Category: Self-Sufficiency

Making Soup

One of the things I do during the winter months is make soup. However, I don’t make just a small amount of soup in a small pot, in a small way. Years ago I bought a large restaurant-quality aluminum soup pot that weighs a ton and holds at least four gallons of soup. Making soup in large batches seems to produce a much better result and the large, thick, heavy soup pot works so well that nothing seems to burn in it. Well, I guess if I tried really hard it would burn, but I don’t try really hard.

Most of my soups start out with meat of some sort (beef, pork, chicken, venison, or lamb), but I normally use soup bones, lots of them. Sometimes I use a whole chicken, a large one. No matter what kind of meat I use, I start out with at least five pounds of it, sometimes more. I start the cooking early in the morning and cook the meat very slowly (never ever boiling it), scooping off the blood that rises to the surface and adding spices and salt afterward. I favor using more spices than salt. In fact, I just barely add salt to taste. I use spices that you normally wouldn’t think of in my soups such as, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, which helps me keep salt to a minimum. You don’t add a lot of these spices, the effect is meant to be subtle. In some cases, such as with beef, I use pickling spice (but make sure to remove the tea ball containing the pickling spice after no more than 20 minutes or it gets bitter). Favorites with chicken include sage, rosemary, and thyme. Sometimes I add orange or lemon peel. A common addition are onions and I sometimes add a bit of fresh garlic (minced fine) as well.

I like my soup to be really nutritious, so I add plenty of vegetables. Most of my soups contain corn, carrots, and potatoes. However, I don’t stop there. The soup I made the other day also contains turnips, Holiday Soup Mix, and celery. I’ve been known to add things like green beans, kohlrabi, rutabagas, turnips, and all sorts of other odd assorted vegetables. In fact, if something in the larder or freezer is getting a bit old, it goes into the soup pot. The point is that the soup is far from plain. It contains good nutritional value from a wide variety of wholesome vegetables.

In addition to all of the vegetables, I sometimes add mushrooms. As with the vegetables, I normally get a better quality mushroom, not those canned kind. My personal favorites are baby portabella, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms, but I’ve used others as well. Even a good quality button mushroom can be a nice addition. I’ve never had much success using morels in soup. Besides, morels were meant for cooking in butter and garlic, with a bit of salt.

To top my soup off I usually add pearled barley. Using pearled barley gives the soup that finishing touch, a kind of nutty flavor that you find in only the best soups. As an alternative, I sometimes use half and half wild and brown rice. I generally don’t add noodles to my soup; they fall apart quickly, don’t have much nutritional value, and tend not to freeze or can well.

Speaking of freezing and canning, there is no way one person can eat four plus gallons of soup before it goes bad and that’s the point. I either can or freeze the excess soup for later. Soups that are a little more broth get canned in one quart containers, while robust soups get frozen in one gallon bags. A word of advice, don’t overfill your gallon bag. I put three quarts of soup at most in my gallon bag and sometimes less depending on the soup. Lay the bags flat in the freezer as they freeze and you’ll find that your bags of soup stack well. If I’m having a really busy time, I simply get out a quart or a bag of soup and I have a nutritious meal I don’t have to cook. Soup is comfort food. Let me know your thoughts about soup at [email protected].

Ongoing Education

This is an update of a post that originally appeared on April 7, 2011.

In looking at a lot of my previous posts, I try to see the truth value in them. Did they hold up to the test of time? When it comes to ongoing education, it doesn’t matter how old you get, you still need to learn new things. I encountered a friend at the library the other day, long retired, he’s still feeding his brain with new things and doing so makes him a very interesting person to talk to.

There are only 24 hours in each day, making it impossible for any one human to know the sum of human knowledge or even a small portion of it. The 24 hour limit means we must actually choose carefully and depend on others to have knowledge we don’t possess. Anything that isn’t growing is dead and a form of growth is the increase of both knowledge and wisdom.

Of course, I do obtain daily increases in knowledge. The art of writing technical books is embracing a strategy of learning all the time. I read voraciously, subscribe to word builders, and conduct experiments to see just how things really work (as contrasted to the theoretical discussions in the books and magazines I read). The very act of writing involves learning something new as I discover new ways to express myself in writing and convey information to readers. I’ve picked up books I wrote early in my career and am often appalled at what I considered good writing at the time, but it was good writing given my experience, even though it would be unacceptable today.

