Should I feel guilty about using diesel as an everyday fuel for cooking and heating?

[QPiepelr65]

I suddenly started to get moral pangs about using this is a main fuel source for everyday use compared to say autogas/lpg which is being encouraged as a greener alternative to regular gas.

I wonder is the question moot since running diesel engine anyway`to drive or is it an every little helps thing? I will note I drive very little so not using diesel every day at the moment. I also plan to drive as little as I can get away with in future too. I just chose a van over say a caravan because the former is easier to move from A to B.

I wonder if this should be a consideration if one is morally inclined and believes global warming is a thing and not a "scam made by the globalist elite to take our hard earned money in the form of taxes". I know there are a lot of prepper types in the off-grid community who will probably take this line with it. Conversely there are loads of old "turn on, tune in, drop out" ecowarrior old school hippies and also the new generation leftists in the form of hipsters who make up a large contingent of the boom in vanlife over the last few years. Also those who do not give a hoot about moral considerations and just want what works for their needs.

So I expect some varied opinions on this.

As we know electric is out of the question for heating and cooking in 90% of cases.

I am thinking that there is an alternative to produce, wood I guess is a dirty or more than diesel to burn (?) besides being impractical for my tiny van, dry heat instead of diesel as exhausting gas heaters exist, working the same way diesel heaters, from what I saw when I was doing some research on gas a bit ago.

 

[moomin-j]

I suddenly started to get moral pangs

Good morning @QPiepelr65 , welcome to the Vw T6 forum.
I’d actually be more worried about confessing to driving a Ford Transit Connect than what cooking medium you use!!

 

[Pete C]

It's a tiny amount of diesel compared to what you use driving the vehicle around. I wouldn't worry.

Pete

 

[roadtripper]

Rather than worrying too much about the fuel direct that worry at efficiency.

Make sure the van is well insulated, use heating and cooling sparingly, keep them well maintained.

Other considerations are that diesel is a lot safer to have in a tank in something you are living in than any form of gas. I'm not saying a good maintained gas install is unsafe but there is a lot less risk with diesel.

 

[DXX]

If you get 35MPG out of your van at 60MPH it’s consuming 7782mL / hour.
I cook on my Wallas at minimum setting, it consumes 90mL / hour.
I’d need to run the Wallas for more than 3 1/2 days continuously to match an an hours driving.

 

[drinfinity]

I was about to write that fossil fuel is the only alternative for heat and cooking off grid (wood burning is bad for particulates, and unless you are coppicing, arguably not super sustainable). However I realised my fridge runs off solar very easily and chucks out plenty of heat. So maybe a tiny air-source solar powered heat pump could work in the very small space of van?

I’d cook with gas - a cleaner exhaust at point of use.

 

[DXX]

There’s absolutely nothing green about LPG, most is shipped from Qatar, Malaysia and Australia plus the vast amount of energy used to chill and compress it.

 

[roadtripper]

I was about to write that fossil fuel is the only alternative for heat and cooking off grid (wood burning is bad for particulates, and unless you are coppicing, arguably not super sustainable). However I realised my fridge runs off solar very easily and chucks out plenty of heat. So maybe a tiny air-source solar powered heat pump could work in the very small space of van?

I’d cook with gas - a cleaner exhaust at point of use.

Several EVs are now using heat pumps instead of resistive heating, also to manage battery heat. So the tech is actually already there, after all they are just a reconfiguration of the one in the fridge you already have.