Category: Items

Portable solar for African villages

admin /12 July, 2009

Solartech International from Luxembourg has released a Portable Solar panel designed for use in sub saharan Africa, which it claims can free villagers from the tyranny of darkness or reliance on dirty and increasingly expensive kerosene. The unit is the size of a shipping container and will power a village of 1,500 inhabitants. The unit Continue Reading →

Yarrow

admin /2 July, 2009

Achillea Millefolium

YarrowOriginally a native of Europe and Western Asia, now found in Australia and New Zealand in pastures and along roadsides, or for that matter anywhere in the world where it has escaped domestic cultivation.

Yarrow is an attractive hardy perennial with small feathery green leaves by which it gets its species name millefolium or ‘a thousand leaves’. It flowers from spring through ‘till summer giving off small white and occasionally pink flowers forming a flat head, being borne of a thin stem.
According to Homer’s The Iliad the plant was employed by Chiron the Centaur to staunch the bleeding of Achilles’ heel, hence the genus name Achillea.

Hot tub Technology

admin /26 June, 2009

[Ed warning] Treat this item with caution, may not be as good as claimed.

New research suggests the simple immersion heater could be key to a renewable electricity solution

Rubber ducky

Send in the tanks … ‘ripple control’ of water heating can smooth off peaks in power demand. Photograph: Getty

Forget expensive high-tech silver bullets such as nuclear fusion and carbon capture and storage; the solution to climate change lies in the humble electric immersion heater that sits in the hot water tank under your stairs. That’s the view of Dr Mark Barrett, senior researcher at the UCL Energy Institute, who will present his analysis at a meeting in the House of Commonson 18 June .

A tank with an immersion heater may be just an oversized kettle, but there are thought to be around 19m in Britain’s homes, which collectively have the ­capacity to store huge amounts of energy as hot water. And this could be key to achieving an almost wholly renewable electricity supply.

Chamomile – The herb of ‘humility’

admin /7 June, 2009

By Luke Hughes Listen to the interview with Luke online. Herbs have been used for centuries to assist human kind in many and varied ways.  A look at the herb, chamomile, gives a good insight into just how herbs can be as relevant to man today as they were  to the ancients in bygone eras. Continue Reading →

Dandelion

admin /31 May, 2009

Luke Hughes – herbalist, organic gardener and permaculturist – introduces the first of his five part series on the five compost activators, the Dandelion. Not only is it useful in the garden but Dandelion is the only known vegetable source of Vitamin D and one of the few plants that supplies vitamin B through its Continue Reading →

Hemp – Cannabis Sativa

admin /31 May, 2009

The hemp plant has been an integral part of human society for time immemorial. In the era of sail, hemp and flax fibres literally fuelled the global economy, money and bibles have traditionally been made from hemp paper, and hemp fabric is warm, resilient and soft. The plant also provides a rich source of high Continue Reading →