UC12 September-October 1975 by Christopher Squire

UnDERCURP-number3 -

Alternative lecnnotogiiss t ut t - d c t ~ y and Cii y L ~ n . / s t iying f

Medicine* Dl Y Biofeedback* NewBehaviour in the Commune* Wind Power Electricse CEGB Bias* PIUSNews,Reviews ft more..

FESTIVAL Ă&#x201A; OF DELIGHT

COMTEK 75 Special Report

UNDERCURRENTS is published Bi-monthly

by Undercurrents Limited, 275 Finchley Road,

London NW3 6 LY, England, a democratic, nonprofit company without share capital and limited by Guarantee. Printed in England by Prestagate Ltd.. Reading. nte&tionai~tandard Serial Number 0306 235

EDDIES. The Usual Brewof News, Scandal, Eddie Reports - and now introducing Froth * , ',

LETTERS. Your chance to get your own back on us.

OUR ADDRESS. At the moment, Undercurrents is in a state of semi-decentralisation. We still don't know what's going to happen to our office at 275 Finchley Road, London NW3. At the moment we're using the place on-and-off as 'licensed squatters', but whether we will be able to negotiate an arrangement to stay there is still uncertain. Meanwhile, daytime, weekday telephone calls to our London number (01-794 2750) are being intercepted by the Post Office (officially) and callers are being referred to Uley (STD Code 0453 86) 636. This is the phone number of our permanent office at 11Shadwell, Uley, Dursley, Gloucestershire. From now on, all communications about general editorial matters, features, subscriptio and distribution should be addressed to Uley. Communications about News and Reviews and Advertising can still be sent to 275 Finchley Road, where they'll reach the people concerned a little more quickly. (But don't worry too much about sending stuff to the wrong address: mail is forwarded every few days from both addresses to the appropriate people).

WORKERS AND THE WORLD UNITE. Workers at Lucas Aerospace are demanding the right not only to work, but to work on sociallydesirable 'alternative technologies'. Dave Elliott takes a look at the background to this encouraging initiative, and examines the prospects. CRABAPPLE: TWIN OAKS COMES TO WALES. A new community has been set up near Shrewsbury by a group which intends to put into practice some of B F Skinner's behavioural theories in an attempt to avoid the conflicts which have divided many other experimental cornmunities. A member of the group describes how they're going about it. BIOFEEDBACK. Elmer Green looks at what biofeedback means and how it can be used, and tells of the extraordinary feats of Jack Schwartz and Swami Rama in achieving control over bodily processes normally regarded as involuntary. Plus: a simple but effective do-ityourself biofeedback device.

SUBSCRIPTIONS cost S2.50 sterling ($6.50, or equivalent in other currencies) for -six issues posted by second class/surface mail to any country. #

COMMUNITY TECHNOLOGY. Karl Hess describes how Community Technology Inc is trying to promote small-scale, locally-controlled techniques for food and energy production in adeprived area of Washington DC. COMTEK FESTIVAL : SPECIAL &PAGE REPORT. News, pictures and comment about the happenings at Britain's second Community Technology Festival COMTEK-75, which took place in Bath in August.

SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO cost USS7.50 and are sent by airfreight to New York and posted from there by aecond class mail. Delivery takes 3 to 1 4 days. &freighting is only economic if as many subscribersas possible use it. so we cannot accept surface mail subscriptions t o these countries. Our US mailing agents are Air and Sea Freight Ltd., 527 Madison Ave, Suite 1217, New York NY 10022. Second Class postage paid at New York. NY.

of dl articles blows un!Lc-tab Limited, unless otherwise stated: they must n o t be reproduced without our permission. But we wil w i l l normally give permission for our material to be used, without ร ยงhargefor non-profit purposes, on condition that Undereuroento is

in u n h - e n t s

TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE CULTURE. In this third part of his extended essay, Woody examines the concepts of the subjective group and the objective group and suggests how the former might evolve' , towards the latter. ., . .

&../.

credited.

t j J j ,..;'?, 44

BAREFOOT IN THE SURGERY. Dr John &ad& renegade in the Illich mould, talks to Chris ~ u l t o n - ~ q ideas, about the need for neighbourhood 'lifeBcentres Medicine, an anti-establishment medical magazine he proposes to set up. ~+

~kal

REVIEWS. The Red Paper on Scotland, Cal&us, hqmeworlts. Handbook, Transcendental Meditation by jack Forem, The 5urv/vui/sts. by Patrick Rivers, and World Energy Strategies by A m r y Loving. PLUS The Battle of the Bubble, a totally biassed ~evierf'f?) by ~ e t e i,. Harper of Class War Comix No 1: New Times, by Cliff Harper who is no relation. WIND POWER Part II : Electric Light Orchestration. Godfrey Boyle describes how to wire up the dynamo and the associated electrical devices required for the Undercurrents - LID Wind Generator d v i b e d in the last issue. PLUS wind power bibliography and Wince Wincharger product review. CARRY ON SWITCHING. In spite of strong evidence that Britain' already consumes far too much electrical energy, and that centralised power stations are responsible for a major portion of the energy we waste, CEGB planners seem unable to contemplate even the slightest reduction in electricity demand. Their biases show through clearly in the papers presented at a recent private CEGB symposium on Long Term Studies. Godfrey Boyle puts some of them under the magnifying glass.

CONTRIBUTIONS. We welcome unsolicited articles, news items, illustrations, photographs, etc. from our readers. Though every care is taken with such material, we cannot be respendble for its loss or damage, and we cannot undertake t o return it unless it is accompanied by an appropriate stamped envelope addresse,dto tile sender. To make life easier for our typewttexs, manuscripts for publication must be typed clearly on one side of the page only, with double or triple spacing and at least one inch margin on each side of the type. OK? CREDITS. Undercurrents is produced by number of people. There are only two paid staff, one full time,one part time. The rest of us work for nothing in our spare time. Here, in alphabetical order, are the names of the people most directly concerned in putting the magazine together. Godfrey Boyle, Sally Boyle, Duncan Campbell, Peter Cockerton, Pat Coyne, Tony Durham, Dave EUiott, Richard Elen, Sotires Eleftheriou, Herbie Girardet, Peter Harper, Chris HuttonSquire, Martin Ince, Barbara Kern, Martyn Partridge, and Peter Sommer. Other people without whom Undercurrents would be moreor-less impossible include: Graham Andrews. Gavin Browning, Ollie Caldecott, Charlie Clutterbuck, Brian Ford, Ian Hogan, Roger Hall, Cliff Harper, John Prudhoe, Dieter Pevsner, Nigel Thomas, Geoff Watts. Martyn Turner, Joy Watt and Woody. And of course everyone we've forgotten.

HELPERS: If you're interested in helping on

Undercurrents in any way write or phone for details of our weakly meetings.

station, action at Win could potentidily brin whole prosramme grin

our case. The first of these twenty cars set off from Heysham, headlights on, barrels of radioactive waste promi entlv displayed, and m a terrorists aboard nervous clutching their smoke bo When we got to Windscaie we carried out a terrorist

also disturbed a

police surveillance. There was

future o f their resort under

week we turned sober business of and reasoned deba Thursday a group

fedred, and there that

world wide rush to nuclear

ade with a 'Death March'. faceted attack on nude power, comprising loca national lobbying, a su

ade up to now i s discounted, station will still n o t be ble of breaking even. An

A container of radioactive products was sent to Romania but the receiving laboratory did not have suitable equipment t o handle it. With CEN agreement, the container was sent back t o Frince, marked as an empty package to simplify

Ă&#x192;

safe dose. I t is not yet known what happened to them. Dermatitis, including one case necessitating a skin graft, blood abnormalities

Two operators have been injured by the beams of large accelerators. I n one case a physicist WAS partially blinded; in the other an accelerator had continued t o operate because the safety mechanisms had been short-circuited - - a

The door of a c

support, direct action whe necessary. A crucial part o upset the nuclear applecart. Secondly, it i s likely to be a t t h e campaign is t o press fo alternative energy policie least four years before Heysham goes critical (if, indeed, The response o f the p that is technically possible, to Nuclear Week has been which some CEGB engineers encouraging. The local peopl. who have to take the dliegedl doubt). Thirdly, we feel con'acceptable" risks of living fident that we can stop any move t o put other installations next to large nuclear plants arc'uneasy, and becoming on the Heysham site. We will collaborate with other groups more 50. Local councils and

the CEGB for nuclear sites. Since the number of possible sites is limited, action by local groups could place a severe check on British nuclear devel-

electruntidear establishmenu The response of' the statutory bodies has been less satisfactory - though p r e d i ~ table. The CEGB has resoluti boycotted our public debate and refused to answer questi

m the roof wsil be stored water tanks and a he.

dmill, though wheth e used to generate el y or to p i oduce heat for enition i s meas-

show called Ecohouse startin late this year or very earl next and - welt, it's inte A two-storey dereli

een contacted air

a crumbling mansi

of the upper storey window

hasis on food produci The Ecohouse project will probably cost Â£20,000The site was expensive at Â£9.000

this what we wan rage you to burn 1OkWh of enthusiasm. etres on oneresources of the AT wo both orthodox and frea and with a good deal of work being executed by Geoff rant himself. The ITV netork audience will watch, rtly out o f curiosity, partly u t o f envy, and partly because how to be that they'll learn bit more self-sufficient themselves. That's the intention ..therebllbe as little cheating as necessary in order to get the series working. Don't look for any heavy philosophisingthe Grants are nice ordinary ueople who want a 'nice' home but don't want to change their life-styles completely. Producer and presenter Brian Trueman i s unlikely to stare heavily at Gurus of Our Time and ask heaningfully about the Implications For Society, but we got the impression that he knows the implications are there and they'll be implicit, I f vou know what keens the hs)ujew.irrn anJ ht~crcthe e a bit more than smugness

windmills will repiice cars, pools, and yachts as status symbols and someone else will talk darkly o f infringed building regulations, privilege, and, no doubt, a threat t o decent civilised moralitv. Nevertheless the technical solutions evolved in Ecohouse may well turn out to have far-reaching political implications. BRAD was a failure in that Robin Clarke's blueprint for a community linked by AT and completely self-sufficient wasn't totally realised. But in terms o f technical and social experiment, not to say propaganda, BRAD has been extremely valuable, even i f the participants now feel uneasy about past history. Ecohouse has a good chance of being another such exercise - Don William's ideas look exciting and Granada's production team have the AT 'bug' even i f total messianism has vet to surface. Thev have 3lic.iJ\ uei'ned tht-'r positi.~ri ibes - no mere product parade a la Tomorrow's World, no pretentiousness a la Horizon

didn't seriously expect much from thc telly, did you?

solid brick and the upper eve! 9". The slate roof is presently i n a poor state, and will have a BRAD-type solar collector. The whole house will be put in a cocoon of insulation - 6" on the roof, 4" on the outside wall surfaces plus wooden cladding (the weatherboard principle), and

Ecohouse will be produced andpresented by Brian Trueman, andis beingresearched by Polly Bide: Granada TV, Manchester M60 SEA, 061 - 832 7211 e x t 719.

are the plans of governeaders o f Undercurrents 10 will remember Dave Elliot's description of the pitfalls o f state-run 'Back to the Land' schemes. The old Land Resettlem e m idea i s not yet ready for resurrection, but they're working on it. The latest proposal from the Manpower Services Commission, nart of the Deuartment of Empln\incnt ',Â¥~o-:;~llc-. ;t~n a c ~ t o n ' .T n i Ci:n-imi>>ii,n. which has been desperately mounting training schemes and

is now awaiting approval for i t s Â£3 million scheme. The proposal is for 15,000 men and women to do "cornmunity work" in areas of severe depression. They would be paid just a little more than unemployment benefit or social security. In this way, cheap labour is obtained by exploiting the unemployed to do necessary s i - ~ i . i work, r ~ t h e than r o\ p ~ in^. \ nornidl r.ires. Tlu-ic would be no job security workers would return to the

Undercurrents'

I n the last 18 months, a revival o f 'Civil Defence' work has gathered considerable momentum. Recently, Bexley council i n London voted Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ77,00 for an emergency bunker. Eddies takes a look at some aspects o f renewed government preparations for its own survival - and how the propaganda machine will work. When the civil Defence Corps was given a peaceful burial in 1968, many people may have supposed that the busy era o f V-Bomber scrambles, CND marches, and

(the "War Book") which will deal with emergency organisation in their area. Normally this would be done by the 'Emergency Planning and his staff, who mu cover natural disaster an civil disturbances. The e emphasis is a little clearer in a recent advertisemen Home (ex-Civil) Defence Colege at Easingwold, Yorks, which defines the problem as "adopting the peacetime services to function in the major emergencies of war and peace peace". Clearly, TV and radio will

fence section. A new circular (Emergency Services 2/75) describes the plans the gov' ernment has for distribu rmation through tile media in the event of nu attack. I t discusses manip tion of the media in general: "providing contin guidance to the press an broadcasting services on the publication of news and comment"; and the way in which people might react after an attack, from initial stunned apathy" to "more aggressive behaviour" - if there wasn't any government round. Control o f the media revent "defeatist and arming rumours." We re told that "existing

released to the public .., . Government broadcasts would give the first indicatior that war might not be averted" and include - wait it - "references to the effectiveness of the nuclear deterrent.'' The second phase eparatory Period would some 3-4 weeks", while ntry was placed on a ting". Finally, the Immediate attack period - we get "saturation coverage by the media.. . repeating advice on the warning system. and measures to be taken for survival o f individuals a families. . . This would some 72 hours."

eing revised", but that in -usually known as EmerNow, however, the o title is 'Home Defen

The central section o f the

AND THE RED FLASH The BBC's emergency arrangements are ostensibly part of the civil warning apparatus in case of attack. AH transmitters can be remotely switched to transmit pre-recorded attack warnings, as part of an emergency network. (Reputedly, these warnings are now 8 years old). The other part of the warning net i s 'Red Flash' - which connects Home Office warning officers at RAF radar stations and at the Air Defence Operations C installed throughout the country in large police stations and telephone exchanges. The secret about

From the control points, signals radiate to thousands o f special receivers, using ordinary telephone links.

carrier receivers

- smal

Those (few) enthusiasts for lear power who still dismiss Browns Ferry incident as bizarre an occurence to e seriously as a threat to nuclear programme have

Flash is never heard. as it accidently set fire to

two knobs .-are located in police stations, fire stations, BBC control centre hospitals, etc. Ther

matically control 8 thousand sirens all over Britain. A pitching and failing bans signal would be the attac warnine. Red Flash also allows spoken messages to be sent to receivers over the TIM network - to police and government establishment even to all policemen in particular area. Applica

Occasionally seen i n police

to fail, was not the first at the plant. Two days earlier a similar though much smaller fire was caused in exactly the same manner. Browns Fern ' s local paper, the Ni^nville Tennessean, rcValley Authority, and the Nuclear Regulatory Conimis(NRC) had not managed d out why the use o f -, for air checks had not

attention of anyone in authority. Also reported by the Tennessean was chief of TVA's nuclear generatio office, JackCallioun's mcnt that, so far as he the use of candlc'i t o I doing that", sdid Calho This i s believed l o b the stable door aft number o f horses h

ing civil order" - apparently abroad! One engineer spoke of activities at the time o f the Paris uprising in May 1968; "Urgenl, secretive messages were sent to get a couple of old wartime transmitters (low powered sliorr-wave) operationdl. We did, they weren't used, but i f events in France had got worse (for the status quo) they would hdve been. But nut for broadcasting, as the power WJS too

specified, a l l TV and local radio stations would close down and broadcasting would be restricted to a single radio programme consisting primarily o f news, official announcements.. . with, for morale purposes, an entertainmen! element." To cater lor WTBS, the

below). In the post-attack period, regional governments might restart regional local radio with newsheets when possible - in the event o f an audience to listen. The memorandum then discusses arrangements for gathering and selecting news and propaganda, and finally the selection and training of "suitable persons" to work for for WTBS.

This is station WTBS, the

the re

the Army have their own large communications networks, such as the Diplomatic Wireless Service, I can only surmise that "Dirty Works" people would be dropped in France. They were really

tters were rou h massive switc

I n the first o f issue of REPSYCHLING, more extracts from the H O Archway Road, L O N D O N N

tive energy accounting is all the vogue with the US tear Regulatory Commis-

the unborn' is iust that indescribdble.

UNDERCURRENTS would like t o thank a small, articulate minority wh occasional titbits of in information are readily separated from redund mountains o f instantly cycled paper. Such infor tion can often be vital groups or individuals may be affected by t criminate actions of company or organ o f state. Several articles in this issue are based on such information. Obviously, we can't say which - but you're allowed to guess. We're grateful - and will publish whatever such reliable informdtion is sent, as soon as possible. ft his briefcase at a recent

The BBC has spent "several millions" of somebody's money on building themselves a well-equipped wartime shelter at Wood Norton gineering Training Centre, ar Evesham. The shelter, ep underground, i s fully provided with TV and radio studios and two "massive" generators. The entrance nests incongruously below a curious office on t centre site. Under t re many feet of co and behind the thick steel doors is a staircase leading down i o the shelter and its air-conditioned vaults. Above Wood Norton, on the appropriately named Tunnel Hill, microwave radio links the centre with subregional headquarters at Kinver, near Kidderminster, and to the Post Office

Circuit, are shielded and laid tists, the N.RC, worried by separately, deeper than the poor reliability of i t s plants ordinary telephone cables. has started 'improving' the They run directly to radio plants' capacity factors by and TV transmitters, where switching away from the traditional basis of 'design capacity' the incoming cables are to a new concept called termed 'deferred services' - a 'Maximum Dependable code use to fob off inquisitive transmitter engineers who Capacity' (MDC). MDC i s defined by the NRC wonder why so many wellprepared circuits-are left idle. .,, as a plant's net output during \,the most restrictive seasonal I t is surprising that cables have apparently been providconditions for condenser coolto TV transmitters, as there ing. This normally occurs only for a couple o f months at the ere i s no intention of using height of summer but the em in a general war situaapply the definition throu on. There are, o f course, out the year. The net resu other circumstances in which that the plant is rated lower, protected circuits and transmaking i t easier for it to mitters may be useful. attain i t s 'capacity'. Says According to BBC sources, Comey, "it's like computing many transmitters carry a golfer's handicap solely on enough fuel for three months the basis o f a score he got duroperation. inga New Year's blizzard while The Home Office circular (above) describes a BBC 'network of transmitters throughout the country,

hung over". One power station designe to produce 821 megawatts h

Und

ENVIROFAIR BRIG

NS didn't count them. A warm the theatre groups, perfor

groups spread their stalls, their ideas and better ways of living across the green acres of downland adjacent to Sussex University - while through the day and evening a succession o f theatre groups, comics and musicians played and performed for the kids and adults. The eco-fraternity provided the main Envirofair section. Shows included the local Friends of the Earth and Conservation society, and th Socialist Environment and

alia, with littering by throw confetti (shades of Alice's Restaurant?). But dll charg

and served with a writ. . , which led him to jail the f

through the downland nigh

he a forum dnci contact pa"' for groups and individuals become acquainted.

