Low-tech Magazine Volume I (2007-2012)

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 volume contains 268 images in black & white.

Contents table:

How to downsize a transport network: the Chinese wheelbarrow

Medieval smokestacks: fossil fuels in pre-industrial times

The bright future of solar powered factories

Pedal powered farms and factories: the forgotten future of the stationary bicycle

Bike powered electricity generators are not sustainable

The short history of early pedal powered machines

Insulation: first the body, then the home

Aerial ropeways: automatic cargo transport for a bargain

Hand powered drilling tools and machines

Boat mills: water powered, floating factories

Recycling animal and human dung is the key to sustainable farming

The status quo of electric cars: better batteries, same range

The sky is the limit: human powered cranes and lifting devices

Wood gas vehicles: firewood in the fuel tank

Gas bag vehicles

Trolley canal boats

How (not) to resolve the energy crisis

Rings of fire: Hoffmann kilns

Wind powered factories: history (and future) of industrial windmills

Water powered cable trains

Get wired (again): Trolleybuses and Trolleytrucks

Electric road trains in Germany, 1901 – 1950

The monster footprint of digital technology

Cargo ships, then and now

Moonlight towers: light pollution in the 1800s

Tiles as a substitute for steel: the art of the timbrel vault

A steam powered submarine: the Ictíneo

The Citroen 2CV: cleantech from the 1940s

Life without airplanes: from London to New York in 3 days and 12 hours

Satellite navigation in the 18th century

Email in the 18th century: the optical telegraph

This volume is also available as a paperback or hardcover book.