A fridge without electricity, a solar oven, a small wind turbine made from printer motors, a plastic pyrolyzer to make fuel… So many examples of low tech“these technologies and know-how that are both useful, accessible and sustainable”, defines Corentin de Chatelperron. For six years, the Breton and his crew criss-crossed the world, on the catamaran the sea nomadto meet those who reinvented their daily lives with low-tech.
A journey that included many stops in developing countries, where constraints increase ingenuity tenfold. But not only. “There are low tech everywhere, they interest more and more people and that’s good,” says Corentin de Chatelperron. Just before completing this world tour, Friday at Concarneau (Finistere)he responds to 20 minutes.
How can we define low tech?
These are technologies that respond to everyday problems. Access to water, energy, food, waste management, hygiene and health, building materials… These low tech must not only be useful, but accessible, that is- that is to say, developable anywhere in the world, without the need for significant resources or very specialized skills. And if they cannot always be manufactured 100% locally, they must at least be repairable and a local entrepreneur can easily appropriate them. Finally, these technologies must also be sustainable, both respectful of people and the planet.
What led you to take an interest in low tech?
I went to work in a shipyard in Bangladesh. We were making fishing boats out of fiberglass, a very common material in this field. Very quickly, I tried to see in what ways we could use jute fiber, present locally, to build these boats. I set up a research lab and we managed to launch a 100% jute fiber boat in 2013. Then we worked to transfer this know-how to others so that it could be taken up locally. It was already a first low-tech experience. But above all, by living in this country among the poorest, I was able to observe how ingenious the Bengalis could be in circumventing their limited means and inventing low tech. Should they still be released? That’s the problem. Marketing strategies are highly developed for high-tech, but almost non-existent for low-tech.
Where did this six-year circumnavigation of the globe come from?
The first step was to buy, in 2015, the Nomade des mers, a catamaran just under fourteen meters long and 7.50 m wide that we completely transformed in 2015. We turned it into a floating laboratory of low tech with the idea of testing them in a round the world sailing trip and adding new ones, according to our stopovers in 26 countries. Around fifteen sailors took turns in this adventure, which began in 2016. It was supposed to last three years, which was twice as long. We added stopovers, built many low-tech prototypes, made documentaries for Arte… All of this took longer than expected.
What low tech can you find on board Le Nomade des mers?
We have listed more than 150 low tech in six years. In agreement with their owners, we studied them, made tutorials, built prototypes that we tested on board. Currently, the Sea Nomad has about 25. One of them is a hydroponics system which allows plants to grow with very little water – ten times less than a conventional system – and, above all, without good soil. Typically in town, on polluted areas, or on a boat. We thus have 4m2 of crops on board Le Nomade des mers on which we grow “leaf vegetables”, that is to say entirely consumable. Also in food, we have a large can full of spirulina, an edible micro-algae, source of protein, iron, vitamins. Above all, it has this interesting ability to grow very quickly while taking up little space. Every day, we can collect a little, filter it and eat it. We also raise black soldier fly larvae that we feed with our organic waste. They then serve as food for our crickets, a second farm on our boat that brings us animal protein while requiring very few resources. There are also mushrooms that are grown on wood chips, as we have seen in Thailand. It is another source of food but the root part – the mycellium– can also be used as a construction material.
And on the energy components?
We have small wind turbines that we built in Senegal, using printer motors. These are very robust and can still be used even when the printer is deemed out of order. Certainly, the power of these wind turbines is not great, but enough to recharge our electrical devices. We also used a lot a multifunction pedalboard which allowed us to charge our lamps and other electrical devices. Otherwise, we cook with solar ovens [qui transforment la lumière en chaleur pour cuire les aliments], very effective, some uprights at 200°. We can also talk about the plastic pyrolysisa technique we tested in Sri Lanka that involves heating plastic to turn it into gasoline.
Have you discovered a lot more low tech than you thought?
Yes. We quickly realized that low tech is above all an approach. Every everyday object can be reworked to make it more durable, more repairable, more accessible. This considerably widened our field of investigation. In Cuba, for example, we discovered initiatives to make local internet networks more ecological. Developing countries are often the most ingenious when it comes to low tech, sometimes because they had no choice but to be. All the same, we found low tech everywhere we went. Including in New York where we visited cultures of spirulina, mushrooms or hydroponic systems on the roofs of buildings…
And in France ?
Of course we find it. With the Low Tech labour association, we launched a tour of France of low tech which allowed us to identify twelve adapted to Western life and which would make our habitats less energy-consuming and more sustainable. We tested them in a tiny house*. This tour of France did not make it possible to be exhaustive. The low tech are in any case in perpetual evolution. Even technologies we documented six years ago have since been optimized. This is the case, for example, of the pyrolysis of plastic to make fuel, a process on which work today Plastic Odyssey and Earthwake, two French projects. What is certain is that low tech is of increasing interest. The media are talking about it, companies are getting started, schools are creating training. Even territories, such as the Brittany region, include the low tech approach in their development strategy.
Why should we focus on low tech?
They have a key role to play in the ecological transition. Many low tech are already developed and now only ask to be shared, taken over, improved. Many have the potential to change our daily lives. But, once again, each object of our daily life, even high tech, can be reworked in such a way as to make it more useful, more accessible and more durable. However, in many areas, this work has not yet been done. We found quite a bit of low-tech in hygiene, health, building materials… In other words, there is still a lot to do in low-tech.
What will be the continuation of this world tour?
By creating Low Tech Lab, the idea was to document and share the low tech technologies and know-how that we discovered during our world tour or our tour of France. Everything is free and open source on the collaborative platform wiki.lowtechlab.org. Anyone can take inspiration from these tutorials to revisit these technologies, build prototypes, even launch businesses… This encyclopedia currently has 53 tutorials. This census will obviously continue, but we are no longer the only ones doing this work. About thirty low tech labs have emerged, in France, but also in Cameroon, Greece, Belgium and Switzerland. They will look at what is happening in their region. In addition, we have set up a program, the Low-tech Explorer, which helps young people to go on a trip, near their home or on the other side of the world, to develop low tech or find new ones. It is this coordination work that will now mainly concern us in Concarneau. But another project is already being considered: that of spending four months in quasi-autonomy, in a low-tech living base in the Mexican desert. This should start next winter.