The Printed Website: Volume III & The Comments
The printed archives of Low-tech Magazine now amount to four volumes with a total of 2,398 pages and 709 images.
Solar Power
Interesting possibilities arise when you combine old technology with new knowledge and new materials, or when you apply old concepts and traditional knowledge to modern technology.
Technology has become the idol of our society, but technological progress is—more often than not—aimed at solving problems caused by earlier technical inventions.
There is a lot of potential in past and often forgotten knowledge and technologies when it comes to designing a sustainable society.
Fascine Mattresses: Basketry Gone Wild
Around the 17th century, the Dutch started reinforcing their dykes and harbours with sturdy mats the size of football pitches – hand-woven from thousands of twigs grown on nearby coppice plantations. These “fascine mattresses” were weighted with rocks and sunk into canals, estuaries, and rivers.
How to Build a Low-tech Solar Panel?
George Cove, a forgotten solar power pioneer, may have built a highly efficient photovoltaic panel 40 years before Bell Labs engineers invented silicon cells. If proven to work, his design could lead to less complex and more sustainable solar panels.
Vertical Farming Does not Save Space
If the electricity for a vertical farm is supplied by solar panels, the energy production takes up at least as much space as the vertical farm saves.
How to Make Biomass Energy Sustainable Again
From the Neolithic to the beginning of the twentieth century, coppiced woodlands, pollarded trees, and hedgerows provided people with a sustainable supply of energy, materials, and food.
Thermoelectric Stoves: Ditch the Solar Panels?
Wood stoves equipped with thermoelectric generators can produce electricity that is more sustainable, more reliable, and less costly than power from solar PV panels.
Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures
During the first half of the twentieth century, Soviet citrologists grew (sub)tropical plants in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius – outdoors, and without the use of glass or any fossil fuel-powered assistance.
How Sustainable is a Solar Powered Website?
We present our website’s energy and uptime data, calculate the embodied energy of our configuration, consider the optimal balance between sustainability and server uptime, and outline possible improvements.
The Printed Website: Second Volume Out Now
The second volume features a third of the web articles published in the earlier years, carefully selected for their continued relevance and interest today.
How to Run the Economy on the Weather
Adjusting energy demand to supply would make switching to renewable energy much more realistic than it is today.
How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone
Matching supply to demand at all times makes renewable power production a complex, slow, expensive and unsustainable undertaking.
How to Get Your Apartment Off the Grid
Solar panels on window sills and balconies can supply more power than you would think.
Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s
From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, urban farmers grew Mediterranean fruits and vegetables as far north as England and the Netherlands, using only renewable energy.
Reinventing the Greenhouse
Contrary to its fully glazed counterpart, a passive solar greenhouse is designed to retain as much warmth as possible.
How Sustainable is Stored Sunlight?
Energy storage is often ignored when scientists investigate the sustainability of PV systems.
How Sustainable is PV solar power?
Almost all solar PV panels are now produced in China, where the electric grid is about twice as carbon-intensive and about 50% less energy efficient than in Europe.
The Solar Envelope: How to Heat and Cool Cities without Fossil Fuels
Modern research, which combines ancient knowledge with fast computing techniques, shows that passive solar cities are a realistic option, allowing for surprisingly high population densities.
The Bright Future of Solar Thermal Powered Factories
To power industrial processes like the making of chemicals, the smelting of metals or the production of microchips, we need a renewable source of thermal energy.