Learning is part of every activity in my life and I relish every learning event. So it was on this particular weekend twelve years ago that my wife and I packed our lunch and sent to Get Ready…Get Set…Garden! We looked forward to it every year. This year we took classes on hostas (for fun) and horseradish (as part of our self-sufficiency).

Before we went to class though, we just had to spend a little time looking at some of the displays. A personal favorite of mine was the gourds:

A display of interesting things made with gourds.
A display of interesting things made with gourds.

I’ve always wanted to make some bird houses, but never quite have the time. They actually had a class on the topic this year and I was tempted to take it, but that would have meant missing out on the horseradish class, which I considered more important. Here’s Rebecca and me standing in front of one of the displays:

John and Rebecca standing in front of one of the displays.
John and Rebecca standing in front of one of the displays.

Well, onto the classes. I found out that there are over 2,000 varieties of hostas, which I found amazing. They originated in Japan, Korea, and China.  It takes five years on average to grow a hosta to full size, but it can take anywhere from three years to ten years depending on the variety. I found out our place for growing them is perfect, but our watering technique probably isn’t, so we’ll spend a little more time watering them this summer. Our presenter went on to discuss techniques for dealing with slugs and quite a few other pests. Most important for me is that I saw some detailed pictures of 50 of the more popular varieties that are easy to get in this area. I’ll be digging out some of the old hostas in my garden and planting new as time allows.

The horseradish session was extremely helpful. I learned an entirely new way to grow horseradish that involves laying the plant on its side for the first six weeks, digging it up partially, removing the suckers, and then reburying it. The result is to get a far bigger root that’s a lot easier to grind into food. I can’t wait to try it out. Of course, our instructor had us sample a number of horseradish dishes while we talked. I’m not sure my breath was all that pleasant when we were finished, but I enjoyed the tasty treats immensely.

So, what are your educational experiences like? Do you grow every day? Let me know at [email protected].

Recycling, Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

I was looking at my shampoo bottle today and noted that it said on the side of the container that the bottle was made from 100% recycled waste. I applaud the vendor, Paul Mitchell, for taking this step. The associated cream rinse also comes in a 100% recycled bottle. These are the only two bottles on any of my shelves that make this claim, which makes me wonder why other vendors aren’t going the same route (or at least telling me about it).

Just where do all of those plastic bottles sent off for recycling go anyway? According to Only about 5% of plastic waste gets recycled in US, new report says, they apparently go into the landfill, which is disappointing. The reason is simple according to Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse. It all comes down to money—making new bottles is cheaper. Still, at least one vendor is using recycled bottles, which makes me wonder why it’s possible for them and no one else. At least Recycling in the U.S. Is Broken. How Do We Fix It? is asking the right questions, but now we need answers.

One of the answers that corporations have come up with for the plastic problem is more horrible than the problem itself. According to This “Climate-Friendly” Fuel Comes With an Astronomical Cancer Risk, the EPA recently greenlighted the use of plastics for fuel. The process used to perform this conversion produces so much air pollution that it’s expected that one in four people exposed to it will develop cancer. Pyrolysis (originally meant for biomass conversion, not plastics), the process used to perform the conversion, is at the center of the pollution problem.

There are other, safer, methods than pyrolysis such as hydrothermal upgrading (HTU) available, as described in Purdue innovation affordably turning plastics into fuel. According to Hydrothermal Upgrading Of Waste Plastics: An Environmental Impact Study (see Figure 2), HTU is more environmentally friendly than pyrolysis (both of which are better for the environment than incineration). Still, there has to be a better way of recycling plastics than anything available today (with a nod to HTU being the preferred method).

The bottom line is that plastic represents a major source of pollution and further steps are required to reduce it. Unfortunately, nothing I can find online tells me that there are currently any good solutions and nothing even in the works. I’d love to hear that there is some magic solution that I haven’t found yet because it’s discouraging to think that we’ll soon be wading waist deep in plastic waste.

