Low-Tech Magazine 2012-2018 (Second Edition)

Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past and often forgotten technologies and how they can inform sustainable energy practices. Sometimes, past technologies can be copied without any changes. More often, interesting possibilities arise when older technology is combined with new knowledge and new materials, or when past concepts and traditional knowledge are applied to modern technology. Inspiration is also to be found in the so-called "developing" world, where resource constraints often lead to inventive, low-tech solutions. This second volume (704 pages, 257 images) contains 36 articles published between 2012 and 2018. Contents table: How to Build a Low-tech Website? We Can’t Do It Ourselves Ditch the Batteries: Off-grid Compressed Air Energy Storage History and Future of the Compressed Air Economy How Much Energy Do We Need? Bedazzled by Energy Efficiency How to Run the Economy on the Weather How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone Could We Run Modern Society on Human Power Alone? Heat Storage Hypocausts: Air Heating in the Middle Ages Why the Office Needs a Typewriter Revolution The Curse of the Modern Office How to Get Your Apartment Off the Grid Slow Electricity: The Return of DC Power? Power Water Networks Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s Reinventing the Greenhouse How to Build a Low-tech Internet The 4G Mobile Internet that’s Already There Why We Need a Speed Limit for the Internet How Sustainable is Stored Sunlight? How Sustainable is PV Solar Power? Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, not Places The Revenge of the Circulating Fan If We Insulate Our Houses, Why Not Our Cooking Pots? Well-Tended Fires Outperform Modern Cooking Stoves Modular Cargo Cycles High Speed Trains are Killing the European Railway Network Power from the Tap: Water Motors Back to Basics: Direct Hydropower The Mechanical Transmission of Power (3): Endless Rope Drives The Mechanical Transmission of Power (2): Jerker Line Systems The Mechanical Transmission of Power (1): Stangenkunst How to make everything ourselves: open modular hardware Electric velomobiles: as fast and comfortable as automobiles, but 80 times more efficient Cargo cyclists replace truck drivers on European city streets The solar envelope: how to heat and cool cities without fossil fuel