Wood or doughnuts? Polish YouTuber tests what’s cheaper for heating in winter
Winter has hit Eastern Europe hard: as temperatures drop and heating prices rise, people have shared their experiences on social media. While a Polish YouTuber checked if doughnuts are any better than wooden pallets, Ukrainians flood social media with videos of icy homes after Russian strikes.
This year's winter in Eastern Europe has left people frozen: either physically or in shock.
Because temperatures in parts of Europe have dropped below –20 °C, not only at night but also during the day, wood pallets that are normally used as a cheap heating fuel have not only gotten pricier by up to 30 percent, but also hard to find.
As per Polish radio, buyers are even forced to sign up for waiting lists. The situation has become so serious, that Energy Minister Miłosz Motyka hasn't ruled out the possibility of the government intervening if market irregularities are confirmed.
In the meantime, Polish YouTuber Marek Hoffmann, who creates videos under the AdBuster name, has decided to look for alternatives.
He saw that some doughnuts were very heavily discounted, as they usually are before Fat Thursday – a traditional celebration before Lent, during which Poles eat large quantities of doughnuts.
AdBuster did the math: he calculated the content of a wood briquette (18.27 megajoules per kilogram) and contracted it with doughnuts, which according to the YouTuber could have provided roughly 18.5 megajoules per kilogram.
To test the idea, he purchased 133 discounted doughnuts at approximately €0.02 apiece, spending close to €2.85 in total. The 10 kilograms of doughnuts doughnuts cost €1.6 cheaper than the equivalent weight of basic wood pallet fuel, reports TVP World.
Did the doughnuts warm up the room better than would wood have?
After filling a small cast-iron stove with doughnuts and lighting a fire underneath, Hoffmann recorded the temperature climbing to over 300 degrees Celsius.
“It’s been burning for almost five hours now, non-stop, and there’s no end in sight. I don’t know what’s going on here. The oil is bubbling all the time. The oil from the doughnuts is boiling all the time,” he said in the video.
The YouTuber came to the conclusion that it indeed makes as much sense to burn oil-boiledoughnuts instead of wood pallets. While describing his experiment, Hoffman reminisced about how it may have been unethical to burn food, but “then we wouldn't know that doughnuts are good fuel.”
He also remembered hearing about how other Poles were also looking for alternatives on what to burn to heat up their homes during the cold winter and according to him, they include corn and dried oats because they’re cheaper too.
He ended a video on cliffhanger by asking if the audience knows what other product has an even higher calorific value.
“It’s mayonnaise,” he said and suggested two brands leaving the intrigue of a part two for his experiment.
While one part of Europe can take the rising heating prices with a grain of salt, as we go deeper into the continent, the winter gets harsher and the content that people bring onto social media gets more gruesome.
While the winter crippled Europe posts about temperatures way below zero Celsius, Ukrainians document these temperatures at home.
Specific heating hours and ice-covered corridors
During the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russia continues to target the country’s energy infrastructure. Powerful missile and drone strikes have resulted in power losses across Kyiv, Dnipro, Odessa, and other cities in Ukraine. Therefore, thousands of Ukrainians are spending winter days and nights in homes without reliable electricity, central heating, hot water, and light.
Just this week several strikes left more than 100K families in Kyiv alone in the cold and dark, as even power plants freeze after attacks.
In many regions, winter temperatures regularly fall to –5°C to –10°C, and during cold snaps they can plunge to –15°C or even –20°C overnight, making this winter the coldest in a decade.
A Ukrainian instagrammer yep4andy uses a special app that informs her about when the power will come on and off. Those times change every day “depending if Russia bombs another power plant or not.”
The instagrammer calls herself lucky because she has electricity at home for 5 hours a day.
“Im lucky to even post a 60-second video,” she claims in the video.
Others post videos of kids going to sleep in tents built inside livingrooms as a smaller space contains more warmth during the night.
@hot678959 💔🇺🇦 🧸 Kyiv . . .Children are freezing in their apartments Without light & without heat Children that should be carefree & happy These children are not statistics This is someone's childhood happening Right now in the dark & cold sub zero conditions Shame on us 😟🖤
♬ 原創音樂 - Free Ukraine
Videos also show people going as far as heating up last century metal irons to serve as a source of warmth and light.
@hot678959 I can't do this! 😭 Kiev residents are sharing photos and videos on social media showing their frozen apartments and how they are trying to stay warm. 😭🥺
♬ Where Spirits Sleep - Eric Heitmann & Amy Wallace
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