There are simple things that every person can do to reduce plastic pollution:

  • Asking for paper bags when going to the store unless the bags will be used for other purposes.
  • Buying milk and other dairy in glass jars that are then brought back to the store for reuse.
  • Using reusable containers for drinks and not asking for plastic straws also helps.
  • Relying on metal or other containers that are more easily recycled at a higher rate that plastic.
  • Looking for ways of separating plastics for recycling when possible (which makes it easier for recycling companies to reuse it).
  • Cleaning your plastics before recycling them.
  • Ensuring recyclables end up in the appropriate recycle bin, rather than in the trash.

In fact, it doesn’t take much thought at all to greatly reduce the amount of plastic used in the average home and the benefits are obvious when you consider a one in four cancer rate for some of the alternatives. Let me know your thoughts about plastic recycling at [email protected].

Electric Car Range Anxiety

A friend recently sent me an article entitled Couple has ‘range anxiety’ as electric vehicle requires 12 charging stops. I’ve written a number of blog posts now on how electric cars fail to really provide the green result that vendors claim, but I hadn’t thought about other aspects of actually driving an electric car until I read this article.

If you’re on a road trip and your main concern is finding some place to charge your vehicle, while you drive it without the heat on in the winter no less, then how much of a good experience can the Electric Vehicle (EV) really provide? Anxiety of any sort presents a health risk. So, not only is the EV a poor citizen from the green perspective, but it also presents a health risk to those who drive one. The article How Far Can an EV Go On One Charge? shows graphically that EV ranges have a long way to go to catch up with gas cars. Theoretically, in perfect conditions with a full charge and no extra usage (such as heat for the humans in the car), it’s actually unlikely that you’ll actually run out of power according to Electric America, yet the anxiety remains.

Articles like What is EV range anxiety and how can we overcome it? and Electric car range and 5 reasons why your range anxiety is unwarranted seek to reduce the anxiety. They point out that there are now plenty of charging stations and that the distances between charging stations is less than the distance that a EV can drive between charges. They also point out that the batteries have a longer life expectancy than most people think. However, the articles just don’t seem to be getting through to people who fear change and drive these vehicles in actual conditions where the mantra of what should work doesn’t actually match what is.

The best possible assumption is that your EV will run out of power on a road trip and to know what to do about it. Articles like What Happens if your Electric Car Runs Out of Battery? provide helpful information on what the ramifications are of running out of power and what you should do about them. It turns out that what you really need is a tow truck, which is the same thing that a gas powered car driver needs when running out of gas. Unlike a gas powered car, it’s also theoretically possible to turn an EV off and then restart it to get another mile or two out of the battery before it dies completely, which may be all you need to get to a charging station.

Even though I don’t see EVs as a way to reduce pollution effectively because they really are harmful to the environment in ways that gas powered cars aren’t, I must admit after doing research for this blog post that anxiety felt about running out of power is probably unwarranted. In this regard, even though the EV range is less than a gas powered car, they’re really both on equal footing. Let me know your thoughts about EVs at [email protected].

Technology and Child Safety

This is an update of a post that originally appeared on January 20, 2016.

I wrote a little over seven years ago that I had read an article in ComputerWorld, Children mine cobalt used in smartphones, other electronics, that had me thinking yet again about how people in rich countries tend to ignore the needs of those in poor countries. I had sincerely hoped at the time that things would be different, better, in seven years. Well, they’re worse! We’ve increased our use of cobalt dramatically in order to create supposedly green cars. The picture at the beginning of the ComputerWorld article says it all, but the details will have you wondering whether a smartphone or an electric car really is worth some child’s life. That’s right, any smartphone or electric car you buy may be killing someone and in a truly horrid manner. Children as young as 7 years old are mining the cobalt needed for the batteries (and other components) in the smartphones and electric cars that people seem to feel are so necessary for life (they aren’t you know; food, water, clothing, shelter, sleep, air, and reproduction are necessities, everything else is a luxury).

The problem doesn’t stop when someone gets rid the smartphone, electric car, or other technology. Other children end up dismantling the devices sent for recycling. That’s right, a rich country’s efforts to keep electronics out of their landfills is also killing children because countries like India put these children to work taking them apart in unsafe conditions. Recycled wastes go from rich countries to poor countries because the poor countries need the money for necessities, like food. Often, these children are incapable of working by the time they reach 35 or 40 due to health issues induced by their forced labor. In short, the quality of their lives is made horribly low so that it’s possible for people in rich countries to enjoy something that truly isn’t necessary for life. To make matters worse, the vendors of these products build in obsolescence (making them unrepairable) so they can sell more products and make more money, increasing the devastation visited on children.