A FEW CHANGES i n Un currents should result fro the readers meeting held Comtek. More than fifty

iterature will be a new nforrnation section. DIRECTORY of source groups, and individuals i on of interest in

could write a short column

vou stop? Please tell us at you think - more

r a n k l i n Road. BRIG1

YORKS - Leeds !Ă&#x201A;ÂĽmurS

fiends of the Earth, d l 9

the nuclear fuel cvdc and an iiccount of the planned

LANCS - Nisei I c~guson.21 Chatsworth Road, LAXCASTE NORT1ll:MBERl.AND- Geol Watson, Church C o t t a ~ ~ , cliollenon. 11I':XHAM, Ni)rth~imberland..Monica Frisch. LGIS Informat

umbreila shatt drives a Bo'i~h f^v dvndmo directly, though the . t. 1 , - -. - hren follnwine -. discussion about minimum charging speeds in our latest Undercurrents Wind Generator articles, you'll share our doubts that the sails ~ o u l dever turn fast enough to produce a useful voitdge unless the dynamo were specially rewound. Still, how many designs have you seen for windmills that can be hidden in a trouser leg? Yet another odd proposal was for an inversion of the idea of a flapping wing aeroplane. As the wind blows, i t waggles two 'flappers' (you ~~~~

AN INTERNATIONAL Windmill Competition w organised recently i n Fran by BIN1 and ANVAR, two companies dealing with inventions and patents, in conjunction with Phase Zero. a weekly technical paper. Nearly 400 entries were received - a lot'of them, frankly, cranky and badly thought-out. But one or two were original and ingenious, Wind Charger

version of wind to electrical energy. M Gitton's device, which nas no moving parts, apparently works by injecting into the air stream electro,

the grid, and the impe of any external load c nected to the system.

packets per hour of positive ions would soon have 'em :dl fighting in the streets. Another entry that was

and on the frequency (f) with which the charged 'packets' are released into the air though the inventor suggests that an output o f fixed frequency could be obtained by controlling f electronically. 'Un petit prototype' is

pointed out, the proposal is still far from being a practical proposition. I f i t works, though, it could have at least one environmental effect

by varying the phasing

e flappers relative to other. With careful

beneficial social sideof wire mesh. As they pass

pour la Valorisation de la

he tense, nervy, irritable

LgTALE' TELEGRAM' EARLY I N AUGUST the post Office proudly showed the press round their brandnew computer-controlled telegram retransmission centre in Cardinal House, Farringdon Road. Lond By a curious comcidenc three ddys later, on Aug the naners were full of th r ~ ~ r admission by the US Na Security Agency that all inte national phone calls to 0 from the United States a (as we told you in UC7 a UC8) intercepted, recorded, and sometimes listened to. There is o f course no immediate connexion between these events. One concerned telephones in America; the other, telegrams in England. We cannot infer that international telegram rveillance. But the fa

such an operation by the British equivalents of the NSA The system has elaborate arrangements for recording and storing telegrams, stensibly to deal with comnts and enquiries. A t any e, the last 750,000 tele ams to pass through the ntre are held on m ores. Since at prese telegrams are hand1 n an average day, t that the past eleven days' traffic i s instantly accessible through the computer. In addition, all telegrams are stored for seven months on magnetic tape. Retrieval in this case is slower, since it , may mean getting a tape out of the cupboard and it onto a tape drive t

traffic i s in this category The computer's main task i s to route telezrams correctlv to their destinations At the same time, it tells its what i t is doing, in auto matically generiited r These, we are told enable t staff to keep a close watch on system operation and telegram handling progress But there is no techniciil reason

why the machine should con fine its attention to the address at the top of the message. Unlike a telephone call, d telegram can easily he analysed by a computer, and it would be easy to arrange for an 'automaticall) generated report' to pop up in someone's office every time a certdin nilme or ~ o r d appeared in a telegram

HE WIND ERA Association has gathered its reports on earlier windpower work into three volumes. shortly to be published. Each volume costs Â£1 - - though you might get it for Â£1 i f you have an ERA member friend in the electrical

Wind driven plant and its application. ERA 75-36 Volume 3, Design and testing of wind-driven plant. (Further information from D Warne, ERA, phone Leatherhead 741 51 ext 391 .) We're tired o f complaining own conclusions. Of cou a free copy plopped on t mat we could write as issue. Nudge, nudge.

ineton. Warwicks. have

Would he like to take this

TVpiracy is happening in a small way in the South of France. One village now has its own T V relay station, set up by a local engineer because of poor reception. However, they rapidly realised that they could also use the relay for programme origination. They aren't very radical about i t the weekly unofficial spot includes the mayor's account o f the past week plus odd local gossip. But at least the local gendarmerie are too sleepy to worry about the illegal transmissions, A more serious and effective experiment took place at Levezou on July 8th. In the middle o f a play, trans-

omated machinery. The convenor using the

0 decibels - rather noisy

abruptly returned material. The sourc

the station normally acts as a local relay for the main transmitter many miles away, any

When the noise level on tt

search Association wh

you'reguaranteed a big, attentive audience glued t o their boxes!

Leeds l:uturcs Centre arc holding a conference 1 AND " A I T F R N A T I V F T1:PUNOi Of;V ~-~ THE FACTORY with special empllasis on t h Lucas Aerospace initiative at Bradford Colleg and the University of Bradford. Dates sue November 15-16th. For more details phone Roland Chaplain at the Futures Cent; 05321459865. Leeds Future Studies C

The Teilhard Centre for the Future of Man is holdinn its Annual Conference o n Saturday tober 18th at St.Pancras Assembly Rooms. on Road. It is entitled SELF AND T V : CONFLICT OR COOPERATION. r Joseph Needham and Ursula King arc nong the speakers. Phone "tails: 01-582 9510.

cided as we we

nour, and the Dean of Bristol. Fu ~ii:itioncan be obtained from the S I.A. l'owler, Ifenley Cotrage, Yatten

organisations, may need be restricted." The US WECS programme, run jointly by the new

been manufactured and being installed. There are liminary studies for chines up to 3 megawatts.

these that have convi them there is money made, provided the g paws of foreigner

L o u k i n ~ n u c l ifurther ahend - there is t o I a tllree-dav conference at the Univci-sitv, of ~ c w c i i s t l i u p o nTyne from March 3 0 to April 1 1976. It is entitled APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY FOR THE UK, and is organised by the staff of the University's f a c u l t y of Applied Science, supported by I Intermediate Tecl~noloevDevelopment Gr< ng the possible session ideasarc: onal techniques and their future develc impact sources of energy: and the

The saved seed planted t had 90Y germination, if not more The frost last weekend destroyed maybe 20% of that. Not bad for a frost-tender plant. Maybe the problem is partly culiniry. I t is greedy to expect to eat Fiskeby V by the plateful, as one

st, if you want t o m

I daresay goats" cream Since at times the future se precarious, it seems worthw raise a few plants for seed each

e and patience, but there are

need at least a quart f milk and what

eItain disease conditions, it can fed direct to babies without tment, which cows- milkcanst, real reason for writing is not

question is. whether Taoi only a sensibility or also a ience. !wen Needham say Taoism is "free from all tr that it involves a very direct con Books on Taoism will describe

tory farm, it is more enjoya

r all concerned if animals are

he other hand, it may not, and large and relatively expensive,

much from a goat). So you smooth out the peaks and

well seems to think it counts of consciousness is a traditional

will still need their concentrat So if your goats are out of how. Any fence, hedge, or wa! will not contain themwi

that we all desite and strive f o

tting from the cow: we skim it r cooking with or for butter, and there is too :-.iuch butter it is is made into cheese (hard cheese

planted a ten foot double row last

1 find Undercurrents more

se, Bookchin, and o something like tha ons. How far the wo is now "embourgeoise mores cannot be shortly

ss t o accept and "consume", utions to ethical, medical, sl d technical problems instead ing the engineers of our ow*

have cut his in

because it is no longer fully d4

Anyone encouraged by S Lee's article (Undercurrents to start beekeeping, should see out a fellow beekeeper first. Y can't rely on the books - I wo never have got through my firs must resort to the broad distinction

mostly born in<he white collar

demanding a clear moral s

should get a copy of Make Y Own Skep, published by the British Isles Bee Breeders' A iation, from Whitegates, Thul Derby DE7 3EW.Contrary t o

01th living in, should be munal movement is a ther. But I vigorously a hing else. So long as the

Terry Pratchett Gayes Cottage, School Lane, Rowberrow, Winscornbe, Som. BS 25 1QP

DISAPPOINTMENT AT THE POINT OF PRODUCTION

are far from encoaraigng, Can anyone for instmice p~oduceevidence of a single strike by car workers

their industry? And the arti expressly questions the relev of "workers* control". Then why still hope and p

conscious striving for the lost green of life, then those who have that consciousness (even in freakish

Personally. 1 am not a ~arxist". Basil Druiti

and Clutterbuck. Is there a Ra Science? in UC 11, p. 8 ?

to provide a

To those twin pieties I suggest

". . recipe for the

lacta""Pure

coupled to mechanisms enabi everyone else to be thus too)

seem to be leading that ways So* luck them- The of knowledge explains how n plus nurture give to the indiv unique outlook. I work with for) deprived kids (what else someone whose parents don: a damn for them?) and they seek only the means of doing own thing - my problem bei see that they allow everyone the same privilege. Perhaps y

But Trade Unions are, after all, part of urrent socio-economic structure. They have been created as an 'oppositional' ement aimed at radically altering (or

demands do not attack profits - they just lead to price increases, withdrawal of capital investment and further recession. No real redistribution i s produced.

issues - such as those concerning manni safety, pollution, long term policy and s

Shown below are some existing items produced by Lucas and i t s subsidiaries. Lucas of electrical components to the motor vehicle industry. Lucas Aerospace are mainly concerned with supplying a wide range of mechanical

out the mandated policies and protect and advance the interests of the members. I f some of the trade union officials have espoused reformist policies, this does not mean that the trade unions themselves as a whole are necessarily reformist institutions - although that i s the danger. There are some countervailing tendencies at the grass roots, as the current rise in shop steward, rank-and-file, and cross union combined activity illustrates

lebrates affiuen

2. Lucas electric delivery van and electric-pedal hybrid bicycle. 3. Lucas Freelite windmill (now discontinued) 5 . Small scale power units, batteries etc. for isolated sites. (Lucas Industrial

Undercurrents 12 on. Management quite consciously introduces or accepts conflict-reducing institutions which force workers to define grievances in cash terms. As Michael Mann has put it: ' What we call the institution2.lisation of industrial conflict is nothing more nur less than the narrowing di).wn of conflict to aggressive economism an0 defensive control."Consciousnessand Action in the Western Working Class. Paoermac 19731. So wider \siies i i c "onsi.iousl', reduced \(, ecotidniii i,,~ei. I he tact ihat tkli, tactic fuels inflation illustrates how unst system is. The tendency o f managem t o encourage aggressive economism, the sake of short term ease o f man mtrol, leads to longer term instabilities,

Some people might argue t try will come round to the sort 'appropriate technology' being by the Lucas Combine simply influence o f market forces, perhaps augmented by the pressure of public opinion or legislation on environmental protection/energy conservation. Some of the new products being considered by firms like Lucas indicate that this i s a distinct possibility. In which case, what's the problem' What would be lost i f industry unilaterally opted to alternative technologies? Now to some extent it may be that industry, operating in response to the market, can shift its priorities in this way and thus enable some o f i t s customers to move towards self-sufficiencv. . . or whatever. But i t is by no means clear i f i t would oe ~osbiblefor themass of people to afford the products: they would simply be sold as luxury extras to those who could afford them. After all, that i s the most profitable market at present. The point is that, given the present socio-economic system and the present locus o f control, the aims and priorities of production are rarely identical with those o f the mass o f people: i n short, this view ignores the possibility o f structural divergencies o f interest in society. I f the industrialists opt for alternative technology ', ou can be sure that they will doso in a way that insures the maintenance of the present system of control, profit and privilege. In this context it i s worth considering briefly the activities o f the US aerospace comoanies in the late 1960's when, due to the 50% cut back n NASA projects, retrenchment hit them for the L K aerospace companies are facing a somewhat similar situation today.

' . retrenchment i n the aerospace industry caused aerospace management to seek new markets and applications"

Furthermore, this economism might caus workers' expectations and aspirations t rise to a point when they cannot be sat fied within the present economic system a point not lost on those who are wor for the overthrow o f capitalism. The pro lem with this tactic, in its revolutionary contfxt, i i mat it does notequip workers with :in av.dicnfss of, and an ability 10 organise around, the many equallyimportant non-economic issues and problems. After all. workers are not rust faced h i t n economic i-xplbitation. , ~ l u..gh t tlii, m ~ he \ the c c n t r ~mode l of their ression, other more diffuse forms of ontrol are in operation which help sustain, derpin and legitimise the economic extation. In their dailv experience at work, as well as in the community or as

s and space vehic socially sophistic ing primary human nee Indeed they went fur and investigated a consider ,if "social problem areds", including "communication, education, tran'>portalion, health, infkrmat'on processing, crme and delinqucncv. o o l l ~ t i o ndnd urban development".2 But note the odd mixture o f ' areas'. Many imply avery 'status oriented view of what constitute social problem and what 'solutions should be investigated. As these stu progre'>scJit became more and more obvious that all these firms could offer, despite their advanced sbstems analysis techniques, were 'technical fixes' ihdt involn-d fairly sophisticated technology - computer datd ties and analysis wchniaues for criminal records and crime analysis, rapid transit systems, electronic surveillance to combat crime. and so on. This is hardly surprising when one remembers that the firms would inev ably be concerned with pro enthusiast put it: . . we must find a w oriented mechanism by which the great talents of systems-oriented industry can be brought to bear on the needs o f societv3'.3 In the end what emerged were a few meagre, but profitable. projects on mail handling systems, rapid transit, an data files. As Boguslaw bitterly co mented, i t seems difficult for . . technical elites nutured on a diet of weapons system develo~ment. 3 criteiion iriimeiork of time and cost efficiency,and a 'free enterprise' rndnagement ethos, really (to) adurcss themselves to the technological tasks intol\ed

nsumers, workers are forced t o realise at they lack even the basic elements of ntrol over their lives. They are closely upervised at work, paced by machine d clock, bought and sold according t o he needs of the capitalist system, and caioled to adopt i t s reauired consumotion and life style ~ d t t e r n s . ~ h ejre \ lust hands and mouths. \\ i s not surprising that some workers want more than just more money to compensate for this alienation. Not onlv do thev seek to challenge the basic cconomi. dliendtiun (the c'xplo tation i.f their labour oouer) hut they a h seek 10 have more control over the conditions and purpose of their work. This goes furthere than simply asking for better 'workins conditions' and welfare orovisions. and it i s for this reason that management fears

f eted in the course of the elimination f three million dollars worth o f damage o the environment" - and remember it the large companies that to a considable extent are resoonsible for the pollution in the rirsl'pldce. As the old saying goes: ,'where there's . muck there's monc'\ ". Ariuttier, nt'wer motto ha$ albo been heeded ". . . there's nev in poverty". Urban develop nts and the US poverty program e provided much healthy profit firms. As the magazine The Ame y commented, the ". . . companies w America's poor as a vast ootential rnarket".b Given sucn a viewpoint, it seems hdrdl) surprising that the various 'environmental' and 'poverty' prolect^iembarkc-d on by US industry contributed only marginally to 'solving' the underlying proh3 lems. As Goodman commented in After

. . their solutions eive little h

from these efforts". bility'. The firm's PR departmen ould hold up these projects as dem strations of the companies' concern for the underprivileged. Now o f course it might have been possible, if these p jects were enlarged and extended, t have made some real contribution to solving the problems in a limited way nd in particular to provide work f many unemployed people who t of the problem. But in general jects were high-capital prestige iects. invoivins onlv small numbers bl specialists. As Ida ~ o c has s pointed out, t h e y were used to draw attention from the firm's major activities: "Anxious tu credts an image rcflectd in the development of fi rs, missiles and rockets wi

ry occasionally you get a report o f ion solidarity gestures concerning deed or oppressed workers abroad. And

gramme at ICI, in which the unions proposed a joint management-union control committee on ~ ~ studies? ~ iH~~~ ~ many read that these workers , were ns. And the local papers might occasionanxious that the growth of their real allycomment on the Trades Councils cam. Daien for better welfare or school provisions, incomes is not t o be at the expense of the health o f themselves, their families or their communities". How many people know about the -rransport 2000 group, which aims to press a more rational and ecologically for sound form o f transport". is that of gnat to elephant. It has not escaped these workers that e Californian Studies mentioned current modes o f technology and producinvolved $1 00,000 apiece for tionorganisation affect them notonlyat rejects investigated by Space General, work, but also i n their communities- theirs ockheed, Aerojet General and North i s a quite logical response, even in selfmerican Aviation, compared t o say interest terms. It i s also rational to begin to nuestion the loeic " of a form of nroducnd space development.. tion, planned obsolescen What does all this imply o f conspicious consump e the Lucas workers who If a car corker spends shuffling along a conv ing t o the production has to walk a quarter o f a mile, past the 200,000 unsold cars stored in what was the hop floor production workers, high car park, to his own car, so that he can killed technicians or managers, wou then spend an hour driving through con- o doubt be quite happy to engage i gested streets to his polluted, motorwaysocially useful production. I f the loc blighted, home - and all in order to pay of control can be shifted then it may for his car and the consumer items and perhaps be possible to engage ail t h i s services to help him forget his work goodwill and encompass the genuine then he i s likely eventually to see the concern and interest of all the employees irrationality o f it all. in a way that will transcend the narrow Increasingly, his response is unlikely to profit incentive. This is not to say that be just a demand for more money to corn. Lucas or any other firm shoul r become a philanthropic institution Prototype LucasrSolar Electric'Car but surely i t i s possible to organise production in a way that mee human need without becomin Initiatives like the one take Lucas Combine are exciting p because they will involve a wi employees. The Combine covers emp oyee who are members of a wide range of unions - white collar, blue collar, engineers, technicians, office staff, supervisors, research staff and middle managers. This body i s unlikely to want lust a facade of social responsibility i t is the real thing they're after. I Kenyon B. Degreene Systems Psychology

". .

