Table of Contents
What You Will Do
- Understand what makes technology appropriate, or not.
- Become acquainted with appropriate technology examples.
- Identify ways in which you can lower your ecological footprint by using various appropriate technologies.
- Understand how to use appropriate technology in the context of a design, and choose what appropriate technologies to include in your design project.
What is appropriate technology?
This section by Kareen Erbe
Appropriate technology solutions are intended to be the simplest solution to the problem at hand.
Welcome to the Appropriate Technology Module! Appropriate technology and ecological design go hand in hand. Remember that the ecological design goal is to meet our food, energy, shelter and other needs in a way that helps, rather than harms the Earth. Through appropriate technology, we are engineering ways in which to meet those needs in the simplest, most locally based ways possible.
The ecological crises that we are facing today is very much related to the fact that our economy, our agriculture, and our technologies are out of scale with what the planet can support. When entities are out of scale, natural patterns in the landscape are disrupted. In fact, it is our advances in technology that have led to a lot of that destruction. For example, combine harvesters have allowed us to cultivate large monocultures that have led to soil erosion and topsoil depletion. Advances in cell phones and computers, coupled with consumerism and a global economy, have not only mined the earth of natural resources, but have created tons of electronic waste that fill our landfills.
Understanding and using appropriate technology is about bringing things back into scale and applying the principle of using small and slow solutions.
As mentioned in the video, appropriate technology is technology that is suited to the social and economic conditions of a particular region in which it is to be applied, is ecologically sound, and promotes self-reliance on the part of those using it. It is:
- Human centered and human scaled.
- Replicable and understandable.
- Uses locally available resources and is locally controlled.
- Often labor-intensive but energy efficient.
Reducing consumption first
Before you think of applying any of the technologies that we will cover in this module, think first about reducing your consumption. Though it’s heartening to see advances in alternative energy, such as solar and wind, it seems like many of these advances are designed to meet society’s current needs, without addressing our overconsumption.
For example, people choose to put solar panels on their roofs to power their TVs, dryers, multiple appliances, and possibly even multiple cars. While it may be a step in the right direction, alternative energy technology often prevents us from taking a good look at our consumption. What’s more, these technologies contain a lot of embodied energy. From the extraction of the base materials to the manufacturing and the shipping, the energy involved in producing a product like a solar panel or a wind turbine is substantial.
Chances are that if you live in a developed nation, you are likely consuming at a level that is not sustainable for the rest of the planet. The challenge is not to find an energy source that will support that lifestyle, the solution first lies in our willingness to reduce our consumption. Then, we can look at appropriate technologies to meet our reduced needs.
The most obvious way to reduce consumption is through growing your own food. Reducing our transportation miles from farm to table immediately reduces our impact.
Household strategies for reducing consumption.
Simple strategies in your home can go a long way. For example, though we strive for an ecological home system, we do live in a conventional home. However, before putting solar panels on our roof, which is perfectly aspected for that technology and in a climate where it makes sense, I am going to look at ways to reduce our energy use first.
This is what we have done so far:
- Added extra insulation in the attic.
- Hung thick curtains on all of our windows and deck doors. We close these at sunset to keep the heat in during the winter.
- Insulated the water heater.
- Open the oven after use so that residual heat can help heat the house.
- We’ve never had a microwave.
- Turn off lights in the rooms that we are not using.
- Rarely use the clothes dryer (maybe 5 times/year). Instead, we hang up clothes on a line outside in the summer and on a line in the basement in the winter.
- Rarely use the dishwasher. Instead, we hand wash and use the dishwasher as a drying rack.
- We don’t have air conditioning because it’s unnecessary for Montana summers. Instead, we open all the windows at night to cool down the house, and shut them during the day to keep the cool air indoors.
In the coming years, our plan is to attach a greenhouse to the front of the house. This will not only provide passive solar heating, which is key in our cold climate, but serves the additional function of growing more food and extending our short growing season. Only after we’ve added a greenhouse, will I then consider solar panels. However, I’ll evaluate our energy bills at that point, balancing the expense of the panels and their embodied energy versus the energy produced.
Again, using small and slow solutions that take minimal resources is your primary goal. Below is a checklist for easily reducing your household consumption in a conventional home.
Checklist for easily reducing household energy consumption in a conventional home.
- Add extra insulation to your attic.
- If you live in a cold climate, put heavy curtains on all of your windows. Close these up at night or when you are not at home.
- In hot weather, shade your windows and open your house to cooling breezes after the sun has set.
- Insulate your water heater.
- Open the oven after use so that the residual heat can contribute to the heat in the house.
- Do not (or rarely use) the clothes dryer (tumble dryer). Build a clothesline outside and indoors.
- Do not (or rarely use) the dishwasher. Hand wash instead!
- Do not (or rarely use) an air conditioner.
- Turn off lights in rooms that you are not using.
- Get rid of your microwave if you have one.
- Unplug appliances when not in use (e.g. toaster, blender, coffee maker).
- Make a blanket box or hay box for cooking beans, rice and other slow cooked foods.
- Read a book instead of watching TV.
- Play a board game or an instrument instead of being on the computer.
- Draw or paint something instead of looking at your phone.
Appropriate technology applied to your design
Now that you’ve reduced consumption for yourself or your client, and thought through lifestyle design in regards to walking, biking and driving, it’s time to design for appropriate technology application on your site.
