Renewable Energy – Battery Powered Bikes And Trikes.

A quick look today at Battery powered bikes and trikes. I do like battery power, and electrical power in general, because electricity is a truly renewable fuel. It’s all around us, and apart from the initial materials to be able to access it renewably, electricity is there for the taking in abundance, and the taking of which, compared to non renewable methods, has a minutely minimal, if any, detrimental effect on our environment.

As you can see from the YouTube video’s some of the designs, look pretty easy to put together on a DIY basis.

My favourite design for its quirkiness, is the rechargeable drill driven trike. Though this might turn out to be an expensive option, as it’s not really in the DIY field. Its range is only really limited by how many batteries you can carry, but on one battery, it’s ideal for a quick trip to the local shops, so long as they are not more than 2 miles away, or less, because if you’re doing the weekly shop, well, best to use the car, preferably an electric one. If you do use this trike for a shopping trip, remember to disconnect the drill, and take it with you, and make sure you have plenty of chain and padlocks, because with such a tempting item on display, the not so honest citizens, who seem to abound nowadays, would soon make it disappear.

I have to say though, that the last video does grab my attention, and is the best example I have seen yet of a DIY or otherwise, electric bike. It ticks all the boxes.

If you do actually want to buy a ready made battery powered bike or trike, as I’ve said above, it probably won’t come cheap, I’d love to own one, $3.500 is just a bit too steep, though doubtless there are cheaper options on the market. I think the DIY route would certainly be very much less expensive, and achieve the same ends, with a good deal of satisfaction to boot.

The everyday bike or trike looks to be a pretty easy conversion to battery power, and as an exercise in learning and understanding battery powered vehicles, and also as a precurser to more ambitious projects, bikes and trikes are a good place to start.

A bit of advice though, if you are thinking of building an electric trike, the 2 wheels at the front, 1 at the back configuration is the best, assuming that the drive is going to be at the back, because then you won’t have to worry about a differential in your drive train. Because remember, when you turn corners, the outside wheel always travels faster and further than the inside wheel., and if you have a solid axle, then you are going to have problems.

Environmental Conservation Initiative, Feodosiya Green Party.

This is a very interesting article on an initiative by the Green Party in Feodosiya, a Ukrainian town on the Black Sea Coast. I have a literal translation which I have picked the bones out of, so it may not be entirely accurate in every detail, but the content is sound. My wife, who is from Foedosiya, and is always on the lookout for green news for my blog, saw this article on the internet as she was catching up on local news.

I have condensed the article considerably, and cut out a lot of local content, but the main message of conservation is clear.

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Article From “kafanews.com“. Kafa being the old name for Feodosiya.
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Last Christmas the Green Party in Feodosiya offered townspeople a fir tree for hire service, whereby live fir trees could be purchased and either returned in the new year for a partial refund, or kept and planted in the garden for future use.

As the scheme was so successful last year, and made people realise that the cutting down of fir trees ad lib is not a good idea, the leaders of the Feodosiya Green Party, Dmitry Achkasov and Dmitry ShChepetkov, the instigators of, ‘ A fir tree for rent ‘, have decided to repeat the service this year.

Any profits from this initiative are used for the replanting of any returned trees, and planting new trees in areas where they are needed. There are also plans to plant trees in the grounds of schools and hospitals.

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The Crimean climate is in a delicate balance, it has its own micro climate, if you like. 150 years ago, the Crimea was a very arid dry place, similar to most Middle Eastern regions today. Over the last 150 years though, the climate has changed dramatically. Now, although the summers are still excruciatingly hot, and the winters can be really vicious, where once there was an arid moonscape, there are now forests, streams and grasslands, in fact during the more temperate months, it could be anywhere in Europe.

So it’s understandable that there are concerns, especially now during the upheavals that world climate change could herald, that any upset to the delicate balance of the micro climate of the Crimea could bring about another reversal of the climate, and move it back 150 years.

Lets hope that the Green Party in Feodosiya can bring about an awareness, in that part of the Ukraine, of the necessity to safeguard the environment.

Unfortunately, as everywhere, there are those who just do not care.

I have spent some time in the Crimea, and it is a very beautiful place

The photo’s below show the Crimea of 150 years ago, and the Crimea of now. I apologise for the before photo’s being of the Crimea war era, but they were the only photo’s I could find of that time. Though doubtless there are many sources available, I just couldn’t find them.

As a footnote, I would like to say a big thank you to my very lovely wife Galina for bringing this article to my attention.
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THEN

AND NOW

You can see from the before and after photo’s, the trmrendous importance of environmental conservation, not just in the Crimea, but Globally. The ‘THEN’, might so easily be the ‘NOW’, much sooner than we realise, for all of us.

Another great selection of green vids from my favourite YouTubers, yes, ‘Hippy Shopper’ is back. The smallest green things we do in our every day lives, when added up, will make a huge difference to our environment, and give it a fighting chance at recovery. Though realistically, at the moment, it’s really all about damage limitation. But that has to come first. The world will not go green overnight, but I do think the green movement is gathering some not inconsiderable momentum.
Look out for my post soon, on a green company, which I’m happy to say, I’m involved with, and which has just won the coveted ‘Green Apple Award’.

Fuel Saving With ‘Low Gas’.

For the last couple of months I’ve been doing a practical trial on a fuel saving product called ‘LowGas’, which to be honest, even though many of my colleagues in ‘Breeze’, and a local taxi company, had positive results, I was still very sceptical as to whether this product would produce the goods.