"...

. ."'

McGraw Hill I970 p. 549. 2. N. Calder Technopolis McGibbon & Kee 1969 p.165. 3. I. F. C o b s 'Technology for the Urban Crisis' Technology Review July-August 1968. 4. R. Boguslaw 'The Design Perspective m Sociology' m The Sociology of the Future W. Bell & 1. Man Russel Sage 1971 p. 258. 5. R. Martin 'Busmess Tack1 The American Way 1969. R Goodman 'After theP

mental policies - after all, their members are organised around a crucial point in the

A year or so ago, the Lucas Aerospace, Shop Stewards Combine Committee set UP a science and Technology ConsultancY service ~ which~was aimed ~ at providing ~ ~tech- t nical advice t o members who were faced with new technologies, work methods, speed UP, potentially dangerous machines or processes, and similar innovations introduced by management As such, this was essentially a 'defensive' organisation in the traditional trade union sense. But recently the Combine decided that they must adopt a more positive stance, and develop Counter Proposals rather than just react t~and resist management's initiatives. The Aerospace workers are highly skilled and are used to tackling challenging new projects. They, like the car workers, can plainly see the environmental problems associated with current ucts and production - cars, weapon ms, and so on. In a recession, when nment Defence (and Welfare service) ding i s reduced, these goodies are y to be in less demand. While at the same time the needs of the community for houses, basic subsistence items, cheap sources of energy - keep growing. But the Aerospace workers seem also to have adopted a radical view of what they mean by 'alternative products'. It's not just a matter of a shift in emphasis from military to civilian aircraft and associated systems (such as automatic blind landingsystems) -socially useful and fadical in the Present Context though this shift might be. For although the work-

ers are considering these types of new priorities, and similar socially useful and urgently needed pieces of equipment at present of often only marginal or token interest t o the firm -such as medical aids, like haemodialysis units, artificial limbs and other aids to the disabled, eddy current retarder braking systems for heavy vehicles and so on - they are also considering alternative technologies which may have more long term structural implications, They are interested i n the whole range of dlicrnati\e energy technologies, including - windmills, toldr cullcctori. heat pumps, solar cells, hydrogen electrolysis, fuel cells, batteries. inverters, electric vehicles, steam :an, stirling engines and even airships. 1 he\ Are ~unsii-lerinein ~drticularhow these technologies can be put to use in complete systems to aid people in need, both in- the short term and the longer term - ^or example cheap heating and power service units for pre-fabricated industrialised buildings, cheap small scale power units for third world farmers, as well as marine agriculture and undersea farming equipment and robotic equipment to automate unpleasant tasks. You might argue that some o f these technologies imply 'reform' rather than radical change or revolutionary alternatives, in that.they simply deal with problems thrown up by this existing society. But the implied 'classification* of radical/reform technologies is not necessarily a sound one. For one thing, medical and safety problems will exist in any society. And Furthermore, whether a particular technology is truly a 'radical' technology depends to some extent on how, when, where and b whom i t is developed and used - i n circumstances'the creation and intro tion of quite conventional technique minor shifts in the pattern o f product or usage, can be revolutionary. F o r t h mass of people to have access t o photocopyingfacilities would surely be a change which would shift the balance of power somewhat The same could be argued for telex, radio, T V or even computers. On the other hand, some potentially 'radical' alternative technologies could become the base for a repressive society. This i s n o t to return totally to a 'useabuse' model of technologv ... (i.e. technolOR i s ne~tral,it uepcnds on how ) ou use it1 for the 'nic/ins'c.innot be separated from the 'ends' but simply to throw more emph'-bi^ on Uic social and political context of its inception, production and use. With this in mind it i s interest that it's not only alternativep the Lucas workers are conside also alternative modes of p Ther are well aware that it i s point e produce environmentally a ducts in a way that is socially alienating and environmentally damaging. So they will press for radical changes in the organsation and control o f work and demand better designed Jobs, autonomous control by work groups and project teams, new orms of manarcr!ient, and so on. A i these changes must, t h q Argue, he geared ni\\iirds meeting the real needs of the community - that it towards providing joi;nill\ useful products as opposed to the

e taking the liberty of writing to you as sibility of deploying the skills and equip on a remafive technology, in particular those forms which are socially useful. We should explain at the outset that this Combine Committee represents all employ of the 17 U.K. sites of Lucas Aerospace. I t i s therefore unique i n the British Trade Uni Movement i n that it speaks for the entire spectrum of workers by hand and brain, fron labourers t o senior technologists and engineers. We design, develop and manufacture a wide range of aerospace components and complete systems. A substantial proportion of this work is on defence contracts. It seems t o us that the "energy crisis" will result in a slowing down of many of these projects and the general economic climate is likely to result in cutbacks in defence contraca. This we regard as inevitable and even desire Our concern however is that cutbacks of this kind have always resulted, i n the past, i n the break up of teams of skilled workers and design staff, followed by the degrpdation of the dole queue. We have, over the past two years, been engaged i n a number o f bitter disputes to assert the 'right t o work'. I t i s our intention to do so i n the future. However, instead oi ampaigning for the continuation o f socially undesirable product ranges we will, products. In addition.. we also want t o ensure that the work i s carried out in such a fashion that the full skill and ability of our members is utilised, and that we depart from the dehumanised, fragmentedforms o f work which are now becoming common place even i n a highly skilled industry such as aerospace. The annual turnover of Lucas Aerosoace in the U.K. is approximately Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ6 milli emplovees, and some 2,000 of these are engineers, draftsme There are about 14, rge proportion of the remainder are highly skilled manual and scientific staf. workers. It i s the kind of work force which, because of its skilled background is extremely adaptable, and would be capable of working on a wide range o f prod ... We have just over 5000 machine tools and about 250 of these are numeric automatically or digital display controlled. A list o f test facilities shows that t backed u p by products, environmental and investigation laboratories. There is a very genuine desire to work on products which would be socially u not only in Britain, but in thenewly emergentand d^veiopingcountries It is certain!) not the view of the Combine Committee or of the work force involved that the kind o capital intensive products which have come to characterise the technologically advance nations will be appropriate t o the newly emergent nations. It is therefore fully understood and accepted that entirely different forms of technology will have t o be considel ed. I F YOU KNOW OF ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGIES on which a work force of this kind could become engaged, i n particular if these technologies would be socially useful, we will be very pleased to discuss the matter with you further. We are particularly keen t o see that the very considerable skill and ability of our members is used to solve the wide range of human problems we see about us. We should like, i n conclusion, to point out that this initiative comes entirely from our workforce itself, through its Combined Shop Stewards Committee, and as such is completelv independent of thenormalcommercial considerations of a large company of this kind. We will greativ aopreciate your adviceand suggestions, and would, of course, treat your reply i n confidence.

If you far reaching implications

1. Contact (with s.a.e.): Leeds, LS2 9PR. (Tel.: 1532.459865 present, and can put Committee if you wish. 2. A conference is likely, with workers from L u Details from FSC agai 3. Do you know of ather TUs, shop stewards, wo hese lines? 4. Ifyou'd like to publicise this further, please eF eL kers* committee before you do, as developments may get outdated fairly quickly. Undercurrents will oublicisa further develooments as they occur.

Undercurrents 12 urious consumer goodies thrown up b But I imagine there would be a better e (as far as the 'alternative technologist e concerned) for less sophisticated and small-scale alternatives: methane producom anaerobic digesters; the local ation of hydrogen by electrolysis red by a windmill; small water mills urbines; electric generation by fuel fuelled by methane, natural gas or hydrogen; the development of electric (Jnderc"rwn@or the commune-,jown. powered and steam powered vehicles and s of technological and OnThen come those techniques that we he wouldaccept as 'pure' AT - small easily controlled, maintained and understood, amenable to local construction and use. For example, small scale wind-electric machines, flat plate solar collectors, and small scale convertors like heat pumps run from windmill-generated electricity - or even directly by mechanical power from a d windmill Operating lhe Some of the items on this l i s t might not rity. And in either case there is the turn out to be appropriate in social and of isolationism, privatization and environmental terms. I t may be counterproductive in energy and resource usage istine industry by terms to invest in large numbers o f small windmachines or solar panels. Some of the f e complex technologies, like fuel cells eat pumps, may be too sophisticated ation and control. This does not mean e classified as AT. On the other hand nitiative, and the others that will undou edly follow, provides a much more viab

out i n the process o f

er for some time.

The point for us on remember is that here workers who have som

premature or semi-fl which help stimulate hers. The point is tha

rm) or fortransmission as a gas alon nventional pipe lines (as a basis for called 'hydrogen economy'). Or di

solar farms and solar furnaces prod

I F YOUR philosophical leanings are towards, rather than away from, a broadly scientific outlook, and you wantto change your lifestyle so that it's more i n keeping with some of the ideas and values of current alternative culture, what do you actually do? More people are experimenting with communal living situations and/or common ownership work situations. It seems likely that i f such projects were to flourish in sufficient quantity and diversity, they would form a significant and viable alternative to the conventional society of our times. No need to expand this daydream; many of us shire i t to differing degrees and in getting our different social projects off the ground and making them succeed. How many groups fail to get started for every one that makes it?I f an intentional commune/community does manage to get started, it's been said that it has a life expectancy o f about three months on average. In so tar as there are any reasons for failure, perhaps the two most common are

available material on the perceived

people are more important than property or profit the overall aim o f the community the achievement of the 'Good Life' its members. expansion o f such communities t enable them to offer a viable alte to life i n conventional society to as many as want it wrical approach to problems,

use ofthe potential for good of beha". iour modification techniques using positive reinforcement, not pbnishment. This last point i s the most controversial, and ignord here smce it an article in itself. A highly recommended book on fie sub ect to Beha",

Twin a corn start to be a thriving community of some sixty or so members on a 120 acre farm. The combination o f ideas from Walden

although, perhapsmore t

tz, there i s a great deal of

ion. It may be that much o l y adopted framework is s dged by the criteria of surviva. the features o f this framewor probably the most immediate1 us feature i s organisation. Neithe r hierarchy, nor rigid organ y organisation designed to help ve those things that the members Walden Two and agreed with most o f the jdeas in It' Inpractice the Israeli kibbutz would probably have made as good a starting point, we wanted some-

For example, the labour credit system i s a system devised to ensure that necessary work gets done with a minimum of negative feelings. In outline, it's simple. A

hour of averagely unpleasant work rates one credit, i f the work is more unplcasar; than average, i t rates more than one credi per hour, and conversely vice versa. All members have to fulfill the same quota01 credits per week (40 a t Twin Oaks) and they sign up for the work of their choice, Due to conflicting interests, they will have some work assigned to them that w; not of their choice, and they will not set some of the work they wanted to, bucin general, mathematical shuffling gives the ost satisfactory arrangement for the eatest number. Another system used is that of manag; manager is a person who hasvolunteen be responsible for some particular are? of community activity, like transport, maintenance, or agriculture. A manager has. in etfect, a mandate from the group to co-ordinate activities in his particular field; the policy, however is determined ^ the ffoup, the manager merely laking the mundane decisions. At Twin Oaks, nearly all members a One further system is t ment. Their system is a so open oligarchy with numerous safeguards includinga democratic over-rule mechani There are three people who take on th ob o f being planners (blame Skinner for unfashionable names.. .), each planner being in office for 18 months before utomatically getting the boot. The three planners have decision making powers, bi their decisions are arrived at after opei discussion with anv interested membe

able decisions, members havecertain rights and freedoms guaranteed. comes down to open government with e active consent of the governed and eems to have worked well for In brief outline, some o f the o es of Twin Oaks are as folio A contract signed on joinin plicit certain aspects o f the etween the individual and the c - for example, finance, or term membership. All incomes are pooled. The money that members may spen own behalf is their pocketmoney allowar All o f a member's private financial ass

dvance how any assets or liabilities o be divided up, in order to lessen t potential unpleasant scenes. So the fi stage was to agree how we wanted the project to be arranged financially, and the second was to find an appropriate education. In their early days the nd that parents' relationships wit ir own children, mainly their relu ce to oass control and resoonsibilit on to the community, rcpcdiedly ciiused unoleasant .ind counter~rodttciit~ uations. In the interest of their o

~eooteto return t ialstates on ieating the ' o r n m ~ n i t ~ . members dsscts 10 be used by the

e been those bo

i o t ii ,GI u i rules, niort- .1 ipi:c;ric.iti~)nc,f iomr .,I tnu ni,rnis thdl t t i e ) '\w 10\.ng t,, est,~blish.Sorrv u t i h t n i i t t po nts on i t

ter much discussion we the followinacurious ar On ii.,iiiiiio, eacn menthcr c l e c u ? tncir ~~ :Ă&#x201A;ÂĽiirndtc p r i ~ ~uealtn k~ n ild :il lru?t'n they mii) no longer spend .in\ of it. A

that resulted from the conference is the We were lucky and found a solicitor who was sympathetic and had previous experence in solving avery similar problem to ours. This meant his research time would administers the property for the beneficaries, who are the members. The trustee of the trust, and therefore the legal owner, is lim:ted company. By d curisus trcdk of fate, i t 11, happens thdl edih diid eu'r) member is a director of this limited co pany. Also, we have been granted a part capital gains tax exemption on selling u the property. We think that we have 1 effect, equal joint ownership by a gr of more than four. Other aspects of our formal relatio n i p to c2.h other ,ire ~ i . ~ dc\pI'cit ~b in i)u; lru?i ueea, a n d .1 liner C-stcrit,1 1 the .irt.i.lei " 1 ~ilsni:dtioiiof .)u-r ~~.,mpan\.

I:,

teraction with others.

what's i n them. . . As these documents could well be o f interest to other g we intend t o make them available t necessary. that other groups could merely modify

Looking for a place We chose the Welsh border wmewhe llholdings and prices are less than in land. Near Shrewsbury, so that we d earn money, hopefully from our own

the first priority. We are also enthu about alternative technology; solar extension, methane generator, etc a nauseam, to say nothing o f continu

rounded by the land. The five roomed

sive. Mains water and electricity were connected. A t the time, this was relatively chea

to be symbiotic; a balanced two w tionship; we help you as much as us. In practical terms, visitors cove Two of us had start

work situation under our own con

e voiced this kind of criticism, two en the only two who have failed to

Cofnfnunes

Although we've got pi by those who arc intere usually everybody. The out the policy.

are: House - the dom

$7.95. Order from Twin Oaks.

Undercurrents 17

then become rapidly m o

935 by Berger. He placed an elec

he back of a subject's head and pi n electrical rhythm of about ten er second. This was the first frequ

iet. This approach works. You can s yourself. %ly hands are warm,' and

ganism (of which the individual may ompletely unaware consciously) when

closed and thinking is random. T

he trainees could see what was happenin

can consciously understand.

Some Uses of Biofeedback

often results in elimination o f the migraine. This i s a matter of simple hydraulics; the result i s not achieved by drawing the blood away from the brain and the scalp. Soaking the subiect's hands i n hot water, which also makes them warm, has no eff-ect on the headache in the majority o f cases. What appears t o happen in biofeedback i s that in learning to control the flow of blood i n the hands, the patient is learning both how to engage the entire autonomic nervous system in the blood flow process. The knefits of imorovinf, blood flow in one part of the bod" are then f e n e r d l i ~ d (bv the central hypothalmic control) to all parts of the system, including the head. The loss o f the migraine appears to be a fortunate by-product Our interests, however, are not limited to the physiological aspects of psychosomatic illness and disturbance. We are also interested in psychological processes. For example, we have done a substantial amount o f research on theta brain waves. The theta wave i s an even slower rhythm than alpha, from four to six cycles per second. It begins usually just before we actually fall asleep, when we are very auiet and still. If theta is produced without the individual actually falling asleep, although that i s what usually occurs, then the subject experiences hypnagogic images. A hypnagogic image i s one that Cashsi vividly and completely into the mind. often with considerable detail and complexity. Most o f us experience this pbenomenon briefly and occasionally at the edee of sleep. Biofeedback can be used to hetp trainees induce theia waves without succunoinp. to slee~.When thi'i ha~pens, the hypnagogic images become more pienI tiful and persist. Thev are not consciously ! created; they are self-generating. 1 Theta waves and the associated hypna1 gogic images are important from several ' points o f view. For example, a number of eminent scientists and artists report in their that hypnagogic images ' autobiographies were sometimes the source o f their best ideas. Hypnagogic images i n creative individuals may represent an aspect of their genius. Theta waves may be related to I creativity. I We also found that the increased production of theta waves - as with alpha 1 waves - produced greater well-being, , better work output and more relaxed and convivial personal relationships i n most subjects. These results were also experienced by mental patients. Some patients seem t o get information from their unconscious in the form of hypnagogic images, which aids them and their psychiatrists in the resolution o f their problems.

