We built a pedal-powered generator and controller, which is practical to use as an energy source and exercise machine in a household — and which you can integrate into a solar PV system. We provide detailed plans to build your own, using basic skills and common hand tools.
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As a society depends more on energy sources for its daily functioning, it becomes more vulnerable if the supply of energy is interrupted. This obvious fact is ignored in current strategies to achieve energy security, making them counter-productive.
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Going off-grid? Think twice before you invest in a battery system. Compressed air energy storage is the sustainable and resilient alternative to batteries, with much longer life expectancy, lower life cycle costs, technical simplicity, and low maintenance. Designing a compressed air energy storage system that combines high efficiency with small storage size is not self-explanatory, but a growing number of researchers show that it can be done.
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Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is considered to be an important component of a renewable power grid, because it could store surplus power from wind turbines and solar panels on a large scale. However, in its present form, the technology suffers from large energy losses and depends on natural gas to operate.
A look at the 4,000 year long history of compressed air makes clear that this is not unavoidable. Although our ancestors were dependent on less energy efficient technology, they used compressed air in more intelligent configurations that had fewer energy conversion losses and were independent of fossil fuels.
These historical systems hold the key to the design of a low-tech, low-cost, robust, sustainable and relatively energy efficient energy storage medium. The compressed air economy could be the practical and realistic alternative to the hydrogen or all-electric utopias.
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Because energy fuels both human development and environmental damage, policies that encourage energy demand reduction can run counter to policies for alleviating poverty, and the other way around. Achieving both objectives can only happen if energy use is spread more equally across societies.
However, while it’s widely acknowledged that part of the global population is living in ‘energy poverty’, there’s little attention given to the opposite condition, namely ‘energy excess’ or ‘energy decadence’. Researchers have calculated minimum levels of energy use needed to live a decent life, but what about maximum levels?
The information society promises to dematerialise society and make it more sustainable, but modern office and knowledge work has itself become a large and rapidly growing consumer of energy and other resources.