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.
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.
Posted on February 17, 2021 at 07:30 PM in Agriculture, Cover story, Gardening, Solar energy | Permalink | Comments (31)
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.
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 (47)
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 (10)
Low-tech Magazine was born in 2007 and has seen minimal changes ever since. Because a website redesign was long overdue — and because we try to practice what we preach — we decided to build a low-tech, self-hosted, and solar-powered version of Low-tech Magazine. The new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content.
The solar powered server that runs the new website.
Posted on September 25, 2018 at 03:49 PM in Access to information, Computers, Cover story, DIY, Energy consumption, Energy Efficiency, Internet, Low-tech solutions, Solar energy, Solar powered machines | Permalink | Comments (151)
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.
Continue reading "Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage" »
Posted on May 16, 2018 at 02:18 AM in Batteries, Compressed air, Cooling, Cover story, DIY, Embodied energy, Energy, Heating, Low-tech solutions, Solar energy, Wind energy | Permalink | Comments (41)
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.
Continue reading " History and Future of the Compressed Air Economy" »
Posted on May 15, 2018 at 11:39 PM in Batteries, Compressed air, Cover story, Energy, History, Power transmission, Solar energy, Wind energy | Permalink | Comments (10)