Swami Rama The heart control experiment referred to above was only one of a continuing series of experiments at the Menninger Foundation. The experiments were a part of the Mennineer Voluntarv Controls Programme. one day one of the doctors who had graduated from Mennineer called

me on the phone and said he had found a yogi who could make his pulse disappear. This seemed mildly interesting so we agreed that this yogi, Swami Rama, should come t o the Foundation for a series of tests. When he arrived. we connected him to our monitoring devices. He then suted that i n i t i ~ l l vhe would differentiate the tamperature in two spots on his hand; he said he would heat up one place and cool the other. The results, briefly, were as follows. Over a five minute period the temperature of both soots drifted up slightly. Then there was a distinct shift i n the record, and the ipmprrature of both b + w nto drop. But then the temperature below the little finger began t o rise while that below the thumb went down and stayed down. We talked a little, and then the yogi said he was about to dosomething A t that point the temperature of both spots began to rise. Then the one below the thumb went down again while the other continued t o rise. Finally. we had a difference of eleven degrees Fahrenheit between the two areas. Then we did the heart experiment On the cardiotachometer record his heart produced an initial rate 0^66 beats per minute. Then it speeded up t o almost 94 beats and finally drooped t o 62. This fluctuation was interestine. -. but other subiects had THIS SKIN RESISTANCE meter is the sirnotest of all biofeedback devices and is very easy t o construct. The circuit i s the same as that used by Maxwell Cade for the biofeedback meters he orovides for each student in his ~s{choc\bcrnciii.s clash's at the Frdnklin School of Cuntempor~r\Studies in London bee UC1 1). l i consists o f a bimcrv and a variable resistor ( ~ o t e n t i o meter) which pass a minute electric current through a suitable part of the body, via a pair of electrodes. The magnitude o f the current i s measured using a microammeter and varies with the subject's skin conductivity. When you are relaxed and calm, your body does not perspire very much and, due to the lack o f moisture on your skin, only a relatively small current will flow between the electrodes. But if you begin to feel excited, your body starts to sweat and the current between the electrodes increases significantly. To make your own skin resistance meter, with which you can start to expiore the correlation between your own mental and physical states, this is all you need. A 50 microampere meter. New, this can cost you about Â£ (suppliers advertise in magazines like Wireless World). But by nosing around in secondhand shops you should be able t o pick one up for a lot less. 1 compromised a little, and bought a 50-0-50 microampere 'centre-zero' instrument i n a shop o f f Tottenham Court Road i n London for Â£1It works just the same as a 50 microampere m except you only use one half of the s (Warning: i f you're buying a secondh meter, be sure to get it tested i n the first). * A 5 kilohm linear potentiometer. 8 Electrodes. Cade's are made from metal buttons (yes, just like you put on clothes) embedded i n a small sponge,

achieved comparable results. Sud yopi called out, 'What is my hea now?' A t this point he had incre 'dub' half o f the normal 'flub-du so that it was unusually large like 'flub-DUB. flub-DUB.' to re this in words. When he did this, his r.,: shot up from around 66 l u round 8.1 per minute. We then requested the to slow down his heart rate. Quick! duced it from 70 beats per minute around 52. The session ended. The Swami was due to depart neapolis the next day, but he was that he had not 'stopped' his hear O'igindlly he had said that he ncecl?ri'Â fast fa" thre" days before attemptini;'~ so. This was logical if 'control' was tali achieved; it would be exercised throu* the vaeus nerve. which also controls the I stomach and a good deal o f the viscera. Indigestion could result from interfered with that nerve. Nevertheless, the S d announced that he would make the atd without fasting He was interested tofd out i f there would be any side effects. 1 second, he did not want to forgo the tunity of being recorded. In any case said, his own teacher could stop hi at any time without any preparati agreed to the attempt We did n o however. to the Swami's orooosa

with wires soldered to them. The spon is wrapped i n plastic tape (except whâ the buttons are) and is fastened to the palm of the subject's hand by means o a strip o f Velcro (which costs about 15 per foot from any dress material shop!. Putting the electrodes on i s like straoci your watch to the inside of the palm 6 your hand. I used virtually the same arrangem realm (don't know wot come ove Officer for use as electrodes, sine

can probably use almost any transistor radio battery: experiment. 0 Switch. This i s inserted between the positive terminal of the battery and thc rest of the circuit. It's not necessary i f connect the battery after using the device. Otherwise, you'll run the batte'

Undercurrents 12 would stop his heart for three to four minutes! Ten seconds would be enough for us. The next day he performed. Our records reflect that his heart rate of 70 beats per minute suddenly rose to 300 beats per minute for a period o f 17 seconds. A t this point my wife in the control room called, 'That's all,' our pre-arranged signal t o conelude the experiment. But we were puzzled - if hisheart had stooped, why did our we records show 300 beats per minute? took the graph to a cardiologist for his opinion. He told us the 300 beats per minUte signal was known at atrial flutter. This occurs when the heart is not pumping are not working and the blood; the ;hamhers are not filling with blood. Blood pressure droos and the person faints. What, by the way, he asked us, had happened to this patient? we told him 'nothing8- the Swami just took off the electrodes and went out and gave a lecture.

We wired him up i n the usual way. I had not known in advance what he would demonstrate. What he did was drive knitting needles through his biceps, without any expression of pain and (except as described below) without bleeding. Later he performed the same thing before an audience o f fifty doctors. But before he began, he dropped the knittingneedle on the floor and rubbed along the floor with his shoe. In answer to our curious looks, he explained that he was sterilizing his equipment Playing the 'straight man', I asked why he had never developed an infection. He replied roughly, 'All the cellular material of the body can be controlled by the mind. Normally we cannot do it because we are unaware or unconscious. Yet such functions are under the mind's control, and if Igive instructions for my body not t o interact with any foreign materials, how can I get an infection?' Jack Schwariz By the time he had the needle buried about half an inch deep i n his arm, I began I had heard about Jack Schwartz and to think that even ifhe did this a hundred invited him t o come to the laboratory. About a year after the invitation was issued, times, I still would not believe that he could control his blood flow. Maybe, I he called and said he would come to the thought, he has a peculiar skin. Conseqlaboratory for eight days. When I looked uently, with the intention of interfering i n my diary all the days on either side of with his concentration, Iasked him if he those dates were full, but the ei@t days would bleed when he culled the needle were available

down slowly. The battery, switch, potentiometer, meter and electrodes are all interconnected as shown in the circuit diagram. All connections that can be soldered should be soldered. The photograph showing the various parts interconnected (but uncased) should make things clearer. I n practice, you should of course rig up some kind of case for the thing. It is not conducive to good med tation if,when you accidentally tug one of the wires in a moment of Satori, the bits come tumbling into vour lao like

. . sold for holding 5 3 index cards. The meter is mounted through a circular hole in the lid, the potentiometer and switch are inserted i n holes drilled at the side, and the electrodes are stored conveniently inside the box when not in use. It's difficult to give other than vague advice about using the meter. The best thing i s Just t o experiment with various relaxation techniques (such as the Zazen procedure which Cade uses: see UC 1I ) , taking a peek at your meter every now

and then to see how the needle's behaving. When you have reached a calm state, neither deeply relaxed nor excited, adjust the potentiometer until the meter reads 25 microamps - the middle of i t s scale. Then, as a very rough guide, when you can make the meter reading drop below 15 microamps, you should be in as approximating to 'Alpha'. If you ca make the meter drop below about "I microamps, you should be somewhe near ' ~ h ~ t~~t ~ ' i .t isimportant to remember that the meter is merely measuring your skin resistance, not y tate o f consciousness which cannot be measured. (Also, i f you're feeling tired, nwell, it's sometimes difficult to g eedle to rise above 10 microamps: equally, i f you're over-excited it's often hard to get the reading down below 50 microamps). There are significant correlations between skin resistance and observed mental state, but the correspondences are by no means one-to-one, and a great deal o f research into the whole subject is still beingcarried out. Maxwell Cade i s worki n g on a book on the subject, t o be published by Heinemann next year. Heinemann are also publishinga book by Elmer Green sometime soon. Details of Maxweli Cade's next series o f classes are obtainable from the Franklin School of Contemoorarv Studies. 43 Adelaide Road, ond don N W ~~. buntil t such classes become much more widespread throughout the country, readers who can't get to London easily win have to find out for themselves by trial and error what the various meter readings an potentiometer setting mean for them. A always, having a teacher makes things great deal easier, but it's by no means possible to get along without one. Godfrey Boyle

out. I was thinking that I could interrupt his conscious-unconsciousharmony. He looked startled and said that he did not think he would bleed. But when he took the needle out he did bleed, quite a lot in fact. We were mopping the blood up when he said i n a soft voice, 'Now it stops'. Then, while I was actually looking at the puncture wound with the blood running out, it closed up in about one second. I congratulated him. We now knew that he could bleed like a normal person, but could also stop the bleeding at will. Isuggested that he might like to do the whole thing again without bleeding. A long pause ensued, and I began to wonder what I had said wrong. Finally he said okay, and inserted the needle a second time i n a sliehtty different place. This time the holes closed up quickly. There was no subdermal bleeding and there were no marks of any kind. Ail traces of one puncture had disapoeared i n twenty-four hours, and o f the other three n seventy-two hours. Later I asked Jack why he had paused before agreeing to a second trial. He explained that he would never 'force' his body to do anything. Instead, he had to request his body to perform the task that is, he had to 'ask' his 'subconscious' if it was willing to co-operate. He also said that he had t o clear the request with his paraconscious'. (Paraconscious i s aooarently his term for some kind o f superconscious.) In other words, he is not willing to do 'tricks*. Aoparently, he needs to feel that the effort is worthwhile. He apparently must seek confirmation, first from his subconscious and then from his paraconscious. Swami Rama had discussed the same issue with us. Hiscomments suggest that here i s some kind o f field or fields assocted with the body. The Swami went further - he argued that there is a 'field of mind' surrounding the planet. There are a l o t o f 'pranas' or energies outside the skin, as well as ten within it Theoretically, biofeedback holds enormous potential for self-healing. But there may also be some real limits to the control apacity of many, if notall,subjects. ~h~~ too there is the argument that biofeedback may be potentially harmful, even ifappar. entlv effective.~.L e w.k Thomas0 takes ..--, M.-., essentially this position when he argues that the problem is: If I was informed tomorrow that I was in direct communication with my liver and 1 could now take over, I would become deeply depressed. For I am, to face the facts squarely, considerably less intelligent than my liver. I am, moreover. constitutionallv unable to make hepatic decisions, and Iprefer not to be obliged to do so; 1 would not be able to think o f the first thing to do.1

There are probably limits to the applicn o f biofeedback; this i s likely to prove the case as the phenomenon is further researched. One of the disease conditions have thought to be amenable to any kind of conscious control, limits notwithding, is cancer. Yet Carl and Stephanie onton have introduced the 'mind' into their practice. Carl, a physician, is a radiation t!:e::ipi,t. Stephanie is a psychologist and vi o i k s d o x l y with Carl's patients, principailv in ii counselling role. Simonton

Continued on page 3 7 21~"

he 'solar kitchen'

d be a lapse into talk rather than S o m e in the group had previously involved with the political implic-

always available, and no extra ma r "apprentice projects. In the year that the meetings have

ogy was to hunt out real space in an

pipe has been restored to health to keep the temperature at least above freezing, The first major projects that the grou decided upon were related to food and t

A senior engineer from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory,

C.J.

a mechanical engineer, Roy Samras, has advised on the construction details of all the projects. Two house-builders who visit

acuated tube. As it is heated by the d twists, i t s torque i s transferred th tainless steel seal at the end o f the

r heat indoors for cooking, coul

Basement Fish Farm

group has turned to the more practical area of flat plate collectors for home hot water heating. Three designs, all capable of withstanding freezing temperatures (a

Und

prise have proven fruitless. So-called liberal foundations have expressed gre skepticism at the entire notion of neigh bourhood scale technology, preferring, instead, projects o f more spectacular and, particularly, projects which, rather than emphasize work, emphasize welfare. It is the conventional wisdom that inner (it\ neignbournoiids are roomed tothe mo,t dcrnc~iiingsort of dependent and that, theiefori.-, the hcst mine to do for them i s iust in to make life oearable. l i is also said that inner city people cannot deal with scientific concepts or with technological terms and tools. While C-T cannot claim t o have disproven that absolutely, i t s members fee! there i s n o reason to accept it as a fact, either. It i s Dossible. however, that the verv lack o f supportfor the project will, in the Ions - run,. prove to be beneficial. I f the SruLp can :,i.r~ibi; the lack of any s~hstantlal 'nitial f~ndiri,;, p a r t c ~ l a r l yfor louli, then i t GI1 ndvc made .I better case for neighbo~irnoiidself-s~ificienc\than it possibly could have if elaborately supported. As a pioneering effort, however, ~

afford, from outside resources, to a such needed items as a milling machine, adequate air compressor, lifting and jigging equipment, and general laboratory equipment. The group's next order o f priority, particularly after getting the secondgeneration fish production system underway, is to develop self-sustaining projects which will, also, produce enough income to sustain the operation overall and even enable at least one or two people to work at i t full-time. One such project would be a mobile auto repair service -,driving to disabled machines, particularly i n the suburbs, and earning enough, say, from two or threedays' operation there to enable several more days of operation at cost, or free, in the neighbourhood. (Three o f the group whoare competent at such things;* engine tune-ups already work for people in the neighbourhood and emphasize teaching those helped now to help themselves.) Other suggestions include a home repair van which would operate on the same basis as the auto repair service and, of course, the commercia1 sale of the rainbow trout and the flat plate collectors. But the long-range purposes o f the

practical link between in eople in the neighbourhood. First reactions i n the corn re enthusiastic but not terriblyac ighbourhood (a 70-block rectangl the inner city, with 31,000 people j about equally divided be white and ~oanish-soeakine) -. comes t o C-T regul.irly for loutin; adiicc on mechanical matter't. But no major project o f cooperation has been accomplished. Ongoing discussions of l i b 1 industrial productiun and gardening aileast keep the possibility very much alive. Two substantial neighbour-

native path for those vtho, uhile uorkinp at hiah skills or science., i-luestioti the . current corporate organi~iitionand deplo\ment of those resource,. I t cnibics scicn. Lit,, enginct'rs, techni~ians,an0 craftncoole to re-think the roles of tnvir skills andtalents while actively or, you could sav scientifically testing the material 00s-

istence of either, that the Commimi ethnology group questions. Further, the group questions thehi cal corporate and state organizati'~ society itself and intends that i t s wo-K in support of a non-hierarchical, deceit zed, participatory (rather than repreg ive) notion of society. As encouragemi f01t l i i , nc "1 ri."t~.~ri.ti, the group c s ? oh\iotiii hretikdo\\n i1 the l^r(;er inst. \ WJ lions ul >oc:et). r > i p e r i ~ " i t i i . lthe 's encourd~edb\ me lung histor:cal ev. tence and success of small-scale socia organization, from villages and cornmu wn meetings, assemblies, and othe s which, even when obliterated by er institutional power, have she% arkable power to resist and even recover and return. leclin:.~uci ,ind TOOIS n?ost siiitcd tuct t r < t ! ' ~ ~ t i.ire o n ~'vcrvuherrdppj!cm ic .. dt.'<~-Iopriicnt of tix'hnolog\ (!?in^tur: ,tii~ti,:\ bcrniitinii, alt;rntili\e1 energy wuti-i;d .i')u ,ti, bcuusc of ~-r,rp~irai' slate or,'in:/..ition, the Ă&#x201A;ÂĽiciicof ~ p p l i f ation continue to grow gigantically, vi something as simple as an aerosol valve now, a national or perhaps internatior' health hazard. The assembly line is am

pie i n the sky. Given patience and keep going even at the present leve

t o electrical, methane, methanol, or hydrogen drive systems with particular hope that one or two such vehicles could be maintained as community vehicles; a system of basement fish farms to enable regular harvests; more rooftop gardens; regular aporenticeshios for the neiehbourhood to spread as far as possible scientific methods and technical knowledge and skills; wind-power devices, with one already being planned to charge a t o light a community sign; design construction o f motorless load-ca r devices to replace the rickety shopping carts which are now about the only sue devices in the neighbourhood; emancip-

t s o f the mind, and the predatory

Karl Hess The development o f cities themselv i s another process which encourages ti munity Technology approach. Ar cities, in particular, are agglomerns of once-independent municipali h maintained their own social ser. , protection, and even productive facilities prior to annexation into the

A HOT COMING we had of it, just the best time of the year for a journey, and such

Yes, this field i s full of people busy

really cool about their evangelism. The most important thing is to have fun do what you want to do because i t

changed gear. Pretty h but it's nice for the child And then we are in Wal bunting hanging from an will take the weight, and 'Welcome to the Festiva Phew! Wot a relief! It

Undercurrents 24-hour litera market (by courtesy of Corn and Comtek). Someone says sweet dome" for the thirty-fo

from across the river. "Are those nas

veness. Since there wa d, the legend 'Danger Ele he Undercurrents generat be an act of faith rather th

to extricate oneself from

e r is reduced to applying beer

away to the land of anaesthesia. A man turns up at the Comtekcabin and asks who's in charge. When told that no-one is, he staggers away mystified. There are hundreds of people here, and none of them are fighting, stealing, raping, pillaging, looting or burning. And yet no-one's ou missed it this time, there'll s be another time.

