Most of us are looking for ways to reduce the impact we have on our environment . There are things we have control over, small changes we can make in our own homes: switching off the light when we leave the room, lowering our washing temperature to 30ºC, using low energy bulbs, recycling waste, buying unpackaged goods and the like.
For a good checklist visit www.carbonfootprint.com.
I'm interested in minimising waste and my chosen subject is ice machines. The cold is nature's best preservative. Using refrigeration and freezing to prevent the waste of food and drink. I'm all for it.
What concerns me is ice machines - working full time rattling out the cubes, one on every floor of every hotel in temperate environments, not even switched off in freezing cold winters, because we don't question the need for ice cold drinks.
My intention is to request that people stop for a moment to think, "Hmmm, do I really need ice? I wonder if it's better just to drink plain straight water, at the temperature at which it arrives, rather than use energy to make it colder."
The modern world uses billions of kilojoules of energy every day to freeze water to make drinks cold.
Every day we are freezing tons of water for no good reason but personal taste using using electricity as we go. Ice cubes are helping to melt the polar ice caps.
And here's how - thanks to Chris from
Any time you freeze something you create an exothermic reaction. Basically you are using energy to remove the stored heat (thermal) energy from the object. ...
The equations:
Q = mcT AND Q = mL
Where Q is heat energy, c is the specific heat capacity, m is mass, T is temperature, and L is the latent heat.
Solution
Q = mL + mcT [you change states and cool to -3C]
Let m = 1kg (or 1 litre), c (ice) = 2000 J/(kg C°), T (final) = -3C, L (fusion) = 335000 J/Kg
Thus,
Q = (1 Kg) • (335000 J/Kg) + (1 Kg) • (2000 J/(kg C°)) • (0C- -3C)
Q = 335000J + (-6000J)
Q = 329000J = 329 KJ = 3.29*10^2 KJ of energy to freeze 1 litre of ice
There are thousands of good ideas on how to reduce our energy use out there already.
Here’s another one:
• Be an anti-ice cube activist.
It may sound small but it’s better than nothing and if we start our own movement, we’ll make a difference.
Say No to Ice Cubes
“Ice?”
“No thanks”
“?”
Try telling a barperson that you don’t want ice in your drink and either it doesn’t register and they shovel the cubes in your glass anyway, or they pause, uncertain what to do next, because people say yes automatically. We never think twice about it. Sometimes they glance worriedly in the direction of security just in case you’re some sort of trouble-maker.
It’s not normal to refuse ice. But it’s an idea.
Be daring, say no to ice.
There’s nothing wrong with being unusual every now and again.
What can we do?
Passive approach: When you’re offered ice in your drinks say “No thanks,” and enough of us keep saying it, then the message will get through eventually.
Active Approach: Request – nay demand – your drinks without ice. See what happens next – and tell us what happens at hello@thinktwiceaboutice.com Try your bottled drinks at room temperature. Naturally, you want to keep them in the fridge once they are opened to stop them going off, but try it just to see what they taste like.
(And never try putting ice into a Scotsman’s whisky. It ruins the flavour. One part malt whisky to two parts water to appreciate the genuine beauty of the drink. (See comment below). “On the rocks” is the best way to disguise how awful the stuff is that they’re serving you. All very well trying to make stuff cool and trendy - like all this nonsense about rebranding Southern Comfort “SoCo” - when you've better off just tasting the stuff. (I look forward to hearing Grand Marnier called GM. That’s going to go down a storm.)
Following on from above, Leapyleas says:
"Erm.... as one who regularly attends organised malt whisky tastings, I have to say this is controversial. The group I taste with is very much "each to their own" - most tasters will try their whisky neat before deciding whether additions are necessary. I'm a fan of one part whisky to a quarter to a half a part water myself. It depends on the whisky - some benefit from water and some don't."
Your Body is a 37ºC
Ice cold drinks are not good for us and there’s a theory that they are downright bad.
They fool your body into thinking that it’s really cold. As long as you’re healthy, your body will do everything it can to keep your core temperature at 37ºC (98.4f) so it takes emergency action to heat you up again. It closes down your sweat glands, makes your body hair stand up to insulate you and cuts the circulation to your capillaries; it’ll even make you shiver to warm you up - exactly the opposite of what your body really needs when it’s hot.
That stabbing feeling that you get behind the eyes when you slurp a really cold drink is the caused by the hypothalamus in the brain reacting instantly to the perceived danger it’s detecting.
What we really need when it’s hot is to drink something around body temperature to keep the status quo ticking along nicely. To cool down, we need to sweat; as the liquid evaporates it uses energy from the skin and lowers your temperature.
Back to the point
A typical domestic ice machine uses 250KW per year which is the equivalent to 108kg of Carbon Dioxide.
(Sources: Meier A. Energy Use of Ice Making in Domestic Refrigerators.
Interested in knowing more about your CO2 emissions? Visit the National Energy Foundation's carbon calculator.
http://www.nef.org.uk/energyadvice/co2calculator.htm