Energy Fair Speaker Shares Blueprints For Machines Necessary For Modern Civilization

The keynote speaker at the 25th annual Midwest Renewable Energy Fair, which takes place this weekend in Custer, wants to enable people to build the great machines of civilization.

Through his company Open Source Ecology, Marcin Jakubowski is sharing the blueprints and building instructions for what he calls the “50 different industrial machines that it takes to build a small civilization with modern comfort.” He calls the documents the “Global Village Construction Set.”

“We are giving everything away for free, so you can download the plans from our website, so you can build it yourself,” said Jakubowski.

Jakubowski showcased one of his machines, a compressed earth brick press, on Friday afternoon. He said that using his documents, people even build their own energy systems.

“We have chosen the windmill, a solar concentrator electric system, nickel iron batteries, modern steam power – just common ways of going about these things,” said Jakubowki.

He said by using modular designs, you can build many different machines from the same components: “You can build not only a tractor, but also a micro-tractor, a bulldozer, a truck.”

Jakubowski said his goal is to empower local people to build their own production and distribution systems, cutting the ties to big corporations: “How do we actually make technology accessible to people so that anyone can participate with it, as opposed to that being the realm of specialists and experts?” he said.

Jakubowski came to the United States from communist Poland at the age of 10, and later earned a Ph.D in fusion physics from the University of Wisconsin.

The Energy Fair is expected to attract 20,000 people.