in terms of skills and harsh industri

final forum was on Altern

eeper human potentials must

practical workshops.

only at our peril. To radical! .y and turn technology to a f n use, we must reach for i t s he earth beneath the layers o

Undercurrents 12 Â¥

the Futures Centre, 15 Kelso Road, Leeds 2, on October 18 t o 19. The Diggers group in Leeds have already taken over some land in the town for cultiva-

11:4 d

o come to this and for the People. xisting groups concern themselves out facing up t o the pr

otection of the land from agr

ttention to the fact that there are eady many people who want to get to the land to live and work who do t have a chance to do so. A number o f ople said that they were going to look r suitable disused land on which we can

was punctuated at frequen

changing rapidly. National li movements all over the world are r P ing the dependence o f their count Western i m ~ o r t sThe . present worl f nomic crisis is only anindication o f t AM CAINE o f the Street Farmers shape of things t o come. A reductio p recently spent several weeks ' exports from countries like Britain ugal where he and some friend other parts of the world will make to get involved with a local co increasingly difficult for us to pay 'ty and local workers and to I food imports which are now costin ing o f the struggle that i s under Â£3,00 million a year. way in that country. They were also able But greater which t o lay the groundwork for a programme ' therefore becoming increasingly of Community Technology development. cessary, is not likely to be achieved thout drastic changes in economic Graham presented a fascinating report ttitudes and in the present power of their visit at Comtek. structure. We've got to realise that none was that they what was impressive of the existing political parties would were, even if only tentatively, able to pporea move towards workers' control stimulate local people into awareness of d community ownership Of the land. the potential of community-generated 've therefore got quite a technology. Perhaps more significantly, us, but as this will be seen increasingly they were able to interesta worker. as matter ... .of necessity, . . rather than choice, controlled factory in the idea of dis. e will be on ou ie material resources to aid

^\\

What one catches a glimpse of here i s how a fully-developed socialist society could work I t took only a few minutes

;;

community itself could generate what eded subsequently. Nevertheless the shower gradually won acceptance, if i t was treated as a somewhat ntric idea brought in by strangers. Graham and the group then interested the local people in a plan for sewage dip posal (there is just an open sewer pit) and power generation. It i s this much more crucial development which the be able to aid when they can obtai sufficient funds to return. I t was particularly interesting from Graham that although he until then operated on the princip 'do-it-yourself-sufficiency' - foil a small-group anarchist line . when was faced with fairly large groups o f workers whu controlled the factorv, hi.. could sec no problem with m e1cmcnt.iry division of labour. You don't have to do everything yourself or be able to controi everything i f v o u live in a society in which evirvthint? i s under collective con- fi

Throughout Portugal, workers and

could be done with solar energy to meet communitv needs Thev admit that oerwn their travelling nuclear horror

ing water, much less hot wat

tion dgainstcontrol by the Comm or destruction bv the reactionary

COLIN TAYLOR constructed rammed earth blocks using this press, and a rammed earth wall. Both techniques are described in Colin's recent article (Undercurrents11 ).

Undercurren

i n the ector steam,

show. Sunhedl ~ ~ s t e mABS s ' pIdiLc quick response collector \see lJClO1 ;roused d lot of interest, but also illusir.iied one o f the main proh.enis as'.uciatrd with thick o l ~ s t ~heal c ex changers o f this kin& 'unless water was constantly circulated through the penel, i t wilted in the sun. Robinsons o f Winchester also showed a panel although i t did not arrive until late i n the week. Made f r o m y thick channelled s PVC membrane, this panel bore striking resemblance to an enthusiast's panel built nearly a year ago. The channelled

p r i ~ i ;for (any n ~ m u u goes r to the solar colft-'ctor built troni a refriffflator conThe main works

wrestled with monster plumbing

roblems, but in the end got the array lumbed in and free o f leaks, usingan tment of plastic and copper fittin radiator hose and jubilee clips. An exwashing machine pump circulated th water, and Steve wired up a control b to vary flow rate according to heat ga The heavily-insulated 55gal hot water storage tank provided much more hot water than was required by the kitchen, d it was a pity that our original tion o f orovidine a shower as well . coUd not b e ' f u l f i l l e d . ' ~ o ~ r v ewe r >tioĂ&#x192;Â§ebv bnildint? the svsiem from rgely scrap components that with inimum plumbing skills anybody stall a cheap water heating system their own Further details of the coil instdllation and control box are av ~~

Brian Ford

1 4

ry ambitious event and t rarely strayed from grou covered i n Undercurrent

he airwaves and the wirewaves and

eat pains to emphasise that

occasional fly-by-night land-bas stations insinuating themselve into Auntie's exclusive airspac broadcasting the sort of music

ople have been resorting to in orde t down on their bills. There was a

magic to the A T movement. Several people commented on the

nearer to reconciling science a

portant to develop the k i

can feel phenomena such as human aura' without these COMTEK itself was an ex

ues. Problem is, planning regula-

nukes.

mouths will find, weeks, months or yea hence, that they learned something usef from the people around them. Espe ' from the ones who didn't say a thin disagreement had been about. The ma Village Hall for a discussion o n Alternext to me thought it was politi native Culture, and then we realised we activists versus New Aee Conscio didn't know what we were meant to be I thought it was intell~ctualsv. the re Talking about. Definitions of 'culture' were offered, so Someone said i f this was how t native Culture held discussions broad as t o be mean no better than the straight soc' theories were sketched out side. I don't agree. I've never h canvases. Points were scor nciuding the Gestal Institution of Cm! Engineers baring their souls the way we did that afternoon correctly sussed the playing, and then joined in himsel Maybe i t did hurt for some o f us Maybe i n impressive lecture on Maslo we didn't reach any conclusions Mdybe we proved once again that without hierarchy of human need What did the people w straight culture to lean on, Alternative yet want to say? Nothing, for Culture would collapse. But it set the part. The people who did speak mostly brain cells tineline. and I think even<ome disagreed I don't think any two people o f those who yeft-with a bad taste i n their

Arlena Qistil'ien of FOE outs their best pedal forward.

apparatus in order to measure theperHere's what one of the organisers has t o formance o f prototypes o f both say.. . and manufacturers. MOST PEOPLE have their own definition COMTEK of ~ l t ~ ~ ~ ~but ~ COMTEK t i ~ ~ ~ Overall, h ~ 75 has~been reasonl ably successful in increasing the national stands for Community Technology, interest in the subject. There are two which means a technology nationwide T V programmes i n the 'pipeduced and marketed withi line' and other reports of interest have social fabric. been fairly widespread. The exchan This i s something that ca ideas between those who took part achieved by sitting in a she very good, everyone enjoyed thems yourself a wind generator. but the must be done slowly by putting materials, tools, through for i t to have all been worthand techniques intothe hands of your I am not convinced that while. However, neighbour and gettinghim to do it h.,i Festivals of this format are the best way o f getting ideas across to the layman. The Festivals tend to be a fulcrum around which revolve the activities of COMTEK for the rest o f the year. Consequently, the commitment to continue

or improvements to the studio, includin! a solar shower, eco toilet, heat pump and - thar windgenerator. i t is also hoped others will be interested in producingana testing their prototypes in the depot - , an activity which could be supplemented by regular weekend ~ ~ workshops ~ on specific topics with audiences of 'expert and 'laymen'. Finally it i s felt that it i s time to do something really outrageous and serious in order to demonstrate the ibilities of alternative approache ications for AT are particular1 opriate for revitalizing local stries and for liberating disus buildings and land - and there is of that in most places, including us all now get together and look or a legal but quick way to stage such vincing demonstration. Glyn Davies (COMTEKIBath Arts W

e dusk on the hillside, and people ined in on pennywhistles and an old urn. They drummed quietly, out o f g h t behind the tents, and a sublimina

cia1 kite flying picnic t o escape the med festival field. The Earth Block ing was also popular but,like the and Wind workshops, it could have

ssociated performance data, but even en it would be difficult to improve the he heavens were celebrating y. It was so nice and warm th

that week because of the stars and th

extended essay by Woody. Parts one and two appeared in

piar, in every generation Let us consider the grow movement whether relig usually is assumed, by those concerned IS right it should be possible to convince at least a majority of people of its worth, to convert them to the truth At first lt looks as i f the assumption may be justified the movement begins to grow Sometimes growth may be slow and steady sometimes really spectacua with thousands even millions

- that if the message

What went wrong 7 Why did the movement fail 7 The surprising answer is that at least not until t probably didn't 1 the rot set in The notion of relative morality tells us that it never had any olute truth, either before or after adjustment' There never were any heathen What the movement did have was a relative truth which was valid for a certain minority with particular ranges of personality, life experience and life situation It is quite possible h a t most of this minority did associate with it For the majority, its truth was not valid and would not become so until their life experience and/or situa i o n , was modified in an appropriate way This conclus~oncan be summarised in the following axiom which we WIII argue is of crucial imp

ct communica ation number

the rate of growth is tailing 0 At this point, one of two t usually diagnosed Either t h (perhaps the movement's f a ~ l u

The second option bring's its own special dilemma to what extent should the message be modified At one extreme there may be the view that ihb message is sacred it is the truth and any attempt to dilute it in pursuit of popularity is profane At the other end

ment should continue to grow.Betw these limits a whole range of compro ses is possible Even if the movem was not already tending to disintegr

the subjective group

For any set of ideas no matter how ridiculous from other standpoints, and no matter how poorly communicated there will probably be some fraction of a real subjective group available to accept them

astonished

hed

ge, and the reponse to effort ratio begins to fall this is less hkely to be a sign of communications or other failure than a sign that movement building is nearly complete In plain language everyone else thinks the ideas are rubbish By changing the message, the subjective group will also change, and the group which responds to the modified ideas may be larger than before There is no absolute sense, however, in which one set of ideas is better than the other If this is so. it might seem logical to take the ideas (if any) which command majority support, to be right by defini tidn This will be little help to the ongl nators and followers of the movement it was almost certainly the fact that they were not part of the subjective group to the prevailing ideas which produced the movement e can now give a second, more objece, answer to the moral questions sked before why struggle 7 and why ruggle for sociality7 We struggle ecause we are part of the subjective up to these ideas This discovery kes more, not less urgent our tinuous criticism of our own poss-

and not. repeat not the extent to w others are able to accept its truth

with

beings Thus it would not be necessary to communicate with anything like half

movements In one sense commun son IS making available ideas-bo facts and values reasons and explanations-to those able to receive them If after the instjal contact communication becomes a two way process then something can be said to have been created Ccrnmur~cation in this sense is vital to any movement Indeed some would say that it is the movement But communication may also imply persuasion getting the other person to see your way, convincmg people of th need for change, etc Communicatio in this second sense is intoleran dogmatic It seeks to make a relativ morality absolute This remains tru

religious left to fall out over few wlll want ve the most viable going concern be greatest at the dogmatic extreere large numbers of small sects e formed Each of these sects

and

political

dogma

s almost impossible not to be s way. None-the-less, for those w tion to this problem is likely t

Other

real facjor in the life situation of the victims: a facility which is (fortunately) seldom available to minority groups. Once any subjective group has Cornmunicated .with itself, identified itself, become a movement, then the Problem of social change, whatever else i t

systems of

understanding) So far we have treated so

investigation at a number of levels. Some lines of enquiry suggest that the whole naive idea of common objective nterests breaks down once the wonderful complexity of human beings is understood. Others stand by the notion of objective interests on common sense grounds, and see the problem in terms of psychological barriers.

:liange. There is no absolute n y the subieciive group to given under favourable conditions. In polit terms, the classic success story was the rjse of fascism in '20s and ' Germany. Almost every twist of economic, social and political

stion now arises, what if the

It was the punters through the card'.

dream : '

The prospect that circumstance move society in their particular di lion remains the one real hope

bimd history will show no prefers* debatable, since 'interest' is a value

change, i.e, every interest in pres g the status quo, seems to coinci relatively well with its subjective gro the psychological barrier is wea interest in change often coincides badly with the subjective gro receptive to the idea o f change. Ind the .more desperate the plight of

not share it. We the thoroughnes

neu, the ideas put forward s

seems to become. For a treatme bers. Each group of people bound [her in this way can be said to form bjective group, or class (In Contrast o have in common their ideas.) If the ove assumption holds, the class can said to have common objective ow it was inconceivable to earlier ovement builders that an objective

nty pampiet: a The Irrational sn Politics" is essential reading. Our earlier caution regarding the libertarian position Should be borne in mind. In the case of complex mature societies, two new difficulties arise for movements aimed at an objective group. Firstly, the definition of common objeconce the easy tive conditions of life becomes increpart of the problem asingly difficult. Secondly, the real interests of a class, which are to be the subjective interests of the movement, are much harder to define in specific

isticated version, the subjective iahs were dispensed with. The tive group was to become subiecgroup to itself. The class, out Of ogles, would generate its own ement. The real superiority of this on lay precisely in the absence of

ubjective world of big parties small principles; sporting contest spectacular shows; gentlemen's I ments and career opportunities. I look also at the single reality k them : The System, The society stands over us and against us, a even in the midst of change, tinuously to preserve ltse influence over us.

tes, but the groups shad into each other. Differen set of ideas may find d ces. The same audience may subjective group to va

Undercurrents

possibly inciud eil have our sums h ean of the id

ty which tolerate They are able t is it a supetiiciai feature in the se of a bonus handed down to good s and girls, as many radicals like persuade themselves. A liberal functioning of the mature society. Now this does not mean that the liberal era is permanent, merely that to close it otion towards authority. We need m i l s which society imposes. the climate itself is essential to

dreams. People become vaguely that the road does not lead to u

some the paternal hierarchic-commu society of,remote ancestry now stir

it is a time of uncertainty, of c Many weird embryos appear. subjective groups, always p society, grow to unusual pr Older combatants, of definit failed, continue their ritual st tragi-comedy on the stage of !if

ching unsteadily forward,

Alternative Cuitu

favour of a social ethic. These people. it they can base their values in coinmon objective conditions of life, will generate a social culture. It may be useful to compare the above with a corresponding assumption keyed to the objective group : Bourgeois society has called into existence a class, the proletariat, which has in common its objective relations to the mode of production, and which. so soon as it becomes conscious of these relations, must inevitably triumph over them to create a new. socialist, society. Let it be clear that no breakthrough is being offered, only a new line of advance. We still face the same defeating dialectic between the way we are, and the way the world is, which has frustraled so many intentions and predictions, Just as the theory of the objective group requires that it becomes consCIOUS. becomes a subjective group to i s , becomes a movement. so the theory of the subjective group requires that it becomes committed, becomes an objective group to itself, becomes a culture. Just as consciousness has been the Achilles' heel of class theory. so commitment is the Stumbling block of culture theory.

who prefer tyranny will become less keen with no one to oppress; most of those who accept exploitation as 'necessary' will review their verdict with only themselves to exploit: most of those who revel in the rat-race will find it a duller game without losers to prove themselves by,. . Meanwhile, if the key assumption holds. how would a mere subjective group liy emancipated social

withsn it. This in turn will further e and consolidate the movement. A inuous dialectical process dev this time with no certain satu level. An alternative culture will

subjective

identity : its

people

i n In the course of a subjective group fulfilling itself, becoming a movement, it exerts pressure on the soclal framework, A greater or lesser s h i f t occurs ii', the real situation. This applies

nal arrangements.) Their to n wilt be similar to that of

t, rather than its existence. (This ften obscured by time-lag factors.)

tants of a completely sub;

he movement saturates its subjec-

to make their morality absolute, for t of tolerance to other moralities is tral to the whole concept: the c lion of sociality is incompatible reluctant, human beings. The idea of capturing state power has no place in alternative culture strategy.

h he

goal is to create a social culture among those who desire one, not to convert the existing society i n t o , a socialist one. dislike it who dares. This may sound an incredible statement to those used to thinking in conventional terms. Some will ask : a How can it be meaningful for a limited number of people to practise social culture, while the system continues to alienate, exploit or napalm both them and other victims, according to its logic ? * This difficulty springs partly from a failure to understand what the Pursuit and practice of social culture involves. and partly from a hidebound frame of reference concerning the nation State. territory, the meaning of democracy, etc. Some of these areas win doubtless be illuminated in the course of sketching

shall confine our attention to two

hen the fact of movement itself. But most movements reach equilibrium with society, and then live on for many years, not knowing their date with destiny is past, becoming part of the lans-

Now when (and to a mild extent an objective group s introduces a new real factor to the cia1 scene. The frame of reference those concerned, of people in cont with them, and of society as a ole, is altered. Where this frame of erence is tilted in favour of the ovement's ideas, the result is likely o be an increase in the size (and depth) of the subjective group. Of course, society Is again adjusting to the 'becoming', rather than the fact, of the partial objective group, If equilibrium is reached, that is once more the end of the matter. Except that there will

tioh, so it will be declared unw ble to have two or more cultures 4 habiting the same territory. The exact form that the struggle ntake is difficult to foresee. Like colonial struggles, it will be wa<i from a position of material weakni and moral strength. It will possi include phases of defensive violer against brutal measures, though : presence of the colony within the doi nant cultures will impose unusual sl tegic restrictions on the latter. Anor imponderable is the effect of a h sociality culture on the remain population of the old cultures: if desertion rate from these societies exponential, then they will indi prove paper tigers. Perhaps the rfl powerful weapon of the alternal culture will be this : it will not seek replace one dogma, one absod morality, with another. The final outcome will release u j th^ world a new phenomenon: voluntary state. Its birth will mark! even greater milestone in human hi{ ry than the emergence of the sec! state from the struggle for religii

from The Frontiers of

The "May" lectures tak

Recommended Reading

have been described as "connected in

court Brace jovan

dercurrents 9, there wa on page 12 in the circu of the BRAD 'black bo STOP PRESS !

