@hembrow@todon.eu
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hembrow

@hembrow@todon.eu

Writing about cycling and its place in a green future world since the 1990s. See my blog and other writings elsewhere.

I also run a webshop which provides parts which are sometimes hard to find for practical everyday bicycles. If you can find parts locally then support your local cycle shop. Otherwise perhaps I can provide you with parts that you can't find locally.

321 ppm. That was a long time ago.

#humanpower #cyclist #vegan #dutch #nederland #netherlands #bicycle #fiets #velomobile #climate #sustainability #cycling #infra #grandad

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hembrow, to Samsung
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

We're currently looking for a new refrigerator because we're renovating our kitchen. The existing built in fridge has been there for the 16 years that we've lived here, and who knows how long before. It's awful: The internal temperature fluctuates between freezing and 8 C and it guzzles electricity - measurement suggests ~500 kWh per year.

For some reason all new built in fridges still have high energy usage, so we're only looking at free-standing models.

Most fridge/freezer combi models are absurdly large. It's a stretch to reach the top shelf inside.

All the A-rated refrigerators are huge and have apps. Linking appliances to the internet is IMO stupid and in any case white goods ought to last longer than mobile phones.

Some of the B rated models are only just behind the 'A's in energy usage but they usually have apps as well.

Then there's the problem of avoiding boycotted brands ( linked to Israel and Russia, and to Russia, to Turkey).

I'm now remembering why I put off doing anything in the kitchen for so long...

hembrow, to fuckcars
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Cars. They're fun for the entire family.

Buy a polluting gas guzzler today and we'll give you €500 to fly somewhere on holiday. Spread the joy of fossil fuels far and wide.

Fun for the kids as well: colour in this picture of a huge #wankpanzer of the kind that is particularly good at killing kids and if you're lucky you might win tickets to be driven to a adventure park.

(This dropped out of our local paper)
#fuckcars #cars #carsruineverything #motorism #advertising #subvertising

image/jpeg

hembrow, to cycling
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Today's bike ride included a stop at Groningen Airport Eelde to attend today's protest organised by @extinctionrebellionnl

While normal capitalist businesses are expected to turn a profit or they will go out of business, our local airport receives millions of euros in subsidy each year.

Not only do airlines benefit from not paying any tax at all on the huge quantities of fuel that they burn, but each passenger flying from the airport also benefits directly from this subsidy that we all pay. Fliers don't come even close to paying the full cost to society of their flights, let alone for the destruction that they're causing for future generations.

Why do we subsidize destructive behaviours ?

Noodlanding voor het klimaat Emergency landing for the climate
Welcome to extinction - one of many things written on the ground with chalk
On the way home I passed a roundabout which had been blocked by protestors. Well, not actually blocked: Cyclists were not impeded at all, but gas guzzling cars couldn't pass.

hembrow, to cycling
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Photos from recent delivery runs.

To the greatest extent possible I do my work by human power, but there are limits to how much I can control.

This morning I made a delivery to someone who lives in a village in Drenthe so that delivery was made 100% by human power as I rode there and back in my velomobile.

Parts ordered by people who live thousands of km away are a different story. I can then only control the first few km. So I go as far by bike as I can and then those parcels continue their journeys by commercial shipping companies.

All shipping companies make green claims these days, and they make rather more grand claims than I do. But none of those claims amount to anything close to traveling by human power alone.
https://www.dutchbikebits.com

Cycle-path vs. "road". We have asphalt.
My bike a few days ago transporting several parcels including a large one in the bike trailer which weighed just under 20 kg. Quite a cumbersome package to carry.

twilwel, to random Dutch
@twilwel@mastodon.nl avatar

De mini-Tulpentocht van Drenthe met de AssenLiggers #regel17 @hembrow @jhembrow

image/png

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

@jhembrow @twilwel I've also got a few photos from today's bike ride...

