Cap'n Chris said:
In the UK (and elsewhere) there are no longer many genuine reason(s) to use carbide; if you care about cave conservation then you definitely won't use it.
I confess I'm a bit short of time to look at that scavalon piece right now - but I always thought any problems with carbide were mainly due to those people who used it irresponsibly, not the carbide itself.
I was brought up to cave on a small Premier carbide lamp. I used to carry a plastic container to put used carbide into for transport out of the cave. Unlike the big "expedition" style lamps - which do burn with a sooty flame - the small Premier doesn't seem to cause sooty problems in the air and, used well, there's no reason they should leave any sooty marks on the walls.
Excepting the possible issue relating to the tiny amount of heat produced disturbing hibernating bats in winter, what's the problem (in a nutshell)?
(By the way - and again, apologies for not having read that article as I type - isn't something published by the S C Avalon likely to be about the big carbide lamps, rather than the small ones which have been more commonly used un the UK for years? If so it may have less relevance
to us than might be generally assumed.)