~ a r c o u r Brace t Jovanovich

The first run of Pat Gadsby's program

ibuted at random, so there is no way Journal o f the New Alchemists, Shank's Pond Road, Falmouth, Mass.

Penthouse, Aug. 1 C. J. Swet, "A Protot A.S.M.E. publicati Nov. 1973.

of the figures for potatoes. For peas, the thiamine, riboflavine, nicotinic acid and vitamin C contents should read 0 09; 0.04, 1.0; and 7, respectively And the missing line should read "potatoes 06;22,2,02,0,003,0.01;0.5and55. I n Undercurrents 8, we stated that an article on Steve Baer's solar house appears in UC6. In fact it appears i n UC5, which is now out of print. How Straight is the Old Straight Track? IA Correction

decide whether to accept or reject an alignment, so it i s not possible at this point to compare our set of alignments directly with his. We hope to carry a full report of this work i n Undercurrents 13 Chris Hutton-Squire Crossinc Your Mind With Silva: How to go about it. The resuonse to the article on Silva Mind Control last issue was so great that we felt we should print details of how to rnntart them.

hnology medicine man of to

on think lllich has been trio doctors seem to have latched on though lllich thinks it the least dama which a lot o f doctors think he's sayin but rather that to make pain somethin always alien to oneself, t o be managed a doctor with drugs or whatever, dimin the scope of life. To live is to suffer, and suffer is to live. Do you want to live " sterile, painless operating theatre, or and an expectation of total elimination suffering, pain, and death (our unmentionable topic) is to make life a meaningless nonsense. lilich is profoundly serious though a joker as well.

And then? And then, since about 1945 or 1950 medicine has entered i t s hieh-technolom phase, and has become counter-productive' what i s meant to cure ills ~roducesthem instead. Illich claims th.5 has been parallelled in e u ~ c ~ t i oand n trdniport. lllich clamifLC^. the Ju~tors'ill-duinc Lnder the ft-nerd. heading o f iavogenesis(meaning Ă˘â&#x201A;ŹË&#x153;ceas bv doctors') o f which he says there are three kinds: clinical iatrogenesf's' that is, side effects of drues. and investisattons. - . onerations . social iatrogenesii: that is, medicine' invasion of society and the mutual re forcement of the medica! mode and industrial mode. Most o f our diseases

Barefoot Doctors i n China. 'a clearly viable alternative'.

You know him? Yes, 1 know him fairly well; though what human beins knows another?

Do you agree with what he says? With most o f i t ; though i think it's a shad today are caused by the industrial way o f up-stage for most people. lllich's thinkin life, and are treated by analogues of the i s very tight and very deep. Although m verv industrial machines that caused them. people can understand at least some of ~ h iciitcgor, i dlso embraces uoctorb' symptoms of the disease he is trying to characterise exactly - for example, the ~ r r t i f i c ~ t i oi n ~dcvidn~r f or of simple J'smess our own NHS is in; or the constant gust with our society as disease; and. most imoortantlv. . . structural iawoaen- increasing health demands of the 1aity;or esi5' that i i t h e rcinobal t r i ~ mthe i n ~ u - ~ c l the present state of medicine in the USA or the falling expectation of life in some u l of a l l tt.-,ci)nsi~ilit\for UCL:SIO!U Annut western countries. Certainly they prrtvid his own health and sickness. very good reasons why we should at I What the individual used to copy with by give him a careful hearing. His prose, himself, says lllich, given some help vou, is rather heavy going for some pea from the extended family, his neighbours,

itutions he criticises.

, and I think this i s partly justified. H

it, raised blood pressure, hardening of arteries, peptic ulcers, appendicitis, tw three diseases of the large bowel (inclu cancer) - that are almost certainly pro ed also by our way of life; not to ment

s he provides touchstones by which to ge the validity of the various alternat-

apart from' North American exp t s and Chinese barefoot doctors,

ollution and oil slicks and Minamata

essionalisation. On one

cake differently. l i i r \:-?y think cake i s u hdt \ve n w d - ;. r !..., and t x ' t ~ c rc ~ k r .

compares ditterent western counuies, there-"5 no corri.'liflion betwi't-n heafrb and

time in history we know just how wear

ical expertise to treating the diseases later stage, more of the very expertis produced the disease in the first plac brilliant expertise, but almost useless certainly expensive, and obviously irr ional. Driving round in motor cars an sitting watching TV helps produce coronaries; so i f you have a coronary, you'll be whisked off to hospital in double-quick time ... . in .. . a - wecial .--.. motor car .- called an ambulance, and )our neart b e ~will i he monitnrptf on 3 tpkiision vrffn dnd ,c,

d. From the AMIGOS Kitchen e s I'd hope groups of, say 10 or opie would emerge, interested in ng, or giving up cigarettes, or takin gorous exercise, and so on; and the

themselves are staunch adherents o f the

hope can there be for conventional exh tatory health education?

individual? Well, yes, that i n part from the institution that manages things for you !o the human-sized group inside which you can manage things yourself - with your neighbour. This i s Illich's whole point The institutions of medicine, education, transport, and so on and so on have expropriated the individual's right to stand on his own two feet: say, to learn a language he wants to learn from those who are prepared to help him learn it, or to manage, with a bit o f help, much of his own illness - or better, prevent it; or get from A to B a t a reasonable pace - say, at up to 20 m.p.h. But can't we do that now? No, some of us can, some o f us can progr

priving others'of the chance of movin around at a much slower pace - thou one well above walking pace. Of cour in cities the transport institution i s m