I’ve written other blog posts about the issues of technology pollution. However, the emphasis of these previous articles has been on the pollution itself. Taking personal responsibility for the pollution you create is important, but we really need to do more. Robotic (autonomous) mining is one way to keep children out of the mines and projects such as UX-1 show that it’s entirely possible to use robots in place of people today. The weird thing is that autonomous mining would save up to 80% of the mining costs of today, so you have to wonder why manufacturers aren’t rushing to employ this solution.

In addition, off world mining would keep the pollution in space, rather than on planet earth. Of course, off world mining also requires a heavy investment in robots, but it promises to provide a huge financial payback in addition to keeping earth a bit cleaner. The point is that there are alternatives that we’re not using. Robotics presents an opportunity to make things right with technology and I’m excited to be part of that answer in writing books such as Machine Learning Security Principles, Artificial Intelligence for Dummies, 2nd Edition, Algorithms for Dummies, 2nd Edition, Python for Data Science for Dummies, and Machine Learning for Dummies, 2nd Edition.

Unfortunately, companies like Apple, Samsung, and many others simply thumb their noses at laws that are in place to protect the children in these countries because they know you’ll buy their products. Yes, they make official statements, but read their statements in that first article and you’ll quickly figure out that they’re excuses and poorly made excuses at that. They don’t have to care because no one is holding them to account. People in rich countries don’t care because their own backyards aren’t sullied and their own children remain safe. It’s not that I have a problem with technology, quite the contrary, I have a problem with the manner in which technology is currently being made and supported. We need to do better. So, the next time you think about buying electronics, consider the real price for that product. Let me know what you think about polluting other countries to keep your country clean at [email protected].

Harvest Festival 2016

This has been an interesting year in the garden. In looking at the Harvest Festival 2015 post, I see a year that offered me what I would call the standard garden items. Not so this year. The problems began with a late frost that wiped out my grapes and pears. In fact, it nearly wiped out my apples as well, but I learned a curious lesson with the fruit this year because of the apples. All the outer apple trees had no fruit, but those in the center of the orchard did have some fruit. In other words, the trees on the outside protected those on the inside. I didn’t get a lot of fruit this year, but it isn’t a big deal because my larder is setup to provide multiple years’ worth of any particular item. The lesson I learned was not to prune too heavily when the weather is uncertain (as it was this year). In fact, the reason the apples survived as they did was because I didn’t have time to prune them much at all.

The garden also behaved quite oddly this year due to the weather. The Wisconsin winter was semi-mild this year without nearly as much snow as normal, so different bugs survived than normal. In addition, the weather was either hot or cold, without a lot of in between this summer. It has also been the fourth wettest summer on record. All these changes produced prodigious amounts of some insects that I don’t normally see and the vegetables didn’t produce as expected.

As an example of odd behavior, I normally have a hard time growing cauliflower. This year I grew huge cauliflower and one plant is attempting to grow a second head, which is something that never happens here. On the other hand, broccoli, a plant that always does well, didn’t even produce a head this year. All I got were some spikes that didn’t taste good (they were quite bitter). The rabbits didn’t even like them all that well. The cauliflower is usually plagued by all sorts of insects, but this year there was nary a bug to be seen. The point is that you need to grow a variety of vegetables because you can’t assume that old standbys will always produce as expected.

Two other examples of odd behavior are okra (which normally grows acceptably, but not great) and peppers (which often produce too well for their own good). This year I’m literally drowning in beautiful okra that gets pretty large without ever getting tough, but the peppers are literally rotting on the plant before they get large enough to pick. I’m not talking about a few peppers in just one location in the garden either—every pepper plant completely failed this year.

