No Tech Magazine

A Low-tech Trick to Eliminate Standby Power Consumption

Standby power use is the electricity consumed by appliances and other equipment when they are switched off or not performing their primary purpose. It is responsible for 3 to 12 percent of residential electricity use worldwide (source, pdf). Freelance journalist Robert Buzink has a low-tech solution for this - all you need is a pair of scissors and a screwdriver. The text is in Dutch but the pictures speak for themselves.

Waste Heat

"A 2007 study of Tokyo showed that summer temperatures in neighborhoods with office buildings are warmer by nearly 2 degrees Celsius when air conditioning units are running - because as the units cool the insides of buildings, they also pump heat into the air." Read, via.

Materials = Energy

Following the intriguing but oversimplified graphic on materials scarcity published by New Scientist (a graphic that turns out to be 2 years old, by the way), this in-depth article at the Oil Drum Europe (original article here) gives a well founded look at the problem of metal minerals scarcity. Especially interesting is the link between energy and minerals:

"In case of unlimited energy supply, metal minerals extraction would only be limited by the total amount of mineral resources. However, due to the scarcity of energy, the extraction rates of most types of metal minerals will cease to follow demand. Probably the only acceptable long-term solution to avoid a global systemic collapse of industrial society, caused by these resource constraints, is a path towards managed austerity. Managed austerity will have to be a combination of changes in technology and changes in both individual and collective human behaviour."

Related: Historical statistics for mineral and material commodities.

Kicking the habit: the Oil Depletion Protocol

"By agreeing to reduce oil imports and exports by a specified amount each year, about 2.6 percent, signatory nations will help mitigate the negative consequences of an over-reliance on cheap oil and help prepare for a global decline in the world’s oil supply.

The premise of the Protocol is inherently straightforward: oil importing nations would agree to reduce their imports by an agreed-upon yearly percentage, referred to as the World Oil Depletion Rate, while oil producing nations would agree to reduce their rate of production by their National Depletion Rate.

This simple and sensible formula will produce, in effect, a global rationing system. If the entire world adopted the Protocol, global consumption of oil would decline by almost 3 percent per annum, thus stabilizing prices, preserving the resource base, and reducing competition for remaining supplies."

The Oil Depletion Protocol (via).

Economy = Energy

"The world economy will contract for at least the next 50 years as oil production declines since oil is such an important proportion of world energy use and oil energy facilitates the production of other energy forms (e.g. coal mining, solar, wind). There may be some local and temporary economic growth in regions with local concentrations of available energy but, on the whole, contraction will be the rule". Read.