Carbide is fine
It is an acceptable way of lighting your way around most caves around the world, it is not carbide that is the problem but cavers misuse of it.
On expeditions a decent carbide generator doubles as an emergency stove and a hot water bottle to get you out the sh*t.
Don't be scared to use carbide in the UK caves where it is not formally banned, just use it sensibly, you can find guidelines on its use easily enough and although as you quite rightly pointed out it is emotive, it is NOT illegal, don't let the PC types force it out of use. The light from a carbide lamp is superb and will light up a huge area unlike the various electric options (It occurs to me that batteries are actually quite nasty for the environment as well and nobody objects to them) :-\
Learned wisdom
Fettling your light gives you plenty of opportunity for a rest, or to let somebody else go ahead (nasty wet bit coming up) or just a chance of a quick warm off the generator.
Tuck the generator inside your oversuit at cold wet draughty pitches to warm up whilst hanging around, luxury
Give the generator a big shake and rev up the flame to illuminate the whole place at the bottom of big pitches - it scares the willies off me if I can see how far down it is
When you suddenly become aware of a warm feeling in your helmet, you smell plastic burning and the whole area suddenly lights up really brightly then your gas hose is probably alight :-[
Water resevoirs filled with urine still work well, but stink to high heaven
When abseiling, don't look directly at the rope, remember it is the only thing stopping you from demonstrating gravity (9.8Ms2
), burning the rope is bad :chair:
Carbide is fun, useful, annoying, warm, explosive, dangerous, friendly, life saving and above all emotive. Like most things in life it is fine until it is misused.
Store your spare carbide on a trip in a watertight but flexible container, a carbide pig is ideal, a metal box (ammo tin) or brittle plastic tube (BDH or Rocket tube) is not - see the Slit Pot incident in one of the Descent back issues - a very funny story that all to easily could have ended in tragedy :read:
Apres caving - chuck a few rocks of carbide into a plastic lemonade bottle, partly filled with water, screw on the lid, throw the bottle a good distance away, wait (Safety disclaimer - Never return to a lit firework, or a charged carbide bomb, boys and girls :read
