LOW-TECH MAGAZINE

Could We Run Modern Society on Human Power Alone?

Unlike solar and wind energy, human power is always available, no matter the season or time of day. Unlike fossil fuels, human power can be a clean energy source, and its potential increases as the human population grows. In the Human Power Plant, Low-tech Magazine and artist Melle Smets investigate the feasibility of human energy production in the 21st century.

To find out if human power can sustain a modern lifestyle, we are designing plans to convert a 22 floors vacant tower building on the campus of Utrecht University in the Netherlands into an entirely human powered student community for 750 people. We're also constructing a working prototype of the human power plant that supplies the community with energy.

The Human Power Plant is both a technical and a social challenge. A technical challenge, because there's a lack of scientific and technological research into human power production. A social challenge, because unlike a wind turbine, a solar panel or an oil barrel, a human needs to be motivated in order to produce energy.

Why the Office Needs a Typewriter Revolution

The Olivetti Sottsass mechanical typewriter, 1969. Source: eBay.

Digital equipment is one of the main drivers behind the quickly growing energy use of modern office work. Could we rethink and redesign office equipment, combining the best of mechanical and digital devices?

Hand powered drilling tools and machines

Hand-powered devices have been used for millennia. However, during the last quarter of the 19th century a radically improved generation of tools appeared.

These tools took advantage of modern mass production machinery and processes (like interchangeable parts) and an increased availability in superior material (metal instead of wood).

One of the outcomes included an array of new drilling machines. These human-powered tools were not only a vast improvement over those that came before them, they also had many advantages in comparison to the power drills that we use today.

A 1922 breast drill (picture credit).

Automata: engineering for a post-oil world?

Our fascination with sophisticated technology lies at the core of many of our present-day problems. Yet, it need not be. By definition, technical virtuosity doesn't need to result in yet another electronic gadget or an even faster accelerating sports car. It can also lead to stunning yet completely harmless artefacts called "automata".

These are mostly hand-cranked machines that can be extremely complex, often with the only purpose of astonishing the spectator. Automata have been built for more than 2,000 years, but contemporary artists have elevated the craft to a higher level. Aside from their emotional value, automata offer a glimpse of a future, post-oil technology.

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.

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Mechanical calculators: computing without electricity

Fast and complicated calculations are a product of fossil fuels.

Multiplying and dividing numbers was not always that easy. Before the arrival of cheap electronic pocket calculators and computers in the 1970s, people relied on an array of low-tech means and machines to calculate taxes, profits or the properties of engineering parts.

Being an obsolete technology now, some of these 19th and 20th century calculators are surprisingly sophisticated and fashionable. Moreover, most are powered by a crank, which makes these gadgets "green". Today's pocket calculators are no power hogs, either. The thing is that computers took over most calculating jobs from calculators, and a large supercomputer consumes as much energy as a convoy of trucks.

What do we do with all that calculation power? We build fast cars, giant jumbo jets and worldwide information highways, all of which, in their turn, raise energy consumption. We also construct opaque financial products, rickety electronic voting systems and contradictory global warming scenarios. Mechanical calculators may be an inferior technology, but they had the benefit of keeping things on this planet relatively simple. A brief overview of the most remarkable models.