Tag: carbon footprint

Categories
observation Switzerland

To drive or Travel by Train

View of the Moléson without Clouds
View of the Moléson without Clouds
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Tomorrow I will be heading to Gruyère. I saw that if I take the train it will take two hours but if I take the car it will take one hour. I am currently toying with the idea of suggesting that I pick up some people in Nyon and others in Fourmi, before going to Gruyère.

There was a time when I would easily have done this. At that time I almost always took the car because that was the default habit. Now the default habit is lost and taking the train is as convenient as driving.

The advantage of driving is that I save an hour in time but use petrol and have to be focused for the entire journey. In the train I can be as distracted as I want. I could even nap, but for some reason I haven't had siestas on trains recently.

As i wrote this I bought the train ticket. It's 36 CHF for a two way trip. The car would have been cheaper petrol wise but then I need to park, and drive, and worry about the weather after the polar vortex.

If I did not have the demi tarif it would cost 72 CHF to do this, and then the car is cheaper, at least petrol wise. With the demi tarif this trip is cheap. I was expecting it to be more than this. I'm happy that it isn't. 18 CHF is a good price, per direction.

This trip is unusual because it starts and ends in the same place. That's why I have already bought the ticket. By starting in the same place I don't need to use the "easyride option that I usually use for other trips.

If I had offered the car option it would be 34 per person for four people, from Nyon whereas the train from Nyon is 36CHF so it doesn't make sense to use the car, except to save time.

And Finally

The key point of whether to use the car is not time, but how many changes I need to make. From Nyon to Gruyère you need to change trains just once. That's easy to do. If I had to change three or four times and wait for buses then I would not consider the train.

This year is good, because I use the train for leisure, not just to commute to Geneva and back for work. By exploring I am seeing how convenient trains can be. Sometimes I use trains for short hops but in this context I use it for the entire day, and the car sleeps more than it is used.

Categories
observation Swiss walks Switzerland

The Decision Not to Drive For Sports On a Sunday

Via Francigena on the way to Aigle
Via Francigena on the way to Aigle
Reading Time: 3 minutes

This weekend I could have gone to Bellevaux for the VF, Thones for the VF, Kandersteg for the VF, and gone to Charmey, Rocher de Naye and one other places for hikes and climbing. I chose to do none of these things. My reason for this is to save money on petrol, after driving quite a bit last week but also to recharge.

## I'm Still an Introvert

Last week I went for a hike and thought "I wish I had not gone", until the end, when I was sad that the day was over. I wish one person had stayed longer, for a chance to talk.

## Rightfully Cautious

I drove to do a walk with people a few days ago but then ended up walking alone, and eventually I saw a text message that reminded me of my isolation. That's why I think I'm taking the weekend off from being social.

## Too Much Drivers To Be With Strangers

Kandersteg would have involved four hours of driving, which is nothing, but to see people I don't know, and possibly camp, and try a VF I am not familiar with. I didn't feel like driving that far. I wanted to do something local.

## More Driving

I skipped the two hikes that tempted me because in one case I have already been around Fribourg once and the drive is quite long. Having said that, it's just one hour. The second hike, to the Rocher De Naye is for another reason.

## THe Need to Test Hiking Boots After the Injury

I love trail glove shoes but they're not good for the mountains. They're too soft for some of those surfaces. That's what I found when walking down from Moléson a few weeks ago.

Usually wearing hiking boots wouldn't be a problem but I haven't worn hiking boots since my foot injury, so before I wear hiking boots on a demanding hike I want to make sure that they are okay on a local hike. It's because I keep them in the car that I haven't tried them. I will wear them today, and then if the feet feel fine, I can start having adventures with them again.

## The Carbon Footprint

I could drive, or take trains to most of these activities with ease. The issue is that I got into the habit of driving sparingly and I don't want to get back into the habit of driving several hours every weekend like I used to. I love driving locally and finding local gems, rather than driving for hours and finding other gems further afield. I really would like to suggest more local hikes to the groups I am part of. It was nice to do that local hike, with just 18 minutes of driving.

## The Bad Weather Forecast

Most people would look at the forecast and think "Oh hurray, the weather is good after all, I'm desperate to go and enjoy a hike. I saw it from the opposite perspective. "Ah, the weather is bad, and it's an opportunity for rest and recovery. If the forecast had been good for the entire week I would have done something this weekend. It's because it was bad that I didn't.

