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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Technology” category
Showing results 81 - 85 of 87 for the category: Technology.
6 Apr 2006
The Totnes Sustainability Group is holding a half-day conference in May to launch a study it commissioned which looks at all the renewable energy options for South Devon and for the town of Totnes. It compiles a wealth of information that will be extremely useful to the Totnes Energy Descent Plan. Its findings are similar to those of Paul Mobbs in ‘Energy Beyond Oil’, who says that renewables, at max, could provide 40% of the nation’s energy, the rest needing to come from conservation. The figure the report produces for South Devon is closer to 30%. I will put the report itself on here when it is completed. The conference is by invite only, details below. I am one of the speakers, attempting to give an overview of peak oil and energy descent in 15 minutes!
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10 Mar 2006
This is possibly the single most wonderful things you could do with oil barrels. How about converting them into the most efficient form of space heating imaginable? All for just a few quid? In such a way as to heat the house as well as a beautiful heated cob bench, bed, whatever? I am always drawn towards technology that is simple enought that I can build it, look after it and explain it. The Rocket Stove is potentially one of the greatest inventions of recent years, and one you really should know about. Why there aren’t research facilities full of engineers running around with barrels and cob and making fires to test their amazing new creations is beyond me….
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1 Mar 2006
Allan Jones is a bit of a hero of mine. I was very excited about hearing him speak and he provided a very interesting talk. He is the Chief Development Officer of the London Climate Change Agency. He is also the guy who set up the UK’s first ESCO and did such amazing work in Woking with decentralized energy systems. Allan Jones has been headhunted by Ken Livingston to achieve a Zero Carbon London, and listening to the no-nonsense way he speaks, you’d think he might actually pull it off.
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17 Feb 2006
I’m rather bewildered by this and therefore don’t feel especially able to offer an intelligent comment (what’s new I hear you cry), but I thought I should draw your attention to it anyway. Our options for disposing of our dead are either burial (running out of space) or burning. It uses a staggering amount of fossil fuel to cremate a body. Wikipedia reports that you could drive 4,800 miles on the energy equivalent of the energy used to cremate one body. Crematories also release between 0.8 and 5.9 grams of mercury (from amalgam tooth fillings), as each body is burned. There is a growing green burial movement, using biodegradable coffins and planting trees on top of bodies and so on which is wonderful, but you might also like to consider a new process called Promession.
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16 Feb 2006
The time has come at **TransitionCulture** to address one of the less palatable but, I think, more fascinating aspects of this whole energy descent business. What happens when it becomes too costly, unfeasible or, due to sudden disruptions to our energy supplies, impossible, to run our mains sewage system? When the whole system stops working and we still need to go, where will we, as it were, go? As someone who until a few months ago had spent 6 years of my life using a compost toilet, I thought I might share my experience of a flush-free life.
Humanity can fly to the moon, build the Channel Tunnel and so on, but we still defecate in water and then try and work out what to do with it.
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The Totnes Sustainability Group is holding a half-day conference in May to launch a study it commissioned which looks at all the renewable energy options for South Devon and for the town of Totnes. It compiles a wealth of information that will be extremely useful to the Totnes Energy Descent Plan. Its findings are similar to those of Paul Mobbs in ‘Energy Beyond Oil’, who says that renewables, at max, could provide 40% of the nation’s energy, the rest needing to come from conservation. The figure the report produces for South Devon is closer to 30%. I will put the report itself on here when it is completed. The conference is by invite only, details below. I am one of the speakers, attempting to give an overview of peak oil and energy descent in 15 minutes!
