Despite technological advancements since the Industrial Revolution, cooking remains a spectacularly inefficient process.
Modular cargo cycles are cheap to build and easy to customize.
Automation is more energy-intensive than mechanisation.
High speed rail is destroying the most valuable alternative to the airplane; the “low speed” rail network that has been in service for decades.
The arrival of compact lithium-ion batteries has increased the performance and diversity of electrically heated clothing.
In the nineteenth century, miniature water turbines were connected to the tap and could power any machine that is now driven by electricity
The hydro power installations in use today are less energy efficient than those of earlier centuries.
The trend towards small-scale, decentralised power production means that rope transmission might have a place in our energy system again
Jerker line systems can be used to operate water pumps or sawing machines, to forge iron, to process food or fibres, or to make paper.
Long-distance power transmission predates the invention of electricity by almost four centuries.
A modular system unites the advantages of standardisation (parts can be produced cheaply in large amounts) with the advantages of customisation (a large diversity of unique objects can be made with relatively few parts).
About a quarter of the existent wind turbines would suffice to power as many electric velomobiles as there are people.