Putting the Sun to Work

This afternoon I got a lot of firewood cut up with truly zero emissions using my “solar chain saw”. As much as I would love to take credit for the idea, it was Cam Mather’s Sustainability Blog (see Blogroll, at right) where I first got the idea. Since the sun provides me free electricity, why not use the gas-powered chain saw to do the tree felling and big cuts out in the bush, and then use an electric chain saw for bucking into firewood size pieces back at the house.

The sun did all the hard work!

An electric chain saw doesn’t eat through wood quite as quickly as gas-powered but it does a respectable job, as shown by today’s pile. At 10 amps, it uses about 1200 watts so you need to use it on bright days. However, it is only drawing power for about a half minute while I make some cuts and then I am moving the next log to the bucking frame and that also gives the power system a breather to catch up if it needs to. In any case, using it in an off-grid application like mine, it is really and truly zero-emission. If you read the flyers from the various home improvement stores, there’s a lot of “greenwashing” when it comes to powered outdoor equipment. Various electric lawn mowers and the like are carefully promoted as “zero point-of-use emissions”, which just means it does not pollute where it is used. Of course, that doesn’t mean there are no emissions (or nuclear waste that lasts for eons) when the electricity is created in the first place at the power plant. Not to mention the long transmission distances between where the power is generated and where it is used, wasting electricity  with each kilometer of power line.

One of the worst examples of greenwashing I have seen recently has been for a line trimmer from a major manufacturer that uses propane and is promoted as being a cleaner alternative to gas powered weed whackers. Well, yes, I suppose there would be less  emissions but propane (i.e., LPG – liquefied petroleum gas) comes from the same raw material as the gas you put in the car AND the ad for this garden power tool is happily oblivious to the fact that those little green propane canisters are non-reusable, non-recyclable, and must be disposed of as hazardous waste—they cannot go in regular garbage. It’s extraordinary they came up with such a thing, but perhaps it says a lot about what they think of consumers.

My "solar stove", cooks to specified temperature, at a defined power level, and/or for a timed period.

I took the solar chain saw idea a further step and now have a “solar stove”. As long as the skies are bright, I try to use this induction stove plate instead of my propane stove whenever possible. I don’t fully understand the technology behind induction but it is something magnetic and apparently the most efficient way to cook because it heats the pot or pan but the stove plate itself does not actually heat up. It works—water boils, soup heats, and things cook twice as fast as a conventional stove. And, living off-grid, it is not only free but zero-emissions.

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