Location can be important and planting in multiple locations can help you get a crop even if other people are having problems (and I didn’t talk to a single gardener this year who didn’t have problems of one sort or another). One example in my case were potatoes. I planted six different varieties in six completely different locations in the garden. Five of those locations ended up not producing much of value. A combination of insects destroyed the plants and tubers. All I got for my efforts were rotting corpses where the potatoes should have been. The last area, with Pontiac Red potatoes, out produced any potato I’ve ever grown. The smallest potato I took out of this patch was a half pound and the largest was 1 ¼ pounds. I didn’t even find any of the usual smallish potatoes that I love to add to soup. The potatoes were incredibly crisp and flavorful. The odd thing is that this patch was in an area of the garden that doesn’t usually grow potatoes very well.

A few of my garden plantings didn’t seem to mind the weather or the bugs in the least. My peas did well, as did my carrots. I grew the carnival carrots again because the colors are so delightful and even canned, they come out multiple colors of orange, which dresses up the shelves. I also grew of mix of yellow wax and green beans this year. The two beans work well together canned. They have a nicer appearance than just yellow or just green beans in a can. However, because the two beans have slightly different tastes, you also get more flavorful meals out of the combination.

I still stand by the statement I made long ago when starting this blog, every year is both a good and a bad year. Because I planted a wide range of vegetables and ensured I didn’t plant all the vegetables in a single location in the garden, I ended up with more than enough vegetables to can or freeze. No, I didn’t get all of the vegetables that I had hoped to get, but I definitely won’t starve either. My larder is quite full at this point. Let me know your thoughts on ensuring a garden has a significant variety of items in it to ensure success at [email protected].

 

Early Season Canning

I’ve already been canning this season. A lot of people hear this claim and wonder just what it is that I’m canning. The first food I started canning is soup. I get the ingredients from my freezers. Anything that’s starting to get a bit old is fair game. I also save the larger bones from various meats, especially when I have the meat processed by someone else. The meat and vegetables made into soup can quite well and last a lot longer than they would in the freezer. Nothing is quite so nice on a cold winter’s day than hot soup. I usually get two or three servings out of each quart that I can (sometimes four if I add enough additional items). Given the cold winters here in Wisconsin, I can go through a lot of soup.

Once I can the soup, the freezers are less full, so it’s time to defrost them. It’s essential to defrost, clean, and reorganize your freezers every year. Doing so lets you create an inventory of what you have in stock so that you have a better idea of what you need to grow. In addition, you don’t want to keep items so long that they become unpalatable and visually unappealing. Freezer burned food is completely safe to eat, but you may not want to eat it. Some of the ways in which you can prevent freezer burn is to vacuum pack your food and to ensure you rotate it out before it sits in the freezer too long. In some cases, when food is mildly freezer burned, I’ll make it up into pet food (my animals don’t seem to mind as long as the food is prepared to their liking). However, it’s better to use the food up before anything actually does happen to it.

So far I’ve made 14 quarts of chicken soup and another 14 quarts of venison stew. Canning soup means using a pressure canner. Make sure you follow the instructions in a resource such as the Ball Blue Book and the book that comes with your pressure canner. Read Considering the Dangers of Outdated Canning Information for details on keeping yourself safe when using the Ball Blue Book.

It’s also time to can early garden items. For example, when canned properly, rhubarb makes a highly nutritious fruit dish that I eat directly from the jar. You can also make it into pie filling. So far, I’ve made up 7 quarts of plain rhubarb and 7 quarts of spiced rhubarb, both of which will be quite tasty this upcoming winter. Fortunately, you can use hot water bath canning techniques with rhubarb and other high acid foods.

In some cases, you need to mix and match items. The frozen green and wax beans in my freezer weren’t getting any younger, so I used them to make up four bean salad. Actually, it’s supposed to be three bean salad, but some of my recipes called for Lima beans, while others called for kidney beans. I decided to use both, hence four bean soup. I used up all the remaining beans and garnered 16 pints of four bean salad on my larger shelf. Doing so also used up the cans of kidney and Lima beans in my cabinets.

Finally, pickled asparagus can be quite a treat in the middle of winter. So far, I’ve only made up 8 pints of pickled asparagus, but I’ll make up more. I’ll also be freezing some asparagus for fresh use later in the year. In short, canning season has started—time to get going! Let me know about your current canning project at [email protected].