## Alternating Weeks

The groups that I am part of, whether it's the history, adventure or hiking group tend to organise things every two weeks so I am in the habit of doing something every two weeks, rather than every week.

## And Finally

If the weather forecast was good, and people had decided to do something I would be doing more than local walks around where I live. The weather forecast was bad for half the week, and then improved by the time I had settled on the idea of a simple weekend. I plan to do more next week.

Categories
observation tech related

Stress Testing the Ocean Drive Street E-Scooter

The Garmin E Trex showing the temperature according to weather services
The Garmin E Trex showing the temperature according to weather services
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Yesterday I had to drive from Nyon to Founex to do a favour for someone. Normally I would have used the car but it was in for a tire change. I was switching from winter to summer tires at last.

On the way to Founex I took farm roads as much as possible because they're less likely to have cars, and I'm less likely to be in the way of those cars. The ride was easy. I used just one or two bars of power on the way out so I still had plenty of battery left. I then walked around, and then picked up a book about technical writing before riding home.

For the route home I went down to the lakeside and used the cycle lanes between Founex and Nyon. There was no traffic, but the cycling lane is still out of commission because of the Caribana so I was forced onto the road for a few hundred meters before going back onto the cycling lane and then through the Parking de Colovray, by the swimming poopl where people were waiting for the swimming pool to open.

In Nyon I stopped to film the waves breaking on the Jetée before heading up a very steep hill and that's where the scooter battery really suffered. I went from three bars down to one, and the scooter that usually goes at 20km/h got down to 12 and I think even 8km/h before finally getting to the top of the hill. From here I saw that I was down to one bar and I got to the entrance to the village where I live before the battery finally died.

I had to walk the last four or five hundred metres, which is nothing.

## The Workout

Although people who ride e-scooters look like spring Asparagus as they ride from point A to Point B, despite the impression that they are being lazy, I found that the Apple watch counted that scooter ride as a workout. It wanted to count it as cycling but I refused. The increase in heart rate from that scooter ride still counted as being almost my day's calorie burn requirement. If you use a scooter, rathre than a car, even an electric one, you will get a workout.

## Walk Up Steep Inclines

The moral of the story is simple. If you're playing with an e-scooter and you come to a steep hill, and you feel it struggling, get off, and walk the rest of the way up that hill. You will save the battery, and will avoid having to walk the scooter on flat bits.

At the same time I now know how to discharge the battery with ease, if I want to power cycle it, for any reason. It's rational that what takes a lot of energy for a cyclist to climb will take a lot of energy for an e-scooter to climb.

## Useful Bike Lanes

I appreciate having bike lanes when I'm on the e-scooter because I know that when I am in the bike lane I am where I am expected to be. On the road, with no lines I feel at risk, from cars that drive too close and too fast, but also from objects on the road. Drains, rocks, stones, dirt and more. I am always as aware as possible of the surroundings, not to be surprised by a car or other vehicle.

## And Finally

If not for the very steep climb from the Consérvatoire roundabout towards the Unia building the scooter would have comfortably covered the distance I wanted to cover. In fact, it did, even with the steep climb.

Ideally I would have a scooter that I can sit on, rather than stand on, but the difference in price is 3000 CHF or more. I like that the e-scooter is light enough to lift, and versatile. If I go to Geneva or another town I can carry it with me into the shops or trains, and then deploy and ride it once I'm done.

Categories
environmentalism tech related

Life With an Electric Car

Threads and the Fediverse where the Fediverse is the milky way
Threads and the Fediverse where the Fediverse is the milky way
Reading Time: 2 minutes

The more I play with the electric car and the more I feel that it affects how I spend my time. Today I would have written a blog post before going out, but I didn't. I didn't write before going out because I knew that the battery would be down to 30 percent by the time I got to my destination, and 30 percent of battery power on a car means 14 hours of charge time. I.e. the earlier I head to charge the car the sooner I can head home to have dinner at a reasonable time.

I had planned to write my blog post this morning, whilst charging the car. I didn't. Someone was painting in the apartment where I had planned to write. Instead I spent time with people, as the car charged. By the end of the day it was at eighty percent before I drove home and now it's back to over sixty percent.

Being environmentally conscious, by driving an electric car, rather than a petrol one comes at a cost. That cost is waiting for cars to charge when using normal power sockets. What bothers me is not the charge time. It's that in 2017 or so buildings were built without power sockets to parking spaces. They should have put normal power plugs.