While we came to see the tulips, there were also lots of dandelions. I like dandelions. Unfortunately, a lot of poison is spread to grow those tulips.
Through the countryside on a recreational cycle-path
Heading back home on a main route cycle-path

largess, to climate
@largess@mastodon.au avatar

Tenth consecutive monthly heat record alarms and confounds climate scientists | Climate crisis | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/apr/09/tenth-consecutive-monthly-heat-record-alarms-confounds-climate-scientists

>But based on preliminary analyses, he said these factors were not sufficient to account for the 0.2C increase: “If the anomaly does not stabilise by August – a reasonable expectation based on previous El Niño events – then the world will be in uncharted territory. It could imply that a warming planet is already fundamentally altering how the climate system operates, much sooner than scientists had anticipated.”

>The core of the problem – fossil fuel emissions

I don't agree, the core of the problem is human behavior, still plenty of people in here flying, driving etc and clutching their pearls. A good perspective here from physicist Tom Murphy

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/04/distilled-disintegration/

Faster then the median perhaps but there's plenty of "hot models" saying it's to be expected and temps are looking like they're accelerating, yo'ud think the precautionary principal alone would motivate peoples voting and actions but alas...

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

@pb_gamble It's far too easy to blame some anonymous group of others, even if they're extremely privileged others.

1% of the world's population is 80 M people. They don't all own coal mines or private jets. Most of "the 1%" are just slightly wealthier than average westerners. Almost all of the rest of us in wealthy nations make up the top 10%. the top 10% is around 800 M people, which is not much less than the combined populations of Europe and North America.

There are about 2000 billionaires on the planet. They're truly awful people and action should be taken against their excesses, but their numbers are so small that they couldn't screw the planet up completely on their own no matter how they tried. You mention mines and coal power stations, but no-one would run a coal mine if there was no market for the coal and no-one would run a power station if there was no market for electricity.

It's the hundreds of millions of us relatively well off westerners who drive cars, fly in non private aircraft, use electricity from fossil sources, who eat meat and who buy and throw away endless products, all of which adds up to our consuming far more than we actually need of everything.

That's how we enable billionaires and how we devastate the planet.

http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2020/02/who-are-one-percent-super-polluters.html
@largess

hembrow, to cycling
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Nice weather at last! I went out for a spin on my ancient road bike this morning.

30 km through town and countryside covered in 1:05. Not enough to set a record, but certainly enough for an old man to get a bit of exercise on an old bike.

hembrow, to Netherlands
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

It's Easter weekend. The weather is expected to be a bit better than we've had through winter, and lots of people have holidays. So, is this a nice time to go cycling ?

Unfortunately not in the Netherlands.

Over the Easter weekend this country is held ransom by religious (and non-religious) lunatics who light absolutely enormous fires made up of assorted rubbish and these cause ridiculous levels of air pollution, especially of particulates, which blanket the entire country. The Germans also do this, so an easterly wind (which is predicted) doesn't blow the smoke away but just brings extra smoke from Germany.

As a result of this you basically don't want to breath outside on the Easter weekend, let alone do any exercise which would make you breath deeper.

There are fires planned for this evening, tomorrow evening and Monday evening. So there's no quick escape.

The selfish people make Easter in the Netherlands almost as much "fun" as New Year's Eve !

Completely unrelated story: There's also currently a well publicized national shortage of asthma medication, as if that's of any importance at all to the selfish smoke enthusiasts.

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

@metin Indeed. We have that problem as well. Expensive gas has resulted in people installing wood burners into modern houses at an even higher rate than previous years. We've rarely been able to open our windows this winter because of the smoke.

I've been pointing out to any of our neighbours who will listen, as politely as possible of course, that our use of an air-air heat pump through the winter has resulted in us having absolutely no energy bill at all, while on the other hand they're paying for wood to burn in their wood stoves, and that those stoves more to install than did our heat pump. i.e. what they're doing is DEFINITELY not saving them money. Quite the reverse.

But how do we convince people to do the sensible things instead of the ridiculous ones ?
@edgeofeurope

hembrow, to cycling
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

I reached 70000 km with my Mango velomobile today. I have other bikes to ride, and other things to do, so it's taken me just over 12 years to cover that distance at only about 5800 km per year.

