Brewing Change: The Guardian Keeps Its Kettle In Check
by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 03. 8.08
Update: Lloyd also covered this issue over at Planet Green, pointing out that very few Americans have electric kettles, whilst 95% of brits and canadians do. As electric kettles convert 80 percent of the energy into heat that boils the water, while a kettle on the stove is only about 40% efficient and a microwave about 55 percent, it would make sense to make the switch if you haven't already.
We briefly mentioned it in our guide on How to Green Your Coffee and Tea, but the Guardian’s latest Tread Lightly pledge of only filling your kettle with the amount of water you actually need is certainly a useful way to reduce your energy consumption. Sure, it’s not an act that’s going to reverse climate change by itself, but if we can’t get the small stuff right then there’s little hope of cracking the big challenges. And in the UK, a nation that apparently guzzles 125 million cups of tea a day, the savings would be significant if the practice caught on among the general populace:
"The EST concluded that if we each boil the water we need to make a cup of tea instead of filling the kettle every time, we could save enough electricity in a year to run nearly half of all the street lighting in the country. So this week's pledge aims to contribute to doing just that."
::The Guardian::via site visit::
Thats how I make my water hot... pour in a lil more then what I need from my cup.
This should save me a few $$ has I'm a regular hot water user.
(You can always nit a "sweater" for you pot; keeps the water hoter/warmer for next use)
Now thats my cup of tea!
Yep. Me too. Take the guess work out by filling your tea cup or mug to the very brim, then pouring that into you kettle. Saves electric, saves water, saves money -- especially if you buy water. (I buy the reusable 5 gallong jugs of distilled).
GaBio - that idea of using the cup to know how much water to warm up is such a simple idea, yet it never occurred to me! I'm going to be doing that from now on (altho in the past I've been trying to get 'close' to not heating up too much water just by estimating).
Instead of a kettle, I've switching to using a counter top device (Sunbeam Hot Shot) which boils up to two cups of water in about a minute. It's faster and more convenient than a microwave.
Use a thermos to keep extra heated water ready for the next cup. A good thermos can keep water piping hot for hours. There are other ways to heat water than by using electricity or gas. I use a solar cooker to heat water when it's sunny, and keep a kettle on the woodstove when that's in use.
tell me of a good brand of themos and i'd buy it...
all of mine loose their heat after two hours!
I use two Nissan/Thermos steel 2 liter. If you search for "Thermos Steel Bottle- 2-qt." on Amazon you can see what it looks like. The Thermos.com site shows many stainless steel bottles, but I don't see mine. There's a 61 oz bottle that is close.
I've been using an electric plastic kettle for some time now.
Been reading more about trace chemicals (BPA) that can leech from plastics (like nalgene), especially when in contact with hot liquids. That made me think about using my plastic kettle. I was going to go back to stainless steel pan and stovetop.
damn being green is confusing :)