 

Enjoying the Apple Blossoms

Depending on when the trees bloom, the results can be modest, abysmal, frosted, or luxurious. This year, the apple trees have really outdone themselves. The blooms are absolutely amazing because the weather was perfect for the trees this year. Just looking at the trees from a distance, you can see that they’re decked out in spring color that’s certain to please.

The apple trees are truly luxuriant with blossoms this year.
Apple Trees Decked Out with Flowers

It’s a warm spring day with just a slight breeze, so getting into the orchard is quite an experience. The flowers are quite pungent and walking around is delightful. Unlike many other years, there hasn’t been any hint of frost or strong winds to damage the flowers, so the clusters are nearly perfect.

The white blossoms are incredible and the odor is quite strong.
The Blossom Clusters are Beautiful

The bees and other pollinators were quite busy on this particular day. A count showed that there were at least fifteen different kinds of insects busy at their job of pollinating the flowers. They didn’t pay any attention to me, of course, and I paid little attention to them. I was simply taken by the absolute beauty of the flowers and wanted to share them with you. Let me know about your favorite sights, sounds, and smells of spring at [email protected].

 

A Hurt Chicken Update

A number of people wrote to ask about my hurt hen after reading Dealing with Hurt Chickens. You’ll be happy to know that my hen is fully healed at this point and the infection is completely gone (without leaving any signs). Over the years I’ve found that hens are quite resilient as long as you get to the source of a problem quickly and provide at least a modicum of care. Getting the hen out of the coop when her mates can’t help her is the prime concern. Otherwise, the other hens will proceed to peck her to death.

Chickens aren’t particularly known for their long term memory. After almost a month, the other members of the coop had quite forgotten about the hurt hen, so I couldn’t just put her back into the coop and expect everything to work right away. The process involves putting the hen, cage and all, into the coop for a few days. Unfortunately, the addition of a relatively large cage made the coop seem amazingly small as I tried to get to the eggs. The hens took great delight in sitting on my shoulders and head while I tried to get past the cage. They also mumbled strange, dark chicken thoughts about how I’d be so much better off if I simply removed the stranger from their midst. I’m used to this little inconvenience because it happens every time I introduce new chicks to the coop.

What I hadn’t quite expected is the hen’s reaction to their new coop mate. Normally, the hens spend a good deal of time running around the cage, sitting on top of it, and attempting to peck the chicks. In other words, they’re active in their desire to be rid of the strangers at any cost. Not so this time! The hens took up a line around the cage and stared. Some sat, some stood, but all mumbled, and then mumbled some more. I’m not sure why a single adult hen should be different from five or six juveniles, but there is some point of chicken etiquette of which I’m most definitely not aware. After a while though, the hens simply started ignoring the cage and went about their business.

Because of the absurd initial reaction, I decided to leave the hen in her cage for an extra day, so the inconvenience of trying to get to the eggs lasted longer than I would have liked, which is where the trip comes into play. Imagine trying to get around in a coop that one wouldn’t normally consider spacious with a bunch of hens and a relatively large cage in your way. One day I went in and, as usual, put the eggs into my jacket pocket as I collected them. My sweatshirt jacket makes a fine place to put eggs most of the time, but not this time. Yes, I fell and did the Lucy act (see Lucy Does the Tango). Well, my jacket really did need to be washed anyway and a shower is always nice after working in the coop.

At this point, my hurt hen is no longer hurt. She’s running around with the other chickens, who have somehow suddenly remembered where she was at in the pecking order. Normally, when I introduce juvenile chicks, there is a lot of fighting until the new pecking order is established, but that didn’t happen in this case except for a little while on the first day. Otherwise, the coop has been quite happy. Let me know your thoughts on reintroducing chickens after they heal to the coop at [email protected].

 

Is Your Car Green, Really?

It seems like I receive yet another brochure about the huge advances various government entities, enterprises, vendors, or energy companies making in protecting the planet every month. Everyone seems to think that their technology is going to be the next green thing, when the facts simply don’t bear them out. The previous post I wrote on this topic, More People Noticing that Green Technology Really Isn’t, discussed the issue that some informed people are discovering that all that green technology out there is really just designed to sell more products-not help the earth in any significant way. The problem is one of complexity, which is the case with the green car.