Anyway, short 12 year experience review:

It's fast, comfortable, safe, practical for everyday use, lots of fun, keeps you warm and dry in bad weather (e.g. today), let's you pretend headwinds don't exist, has needed hardly any maintenance beyond tyres and very occasional chains (the drive chain is entirely enclosed, as are the brakes), has plenty of storage space inside which is also out of the weather, uses no fuel beyond the food you were going to eat anyway, and it's an absolute bargain: total cost at this point is just a few cents per kilometre.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, "Get a velomobile. You will not regret it!" (The other part of the quote is funny but really makes no sense for such a safe vehicle).

Also it's probably time for me to update this review:
https://hembrow.eu/personal/sinnermango.html

Velomobile on a Dutch cycle path next to a canal with house boats on the other side

BrentToderian, to random
@BrentToderian@mastodon.online avatar

“Better” cars just isn’t enough. As I put it recently in my advice to Irish cities, “Your goal SHOULDN’T be to replace a million fossil fuel vehicles with a million electric vehicles. It should be to replace a million fossil fuel vehicles with 250K electric vehicles. The answer HAS to be FEWER cars."

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

@BrentToderian That's a good start, but it's not ambitious enough.

When I was born there were a tenth so many cars on Dutch streets as there are now. Society still functioned.

Society also functioned when my grandparents were born.

People think of cars as being "essential" now for all manner of tasks which for the majority of time that humans have been on the planet were done by other means, or not at all. If we want to remain living on this planet we need to stop pretending that cars are essential to use in the future. And also stop pretending that some of those nonessential journeys are essential.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search/label/dutchcarownership

hembrow, to random
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

We just received our "jaarafrekening". This is the final yearly invoice sent by our energy company. They are about to pay us €252, and we will continue to pay them €5 per month next year, just like last year. i.e. overall our energy company is paying us about €200 for last year's electricity. Everything in our home is powered by electricity. No gas connection. No wood burner.

Nothing that we've done to achieve a negative energy bill was especially expensive. In particular, our installation of a air-air heat pump and a couple of extra solar panels cost far less than several of our neighbours paid for the wood burning stoves they've installed, which stink up the neighbourhood all through winter.

We also don't have to buy wood to burn.

People concerned about the cost of heating with gas buy woodburners at a higher rate than heat pumps largely because they have no idea about the relative costs. If they knew, perhaps we could have clean air.

I'll write a comprehensive blog post at the end of March about energy consumption, costs & emissions due to the heatpump vs. gas this winter. I can tell you already that we using a lot less total energy now.

Read more:
https://davidhembrow.blogspot.com/search/label/house

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

I promised a blog post about how much it cost to heat our home in winter with heat pump vs. gas. Also about the much improved insulation. Here it is:

http://davidhembrow.blogspot.com/2024/04/relative-cost-of-heating-with-heat-pump.html

To summarise: In the worst case, our CO2 emissions are reduced by 95% vs. burning gas, we have no heating bill at all any more, and our home was warmer than before.

hembrow, to cycling
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Yesterday's Sunday ride was my longest this year so far at about 130 km. We went to the east, against the headwind.

Four velomobiles on a Dutch country lane
On a small recreational cycle-path next to a dust track for cars
In an area with logging.

hembrow, to random
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

I'm pleased to find out that our webshop for bicycle parts has an "A+ carbon rating".

https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/dutchbikebits-com/

https://www.dutchbikebits.com

I suspect this good result is mainly because there is no tracking on the website. i.e. no loading of components from nor setting of cookies for google or amazon or other big "we sell your information" companies.
#dutchbikebits #carbonrating

hembrow, to random
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Another well thought through blog post here from Tom Murphy.

Basically, everything we think we can do in a manner probably isn't sustainable.

Where do we go from here ?

