We bring nonindustrial subsistence technology to (over)developed societies. We exist at the nexus of ancient, ethnographic, and modern subsistence. We aim to 1) identify ancient and contemporary nonindustrial technologies appropriate for use in modern, small-scale, self-sustaining infrastructure; 2) create do-it-yourself, resource-light solutions to sustainability problems; 3) provide our findings to the public for free use; and 4) create platforms to share information related to sustainability, especially solutions derived from ancient or ethnographic sources. We prize simple solutions over complex ones and eschew needless complication.
Last year I built prototype solar panels and summarized the preliminary data gathered in some test runs (see this project’s archive here). I’ve been collecting performance data over the last year and am now ready to present the results. Data Collection The data for this analysis comes from three temperature loggers (Elitech RC-4, P.S., we … More Solar Hot Water Panels Year 1 Data, sort of — Lab Note 1.08
The last five years have been the hottest ever recorded. Sea levels are at the highest in human history . . . the point of no return is no longer over the horizon. It is in sight and is hurtling towards us. The United Nations’ Secretary General, António Guterres, stated this at a press conference … More #GivingTuesday: Help a Different Type of Sustainability Nonprofit
As a research project, this one is a little unusual. Its material costs are low and it provides a return on investment (i.e., produces food), but it is extremely labor intensive. This makes sense, though, because if fossil fuels are taken out of the food system, we’re down to what we have available and must … More Grow Your Own — Part V: Support the Project
As you’ve read all week, we are going to be simulating the crash of fossil-fuel infrastructure in our food system. You can read about the overall idea, the chronological outline, and the study parameters in previous posts. Today we’ll be discussing how we’ll be sharing our results as we go. Regular Social- and Multimedia Reports … More Grow Your Own — Part IV: Follow Along
We should define the parameters under which we’ll be carrying out this simulation. You can read about the inspiration and overall idea for this experiment in Part I and the chronological outline in Part II. Here we’ll drill down on exactly what we’ll be doing. 1. We will concentrate our growing efforts on about half … More Grow Your Own — Part III: Rules for the Experiment
I used to ask my students, “how would your life change if fossil fuels or even just oil ran out?” Most answers involve transportation, which makes sense because the only time many of us think about oil is when we fill up our cars. In fact, the biggest immediate disruptions would be to our clean … More Grow Your Own — Part II: When Fossil Fuels Fail
What if fossil fuels disappeared? That is the premise of the Low Technology Institute and the question is not rhetorical. Fossil fuels will stop being used, whether it is tomorrow or in a few decades. At some point we will no longer be using coal, natural gas, or petroleum for our main energy sources. Perhaps … More Grow Your Own — Part I: What if Fossil Fuels Disappeared?
We’re excited to be part of the Community Engagement Open House on Wednesday, November 6, from 4:00–7:00 p.m. in UW–Madison’s H.F. DeLuca Forum Discovery Building (330 N. Orchard St.). The purpose of the event is to link up organizations with members of the community and help share ways to green our homes, engage in environmental … More Join us at the Community Engagement Open House at UW–Madision on Wednesday
I was recently in our perennial fruit plot spreading straw over the strawberry beds. I was thinking of the word strawberry as I worked. In German, it is Erdbeere, which means “earth berry.” In Spanish, fresa, which comes from the Latin Fragum and can be compared to French fraise and Italian fragola. Most food words in … More Putting Strawberries to Bed for the Winter. Wait “straw”berries?
Avid readers will notice that we haven’t been posting much over the last month. That’s because every free moment has been given over to installing our solar panels (see the earlier posts here). Here I’ll recap the physical installation of the panels and other components. In the next post, we’ll go through how we ended … More The Institute is Getting Solar Panels — Part IV: Installation
