We certainly live in interesting times. that’s an understatement. At this point, I hope we all live THROUGH the interesting times.
I’m writing this in October of 2022, and as of right now it looks like this winter could become quite challenging. For our cousins across the Atlantic in Europe there are widespread concerns that they may not be able to obtain or afford fuel to heat their homes this winter. We certainly hope that turns out not to be the case.
A much smaller percentage of pundits seem to think that this is going to be a problem, at least to the same degree, here in the US… but give the event of the past few years nothing much is unthinkable anymore, and I wouldn’t want to have to be on any future scenario. Never underestimate the stupidity of politicians.
I was watching an assortment of survival-oriented videos on Youtube, and this popped up as a suggestion:
I found it interesting and thought-provoking. Those of us who have been backpacking, camping, reenacting (and sailing and ….) for more decades than I care to admit are of course familiar with the concept of heating “the person, not the room”. it’s been the only practical option for most of the times when we had a need. We’re used to thinking in terms of insulation, because on weight, it’s hard to beat air on weight as readily available resources go. Sure, mammalian body heat is generated not just conserved, and there are solutions that do not depend so much on insulation ranging from just building large fires (bushcraft aside, not often near as practical in the 21st Century as it once was) through “hot tents” (containing stoves) to cheap, disposable chemical pocket hand-warmers, but I am not used to thinking in terms of hot-water “bottles” (relatively heavy rubber bladders) for heat. It was a good reminder, and it makes sense for this scenario. I’m still researching some of the other possibilities mentioned, much less some of those brought up in the comments. This might take a little while.
However, I was thinking about the hot water bottle option and how best to heat water if and when the normal services are still available but outrageously expensive, and the object is to minimize the use of hydrocarbon fuels and the expenditure of energy of in general. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure most of us with some outdoors background are more than equipped to heat water in a power outage, at least for some time. We probably have multiple options at hand. I’ve dealt with power outages many, many times over the decades in various circumstances, and I’m pretty used to it. Hey, I even have a French Press coffee maker that uses the K-cups for the Keurig, which is the source of coffee that we’re most likely to have handy, so I can quickly and easily make coffee from what’s in the kitchen regardless of how I heat the water. Somewhere in storage I also have other necessities for power-outage survival (or partying on islands with no power) like a hand-crank blender to be able to make Margaritas.
If you must use electricity to heat water, for minimum energy use it’s hard to beat a microwave oven. Tuning the microwaves to heat water molecules is exactly how they work, and although it throws a lot of energy at once it also works very quickly. Methods of heating using immersed heating elements are not bad, immersion (cup) heaters and electric kettles, but they take much longer and spend more energy heating themselves up before the heat transfers to the water. Since the cost is pretty close, the speed of the microwave is a distinct edge.
Ironically, though, while we heat our foods in the microwave oven by heating up the water that the foods contain, we’re not often set up to conveniently heat water itself this way.
Of course, pretty much anyone will have a selection of some kinds of ceramic bowls in a kitchen- but they are awkward and even dangerous vessels to handle when full of boiling water. We still typically have all sorts of metal containers for doing just that, but of course they are useless for microwaving anything.
What you need- actually NEED for conveniently and safely doing a lot of repeated heating of water in the microwave in this scenario is something that used to be in pretty much every kitchen, but, again ironically, something that is disappearing from kitchens in the age of the microwave- a ceramic teapot.
Thankfully they are still readily and cheaply available, even more so if you pick up one or two at thrift stores and yard sales. We suddenly have a new use for something old, why not save the ones we already have from ending up in landfills? I suppose it’s worthwhile to make sure it’s microwave safe, but it’s hard to imagine it being a problem unless there are some metallic highlights in the glaze.
Anyway, just a thought. We’re guilty of it ourselves, for all the camping and survival gear and a full normally-equipped kitchen I can’t recall the last time I saw a simple ceramic teapot in all our stuff. If we own one it likely never got unpacked after our move a few years ago and is in a box in storage, but I can’t even picture one in my mind. We a number of metal teakettles, including a couple of copper antiques, and a coffee carafe from a long-dead coffeemaker, but it has a metal band holding the handle onto the glass body, so none of those will work. It’s not an insurmountable problem, we could make do with bowls (with care), but I’m adding one or two ceramic teapots to things to acquire in the weeks ahead. Probably an “overabundance of caution”, but that’s typified my thinking on many things over a very long time, and it’s worked to my advantage pretty often.
Stay warm, stay safe, stay well. Compared to the last 75 years or so these may seem like unreasonable times, but longer history shows us what an anomaly the last 75 years were. That period may be ending, but almost all of our ancestors had to deal with a lot more than most of us have come close to experiencing. Many will survive whatever comes, there is no reason we can’t be among those. Stay vigilant, stay strong, and stay free for the next generations if not for yourself.
– Robert the Wombat