It seems, and I’m not going to be cautious about this because the practical facts do not lie, ‘LowGas’ does actually do what it says on the box.

I have a 4½ year old Vectra I.9ltr Diesel. My mileage before fitting ‘LowGas’, from full to the fuel light flashing, was consistently around 530 miles. After fitting ‘LowGas’, there was no discernible improvement for two tank full’s, then the mileage range gradually began to creep up over the next 3 tank full’s, to just over 580 miles from full to fuel light flashing. As I use my car for the same journey every day, with hardly a deviation, i.e. To and from work, which is a good mixture of town and country driving, I can definitely say that there is an improvement of around 50 miles per tank full. This is too large an improvement to put it down to varying factors. So, with the price of fuel here in the U.K., and with the monthly mileage I cover, and once the ‘LowGas’ device came up to speed, I had a return on my investment inside a month. I don’t know why the device takes a while to come into full effect, but that seems to be pretty standard.

‘LowGas’ is remarkably easy to fit. It consists of a series of magnets inside a heat resistant sheath, which is wrapped around the fuel line, and held in place by a couple of tie wraps. That’s it.

‘LowGas’ costs £15 here in the U.K., which is £25 cheaper and much more compact than its nearest rival, and comes with a 60 day money back guarantee.

To sum up, ‘LowGas’ does produce the goods, is extremely easy to fit, is cheap, and is not intrusive to the engine. Fifty miles per tank full is not a massive saving, but it is a saving that cannot be ignored. Of course, the saving will vary from car to car, but talking to other ‘LowGas’ users, 30 to 50 miles seems to be about the norm. The local taxi company I mentioned, has a fuel saving of 50 miles per tank on all of its cars, which really speaks for itself.

I’m not affiliated to ‘LowGas’, but that doesn’t stop me from extolling its virtues. Every fuel saving device that does actually save fuel and by that token, eases the strain on our environment, must have an airing.

Business initiative; Low energy lighting

Now I know my blog is about renewable energy and conservation, and I’m not here to promote businesses, but I feel I really must do a covering article on one particular business, because I am very impressed by the forward thinking attitude of this particular business team.

I would like to make it clear at the start, that I am not affiliated to this business in any way, and have absolutely no interests, other than a mutual interest in energy conservation.

The company I’m talking about is C&K Supplies, of Cardiff, U.K, a business and domestic, supply company that has rapidly expanded since its inception 5 years ago, due to the hard work, dedication, dynamism and forward thinking of Chris Price, the managing director, and his partners; Chris’s wife Catheryn, and Mark Dutton. Together, as a perfectly coordinated team, they have made C&K supplies what it is today, a company that is continually expanding into an ever increasingly diverse market place, taking in its stride and encompassing these changing times in which we live. Chris, Catheryn and Mark are passionate about their business, and passionate about giving exceptional value, and service to their customers.

I met Chris a few weeks ago when I had occasion to accompany a colleague to the C&K depot to pick up an order. I got chatting to Chris and wanted to know more about the diversity of the goods C&K supplies, as you do when you are surrounded by an Aladdin’s cave of technical goodies. During our conversation we very soon got onto one of Chris’s passions, low energy lighting, and no prizes here, my ears pricked up, and I wanted to know more.[caption id="attachment_466" align="alignleft" width="274" caption="led flood lighting in action"][/caption]

My knowledge of low energy lighting pretty well extends to the low energy bulbs I have bought in my local Tesco, and stuck in the light sockets hanging from the ceilings in my house. Mind you, I think the domestic low energy light bulb is a wonderful innovation, not only because they literally save huge a huge amount of energy, but they last for years, compared to the normal light bulb, usually of the Chinese variety that used to pop out of existence before you could even get down from the chair, or if you are moderately tall, off your tip toes, in a modern UK house that is. I know that probably most domestic low energy light bulbs are made in China, but obviously they have it licked now, because all the Low energy bulbs in our house, and they are all low energy bulbs, have been in use for over 2 years, with not even a flicker. They’ll probably all go pop tomorrow, or whatever low energy bulbs do when they expire. Actually I have every confidence that all my low energy bulbs will soldier on for many a year more.[caption id="attachment_453" align="alignright" width="235" caption="Swansea museum with low energy lighting"][/caption]

As I was about to say, I had no idea of the diversity and variety of low energy lighting that is available for the industrial and domestic market. I won’t go into great detail, suffice to say that C&K has supplied low energy lighting for several local authority, shop and industrial projects throughout South Wales, which is helping directly to, not only ease the strain on our environment, but also to save these institutions not inconsiderable sums of money.[caption id="attachment_449" align="alignleft" width="245" caption="Cardiff Barrage led bollard conversion"][/caption]

The typical energy saving of low energy lighting over conventional lighting is around 60%, and the typical reduction in maintenance costs is around 80%. Another attractive plus with low energy lighting is that payback on the initial cost can be in as little as six months, though of course; payback on the environment is immediate.

C&K Supplies are not only at the forefront of actively promoting low energy lighting, but are at the forefront of innovation, by constantly seeking out newer and more innovative low energy lighting solutions. With people like Chris, Catheryn and Mark, with C&K Supplies, the future does indeed seem bright.

Another Energy saving Vid.

Here’s a nice energy saving video, something light to watch. Energy saving cannot be stressed enough, no matter if you have renewable energy or not. Though if you don’t have renewable energy, and for many people, for whatever reason, it’s not a practical option, then energy saving is a must, for your pocket, and for the environment, and is so easy to implement

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