The
Institute of Ecological Technology has a focus on unconventional
research and solutions within ecological
technology.
Our research includes non-traditional ways to affect water flow,
water quality, plants, weather and eco-systems, as well as
non-traditional alternative energy sources. Historically the institute
has had a focus on ideas related to the Austrian naturalist Viktor
Schauberger.
We work to define a series of research areas and review their progress,
see below. These research areas are regularly featured in the biennial IWONE conferences.
Alternative water
flow
This research area covers guiding and
self-organizing water flow (e.g.
Schauberger's energy bodies), temperature regulation of water courses,
sloping logs, and other forms of indirect river regulation. It also
covers areas like the effects of interaction between vegetation and
river courses on the stability and evolution of the river bed, and
alternative means to conduct water, e.g. double spiral pipes, fin
pipes, Knossos pipes, Schauberger kudu pipes etc.
In the early 1980s, the institute organized a series of expeditions to
the Oulanka National Park in northern Finland. The objective of the
research programme was to verify (or correct) a series of hydrological
hypotheses advanced by the Austrian naturalist Viktor Schauberger in
the 1930s. The research programme has been actualized in the 2000s,
particularly due to its relation to prevention of flooding.
Research was carried out in the 1980s relating to
flow in spiral pipes (in co-operation with Royal Institute of
Technology) and rhythmical flow in flow forms.
In the 1990s a series of projects studied
self-organizing flow (particularly vortex flow). A spin-off was the
unique self-organizing flow water drainage system of Augustenborg in
Malmö. The drop channels with self-organizing flow was awarded the
Excellent Swedish Design award by Svensk Form.
Read more:
Self-organizning Flow
Technology
The Augustenborg Project
The drop channels
Alternative water
treatment
This research area covers alternative (non-chemical) ways of treating
water to improve its quality for drinking, for plants and agriculture,
and for other uses. It covers e.g. indirect water treatment
(information transfer), the effect of vortexing and water motion on
water quality, magnetic water treatment, water memory effects and
unconventional methods to measure water quality.
Research on the effects of vortex treatment of
water goes back to the 1960s (and the Institute's predecessor, Biotec
Foundation).
In the 2000s a survey on alternative water
treatment was carried out, outlining the state of the field and
important open questions.
Indirect
influences
on plants and soil
This research area covers alternative means to influence quality and
growth on
plants. E.g. Schauberger’s garden repulsator, paramagnetic towers
(Callahan), pyramid greenhouses, and other alternative influences on
vegetation. Also treatment of plants and soil with alternatively
treated water.
Research on the garden repulsator was carried out in Sweden in the
1980s.
Non-traditional
alternative energy sources
This research area covers non-traditional alternative energy sources.
Whereas traditional alternative energy sources cover conventional
wind power, solar energy etc., this area focuses on potential sources
of
renewable energy that are little known or not generally recognized as
being useful energy sources. It could involve means to extract latent
heat from
the atmosphere, unconventional turbine designs (e.g. Schauberger's
spiral turbines), heat pumps with anomalous properties, or means to use
atmospheric electricity or natural electromagnetic fields as an energy
source. Also more exotic topics such as means to
extract gravitational energy, low energy nuclear reactions (known as
cold fusion), and other "free energy" devices.
Alternative
propulsion systems
This research area covers practical means of propulsion that are little
explored. It could e.g. involve Coanda saucers, Schauberger's
repulsine, lifters, propulsion by suction or by using oscillatory wave
motions.
A project on Coanda saucers was carried out in 1997. Propulsion by
suction in water has been investigated in the 2000s.
Read more:
Coanda saucers
(external link)
Alternative climate
influencing
This research area could involve non-chemical means to affect the
humidity
of the air (e.g. Reich's cloudbuster) or climate in general
("biomachines"), or new means to detect environmental changes, e.g.
quality measurements using the electric potential of trees. It could
also involve large scale effects (such as oxygenization of ponds, small
lakes and bays) by alternative water treatment.
Oxygenation of ponds and small lakes was investigated by the spin-off
Aquagyro in the 1990s.
|
