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Energy Storage

Communal Luxury: The Public Bathhouse

Throughout history, people have bathed in public rather than in private. Should we bring back the public bathhouse for the sake of sustainability?

Direct Solar Power: Off-Grid Without Batteries

Using solar panels without backup infrastructure makes renewable energy production much more affordable, efficient and sustainable.

Human Powered Air Compressor and Energy Storage System

Andy Lagzdins built and documented a pedal-powered air compressor to run the power tools in his motorcycle workshop.

The Printed Website: Volume III & The Comments

The printed archives of Low-tech Magazine now amount to four volumes with a total of 2,398 pages and 709 images.

Thermoelectric Stoves: Ditch the Solar Panels?

Wood stoves equipped with thermoelectric generators can produce electricity that is more sustainable, more reliable, and less costly than power from solar PV panels.

How Sustainable is a Solar Powered Website?

We 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.

Heat your House with a Mechanical Windmill

Given the right conditions, a mechanical windmill with an oversized brake system is a cheap, effective, and sustainable heating system.

Keeping Some of the Lights On: Redefining Energy Security

To improve energy security, we need to make infrastructures less reliable.

How to Build a Low-tech Website?

Our new website is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content.

Ditch the Batteries: Off-Grid Compressed Air Energy Storage

Compressed air energy storage is a sustainable and resilient alternative to chemical batteries, with much longer life expectancy, lower life cycle costs, technical simplicity, and low maintenance.

History and Future of the Compressed Air Economy

Historical compressed air systems hold the key to the design of a low-tech, low-cost, robust, sustainable and relatively energy efficient energy storage medium.

How to Run the Economy on the Weather

Adjusting energy demand to supply would make switching to renewable energy much more realistic than it is today.