents turn to Pampers and other brands which allow them to simply throw dirty nappies in the bin. Green protesters argue how dirty nappies are an environmental disaster and fill up nappies with products that take decades, even centuries, to biodegrade. Some argue that light and oxygen are required and that, without them, degrading will take even longer. Of course we know, confirmed by previous test results, that there is nothing green about domestic laundry either. You may be reusing your cotton nappy, but you're using electricity and detergent to clean it.

So, as an eco-friendly Dad, which way to turn? My answer came from the conservation principles I highlighted above. So what if nappies contain non-biodegradeable plastic? So what if they can't be fully recycled? All it consists of is a package of paper and plastic hydrocarbons. They were originally CO2 and water, one day they can be again. The majority is biodegradable and will naturally break down, the rest can be incinerated if required and the long chain polycarbons broken down into CO2 and water. This incinerator combustion also creates heat...lots of it. This can, in turn, be used to generate electricity for use in green electric vehicles or liberate hydrogen from water for fuel cell vehicles. Lots of options here and the concept of "once you make plastic, it's here forever" just doesn't work for me. Burn it, and use the electricity to power the washing machines that are washing terry nappies.

We've all heard that fossil fuels, like crude oil, are running out. Crude oil is apparently made from organic matter that lies under the earth, without light or oxygen, and is decomposed over centuries into a thick, black tar. Has anybody considered that these organic deposits might one day in the past have been nappies? ;O) ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/could-dirty-nappies-fuel-a-car http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/could-dirty-nappies-fuel-a-car?opendocument&comments Green Wedding Photography Wed, 3 Mar 2010 11:41:04 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=green-wedding-photography http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/green-wedding-photography Green Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/green-wedding-photography?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/green-wedding-photography
It's become a trend in recent times to put disposable cameras on the table at a wedding reception. This allows people around the room to take unique pictures of guest and angles you may otherwise miss. But, in 2010, film cameras feel a bit dated and the printed photographs that result aren't entirely convenient. On top of that, films mean chemicals and developing processes aren't regarded as entirely eco-friendly.

So what's an alternative?

Well, I was dropped an email by Jonathan from CameraRenter.com who does a pretty nice line in digital cameras for rental. This allows you and your guests to have all the benefits of digital photography with no risk of a personal camera being lost/stolen - all the rented units are fully insured. Afterwards, they will collect all the cameras and upload the pictures for you to a sharing website where all your guests can see them.

i think this is a great idea and far more attractive and Green than just dropping crappy film cameras on tables. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/green-wedding-photography http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/green-wedding-photography?opendocument&comments Variety is the spice of life Wed, 3 Mar 2010 10:33:56 +0100 http://www.jaffacake.net/trackback?open&id=variety-is-the-spice-of-life http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/variety-is-the-spice-of-life News Ben Rose http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/variety-is-the-spice-of-life?opendocument&comments http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/variety-is-the-spice-of-life
I've merged all the entries from those and a couple of other blogs into this original site with a single front end on the main site url http://www.jaffacake.net - The site search, on the right, should help you find any specific entries you may be looking for and your RSS subscription, if you have one, has been automatically directed.

Moving forward, I'll publish all the latest posts on this one site which will have a variety of entries covering numerous topics. There's a little more tidying up to do and, should you find any broken links, do please let me know by posting a comment. ]]> http://www.jaffacake.net/dxcomments/variety-is-the-spice-of-life http://www.jaffacake.net/dx/variety-is-the-spice-of-life?opendocument&comments