An electric car doesn't need much power to charge. With a normal power socket, if you charge overnight you can easily top your car up to one hundred percent every night. It can charge while you're sleeping, ready for the next day.

Before the pandemic there was a discussion about preparing a garage for electric cars and my experience is proving that we don't need fast chargers, or even medium chargers. A normal power socket would be enough to charge a car to one hundred percent overnight. Of course it would be nice to have fast charging, but fast charging is an excuse to sell a 900 CHF plug and an excuse to pay thousands to upgrade the power throughput of a building.

The simple reality is that a normal plug is more than enough to charge an electric car, if you admit that a car is parked twenty two hours per day, giving it twenty two hours per day to charge. Fast charging is a gimmick.

I'm bringing this up again because I watched a video yesterday about the Silence 4 electric car. It's a small electric car that is perfect for urban living. The killer feature is that it has two removable batteries, that can be removed and charged away from the car. This means that when you use the car you can wheel the batteries into your "cave", apartment, or office, and charge the batteries, before commuting home, or to another location.

The concept goes further. The batteries are leased so the car is fourty percent cheaper. this means that, in theory, and if the car is popular enough, you could go on a road trip and swap the batteries every hundred kilometres. The batteries still require time to charge but if you can swap batteries that are depleted for batteries that are full, the time you stop for is greatly reduced. The beauty of this system is that the batteries can also be used by their electric scooters.

The problem with electric cars, for now, is that they're not as easy to refuel as petrol cars. Once they are then the barrier to entry will disappear. When a car costs 100 per week, on petrol, it makes sense to switch to electric.

Categories
Sports summer holidays Swiss walks

Half a Million Steps in July

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In July this year I took half a million steps as I was banned from driving. I’m using that phrase for comedic effect. As I had one arm in a sling driving was out of the question for a few weeks and then it was out of the question because my tendons and muscles were in need of physio therapy.

Carbon Footprint

By not using the car for around one and a half months alone I avoided using at least one tank of diesel for every month of injury and one scooter tank of petrol per week of petrol.

By not using buses I saved on my carbon footprint too. Buses are large and heavy and they are not always full. This means that walking is still more environmentally friendly.

In a normal month I walk from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand steps. The application estimates that I walked 47 hours. That’s almost a weekend of walking. This excludes all the time spent walking when cooking or doing other tasks.

Waking everywhere is time consuming. Instead of taking half an hour to do a task you have to count at least an hour for the closest shop and an hour and a half to two hours for another shop I like to use.

Walking everywhere requires you to think of time differently. Simple tasks become events and the world shrinks. For over a month my world was anything within two or three hours walking distance.

Optimised for vehicles

We often hear about how towns are not optimised for walking but neither is the countryside. If you walk along secondary roads you have to deal with tractors, pesticides, combine harvesters and other machines. On some rural paths you have to deal with dogs that are not kept on a leash and when you’re afraid of dogs this can be anxiety inducing.

Too many roads connecting villages to shopping centres and too many roads connecting villages have no provision for walkers. This summer I had to choose between walking through thick grass and plants to stay on the side of the road or walk on the road with drivers not moderating their speed. This is paradoxical as, when you’re driving you always get stuck 20km/hr below the speed limit. When you’re walking, just as when you’re cycling, people feel the need to make the gap between oncoming traffic rather than slow down and wait a few seconds.

I came to the conclusion that they should put bike lane markings on every single road if they are unwilling to prepare and maintain walking paths by the side of the road. As a pedestrian I used bike lanes as if they were pavements mainly because of bushes and long vegetation. I believe that as a general rule cars should only be allowed to drive into a cycle lane when overtaking is not possible otherwise. People need to be trained to see bike lanes like bus lanes and avoid them unless there is no alternative.

The Wearing Down of Shoes

One of the things I love to do is look at the soles of my shoes and see how much wear they have as well as whether it’s symmetrical. This time around the wear on my shoes was symmetrical. There is a downside to this wear. Those bits of shoe are left on the roads and in the grass waiting to be washed into the rivers and rivers before making their way to the lakes and seas.

Final Thoughts

Taking half a million footsteps in a month was a pleasant and enjoyable experience. It allowed me to slow down in a way that I have done before. It allowed me to explore even more than I did last year. It got me used to walking to some locations rather than take the car. I walk to physio therapy, to the shop nearby and to the swimming pool. It means that I am not subjected to modern traffic and that for some tasks at least, my carbon footprint is reduced. For the price of a single tank of fuel you can buy two pairs of shoes that will last half a million steps apiece.