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How to Make Wind Power Sustainable Again
How to Make Wind Power Sustainable Again 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 […]
Keeping Some of the Lights On: Redefining Energy Security
Keeping Some of the Lights On: Redefining Energy Security Image: Camilla MP. What is Energy Security? What does it mean for a society to have “energy security”? Although there are more than forty different definitions of the concept, they all share the fundamental idea that energy supply should always meet energy demand. This also implies […]
How Circular is the Circular Economy?
How Circular is the Circular Economy? Illustration: Diego Marmolejo. Introducing the Circular Economy The circular economy has become, for many governments, institutions, companies, and environmental organisations, one of the main components of a plan to lower carbon emissions. In the circular economy, resources would be continually re-used, meaning that there would be no more mining […]
Bedazzled by Energy Efficiency
Bedazzled by Energy Efficiency To focus on energy efficiency is to make present ways of life non-negotiable. However, transforming present ways of life is key to mitigating climate change and decreasing our dependence on fossil fuels. Energy efficiency policy Energy efficiency is a cornerstone of policies to reduce carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependence in […]
How to Run the Economy on the Weather
How to Run the Economy on the Weather Before the Industrial Revolution, people adjusted their energy demand to a variable energy supply. Our global trade and transport system — which relied on sail boats — operated only when the wind blew, as did the mills that supplied our food and powered many manufacturing processes. The […]
How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone
How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone While the potential of wind and solar energy is more than sufficient to supply the electricity demand of industrial societies, these resources are only available intermittently. To ensure that supply always meets demand, a renewable power grid needs an oversized power generation […]
How to Get Your Apartment Off the Grid
How to Get Your Apartment Off the Grid Picture: Low-tech Magazine’s solar powered office. The typical solar PV power installation requires access to a private roof and a big budget. However, wouldn’t it be possible to get around these obstacles by installing small solar panels on window sills and balconies, connected to a low-voltage direct […]
Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s
Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s We are being told to eat local and seasonal food, either because other crops have been tranported over long distances, or because they are grown in energy-intensive greenhouses. But it wasn’t always like that. From the sixteenth to the twentieth century, urban farmers grew Mediterranean fruits and vegetables […]