drsversbeing brain-washed by the car radio, their coronarv arteries silting- UP. . lllich's critique, \ o u see, is o f nt:st~'rnindustr'al society 4s a whole: hr h.is ,elected meuici t ' iusr one ol the ~... . mndcs. though nt thinks a crucial one, to be scrutinised. And just as one cannot separate medicine from the society that fosters i t and that i t suc~

~~~

must one do to be healthy? Answer: on must live a healthy life. And living he ily has very deep roots. I t is as simple that, and as complex. And healthy livi

centre' I mean a viable heart, a livs to a community of, say, 5,000 pe there ever is , u ~ ha I i ~ i n gheart toda). Ano 1 wdnt thr h o l e thing to hdve its structure Ă&#x201A;ÂĽinex~i.1mode of funclsnnini! Jclcrmitied

nicillin. Because all the successful

t y . The third element would be th MIGOS Help Room, in charge of a nu -xi\, .ii;ed 3 5 tu40. The IIeip Keom wo-Id be her ~ilfii.'e,where she'd .idvise $()mepruplc qulelli mithou1 ~lidkln,; ~ n i

Undercurrents 12

and letters, and ahs~ractso f letters i n

the same as everyone else. My journal

And what are i t s chances?

larger anti-institution endeavour. Ivan

that much difference

The Alternative S

- because we live in

Scotland: "independence without sociali

The Red Paper on Scotland. 368 pp. Â£1.6 from bookshops or EUSPB, 1 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh E n 8 9LW.

"Any study of Scotland today must start from where the people are, the realities of day to day living, extremes of wealth and poverty, unequal opportunities at work, in housing, health, education and comm'.inity living generally." So begins the Red Paper on Scotland. Deprivation and lack of adequate scoail provisions are widespread throughout the UK. But Scotland has more than its 'fair' share of social problems and economic deprivation and less than i t s 'fair'share of housing, educational and employment opportunities, social and welfare facilities and general economic prosperity. Successive Governments have classified large areas of Scotland as 'dev yet the unemployment r remains up to three times hig of the South East o f England times of economic boom. TW per cent o f the Scottish peop lion) live at, or just abov line. One in ten houses i n Scotland standard, the percentage working class parents in Scottish Universities is decreasing to a level probably below that of the 1920's' and there is an incidence of rickets in Glasgow slums. As Richard Bryant's article i n the Paper points out, it would take an extra 4 l p per person per year to raise Scotland's social services merely to the average position of England and Wales. This situation i s no accident it is; as the Redpaper attempts t o shov?, deeply entrenched and is a result of die whole economic and social structure of the West - a result of the ways in which c a : i t ~ i i s mconcentrates its Power and in~-tinientsand bleeds whole areas dry w:ihout wen attempting to cover UP the wounds adequately. Th; Highi3nds, where 9% of the popul.:*,.Y own 64% of the land, have their share of inÂ problems. Carter in his article raises the prob~emof basing asocialist strategy for the n!$:la,?ds on land issues. The power of the Highland landlords is based on land, dnd any strategy must challenge that heki-mciiy. Secondly, the idea o f industrial development, equated with high technology, must also be challenged. He

the same preconditions as the Chinese model. He emphasizes that such a strategy for decentralisation can only be viable i f combined with altering the structures of inequality. Scotland's problems are gaining recop nition, but solutions reflect a superficial analysis of these problems and many are based on the popular myth 'from rags t o riches'- where the discovery o f oil is seen as Scotland's liberator. But the bulk of the oil industry is in American hands and the 'oil boom has not meant increased prosperity or higher living standards for most Scots. Rather i t has meant soaring prices, inadequate amenities, social dislocation, hazardous conditions of work for the people involved in the industry. (200 have died so far in the Nort according to North Sea Oi mittee). This parallels the e

the petrochemical industry. He shows for example, how the pharmaceutical industry in Britain i s present by mainly US monopoly pri anti-monopoly alliance of and community groups. T community action runs through the book and seems to reflect a kind o f neosyndicalism which appears to be growing in Scotland in the form of increased demands for workers' control and communi t y democracy. The Scottish experience of deprivation in the midst o f affluence and heightened aspirations, the false promise of a boom through oil, and alienation from a centralised and bureaucratic Westminster government, together begin to explain the recent dramatic rise of Scottish Nationalism. But what would Independence really mean. for the Scottish people? Independence on the basis o f oil would lead to less independence for the Scottish economy rather than more.

ties of wealth and power continue to persist everywhere in the 'Free World' (including Scandinavia). Like Burnett, we would ask how and why a Scottish social democracy can succeed where others have failed. When the question of freedom for Scotland is raised we must ask: Freedom m whom and from what? In answering se questions we realise that independence without socialism brings little more than a nominal change o f government, as of ~i~~ shows, ;he example ~h~ traditional parties have responded of~devol.~ to ~ ~ with ~ the i promise ~ ution, but as McGrath says: "Devolution i s a game that Waddingtons ought t o pate (youhave gained a minorconcession. Collect Â£5 and wait 5 years before your next throw. Your minor Concession pro~ ~ ~ duced a boring incompetent Devolution Discredited. Pay Â£5 back anc

North Sea. .'

ster clearly offers us no solution, for cap! alism i s the root cause of Scotland's economic and social problems. Massive structural change is needed if we are to create real alternatives to what exists nov and we must not underestimate the prob lems - or the potential in contemporary ~ ~ ~B~~~~ ~ puts l it ~ succintly ~ d in his , introduction to the ~~d paper: "what appear to be contradictory features of lifetoday - militancy and apathy, cynicism and a thirst for change _can best understood as working people,s frustration with and refusal to We would be essentially a single commodity- accept powerlessness, and lack of control producingcountry, subservient to the over blind social forces which determine wishes o f the multi-national corporations their lives. disenchantment which and living on borrowed time, for neither underlines an untapped potential for the supply of oil nor the demand will last co-operative action upon which we

Undercurrents 12

Apart from one article from Rob Gib, there is no attempt t o woo the "Scots 5%'. World Socialism i s still the first aim,

economy and power structure and there i s such a thing as a Scottish culture. All this

The magazine's commitment to the Arts i s real: almost a third of the magazine i s given 10 poetry, a good short story, an interview with the Breton musician. Alan Stivell, an account of the work o f the aelic poetess Main Mhor reviews of poetry, records and rthcoming issues will covw eatre and include an events Essential reading for Scottish radicals, be of interest to other Underers? Clearly i t i s not for that e readership who throw UP horror at the merest mention sources and an extensive letters section ensures that the local readership is not ~ alienated by crude Marxist dogmatics. Calgacus, however, is clearly aimed at e intellectual Left. This issue i s about olitics and the Law, an attempt to show w the 'impartial' ,processes of Law are d t o implement Government policy. tides on internment in Northern Ireseek to underline its use as a labor' y for techniques of containment, ich could just as easily be used against ellious elements in England or Scotland.

authoritarian socialism i s in evidence:

pite of recent bombings; and there are wo articles praising the UNB, a revolutionary Breton 'nationalist' party which accepts centralised party democracy, and rejects spontaneity and libertarian ideals. The bulk of the articles (such as Bob Purdie on Kitsonism) give a welcome dose of realism, dnd reject the myth of Britain as a country whose government and army act decently and humanely and which unwillingly acceptcd the burden o f Northern Ireland. The line taken is that this i s just the latest in a long line of colonial situations where troops, special powers acts, boot, baton and torture are used t o frighten and control not just 'extremists' but entire indigenous populations. Perhaps we still can't envisage such methods of control in action in England or Scotland, but it perhaps wouldn't take much in the way of economic or ecological crisis plus a few extremist bombings from left or right to tip the balance. The editorial ends with a prescient remark; " I t is over 50 years since the tanks rolled into Glasgow and the State deployed the military against striking Scottish workers. It i s unlikely to be another 50 years before we see it again". Not 50 years but several weeks later the Glasgow dustmens* strike was broken by troops. Tanks were not used but if a 'socialist' government and a 'sociali s t ' provost can use troops in strike-breaking, then a future Tory administration mav well he tempted to be a bit tougher. The WHFP also has two excellent community papers, the West Highland Free Press and the new F o r t WilIliamFree Press, each weekly. Subs are Â£ per year or Â£2.5 for six months. They're at Breakish, Isle of Skye, Scotland. Mike Grev

LAW -

Legal Frameworks Handbook forcornmunesandcollectives. 50p from Laurieston Hall, Castle Douglas, ~irkudbri~htshire. 40 PP. MANY PEOPLE are easily put off by

well as financial problems such as raising money, and has a section of suggestions for internal rules for communities. There are many examples of actual cases o f communities using the various types of framework, and a set o f model rules for a housing association is included. There is

I understand that future editions will

Undercurrents 11

' . . pseudo-scientific experiments c o n d u c t e d with t h e a i d obvious."

of mechanical instruments, w h i c h o n l .y p- r o v e t h e

new consciousness, through meditation, will be able to unite the two. But in movements like TM there is little hope for

Transcendental edita at ion. Jack Forem. Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ3.5 George Alien & Un win. There is an Indian story: After 12 years o f ascetic life and deep meditation a yogi found the truth and experienced enlightenment.

science i n i t s own right and it must be understood by experiencing i t as Teilha de Chardin and Aurobindo* were able do, But when fie author tries to us that meditation is good because cer physiologists and psychologists have said

practising it. All meditation is tran ental: there is no one 'Transcenden tation'. Non-transcendental meditat

ive. There is no need to think in terms of *Aurobindo footnote

need for him to worry. The western managers o f Maharshi seem to be fulfilling the same role. Reading the 17 page evangelical introduction to Forem's book one can't help feeling that the movement is much more interested in perpetuating itself than i n the real experience of

impasse - even i f it provides no real str egy for the transition en mass. Despite journalistic style there i s a l o t o f infor

already in existence and the world i s n o

religion-and huge ambitious organisati can only obscure the simple nature of meditation. Especially when almost ev

terms of i t s aim - which is apparent! communicate with the man i n the st Unfortunately it seems to have been

Undercurrents 12

"200-odd million Americans use more electricity for air conditioning than 800-odd million Chinese use for

World Energy Strategies

This excellent book i s

primary inputs to our economic life. Our teful affluence has been achieved by stitutingenergy for labour time in life as though it were a ee good. I f this substitution i s going to ave to stop or be reversed we are going

to build this year but with long term strategy: what possibilities are open t us from about 1985 onwards, how ca we choose between them, and wha

tious parts. The first chapter, on energy conversion, starts with a particularly striking fact: world energy conversion is equivalent t o giving each one of us 50 slaves at his elbow. The trouble is, not only i s the supply of cheap slaves running out, but some people have more than others: an American has 300, a Briton

(d) (e)

( i

(a) (b)

rapid energy growth cannot continue much longer; most technical fixes that increase energy supply are slow, costly, risky and temporary; most social or technical fixes that reduce energy demand are fairly quick, cheap, safe

renewable sources o f energy should be developed; nuclear progra'mmes should be suspended until enough infallible people can be found to operate them for the next few hundred thousand years (a hereditary caste o f priests, perhaps? reserves should be used a

their local renewable energy sources; Third World countries should not try to develop energy intensive

derelict Fast Breeder Reactors. Finally a word about the price of this book (Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ2.5 for 131 pa es, 30 of which are blank or nearly so). Comparing it with other similar books recently published, I reckon that it i s at least twice as expensive as it need be. The result will be

separate British edition in partnership say with Penguin who would surely have snapped it up. I got the distinct impression that they weren't too worried about the price. Lovins'himself remarked that the book was s t i l l good value because it contained so much information not available elsewhere! This is just not good enough. Our rulers will only adopt a sane energy policy when public opinion forces them to, So the first duty of a campaigning organisation like FOE must be to get the message out as cheaply as possible to

averdge reader coming at the whole thing cold. Our friend Bernard Seal worked with Cliff on the working version, and thev fincame up with a version that had all the

i f f Harper, Epic Product1 eckoned it was better to wait But we'

inked in his own divers' to see his etchings of life after

the grainy texture that made it seem extravivid, like old Buster Keaton films. The t v.,i.e- w x .in a W iitraiohtfnrwarff V. . ..-.. ..-~, . .-. ...- . ..-. - , hnt - .had .. static,even monumental, character w h i c h e time move slower, 1 suppose i t wasn't art, whatever,that is; more a kind of ired draftsmanship inwhich virtual in new wasderiv m real things in this world: the people furniture, the buildings, the tools and machines were all precisely copied. Ail the 'items' were very carefully selected their visual or symbolic qualities, and although the composition of the pictur was superb, there was little sense o f flo within or between the frames: each was tableau of discreteeleme in a crystalline, intellectual world of symbols where people seemed rather mechanical and machines seemed rather arid, bu human. hi^ may reallydug the purity of it all. inparti because there were no words, each fram was full of uossibilities. and one's fane

homing them into the Pre-existing bu Cliff asked Will Pollard to do a set of and he did. But Cliff didn't fancy the for some reason and produced a working set himself. They were more or less dreadful. Meanwhile I took to wandering round erox copies o f the virtually com-

bit of crude but clever plastic surgery with his Rotring The resulting sex-changes added a number of hefty-looking dykes to an already rather androgynous population, but restored the proper balance. Cliff had also prepared an sis of the whole series of six comics

only the first three arc set in the ntry, the last three being about the

ty; Seymours' Self Sufficient should they be formal to match the pictures? Should they be explicit and heavily litical, or funny and allusive, leaving i t hints and symbols to get the message er? I felt rather stronglythat they should e like snatches of overheard conversation,

From Nowhere. The synopsis w separately, and a condensed versi appears inside the front cover of Times. Black Wedge in Brighton lovely job of the printing, and w to see what would happen.

Undercurrents 12 have grown up together and difficulties arise i f the conventions are not followed. Basically, people seem to read the words very quickly, using the pictures simply as a context. Elaborate drawings and exact Ie and dramatic. Messages can be need to be an honest carried in symbols and o misjudge the medse points. Zipping

are superb and show what could be don So what should be done in later num bers? N o doubt Cliff will tread his own path if he feels he should, whatever any says. But we have fallen between two into loving craftsmanship with pretensions to immortality. The attempt to do both has failed. In my opinion Cliff could not do real comics without literally changing his spots. This would be a waste of formidable talent and (by now) experience, I vote for the Hoch Kultur solution. Any-

er than most comics, so one get

---~,.

failure. I n retrospect i thinkthis arises from a series o f misconceptions about the comic form, but before I get into that, there's the more basic question o f who it's supposed to be for. There's a phrase on the front o f the synopsis about how the se " w i l l become available to the people'. 5 who are the people?Cliff had a quaint notion that workers all over the count would be queuingup to buy it. Rather touching, really,but in event i t s readership was obviously restricted to freaks and middle class 'intellectuals', i f only on account o f the channels of distribution. But they didn't appreciate it either, by and large. Cliff put his finger on i t one day when he said sadly, "There's somethine for everybody to hate". And that indeed i s how it seems t o have gone. Apolitical freaks are put off bv the adapted Russian Revblution poster on the over and the title 'Class War Comix';

(the Vietnamese anarchist heroine. the 'armed love' motif on the child's sweater, the red and black flag on the roof, the he

anner. In such context the symbols could become significant and fascin

Alternatively, what about the Rupert Bear format; 'with doggerel couplets under each frame? No? Anyway with a text somewhere and no bubles, allowing the pictures to speak for themselves. This would also have the effect o f making the

his direction. But New Times is not in t category, and I think Cliff's extraordin-

gifts are better employed in carefully efore this experience I hadn't-really ght about what comics were and how worked, although I had been very inrested in them as a medium of propaanda and collected examples such as u s ' Los Agachados in Mexico, 'Ou Norman' in Socialist Worker, and t brilliant 'A Proper Place' printed by Communitv Press in Islineton a coup1

itself marred by the attempted comic fo The words, and even the bubbles themselves, distract one from the pictures and prevent one from climbing into the possibilities o f that crisp and fantastic world. Specific efforts to mimic comic convenns (such as emphasis for dramatic effect) come over as merely crass ('We're developine a new fuel svstem. based on WIND

essential vitamin of the Left - the one that keeps the juices o f the imagination flowing and stops us looking mangy and losing our teeth - critical but generous visions of how it could be. A footnote for kids. New Times makes a reallv great colouring book.

A few people wr en a complete cut-and-dried design ere and then in UC1 1. One person en said he thought it was a sales mmick to get people to buy the xt issue! in case any other readers re under the mistaken impression

Performance Up aloft, as part of the working wind generator, we found that it took moderate to fresh winds (roughly 20 m p h t before the propeller would spin fast enough t o start the dynamo charging. This is in spite of the tact that we have a very fast propelo r with a tip-speed ratio of about 8. which which should mean that the prop spins at some 750 RPM at 20 mph. 's very' difficult for us t o estimate the mill performs at it maximum windspeed of about 2 5 mph - i.e.eed above which we've decided it

we have n o more facilities tha average man-in-the-fitreet. Ind

nnel, (but then. neither does the manAs we said last time, our aim was t o

winds. Neither do we have accurate d-measuring equipment. But we esti-

possible, since rewinding involves much work. S o we decided t o mn

o do, of course)

absolutely no output from the dynamo s a good idea t o set up a crude tes

Connect up a voltme r as shown in the d ng current, at 900 R

Tail Vane. We found the damped door closer we talked about last issue had too strong a spring. At the moment we're lustusing several thick elastic bands in parallel, but since these perish outdoors. we'll be fitting a spring soon. Eventually, we'll be fixing up a home-made piston ciainper, too. The Invertor: We haven't found an fivertor necessary so far, because we've decided t o use 12V caravan-type tluor(.-scentlights, which have their own builtin invertor. They're available from Halis less than you fords a t about Â£3 could build them for, ( K are~ advertised ~ ~ in Win'less World. We run them off two wind charged 6V batteries in series. The radio works off two 6~ batteries, too, H' you want a bigger inverter, CTT have several Norelco models available from aboutS30. of a ~ 1 y hope to have 500W inverter in the next issue. Batteries. You can make two 6V batteries out of a 12V by separating it into two halves. This can be done if the battery has lead 'straps' on the top connecting the individual cells.

,ve

charge slowly electrolyte solution out of battery a into a container. Add epsom salt solution to electrolyte and pou back into battery. Charge amps continuously tor 3 or more days. means starting (interruption of again). When bubbing begins, batteries charge,. Incidentiillv this supplement. like Wind and Windspinners itself, is really worth having, even rhough it concentrates on Savonius Rotors' *Oth are available from Earthmind at Josel, Sagus, California 91350, USA. We'd he interested t o hear how effective readers find these tips. We tried just Â¥"'din epsom salts, but found it pretty naffective.

g~n-idthing to ilo, hut now

You strip off all the old wiring for

unless you really know

Electric power from the wind Henry Clews 1973. 29pp. S2.00 postpaid fro

in Vol 2, available from: Power from the Wind. P. C . Put 224 pp. 1948 Van Nostrand. De of the huge Grandpa's Knob proje the antithesis of scrap technology. Wind Power. Vol. 7. Proceedings of

rmance test of this mill, an oil-dru

y Fisk (of Max's Pot), has designed a i

indmill described in Technical Repo Rome Aug. 1961. 480 pp. 1964 I believe its been republished, but ver

hool of Architecture mercial Windmills

having decided on this type, have done it Wind section in Energy Primer. Takes you through .heory, determination of dema \C alternator v. OC generator, gn and feathering techniques, rigs for a 'recycled wind gener ished by Portola Institute. A Whole Earth Truck Store, 558 SantaC b e . , Menlo Park, California 9 41so includes comprehensive

diameter sail windmill ($25 for 15 sheet of Drawings and 20 page construction manual) and for a 12 f t diameter 3 blad windgenerator ($15 for plans). 00th of these are really beautiful ! Windworks a produce a very comprehensive bibliogra on wind ($3.00), all available from: Windworks, Box 329, Route 3, Mukwanago, Wisconsin 53149, USA.

ndcharger pius "lft tower costs Â£214 plus VAT and delivery. Elektro mills sell r Â£70 to Â£2,235 CTT are hoping to andfacture Elektro mills under licence, hich would bring the prices down, but Conservation Tools and Technology, P.O. Box 134, Kingston, Surrey KT2 6PR. Brian Ford

bottom and a topone, The more turns in these coils. the slower the charging speed. but a compromise is necessary between wire diameter and current-carrying capacity. For 6-volt work the minimum number of turns per slot is 18 nine in each coil --and 18 s.w.g. enamel or s.c.c. will fill the slot under these conditions. This wire has a listed safe current of 7 amps, but since the current is generated in t w o parallel paths meeting at the brushes the maximum armature current would be about I5 amps.' *A winding ot 21 s.w.g. wil amps. and is the slowest wind; recommended for use in this c With care 40 turns of enamell I s.w.g. can he put in each slo 30-36 turns of 20 s.w.g. ename wire is ii better winding for gene It is a convenient s i ~ of e wire to but gooti governors arranged t o operateat 10 amps are a necessity. It is slow enough for 12-volt working. The choice of wire; will depend on individual conditions hut should he between the limits n1entionei-I. Old dynamo field coils provide ti useful source of suitable wire. The winding diagram explains the whole procedure." We're sceptical, however, i j h ~ u t whether all this tedious re-winii:llâ is really worth the effort we've recently bcgu:; to x-explore thc other alternative to rewinding whi~-his gearins,. 2nd we think that on balance it is the more attractive option. -lo:neone recently suggested we should try 'gear belts'. These are like the Vee belts used on cars to connect the fan and dynamo to the crankshaft pulley except that they're not vee shaped. They used special toothed pulleys and heirs with notches which fit into them. The nice thing about gear belts is that they transmit power with very low friction - we've heard figures as low as 0 per cent loss quoted. The total amount of friction in the

THERE'S VERY little t o say about the Winco exceot that it's an excellent machine - if you can afford Â£25plus tower and batteries. It's ournose-built. so hassles there are none of the that plague amateur machines which have t o rely on car generators. It can deliver a maximum of 1 4 amos a t 12 volts in a 23 mph wind with the prop rotating at

This VVinco Windcharger is currently spinning merrily atop Julian Keable's house in West London, not far from the Westway motorway, It provides standby lightingvia an assortment of car headlamps. Julian himself describes the experience of putting it up as "terrifying", but the ordeal doesn't seem to have bothered his sons, Crispin and 'Boppy', judging by the following account of how they helped their father with the work. 6 We first put up the scaffolding on 31st scaffolding by the base, but he found that March. We had t o tie it t o the building to the base was so strony that it would hold

that we had rlofri for the base of the windmill to fit auite easilv. Then we cut

When this section was bolted in place over the bottom section, the tail was carried U D

f e d of the tower in the garden below, ~ n used d a rope to haul it up. Then dad crawled over t o the other side o f the section we had iaid out for it, and we eased the first five feet of tower onto the roo? (dad was hopine to climb in through one of our skylieht<aiterwiirds). ~ f t e r t h a we t put two small sLns under two o f the legs to make it ~'bsolutelylevel When we had finished this we bolted the whole thing down. \\hen th15 hii$e section was bolted onto the roof we replaced t bdse was, we chipped

the tower. Then we put the brdke cable down through a gap in the ridge tiles and down into the attic. The ton of a wdshineu up liquid bottle was put round the cable to prevent it leaking. Then we attached the electricity cables to the appropriate places below the generator The uositive cable went down ow Iceof the tower, and the negative down anolheq, and then we fed them hotli up unde; eiich side of n ridge hie and into the house This was so that the drops oi rtiinvrdter would drip otf i.abl~1!instedd ol running intn the hous I he elcttricit\ cablch lead tu two 1 2 batteries, wired up in parallel to gi-. the capdcity of one 1 2 v bdtlerv. Th also in the r o o f s p ; ~ sods ~ ~ , to be nearer to the windmill. We now hcivc readins light-i by our bed3 powcreil b\ this, and there dre

