Low-tech Magazine

UNESCO sets up online Traditional Knowledge Database

The freshly launched "International Traditional Knowledge Institute" (ITKI) is an ambitious effort to preserve, restore and promote the re-use of traditional skills and inventions from all over the world. It includes an online encyclopaedia of low-tech know-how, though it will take many years before it is completed.

The sky is the limit: human powered cranes and lifting devices

From the earliest civilisations right up to the start of the Industrial Revolution, humans used sheer muscle power, organisation skills and ingenious mechanics to lift weights that would be impossible to handle by most power cranes in operation today.

Trolley canal boats

For many centuries, canal boats were propelled by men, horses or mules on the towpath beside the water. Before diesel power took over, engineers developed several interesting methods powered by electricity: trolleyboats, floating funiculars and electric mules. Many of these ecological solutions could be applied today instead of diesel engines. Because of the very low energy requirements, they could easily be powered by renewable energy, generated on the spot by water turbines located at sluices. One trolleyboat line is still in use.

Cars: out of the way

Some readers have observed that we haven't paid any attention to one of the most low-tech innovations ever - the humble bicycle. We noted the sex-appeal of pedal power (and this concerns both men and women), but that's about it.

So, since you asked for it, here is our concise but clear point of view on these human powered contraptions.

Wind powered factories: history (and future) of industrial windmills

In the 1930s and 1940s, decades after steam engines had made wind power obsolete, Dutch researchers obstinately kept improving the – already very sophisticated – traditional windmill.

The results were spectacular, and there is no doubt that today an army of ecogeeks could improve them even further. Would it make sense to revive the industrial windmill and again convert kinetic energy directly into mechanical energy?

Water powered cable trains

Cable trains (or funiculars) are one of the most energy-efficient modes of transport out there.

A large portion of the power required to pull up the ascending car is delivered by the counterweight of the descending car.

Many historical systems used this efficiency and took it one step further with systems exclusively powered by water and gravity.

Cargo ships, then and now

On an early afternoon last month, the Eugen Maersk (the world's longest ocean freighter at 1,300 feet) has left Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on the tail end of a journey from Shanghai. But the giant freighter is cruising at 10 knots, well shy of her 26-knot top speed. At about half speed, fuel consumption drops to 100-150 tons of fuel a day from 350 tons, saving as much as $5,000 an hour.

The German Preussen (picture above), the largest sailing ship ever built, was launched in 1902 and travelled mainly between Hamburg (Germany) and Iquique (Chile). It was rammed by a large steam vessel in 1910. A one way trip between Germany and Chile took the cargo vessel between 58 and 79 days. The best average speed over a one way trip was 13.7 knots. The lowest average speed was 10 knots.

One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50 million cars, study finds. Time for a new age of sail.

Picture credit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Museum of Old Techniques

For almost every electronic device or oil driven machine there used to be a low-tech alternative that was powered by human muscles, water or wind. The Museum of Old Techniques aims to collect and study these historical alternatives to modern day machinery. Why, you may ask?

To quote the Museum: "Evolution doesn't necessarily mean progress, what we consider to be primitive solutions are often not primitive at all". We could not have said it better ourselves. The website of the MOT contains, among other things, some 2,000 simple drawings of hand tools (ordered by shape, and by profession) and a collection of illustrated trade catalogues (up until 1950, in French).

A somewhat related publication is Edward H. Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary (1881) : an almost 3,000 page encyclopedia with descriptions and illustrations of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering dating from the 19th century. You need to download a plugin to see the scans.

Knight's book contains not only early electric equipment and steam driven machinery, but also human and animal powered machines. The site is also host to a 1,500 page Western Electric Catalog dating from 1916, describing and picturing electric equipment on sale at the time. Related: hand powered drilling tools & more obsolete technologies.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bring back the horses

Replacing tractors with real horse power could be the revolution that agriculture needs.

Horses and other draft and pack animals revolutionized transportation, war, hunting, manufacturing and agriculture. Work horses formed the backbone of industrial society until the first decennia of the 20th century, mining coal, ploughing fields and transporting goods and people in fast growing cities.

Reintroducing horses in city traffic would be a bad idea - cars might be noisy, dangerous and polluting, but mounts are even worse. In agriculture, however, animal power would bring surprisingly large environmental profits.

Heat your house with car tyres and earth

Energy hungry America teaches the world how to build ecological houses.

A dirt cheap and 100 percent ecological house that has all the comforts of an ordinary home, without being connected to the electricity grid, waterworks, sewer system or the natural gas network. It does exist, but in most countries, building one is not allowed.

An Earthship is a completely self-sufficient house that has a natural temperature regulation, without the use of a heating system. The building also generates its own electricity, collects and filters its own drinking water and cleans its own effluent water. The house is partly buried into the earth and is constructed mainly with waste materials; car tyres, aluminium cans and glass bottles. This low-tech building approach is ecologically as well as economically advantageous.

This autumn, the British coastal city of Brighton approved the construction of 16 Earthships. It’s the first time that a European city council has given builders the green light to mass construct this radical ecological housing form. In the United States nearly one thousand Earthships have been built, most of them in the desert of New Mexico. (Pictures: Michael Reynolds)