Vertical farming does not save space
High-tech problemsIf 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.
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How Sustainable is High-tech Health Care?
High-tech ProblemsCan we make modern health care carbon-neutral and maintain the levels of care, pain relief, and longevity that we have come to take for granted?
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How and why I stopped buying new laptops
High-tech ProblemsBeing an independent journalist – or an office worker if you wish – I always reasoned that I needed a decent computer and that I need to pay for quality.
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How to Make Biomass Energy Sustainable Again
Obsolete TechnologyFrom 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.
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Thermoelectric Stoves: Ditch the Solar Panels?
Low-tech SolutionsWood stoves equipped with thermoelectric generators can produce electricity that is more sustainable, more reliable, and less costly than power from solar PV panels.
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Fruit Trenches: Cultivating Subtropical Plants in Freezing Temperatures
Obsolete TechnologyDuring the first half of the twentieth century, Soviet citrologists grew (sub)tropical plants in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius – outdoors, and without the use of glass or any fossil fuel-powered assistance.
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How Sustainable is a Solar Powered Website?
Low-tech SolutionsWe present our website’s energy and uptime data, calculate the embodied energy of our configuration, consider the optimal balance between sustainability and server uptime, and outline possible improvements.
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The Solar Powered Website in Spanish, French, and Other Languages
High-tech ProblemsDuring the last months we have been working on transforming Low-tech Magazine into a multilingual publication.
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Too Much Combustion, Too Little Fire
Obsolete TechnologyThe 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.
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The Printed Website: Second Volume Out Now
High-Tech ProblemsThe second volume features a third of the web articles published in the earlier years, carefully selected for their continued relevance and interest today.
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Mist Showers: Sustainable Decadence?
Low-tech SolutionsThe water and energy use of the mist shower is so low that the bathroom could be taken off-grid and off-pipe even in an urban context.
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How to Make Wind Power Sustainable Again
High-tech ProblemsIf we build them out of wood, large wind turbines could become a textbook example of the circular economy.
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Reinventing the Small Wind Turbine
Low-tech SolutionsA wooden rotor and tower greatly increase the net energy output over the lifetime of a small wind turbine.