The solar-powered "low tech" web site is inaccessible

Low-Tech Magazine - Low-Tech Magazine but runs the web with the power of modern technology: solar energy

The amount of electrical energy consumed during the time you read this article is very much. Your device sends an access request to the server, to receive the signal from the sending server. In the information sent there are each font, each high resolution image, the characters, the links and the video. Modern web sites also have plugins and scripts that make the website more functional, but also cost more.

Simple and static interface like HTML is not that expensive. The amount of energy your device needs to load HTML web site is much less than the flashy website of the present.

Any page is the same, not necessarily the article you are reading. Websites exist thanks to wireless and wireline wiring, connecting the huge server buildings. They live by the power we produce. Data centers in the United States alone consume 70 billion kilowatts of energy per year (estimated by the US Department of Energy in 2016). That's equivalent to 1.8% of the nation's electricity consumption.

"Internet" is something invisible, abstract. There is a project aimed at making it more visible, so people can easily feel it: their "love glass" is a blog called Low-Tech Magazine. Kris De Decker has been running  Low-Tech Magazine since 2007 , running it on WordPress. It has a web-based version of the site called  "Low-Tech," which runs entirely on solar energy, using as little energy as possible.

In a Skype interview with the motherboard, De Decker says he believes network users are unaware of how much power they are consuming.

" Some people think that the Internet is non-material, something that is suspended in the cloud, " De Decker said. " Yes, it is the invisible thing that consumes real energy, the tangible resources we see. In fact, I use more . "

The static "static-web" version of the site, which means that every day, it has only one version, dynamic websites will be real-time pages, constantly updated throughout the day. Low-Tech uses the default font and pixelized images to display web content. Looks like it smells like the old Internet, where gray images use less power than high-resolution images of up to 10x.

The whole site runs on solar energy, a solar panel located in Barcelona. If one day the clouds clutter up the skies of Bacelona, ​​Low-Tech Magazine will close the "sales" holiday.

De Decker says his long-term goal is to "move the house", putting the content of Low-Tech's 11 years into a new website. " The online magazine, as you see it, is easy to imagine ," said De Decker. " There is a server, a solar panel facing the window, you can see them. You can touch, touch and even destroy it . "

If you ask why no one saves electricity like Decker? Because it's harder than you think. The current version works thanks to the hands of two web designers Roel Roscam Abbing and Marie Motsuka, who spent one year preparing and $ 4,600 to fund the "infrastructure".

"I'm not sure if the idea of ​​'offline' is ever lacking in renewable energy," De Decker said sadly. We are not aware of how much energy each site consumes.

Still, there are those who suggest that a lightweight web site should be developed, but the use of electricity is not the main reason for making more low-tech Web sites. In fact, scientists at the US Department of Energy say that the amount of computer power consumed is small, too small for heavy machinery to consume energy - they say cars and planes. There are people who raise another opinion: lightweight website to help people with slow internet experience better. This is also an idea.

" I received emails like 'My house is still using dial-up networking, but your site loads fast,' " De Decker said. "It is interesting, as more than half of all Internet users in the world have a stable Internet connection. In this sense, using the web less is not to use less power, but to bring connectivity to more people . "

In the United States alone, 24 million people do not have high-speed Internet, many live in remote areas, inaccessible villages or low-income areas. With them, they can not find work, look for sources, can not use the Internet as convenient as we do.

De Decker's Low-Tech Magazine website is also designed to use less energy so that it remains functional in the absence of sunlight. "We created a blog that uses energy so efficiently that you can use its offline mode; We built the generators that allowed Low-Tech to operate at night. "

Decker acknowledged that the site "closed every time it was shady" for advertising purposes only, so that people understood the meaning of the project. You look back on the past to find inspiration, not just nostalgic.

" In the immediate future, the user feedback is still very positive, " De Decker said cheerfully. People still see the meaning of the project, have gradually understood the current energy consumption is how large.