LOW-TECH MAGAZINE

Doubts on progress and technology                                                                                                                                                          

  • About
  • Obsolete Technology
  • High-Tech Problems
  • Low-Tech Solutions
  • All Articles
  • Offline Reading
  • Translations
  • HPP
  • NTM

Thermoelectric Stoves: Ditch the Solar Panels?

Wood stoves can provide a household with thermal energy for cooking and for space and water heating. Wood stoves equipped with thermoelectric generators also produce electricity, which can be more sustainable, more reliable and less costly than power from solar panels.

Thermoelectric-stove-diego-intro

Continue reading "Thermoelectric Stoves: Ditch the Solar Panels?" »

Posted on May 25, 2020 at 05:03 PM in Cover story, Energy production, Heating, Infrastructures, Low-tech solutions, Solar energy, Thermal energy, Wood | Permalink | Comments (50)

Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

плантации-476x500

Citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, mandarins, tangerines, grapefruits, limes, pomeloes) are the highest-value fruit crop in terms of international trade. Citrus plants are not frost-hardy and can only be grown in tropical and subtropical climates – unless they are cultivated in fossil fuel heated glasshouses. 

However, during the first half of the twentieth century, citrus fruits came to be grown a good distance from the (sub)tropical regions they usually thrive in. The Russians managed to grow citrus outdoors, where temperatures drop as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius, and without the use of glass or fossil fuels.

By 1950, the Soviet Union boasted 30,000 hectares of citrus plantations, producing 200,000 tonnes of fruits per year.

Continue reading "Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures" »

Posted on April 16, 2020 at 02:07 AM in Agriculture, Cover story, Low-tech solutions, Zero emissions | Permalink | Comments (29)

How Sustainable is a Solar Powered Website?

Detail-system-diego

Our self-hosted, solar-powered, off-grid website has been running for 15 months now. In this article, we present its energy and uptime data, and calculate the embodied energy of our configuration. Based on these results, we consider the optimal balance between sustainability and server uptime, and outline possible improvements.

Continue reading "How Sustainable is a Solar Powered Website?" »

Posted on January 29, 2020 at 12:05 PM in Access to information, Batteries, Cover story, Internet, Solar energy | Permalink | Comments (11)

Low-tech Magazine in Spanish, French, and Other Languages

During the last months we have been working on transforming Low-tech Magazine into a multilingual publication. Many articles had been translated over the years, but they were not easy to find. Now, each language has its own solar powered main page.

The French and Spanish versions are the most complete for now, with respectively 73 and 47 articles online. Dutch, German, Polish, Italian, and Portuguese main pages are also available. Some languages also have articles that are not translated into English.

Archive-spanish

Continue reading "Low-tech Magazine in Spanish, French, and Other Languages" »

Posted on January 27, 2020 at 02:24 PM in Access to information, Cover story | Permalink | Comments (9)

Too Much Combustion, Too Little Fire

The fire – which we have used in our homes for over 400,000 years – remains the most versatile and sustainable household technology that humanity has ever known. The fire alone provided what we now get through a combination of modern appliances such as the oven and cooking hob, heating system, lights, refrigerator, freezer, hot water boiler, tumble dryer, and television. Unlike these newer technologies, the fire had no need for a central infrastructure to make it work, and it could be built locally from readily available materials.

Toasterbanner

Continue reading "Too Much Combustion, Too Little Fire" »

Posted on December 29, 2019 at 12:28 PM in Cooking, Cover story, DIY, Embodied energy, Energy consumption, Energy production, Fossil fuels, Global warming, Heating, History, Infrastructures, Lighting, Low-tech solutions, Thermal energy, Wood | Permalink | Comments (20)

The Printed Website: Second Volume Out Now

Second-volume

The printed version of Low-tech Magazine can be viewed with no access to a computer or a power supply -- or when the solar powered website is down due to bad weather.

The second volume of the printed website is out now and contains 32 articles originally published between 2007 and 2012. The book, which has 618 pages and 268 images, is for sale in the Lulu Bookstore.

Whereas the first volume contained all but a handful of web articles published between 2012 and 2018, this second volume features a third of the web articles published in the earlier years, carefully selected for their continued relevance and interest today. Overall, we wanted to make an attractive book with timeless articles rather than an exact copy of the website.

Continue reading "The Printed Website: Second Volume Out Now" »

Posted on December 05, 2019 at 04:36 PM in Access to information, Books & References, Cover story, DIY, History | Permalink | Comments (12)

« Last page | Next page »

Get Updates

  • Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past and often forgotten technologies and how they can inform sustainable energy practices.
  • Subscribe by email
  • Subscribe by feed (RSS)
  • Follow LTM on Twitter
  • Support us: PayPal / Patreon

Solar Powered Website

  • New
  • Read Low-tech Magazine on our solar powered server -- if the weather is good.

Other Languages

  • Español
  • Français
  • Nederlands
  • Deutsch
  • Polska
  • Português

NO TECH MAGAZINE

Recent Posts

  • Can We Make Bicycles Sustainable Again?
  • What if We Replace Guns and Bullets with Bows and Arrows?
  • When Lethal Weapons Grew on Trees
  • How to Build a Practical Household Bike Generator
  • The Revenge of the Hot Water Bottle
  • The Printed Website: Volume III & The Comments
  • Fascine Mattresses: Basketry Gone Wild
  • How to Build a Low-tech Solar Panel?
  • How to design a sailing ship for the 21st century?

The Printed Website

  • Two-books
  • Read Low-tech Magazine with no access to a computer, a power supply, or the internet.

Search LTM + NTM