appropriate technology | The Ferris Files

How India Puts Itself on a Power Diet

On a recent trip to India, I came to understand one reason why India’s per-capita electricity consumption is 15 times less than that in the United States. […]

New Ideas in Rural-Size Energy

The Innovate column I write for Sierra magazine has one shortcoming: The word-count is too small for me to convey the wealth of useful resources I’ve found. Over the last few months, I blogged about the five technologies included in the March/April issue, which focused on what’s known as “Appropriate Technology.” […]

This Issue’s “Innovate” Column: Energy for the Developing World

If there’s one thing I learned from reporting this month’s “Innovate” column, it’s this: The biggest beneficiaries of renewable energy will be the poor, rural farmers of the Third World. The billions of people who live off the grid in Africa, Asia and Latin America will use smaller and humbler technology than we will in the urban, modernized world. Yet its impact will be far greater. […]

My New Column Starts This Month In Sierra Magazine

Look on page 69 of this month’s Sierra magazine and you’ll find “Innovate,” a column in which I explore new ideas in energy. I’m excited about this assignment because it lets me roam about at the beginning of our new era, the Renewables Age, and bend down to pick up the shiniest objects. […]

The Wind Turbine’s Tiny Cousin

Why is it that many solar panels are the size of a hallway rug, while a typical wind turbine is the size of an office building? I’ve always wondered whether we would ever learn to harvest wind on a smaller, simpler scale. Turns out we can. […]

The Treadle Pump: An Exercise in Productivity

Farmers in Bangladesh have long had an irrigation problem. Water is often plentiful in ponds or in the shallow water table underfoot, but getting that water onto the crops is no easy task. A solution has appeared in the form of the treadle pump, a sort of Stairmaster that pumps water. […]

A Refrigerator Powered by the Sun

The very idea of a solar refrigerator is a contradiction: Use the hot sun to keep things cold. How could such an oxymoron possibly work? […]

Toward a Better Cookstove

In parts of India they’re called chulhas, in Malawi chitetezo mbaula, in Central America the Lorena, and in East Africa the jiko. The names and designs vary, but the principle is the same: a low-cost, efficient stove that replaces the open fire. […]

The Thermoacoustic Engine, Explained

The thermoacoustic engine is one of the weirdest forms of renewable energy I’ve heard of, and I had to have it explained to me several times before I started to get it. No description I read on the Internet made any sense. After consulting with John Barrie, an inventor who is designing a low-cost model for use in rural Guatemala, I created a description the rest of us could understand. […]

The Ferris Files