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/02/unsustainable-goose-chases

hembrow, to random
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Dutch TV is making stupid people famous again this evening. There are now people opposing wind turbines in on our country because of vague "health issues" that some of them apparently think are related to the height of the wind turbines and which affect the afflicted by means of no mechanism at all. I.e. They're not even complaining about noise or other perhaps almost possible issues, like these people used to, but have instead started talking about a completely illogical made up issue.
How do these ideas get inside people's heads?

hembrow, to cycling
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

This week's "Sunday" bike ride was on Saturday. The weather forecast for tomorrow is horrible, but the sun was shining today.

@jhembrow and I both left home at about the same time, but she went on a direct route for cross-stitch supplies while I went in a different direction to meet @twilwel for a cross-country ride. We then took an indirect route to the same destination so that all three of us could ride and stop for coffee together.

We caught up with Judy at the sewing supplies shop in Roden

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

On arriving home I found a package had turned up.

Our microwave oven turntable motor stopped working a few weeks back so I ordered a replacement motor. This cost just $4 including shipping from China, which is of course a bit crazy in itself, but it means we can continue to use the same microwave oven.

The same motor seems to be used in almost every microwave oven made by all manufacturers. It's made by Midea, the same company as made our heat pump.

This is a ludicrously simple repair. First disconnect power. Then remove the panel on the bottom of the microwave oven (it's cleverly designed to be refitted with a self-tapping screw when turned 180 degrees), remove the motor (held by just one self-tapper in our oven), swap the wires onto the new motor and re-install, replace cover. That's it: literally a five minute job and the appliance is spared.
-4a

Old motor in place.
New motor now fitted in place. I swapped the two wires around, but this doesn't matter as it's an AC motor. This design of motor randomly runs in one direction or the other. For this application it just doesn't matter which direction the motor runs in. A fairly common failure in record players is that they spin in a random direction. If that happens then it's probably the case that a capacitor used in the simple power supply to provide a delayed sine wave to one of the coils in the motor has failed.

davidho, to random
@davidho@mastodon.world avatar

For most of us, driving is the most dangerous thing we do.

That is all.

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

@gwagner Cyclists are vulnerable but they do not pose a significant danger to others. I think we should always draw this distinction. @davidho

hembrow, to cycling
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Eternal wet weather due to climate change, fewer and fewer of us cycling, and ever more cars causing more climate change.

Is that how civilisation ends ?

This car park never used to be full. Now it rarely has any empty spaces and there are always cars parked haphazardly in places where they should not be.

hembrow, to retirement
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Am I getting old ?
My email seems to think so today (it's real).
#retirement #retirementplanning #amIOld

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

@ljrk Quite right too. TBH, I felt like that before I'd even left school. Who actually wants to work to make someone else rich ?
This is actually a pension from one the jobs that I had around 30 years ago. The company it was associated with went under quite soon after I started there so I didn't pay into it for long.
You could choose a retirement age on the application form and I said 60, hence the early "retirement". But I think it's only worth about €200 per year (not per month) so it's not going to change my life much ;-)

ClimateNewsNow, to climate
@ClimateNewsNow@federated.press avatar

As superstar singer-songwriter Taylor Swift comes under fire for her “excessive” private jet usage, just how damaging will the thousands of planes going to Las Vegas for this weekend’s Super Bowl really be?

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/02/09/why-its-not-just-taylor-swifts-private-jet-usage-under-scrutiny-this-super-bowl-weekend

hembrow,
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

@Lats That is probably also true. But it shouldn't stop us targeting all the mega polluters, however they are politically aligned, even if "they" are us:
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2020/02/who-are-one-percent-super-polluters.html
@ClimateNewsNow

hembrow, to random
@hembrow@todon.eu avatar

Here's a plank of wood with three old light switches on it, a battery pack and a few LEDs.

Who would want such a thing ? Our ~18 month old grandson. He's fascinated with switching the lights on and off so I made this as a Christmas present so that he could safely flick switches as much as he likes and watch the lights go on and off.

It got dropped and one of the light switch covers broke (bakelite-like plastics aren't great with impacts) so I just repaired it with a new (old) switch cover.

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