I did a search for a thread on this but didn't find anything recent, so here goes.
When I was a little guy, my parents lived off-grid in Eastern Washington, we had a large collection of Kerosene/oil lamps and lanterns. Several of these were Aladdin Lamps, a couple old lanterns, and some cheap oil lamps. We used these daily and I do not remember a single battery powered option.
Battery technology (and LED technology) has come a long way since then and I own several battery lanterns along with 5 or 6 kerosene options. I really like the battery lights, they are easy enough for the kids to use, don't smell, safer, and cheap to run. I recently bought 5 gallons of lamp grade kerosene, but ouch! almost $90 for 5 gallons. I can buy 100 AA batteries on Amazon for about $25.
So my question is this, excluding a TEOTWAWKI scenario, what major advantages do oil lamps have over battery lamps? Many of the battery options now are rechargeable. An example I own is the GoalZero lighthouse 250, it can be plugged into a USB port to recharge, has a hand crank (that actually works) and can be set to use only half the LED bulbs if the lantern is set against a wall. I also have a couple cheaper Coleman battery lamps that are nice but nowhere near the quality of the GoalZero. Streamlight and Princeton Tec have some good looking options as well.
So why bother with kerosene? How about propane lanterns?
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