All entries under Energy Consumption

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You know those times where you get caught in a sudden downpour of rain that soaks you wet through? And its one of those downpours in the winter so you get wet and cold and feel like you will never be warm again?

Well imagine that happens when you can’t head home and have a nice warm shower and a change of clothes to make you feel instantly better. Imagine not being able to turn on the light at the flick of a switch.

The past few days have been really tough. There has been a constant icy wind and it hasn’t stopped raining. Everything I have is wet and I feel cold to the core. But in order for our Antarctic life to get any easier we’ve had to persevere… to work outside in the driving rain and freezing cold to get our two wind turbines up and running.

It’s simple really. Without our turbines we would have no electricity. That means no light, no heat and no power for our computers to tell you about this truly amazing experience.

Today we finally finished putting up those turbines. We now have a power supply - and even better we have a power supply that is clean, green and 100% renewable. Keeping our commitment to live off renewable energy in Antarctica has been incredibly hard but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

When our batteries are full and the turbines are still generating electricity we convert that extra energy to heat through an electric heater. As I sit here writing I can hear this little heater whirring away - so warming the air around me ever so slightly.

It will never have the same visual effect as burning logs in an open fire on a dark Winter’s night but this little fan heater as brought more warmth to me than the flames of a thousand fires.

It’s difficult to describe how much we have struggled to get to this point but I’m proud to say that, despite everything, we are here in Antarctica living off renewable energy.

Being out here really does make you think about how much we take for granted.

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