Driving an electric car might seem like the right way to reduce emissions. However, recent studies show that your electric car might actually be worse for the environment. I say might here because it all depends on how the electricity is generated. In some cases, your electric car actually is better than gas at the first level. That is, the manner in which the electricity is generated produces fewer pollutants than driving a car with a gas engine would be. For example, sunlight and wind are both plentiful in Nevada, so driving an electric car could make sense there. However, as I’ve noted in previous posts, solar and wind power both rely heavily on special materials, the mining of which actually produces a serious amount of pollution. The studies available right now also assume that the manufacturing processes for the supposedly green cars are actually no worse than the older technology they replace.

However, in reality, it is crucial to remember that there is always an element of chemical risk at each stage of production of a car regardless of whether the resulting vehicle is gas or electric powered. It is no secret that the manufacturing processes involved in producing engines, plastics, and various other elements of a car require the use of hazardous chemicals such as adhesives, acids, bases, and cleaning chemicals. Furthermore, the majority of these products are corrosives or irritants and most of these chemicals are handled in laboratories.

Put simply, whether a car is powered by gas or electric, there is thus a constant risk of projection and chemical spill during the manufacturing process. With all of this in mind, it is vital that car manufacturers make use of chemical storage solutions to prevent chemical spillages or leaks. To address this issue, most car manufacturers use bunded storage. Essentially, a bund is a secondary containment area in a tank or a drum that can collect any spilled liquid if the initial storage container is inadequate. Due to the diversity of chemicals used throughout the manufacturing industry, there are several unique bunded storage containment options available for industrial users. You can discover the benefits of these bunded storage and containment solutions by taking a look at this useful guide on the Storemasta website.

Consequently, even though it might appear that your electric car is a win, it may not be right now. There are many defectives that both non-green and green cars have in common. For instance, you may find that a green or electric car might not hold the same charge capacity. There are a few cars that have been reported to develop defects that may not appear in a brand new car, so if you decide to get an electric second hand, you may find you are dealing with a lemon. Luckily, if you find yourself in that situation, you can always make a lemon claim for a used car.

A problem with all the entities making the promises and telling you just how good they are at fulfilling them is that they lie. Sometimes they even get caught. For example, the EPA finally caught VW in the act of lying about its emission test results. The only problem is that those cars are still out there producing millions of tons of lung killing smog. In fact, it’s hard to tell whether any of those green technologies actually do anything at all, except make you pay a lot more when buying the vehicle, and to run and maintain it later. Add to this the fact that some people are now saying that the solar industry is dying (and would already be dead were it not for government subsidies) and you have to wonder just how long these green cars will even maintain the appearance of being green.

Some people are saying that we should simply get rid of cars, which is obviously not going to happen. Systems like adas are only growing as people have more and more need of a car in their life. If people really wanted to use mass transit, it would have happened already. In addition, there isn’t any evidence that mass transit actually reduces pollution either. The vehicles are often poorly maintained and spew a horrid amount of pollution out of their exhaust (as evidenced by the stench when you drive behind a bus). In addition, mass transit only works when you live in or around a major city, which won’t work for those of us who live in the country.

The best way to create a green car is not to drive it any more than necessary. I’ve taken to planning out my trips so that I drive the fewest possible miles. Because I’m self-employed, I don’t even start my car five days a week (getting everything done in just two days). Not only does my strategy save time, but I’ve reduced by gas bill by half in the last two years. Green often equates to not using a resource such as gas. Using the resource will inevitably produce some sort of pollution. Through careful planning, you can significantly reduce the number of miles you drive and you can drive more of them at once (a warm engine normally works more efficiently and produces fewer emissions). You also want to reduce gas waste by starting up slowly, stopping over a longer distance, and keeping your engine from idling. In fact, there are a wealth of tips you can find online for making your car more efficient (such as removing all that junk from the trunk).

You can make the world a cleaner place and still keep your car. All it really takes is planning and careful maintenance. This can be done better using websites like https://www.czokbrand.com to give guidance on proper car maintenance. Unfortunately, there is no magic that will just make the problems with pollution go away. Driving that electric car or paying more for a vehicle with dubious emissions extras isn’t going to do much. What it really takes is a bit of self control. Let me know your thoughts about green cars at [email protected].