How to Make Biomass Energy Sustainable Again

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

From the Neolithic to the beginning of the twentieth century, coppiced woodlands, pollarded trees, and hedgerows provided people with a sustainable supply of energy, materials, and food.

• October 5, 2020

Thermoelectric Stoves: Ditch the Solar Panels?

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

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.

• June 9, 2020

Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

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.

• May 15, 2020

Too Much Combustion, Too Little Fire

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

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.

• January 23, 2020

Mist Showers: Sustainable Decadence?

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

The daily shower would be hard to sustain in a world without fossil fuels. The mist shower, a satisfying but forgotten technology which uses very little water and energy, could be a solution. Designer Jonas Görgen developed a do-it-yourself kit to convert almost any shower into a mist shower and sent me one to try out.

• November 6, 2019

How to Make Wind Power Sustainable Again

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

For more than two thousand years, windmills were built from recyclable or reusable materials: wood, stone, brick, canvas, metal. When – electricity producing – wind turbines appeared in the 1880s, the materials didn’t change.It’s only since the arrival of plastic composite blades in the 1980s that wind power has become the source of a toxic waste product that ends up in landfills.

• June 27, 2019

Reinventing the Small Wind Turbine

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

Small wooden wind turbines offer additional benefits that are inherent to all decentralised power sources. The fact that they're paid for by the same people that enjoy their benefits, increases their public acceptance.

• June 17, 2019

Heat your House with a Water Brake Windmill

By Kris De Decker, Low-Tech Magazine

Direct heat production thus offers the possibility to save three times more greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuels using the same number of windmills, which are also cheaper and more sustainable to build. Hopefully, direct heat production will be given the priority it deserves.

• February 28, 2019