Battery used Battery charging

Truckloads of Hard Disks

Imagine you put a portable hard disk of 500 gigabytes in your backpack and start walking. In which cases are you faster than your internet connection?

Camping in the clouds: the Aeromodeller II

The gipsy zeppelin baseship of Lieven Standaert generates its own energy, never has to land, and is equipped with a sun terrace where you can have a coffee.

Moonlight Towers: Light Pollution in the 1800s

At the end of the 19th century, many towns and cities were lit up by powerful electrical lamps placed on towers up to 300 feet (90 metres) high.

Only idiots travel by train

How can you blame people for flying if there is no affordable alternative?

Sunbathing in the Living Room: Oven Stoves and Heat Walls

Oven stoves are greener, more efficient, healthier, safer and cosier than all modern heating systems. Why are they gone and how do we get them back?

How to Build a Floating Trash Island

Artificial floating islands can be used to clean urban bodies of water. Any polluted canal, river, estuary, lake in a city park, or storm water retention pond would benefit from a floating island.

Tiles as a Substitute for Steel: The Art of the Timbrel Vault

The craftsmanship associated with timbrel vaulting has long vanished, but the achievements are still with us today.

Viva Las Vegas: LEDs and the energy efficiency paradox

LEDs introduce lighting in places and situations where there was no lighting before.

The Age of Speed: How to Reduce Global Fuel Consumption by 75 Percent

If we cut the average speed of all vehicles by half, fuel consumption would decrease by a whopping 75 percent.

Urban windmills harm the environment

A small windmill on your roof or in the garden is an attractive idea. Unfortunately, commercially available micro wind turbines deliver hardly enough energy to power a light bulb. Their financial payback time is much longer than their life expectancy and in urban areas they will not even deliver as much energy as was needed to produce them.

A Steam Powered Submarine: The Ictíneo

Narcís Monturiol successfully resolved the two basic obstacles presented to submarine inventors: air supply and mechanical power.

Carbon sequestration: Bury the Idea, not the CO2

Why introduce yet another expensive, energy-intensive and risky technology if there are so many other and better ways of fighting global warming?