A brief grumblestice while I pass on a brilliant idea that my sister-in-law has just successfully tried out herself (in the northern USA): a solar cooker made from cardboard and aluminium foil.
Here's the site: http://www.freewebs.com/sunnycooker/
My wife and I are claiming Srabble rules on the word 'grumblestice'.
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping we won't need to be cooking with these...
ReplyDeleteP: you're welcome to 50% of the rolyalties
ReplyDeleteOS: yes, but it shows my s-i-l is "with it"
Now, all we need is sunshine, lots of it and we're away.
ReplyDeletepresumably you saw the incredible Lifesaver water purifier piece chez Guido ?
ReplyDeletetaking to the hills is becoming an ever more feasible proposition ...
That's nice, Nick. Does it also deal with dissolved impurities, as well as fine suspensions?
ReplyDeleteYou can buy ceramic filters for camping that remove objects down to 1 micron.
ReplyDeleteND, Padders - most interesting. Bulk order from/for the Scouting movement might get it off the ground.
ReplyDeletedearieme, the statement he makes - very carefully - is that it produces 'sterile water'
ReplyDeleteI am guessing that outright solutes are not necessarily dealt with - how could they be by a filter ? they are not particulate
but removal of all bacteria and viruses is a pretty good step
(reminds me of when I lived in the Ruhr in the 70's as a soldier - there used to be ads on local TV saying 'the drinking water is free from all microbes' - of course it was, the arsenic had killed them all ! always a bad sign when you have to take TV ads to say the water is OK)
I guess you would need stupendous sunshine to do any actual cooking with that thing - look how small the reflective area is.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it would work in Nigeria or Kenya, but probably nowhere else.
"You can buy ceramic filters for camping that remove objects down to 1 micron."
I'm sure you can. But what's the pressure loss across them? Or, in non-engineering terms, how hard do you have to work to produce a litre of product? I've used watermakers on yachts that work on a similar principle (not the same principle, I know), and believe me it's next to impossible using manual operation.
If you take to the hills (1) look for a cleanish spring and (2) do it in a very warm country.
For the rest of us, hope civilisation continues more or less as it is. Personally, I reckon it will.
Weekend Yachtsman - all you need is sunshine. It will even work in the snow. It probably won't work in Ireland or Manchester, then.
ReplyDelete