Paper Logs

As a guardian reader with a log burning stove, it seems an obvious synergy to burn the huge pile of paper that collects each week. Here is my simple recipe for paper logs.

To ensure the paper burns slowly and efficiently, it must be made in to a tight roll. Folding the paper in 4 and rolling the sports section first and then the supplement creates a tight core and the rest is easy to roll around that.

Three or four editions roll up to a bundle about 8 cm across. It is then slid in to a wire former to contain it while it burns through. The wire frame is retrieved from the fire and allowed to cool before the next Dry Rolled Newsprint Log (DRNL) is made up.

The former was made from a piece of 2mm (14 SWG) galvanised wire. The prototype Brown DRNL used an old coat hanger and lasted a bit over a year. I knocked 2 nails half in to a seven centimetre dia log, wound the wire round the nails and the log with the help of a heavy duty pair of pliers and a lot of grunting. I then put the log in the stove and retrieved the former and nails when it had all burned away. See:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22755595@N08/sets/72157625558981303

Research

Initially we bought an “Original Logmaker” from the Centre for Alternative Technology. it says

“Easy and safe to use - just soak the paper, place into the mould and squeeze. After complete drying, the log will burn as well as wood …”

We saved a load of paper over the winter, did all the soaking and pressing in the summer. It took weeks for the paper bricks to dry out and they had to be stacked in the wood shed.

The Brown DRNL can be made up from this weeks paper and put straight in to the stove.

Environmental Benefits

A little research indicates that there is not much difference in the environmental impact of burning paper and recycling it.

• Much of our recycled paper is transported large distances from depot to de-inking plant to paper mill so that the energy and pollution balances the value of the recycled fibre.
  
• I have heard that co-mingled recycled collections results in low grade paper (with contamintion from broken glass) so it has to be burnt anyway.)
  
• Claiming that wood is a low carbon dioxide source of energy is not universally accepted. Growing trees is a carbon sink and the rest is offsetting!
  
• Contaminants, such as ink, lead to more pollution in the smoke.
  
• Making newspapers to support the renewable heat market is not sustainable
• Significant uptake of the use of stove in urban areas will not help air quality.
  

In the long term, I will finish insulating the house and got the measure of reading the guardian on line.

However, if you want to post some links to online sources of information on these issues, that would be great.

In the words of Rodger MacGough “Although I live in a smokeless zone, I still enjoy the odd woodbine under the stairs”

Should I install PV solar panels?

This is my "Ask Andy" contribution to the Cambridge Carbon Footprint December 2010 newsletter:

Last Saturday the Guardian devoted a four page supplement to the Feed-In
tariff, the scheme that earns you money for installing photovoltaic
solar panels on your roof. "Fit" as it is known, guarantees you 41p for
every unit of electricity the panels generate, as well as the 14p you
save from not having to buy the electricity.

The Guardian's Miles Brignal, says "So what's the catch? There isn't
one." For home owners this may be true. But is 'fit' a good policy? And
is it an equitable one?

The issues of Climate Change are wider than electricity generation and
must include proper concern for social justice, both in Europe and the
Global South. So who pays for 'fit'? Unfortunately, we all do, and as
usual, when we all pay, the disadvantaged pay more. The subsidy is paid
by the electricity producers, who in turn will claw it back from our
electricity bills. While I have been able to afford to insulate the
house, buy energy efficient fridges and boilers and reduce my
electricity demand to less than 2,000 units (1 tonne CO2 emissions) a
year, there are 3 million households classified as 'Fuel poor', who can
neither afford to pay their electricity bills nor make the improvements
that might help them economise. They will face a further £300 on their
electricity bills to cover the cost of 'fit'.

So should you install PV? Yes – if it's part of your plan for the
complete upgrade of your house and this is the right moment in that
plan. We are going ahead because if we don't do it now, while we are
fixing the roof, technical issues means we will have missed the
opportunity.

Climate change work is full of these contradictions, but we hope that
Cambridge Carbon Footprint can help you work through them. But it sticks
in the craw that this tiny contribution to UK renewables comes at such
personal gain to us and such personal cost to others.

And some more notes:

Corroboration from George Monbiot!
There is more discussion in the Ethical Consumer magazine september/october 2010 issue, which also provides rankings for PV panel manufacturers. Top of their list were GB-sol (manufactured in Wales) , Solarcentury
and Solarworld, Suntech, Yingli . At the bottom were Schott, Sanyo and BP .

More about Fuel Poverty and the inability of current policies to address it in Brenda Boardman's latest book, "Fixing Fuel Poverty" (Earthscan 2010)

More info about FIT at DECC and EST and Cambridge info from Transition Cambridge.
There
I can't really recommend installers, but various Cambridge Carbon Footprint supporters have been happy with
Solarworks Ltd , Chelsfield Solar and Midsummer Energy