Thursday, August 11, 2011

Low Tech of Yesteryear

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I found a website containing a large number of articles dealing with historical technology going back almost 2000 years.  Yes 2000 years! It’s not a typo.




What is really fascinating is how some technology was eclipsed by other trends and then abandoned.  What is really amazing are the findings of experts that in some cases this technology was more efficient than modern petroleum fuel replacements.

Kind of begs the question as to why did we go with oil?



Hopefully some people will read the articles and will attempt to adopt some of what they read. For off grid in particular I believe   this would be advantageous.

Long before we had steam or electric power   medieval engineers built human powered cranes capable of lifting several tons of loads. Sounds handy for anyone attempting to build their own home from scratch without help from electric or diesel powered cranes.

There is even an article on how not to use alternative energy.

This leads into several articles dealing with pedal powered device.  One of the first lessons it gives is that electrical generation is perhaps the least efficient way to get a job done. The articles illustrate various pedal powered machines including a farm harvesting device   that does a tremendous amount of work just using human muscles.

While some of these may not have a tremendous level of interest in North American the apple harvesting and cider making operation sure caught my eye. I used to live in a region where a lot of apple cider was made. One place I rented had a large number of apple trees so something like that would have been of great interest at the time.

I have in recent times been asked for quotes for solar panels to power wood working shops.  Given they are all one man hobby shops pedal power might make more sense both financially and ecologically.



Even the index is too large to list so go there and see for yourself.



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