Appropriate technology in the context of your whole-system design means that you are designing to scale, to your site, and to the local resources that are available. Always fall back on the idea of good design first.
You should start by asking these two main questions:
- What elements are in abundance on the site?
- How can you take advantage of them while sticking to the ethics of earth care, people care and fair share?
Then, follow-up the design process with these questions:
- Is the technology accessible and empowering to you/the user?
- Will the technology perform reliably where it’s intended to be used?
- Can it be built and improved upon by you/the users?
With these questions in mind, remember that a technology that is appropriate to one set of circumstances is not necessarily appropriate for another. For example, using a solar oven in Seattle, Washington where there are few days of sun, would not be a good idea. However, that same solar oven in Denver, Colorado where they receive 300 days of sunshine/year, is a perfect solution.
If the technology you’ve chosen for a site scores high with regards to the following indicators, you are likely assured an appropriate fit:
- Community input.
- Affordability.
- Autonomy.
- Transferability.
- Community control.
- Scalability.
- Local availability of materials.
- Adaptability.
Appropriate technology helps us develop resilient local communities that are less dependent on the fossil fuel economy, and more creative and innovative in their approach. It does more than solve the issue for which it was intended. In looking for low-tech solutions and using resources on site, appropriate technology puts control back into the hands of the people. One of the philosophies behind ecological design is taking responsibility for our own existence and that of our children. Like so many strategies and techniques that you have learned in this course, using appropriate technologies advances you further towards that goal of self-reliance.
The case for passive heating and cooling
In a study published in 2009 by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, it was found that heating a house consumes 42% of a household’s energy use, and air conditioning 6%. Therefore, by understanding and using passive heating and cooling technologies, we can significantly reduce our energy consumption, through smart design.
Cooking and Food Storage
Heating your home, cooking and food storage are some of the most consumptive ways in which we use energy. According to the aforementioned report, lighting and other appliances (e.g. toasters, ovens, blenders) comprise 30% of energy consumption in a home, and refrigeration accounts for 5%. In my video, I cover one simple and easy appropriate technology that you can start using within minutes, and touch briefly on several other technologies to consider.
Here is a link to the photo album on Facebook that I reference in the video. This will take you through the step-by-step process of building a cob oven.
Creating a Walking/Biking Culture
As a complement to these strategies, you can easily reduce your carbon footprint by setting up a lifestyle that is more of a walking/biking culture vs. a driving culture.
This approach brings us back to the idea of “zones”. Rather than thinking of zones in the context of a property, you want to use the zoning idea with regards to where you live and how often you are walking, biking, driving and flying.
For example, if zone 1 is your house, then zone 2 is where you walk to on a daily basis, zone 3 are locations that are bikeable, zone 4 are locations that you frequent via public transport, zone 5 are places where you need to travel by car, and finally, zone 6 are those regions where you would need to fly, take a train or a boat.
You could conceivably design your life where your house is located near your place of work (if not in your home), your children’s school is within walking distance, perhaps the grocery store and library are within biking distance, and your babysitter is within driving distance. Finally, the visit to your family once a year during the holidays requires a flight. The idea is to design your life in such a way that, like on a property, you are spending most of your time in zones 1 and 2, the areas that you need to visit on a daily basis.
Check out these resources here:
Pedal Power
Though I won’t go into much detail here, one interesting appropriate technology to research is pedal powered machines. Pedal power can be used for various applications which would otherwise require electricity or hand power. In addition, they stack functions in terms of accomplishing the task while producing no pollution and providing exercise! Examples include pedal powered water pumps, grinders, nut shellers, blenders, grain mills and more. To explore innovations happening in this field, visit http://mayapedal.org/.
Solar and Wind Power
Because there is so much information already available about solar and wind power, I did not go into detail in this module about those technologies. Before deciding on either, however, remember that solar panels and wind turbines represent a lot of embodied energy.
Put some thought into whether they are the most appropriate solution to your energy problem. Are there other technologies or design fixes that you can adopt first?
Homework
Questions for Review
- What is the difference between appropriate technology in the context of developed versus developing nations?
- Each human is also an important component in the larger system. What are your connections with your habitat, your neighborhood?
- Brainstorm a list of five ways in which you could decrease your ecological footprint by using appropriate technologies on your property.
Recommended Hands-On
These activities are recommended, if possible, to solidify your learning and help advance your design project.
- Map the technologies on your site and assess ways to make them more appropriate. Can you connect them together and save energy? Can you replace them with renewable means? Can you change human patterns to step more lightly on the Earth? Design it.
- What is your ecological footprint? How many earths do you need to support your lifestyle? Go to http://www.footprintcalculator.org and or use this calculator, here.
- Make a blanket box for your household and cook something with it. If you need a reminder on how to make a blanket box, go back to the Cooking and Food Storage video in this module. Make a note of how long it took your meal to cook and how much energy you saved. Take a photo of your blanket box and the meal you made in it, and share it the student group!
- Make a solar dehydrator or a solar oven, check out the details for a solar food dehydrator here.
- Invite your friends over to share a blanket box meal and get them to commit to doing the same! During the dinner, share ways in which you will be using appropriate technology and reducing consumption around your home. Ask them to commit to one action.
- Build a pedal-powered grain mill. Check out the example here.
- Build a root cellar out of an old fridge. Check out the ‘how to’ video here.