with gearing, we can probably get th alternator to turn at the high speeds which it will start to deliver more pow than a dynamo, But Alternators bring another problem. xperienced with the dynamo on our

out again when it slows dow eory, the 6V cut out and volta gulator (from an old Ford Pop ould do this. but we find it iin't s

e Seni-enbdugh's). which is t o have a d-pressure sensor d small vane whic perates d microswitch when the wind i trone- enoueh - More about that next issue Godfrev Bovle

900 RPM, so its output is about seven times that of our little machine - but then, it costs about 20 times as much Ours cost about Â£5, and could've cost almost nothing if we'd scrounged more parts, wheras the Winco would cost at least Â£35 S o you pay yer money, if vou have it, and makes yer choice.

pages of ournational newspapers. "Save it" is the Department of Energy's war cry in its campaign to engender a sense of guilt in each member of the British public who hasn't got round to filling his wall cavities with foam. who fails to insulate his loft or who takes the car round the corner to the local pub when he could walk. But what the "Save it" campaign fails to tell the British public is that all these conservation measures would save only a fraction of the energy squandered each year by the last of the big energy spenders: the Central Electricity Generating Board.

in Housing", and it's just been published by Department of the Environment's Building Research Establishment. The first thing that strikes you on reading the BRE report is the enormity of the energy savings that would be possible if this country adopted an enthusiastic policy o f energy conservation in buildings alone. The report's main conclusion is that "by undertaking the technically feasible options"(and without any reduction in the environmental standards of comfort) "over 15% of the national primary energy consumption could be saved eventually by energy conservation in building services".

(ie the difference between gros net consumption) are 7.5% for for coal and 5.6% for natural g (Energy overheads for manufa like coke are considerably highe around 27% -- since their proces requires energy.) But when you look at the figure the electricity industry, the overhead amount t o an enormous 64%, of wh' only 3.5% was due to the overheads the nrin~arvfuels like coal and oil u tor electricity generation, leaving ii nett nverhedd nf 6 0 V/,~. .~ Putting it another way. of the 2.87 GI of primary energy fed into the electricity generating system. 2.1 GJ was wasted and 0.77 GJ eventually found its vay t o consumers And qO'V 11 88 GJ) of that 2 1 GJ of waste 143s due t o non-utdisation of wdqte heat trom n o n e r statlon5 This

"energy overheads". In short, the biggest wasters of energy in the country are not you and me, but the Central Electricity Genera ing Board. Moreover, as the BRE Report makes clear, the key t o energy conservation in buildings in the UK, apart from obvious measures like bette insulation, lies in minimising our

The minds of CEGB planners seem to be set permanently in a bureaucratic u t which blinds them to any energy futures other than those implying continued growth in electricity demand. This conclusion emerges clearly from some very interesting papers delivered at a recent CEGB Symposium o Long Term Studies. Many of t h papers are now available from the CEGB - some. indeed, have been published in popularised form (cornplete with colour illustrations printed on art paper, entirely at electricity bill payers' expense) in the May issue of the Board's glossy new magazine CEGB Research. The largest paper is on the "Potential of Natural Energy Sources', and is subdivided into detailed sections dealing with Solar Energy, Wind Power, Wave Power, Tidal Power and Geothermal Energy. Other papers deal with Electrical Energy Storage, The Use of Waste, Heat from Power Stations, and the possibility that Hydrogen may replace Electricity. But some controversial passages from the papers have been edited out, and the paper on the Use of Reject Heat from Power Stations appears to have been suppressed entirely. Requests to the CEGB Library for a copy are met with the reply that the paper does not exist: but Undercurrents has a copy of the original. Its suppression may not be unconnected with the fact that the paper's authors resort to extraordinarily-dubious logic in their attempts t o show that the use of power station waste heat for district heating is not economically competitive with district heating supplied by a central boiler. But more about all this in a moment. Before looking in detail at the CEGB planners' curious view of the future, let me turn t o another recently-published energy

This "over 15%" figure consists mainly of an estimated 14% potential saving in the Domestic Sector (housing). Conservation measures in other buildings (shops, offices etc) were "roughly estimated t o be able t o save 2 t o 3 per cent". To highlight the significance of that 14% figure, let's remember t h the Domestic Sector of the nation energy economy consumes 29% o our primary energy (primary ene energy contained in fossil fuels, or hydro or nuclear electricity; as disti from secondary energy, which is that contained in manufactured fuels such as coke, and that supplied by' fossilfuelled power stations. Two more useful terms: net energy is the amount of energy actually received by consumers. Gross energy is the amount of primary energy consumed in the course of producing and distributing their net energy.). So this is equivalent t o a saving of 14/29, or nearly 5 0 per cent, of Domestic Energy consumption, by action solely in the domestic sector. That's quite an impressive saving by any standards. But how's it t o he done? The report begins by looking at the iour;i-'s. .,nd the end uiris. ol prIliiiji> energ) in the U I n 1'872, c o n i ~ i n r Jfc.S.7 x 10^. 12.45 x Io^ kwh) Gigajoules of primary energy. But our nett energy consum tion - that is, the amount we actual y got to consume after losses in distrihutiou and in conversion into secondary energy - was only 6.16 x 10- Gigajoules (GJ). So nearly a third of the country's primary energy, 2.67 x 10- GJ, was wasted before anv of us even eot the .Ii,n.c 1.j >?.rcll> l?xve llic : ~ ~ 1 1 1 l d l i m p , ~ i JiI , nigh1 or K Cmdiilgi; i n tln' i n t u l luxury ( 3 1 . i n iinl~pg.-.!h.,l ~ , ~ l c , r tank It's interesting to examine exactly all this waste (euphemistically ed the "energy overhead" by Servants) comes about Very 1

and water heatin consumption of electricity as we ar The BRE Report takes care t o point out that in Britain: "The per capita consumption of electricity in the domestic sector is more than twice as much as in the original six EEC member countri Belgium and Holland provide pa a r l y good examples as they share the UK a maritime climate. The domestic sector per capital coosum tibn of electricity in the UK is abo 2.5 times that of Belgium and twic that of the Netherlands". Energy consumption in the U Sectors Industry. Domestic, Other Users. (Other Users is as Public Services, Agriculture a Miscellaneous). Thei country's primary consumption are 40%. 29%. 16% and 15% respectively. The BRE Reuort fives the "overheads" of each Sector as a percentage of the total consumption in the Sector The figures are Industry 40%; Domestic 66%, Transport lo%, and Other Users 65%. It is clear that the Domestic and Other Users sectors are those with the largest wastage (sorry, overheads) "Thii; ..... feutiire" savs the Reuort discreetly, "is highly correlated wit public electricity consumption. The Domestic and Other Users s where energy will in general b sumed within buildings, took t thirds of the total production of nublic electrieitv This accounted for 4 5 % of the erosi consumntion of energy in the'?e sectors, although it provided only 20% of the net requ

. -

ocussing on the Domestic sec eport gives a breakdown o f t

Undercurrents 12

household as follows: Of the average annual consumption of 81 GJ, 64% was used for space heating, 22% for water heating, 10% for cooking, and 4% foi lighting, television and similar applications. The important thing to note here is that it is only in supplying that final 4% of household energy that electricity is redly necessary. All the other domestic energy needs can be supplied by

- - .--- - .-- - .

Its first conclusion, in marked contrast t o that of the CEGB, is that the use of waste heat from electrical generation for district heating "offers, a considerable potential for energy savings". "If the present domestic reqnirements for heat and power had been met by combined schemes op at an overall thermal efficienc

high associated overhead

in the Domestic sec inimised, the BRE R touches on a number of a

. If the existing UK domestic electricity for these services been provided by direct use of 11 fuels, the energy consumption onld have been 3 to 4% less", (the 4 per cent, by the way, refers t o ss national energy consumption: is equivalent t o a 9 t o 12 per nt saving in the Domestic sector). Solar Collectors, and heat pumps, favourite techniques of we AT enthusiasts, merit generally-favourable mentions from the BRE.

al input. It can therefore be with superficial plausibility s the BRE puts it: at pumps powered by electricity Ted without waste utilisation liances". (my italics). In other ds, the CEGB might well argue, yuu use heat pumps it doesn't matter how much energy you throw away up the power station chimney. What this argument doesn't say. of course, is that heat pumps and the use of waste heat make still better use pf primary

notion of a heat pump powered by a stationary internal lor externall corn hustion engine. This approach

Heat pumps, in short, certainly do not have to he creatures of the CEGB grid. On the subject of t t i c r m ~ linsulation. the Report makes the point that: "If the existing housing stock had been cavity-filled where possible, if the loft insulation had been improved, and windows douhle-glazed, the U K energy consumntion would have heen 3 t o 4 per cent less, taking d i - ~ o u nof t the past evidence that some of the potential fuel saving in old properties with only partial heating would have been taken up in increased comfort". As for that other environmentalists' I r i . I m i l g m t ' i ~ i o r .11.: BKI w ) , 11i:it " r t , pr11i:q~;~ ilw ~ , , , I < ~ I I I ~ . ~ : i v ~ t i1,$ ~,nt ~ c r c ~ g < ' r ~ , ~ r ~ , ~i ~t ,>~r ~< l represent a few per cent of the nationiil primary energy consumption", but that environmental restrictions are likely t o limit this potential. Hmminmmm. More about that. anon.

ie use of waste heat consists of an anaiys' energy consumed in

"The studies reported here show,"

~ i pby fossil-fuelled generating plant, with high fuel costs" What they're saying, in other words. is that in order t o use waste h o t water frons power stations it must be extracted f r o n ~the turbine at a temperature higher than the normal IOU(:. which 1s 100 low

possibly comparable) costs of installation. This would correspond to a fuel cost equivalent of 9.7pIkWh (at 10% no attempt is made interest ),,, assess the overall energy savings possible by such meas Lire s.

ed. Tins makes the shermodynamic ificiency of the turbine generator lower. S T it produces less electricity, and tins lectricity muST he made up by electricity from another power station. which involves burning more fuel. Wh-il the authors of this odd piece 01' ogic fail t o see, presumably because they cannot contemplate an actual fall in

this is a little less than the

often vise only the trunk o

(after several recycling processes, necessap). And new areas of for ould be grown on land unsustab riculture. Forests at the mome

heating from power station wouldn't need t o run their

Keynes. Solar energy is being used not heat from steam turbine stations. . . might be competitive for a scheme designed t o operate at a relatively low temperature, providing the scheme is not too far from a fairly high efficiency power station to reduce the capital costs associated with heat transmission". As for the other C'EGB Long Term Studies, I propose t o concentrate on the Solar and Wind sections o f the paper on Natural Energy Sources. partly because wind and solar pourer are the most widely and equitably distributed of the natural energy sources, and so offer the greatest potential for utilisation by the decentralised society we have frequently advocated in these pages; partly because the CEGB is more dismissive of these sources than it is of wave power, geothermal power and tidal power; and partly for space reasons. For similar reasons. I won't delve into the papers on the hydrogen economy and on large scale energy storage, interesting though they are.

Solar Energy The solar energypaper starts with a short preamble setting forth the vital solar statistics in a fairly uncontroversial way (see CCIOj. It then looks at methods of generating electricity from the sun -- solar cells' thermo-electric schemes su the Meinels' mammoth "power f

60% of space heating requirements. contend that the maximum conversion efficiency of solar radiation t o stored chemical energy is likely t o be 6% and that although certain crops in Britain can attain efficiencies of 3 to 4% under favourable circumstances,in practice. averaging over a whole year. the most efficient energy crop is likely t o be coniferous forest, with only about 1% efficiency. Now that may be a fair summary of the situation at the moment, but many believe that it would be entirely possible to achieve much higher efficiencies by such techniques as selective breeding of plants to increase their yield of comhustible matter and growing plants in rich nutrient solution with an enriched supply of CO; - perhaps in earth-covered solar heated greenhouses like those being developed by the New Alchemists for use in Northern climates. But even if 1% is the highest practical efficiency of biological conversion (equivalent t o 10 k w h per sq metre per year), the authors' contention that excessively large tracts of land devoted t o coniferous forest would be necessary t o generate significant quantities of energy is open t o question. It may be true, as they suggest, that "the supply

the ERA'S conclusion at that rim was that only at an average windspe exceeding 8.9 metres per second

i n s t r u c t i o n of a monster 3.67 M W rating machine with a 69 metre diameter rotor, which would give an annual energy output of 1 1 x 106 kwh (some 3100 kwh per kilowatt of rated output). Based on ERA calculations, extrapolated with a good deal of guesswork to today, the authors estimate a capital cost of Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ170/k for such a machine. Such machines, the CEGB suggests. could be employed in two ways, in conjunction with pumped (or other) storage facilitieslike the installations at Dinorwic and Ffestiniog; o r to supply peak power in periods of demand, which would otherwise have t o be supplied by low-efficiency standby plant at a high cost. In the latter role, the paper's authors suggest, a large wind mach

a maior increase in 11 fuel costs in nreciselv what the itself is anticinatine when it advoeali.",

elcctiicity nylons scattered about the .~ country? According t o this year's CKGB Stiitisticiil Yearbook. then; are 20.950 towers carrying high voltage power on The main national grid over a total o u l e distance of 0.786 km. That's o n e tuwer every 3 2 0 metres of grid. on avcrcig,,. There arc many more towers tli-in this. however. Lower voltage line> b e l o w 132 k V ) are now under the control of Area blectncity Boards, and don't show up in ("FGB statistics. But t h e figures lor 1974. before the transfer of these lines t o the Area Boards look c , show that there were. in toto, me 15.778 route km of transmission ne (the n~imlierof towers is not eiven'!. [ ? w e assunit the same suacine. liowever.

9). Furthermore, the capital cost Ă&#x201A;ÂŁ230!k quoted f o r nuclear pow on the optimistic side. The paper then attempts t o den1 strate the environmentalunacceptabiii!y of wind power b y estimating thinumber of windmills needed t o repi&.> , 0 0 0 MW central power sla h e large number o f sites req Id mean accepting a lower n wind speed, say 6.7 m/s (1 5 nip1 h e most economical 70m diam achine would have a rated p o ut 2MW and a specific output 00 kWh/kW/year. A total of 4. machines would he needed , . . tii impact on the environment wuul(! b e enormously greater than that o f ;I single 2,000 MW power station an t h e cost would be roughly double Ilia1 from the station". Well, for a start, this calculation assumes 1 that the 2,000 MW station is operating l with a 100% load factor. Let us be mure realistic and assume, generously. t h ~ a the station is nuclear and achieves a load factor equal t o that achieved hy nuclear stations in the U K in 1971-72. namely 75.9% (fossil fuel stations hac, much lower load factors). Then it wi!! produce only '4 of the enerev allower

such tower; are not so tail, so their total impact is probably equivalent t o the smaller number of larger towers we have assumed). Let's assume that the towers are I 0 0 i t high, on average: this is about the height of the towers on the main 4 0 0 kV t o 132 kV lines. Let us suppose that wind generators are erected on the sites of these 50.000 00 ft towers and the towers themselv pyluns for the transmission line ossible if vertical axis machin ployed. Such tall windmills coul siderahly more attractive than he towers used a t present (the picture n the front cover of the July 25 issue f Science illustrates: I'll be coming back t o that in a moment). Suppose the windmill is capable of 100 kW rated power output (based, quite conventionally, on a 20m2 swept area for each of six vertical-axis machines per tower, and 25 mph rated winds). Such a mill would be capable of delivering, say 1500 k w h per kW per year ( t o be pessimistic: this is less than the 1 8 0 0 kWh/kW quoted by t h e CEGB earlier). S o o n e such windmill should deliver 150,000 kWh per year, and a1 50.000 should deliver some 7.5 x 10 kWh delivered bv the CEGB last vear.

the authors argue rather liinel\ tha! this advantageniialit he offsetby th.', increasing efficiency of standby peakIf used in coniiinction with stom@facilities, the paper contends th;i[ ind power dl tl70;kW would ti-< compare with nuck'ar power :I: L:!-:,' k W I u ~ ' a i ~ sits i : Ioacl factor i thic i?~~:. n of its potential energy thai :\ ually delivered) is low - - a h u i ~ : 0.2 t o 0.4. Nuclear power can ticl'iwv. very high load factors beea~zsec d 'lv low l'uel cost. so w:nd power i.',itinol ase in nuclear fuel

Report. . , the figure for the net necessarv electricity co&uniption per househoidi ( 3 GJ per home. for running TV, tights etc) leads t o a total consuniption of 5 x 1 o9 kwh for the 19 million houscholds in Britain. So our array of winclmills on existing pylon sites could supply half the necessary d ~ m ~ s i i i - ' electricity consnniption in B r i ~ i i ! . And if we doubled the hcigiu oi each vertical-axis windmill to 200 i;, which would not increase its ui;v!r!:;t. mental impact very much, wi, <.c,~::d get four times the power output from our 50,OUO machines i c twice the necessary domestic electricity consumption, and 16'.' o f thc Iota! National electricity consumption ::I nresenl Tile paper does suggest that "one s o i u t b ~ ! t o the problem of locating large windinills is t o place them offshore either on towcrs set in the sea bed o r on large buoys. . . .if necessary, the whole Brnisli electricity demand could be supplied i i i this way. alheit at far higher cost than a ! present, but this would involve fiiidin? suitable offshore sites f o r perhaps

.,."-.~...-.. .

<n nnn mi,-hmpi3' .,","""

(Perhaps recycled oil rigs, after lcI90 when the North Sea oil runs out, could be converted into offshore windmill platforms?) But, curiously, the authors' reconimendation that it might be worthwhile ding and operating a prototype offre wind generator "so that the costs f such a scheme could be more accurtely assessed", has been deleted from he version o f the paper available from the CEGB, and from the "popularised" version published in ~ G , q eBs e a r ~ , But one off-shore idea which apparently finds favour among CEGB dreamers is in the realm of Wave Power. CEGB Research enthuses that ocean Tx,s,,ne . . " . a

.,FF-V,I -..-a"

"an almost continuous inexhaustible supply o f free energy. I t amounts on average t o nearly 8 0 kW per square metre of wave frontage. This implies the availability within UK territorial waters of more than 120,000 MW - more than twice the C'FGWs present installed *.,..3,.:+..',

.-k,-u..J

After discussing the various problems involved in actually getting any of thi;s 'tree' energy ashore, the paper suggests that the power could be used in silu in a "floating factory" situated beside the wave generators theniselves. The

this comparison ignores, huwe

his Beshara School of i

fect "Our discourse is with him who has resolution and

is the ~acrocosm"

1975 Course from Oct. 1st 1975 t o M a r . 3 1 ~ 11976

'A suggestion that could he particuart! attractive t o the CEGB is urarium separation from sea water. . . "Virtually limitless supplies of Uranium might conceivably be produced in this wav and could have a profound effect o n she future of nuclear power. Fast Breeders would nu longer be necessary for nuclear fuel economy", (my italics) So the CEGB doesn't see natural energy sources like wave power as a means of avoiding the need for nuclear power, with all its attendant dangers. It views them as a means for generating 'cheap* fuel t o keep its nuclear power programme going, and as a way of avoiding uranium shortages in case all those silly environmentalists succeed in banning the Breeder reactor from our shores for ever. (The fact that it would almost certainly take far

Sorensen believes that "the traditional manner of growth, characterised by diminishing returns related t o the quality of life, should be reolaced bv our imnlementine a policy aimed a t stimulating growth that will improve the quality of life. Sorensen further contends that "compared with nuclear power, the renewable sources such as wind and sun, which favour decentralised utilisation, would facilitate development in the direction of placing more emphasis on the quality of life".

(water-heating type) of 180 sq area. and wind generators total i 5 0 sq km in swept area, would required. These would take up les than I % of Denmark's land area Whether we can ever get the tech cracy in Britain to start thinking a these lines (without the impetus o major jolt t o public consciousn provided by, say, a catastrophi nuclear reactor accident) is dou Our

gas and

Sea Oil

stupefaction in the minds of our ru It will be interesting t o see whe Tony Benn, the new Energy secret is capable of living up t o his revolu ary rhetoric. Although in a truly de cratic country no-one man would

in CEGB minds.)

of Energy and the Central Policy Review Staff) is clearly rooted in an inability to accept the idea that the days of the "growth economy" are numbered and that a transition t o

necessitate increased tion for recycling) t o

tion Benn is uniquely placed t o ex a major influence on the nation's I term energy strategy. Will he take soft option and fall for the nuclear lobby's lurid promise of unlimited power to prolong indefinitely the co sumer society, with its false promi that economic growth will better t lot of working people? Will he go down in history as the politician w not only polluted our skies with Concordes, but went on to pollute our landscapes with nuclear reactors as well? Or will he seize the opportunity low-energy society powered by the

, wind-generated hyd t o bite into oil cons increasingly used as

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UNDERCURRENTS BACK ISSUES Magazines worth Pounds-yours for mere pence!

~ Iw Y indmill Design/ Alternative Tekbnology Sources Guide / , Running Your Car on Gas / Small-Scale Water Power / What's Left bf Alternative Technology? / Stan Gooch reviewed by Colin Wilson / Have Plants a Secret Life? . . .

. . ...

"The Heat Pump do& offer one big advantage the ability to tap hear sources that ham for centuries been out of reach" "1t's relatively easy to create consumption-altdnafives because we have fairly direct control over the technology of consumption Cmating alternatives in the sphere of production is not so easy beand therefore requires m a s s ^ ~ l e cause it'$ .a $pdd thing. politicaf action fb &an&, *'

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...

Undercurrents 7. Special ~ornmunicktionsIssue Telephone Tapping & Mail Opening: who does i t & how / A Phone

Phreak's Confessions / The Government's Doomsday Communications Systems / TV Cameras Spy on City Streets / The People*?Radio Primer / Switched-on Uses of Ham Radio & TV / Cable TV:WhafÃ in it for the Media Moguls / AT in the Shade / Did a Stray Missile Shoot Down an Airher? .

"When an4 source, solar power is a good exampie, is availabl4' in abundance, has been used by man in one form or another for centuries, is cheap and easy to exploit and will be around for at least as lona as humanity. and the other doends on the ex traction of a rare metal, its isotopic enrichment is perhaps the most difficuttand expensive process yet developed, is attended by all sorts of dang~?n, all of them serious and some of them hardly understood, and could lead ultimately to the destruction of the world, i t is difficult to follow the logic of those who deem the first impracticable and the second the energy source which will save mankind." 'Ephemeral figures, quietly shot, their bodies burned - was this the end of ^he European Freedom Fiyhurs and their,PeopieÂ¥Bornla?" . .. , .

Undercurrents10

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"A very useful intellipn&gatherfng toot is the prin ter-meter. This device, when attached to the equipment assigned to your telephone at your local exchange, prints out a tape of every number dialled." "It is a pleasant diversion on a whter evening to discuss surfing with the Honolulu operator or to chat about the weather with the Sydney mrator. "

lhdercurrents8

Prince Phili Visits National AT Centre / Eddies' Paranoia Comer / COMTEK AstiVal Report & Pictures / BRAD Community / Organic Living Experiment / Sward Gardening Introduction / The Other London Under ound Radio: Opening Up the Air Waves / Building ~ t Rammed h Earth 1 Multi-blade Windmill Design / Wind Generator ~ h e o * / ~ermeticism:Technology Needs Transcendence / Plus: a look at Undercurrents finances .

... .. ' . . i t took two more days. . . for the dampened spirits of those who had first camped in that empty field to be lifted by the realisat-

ion that COMTEK '74 was slowly becoming the joyful, myss celebration of people's technology that evefyone secretly hoped i t would be."

Milovan ~ j & s/ Industrial Slavery Can Now End / Nuclear Protest Builds up Steam

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"Trees are solar collectors so the simplest way of obtaining solar heating is by burning brother wood. The only economically-viable installation is a well-informed Dl Y design using ready-made collector plates ori#nally deswed for domes.tic cen tral heating radiators in other words."

. ..

the stmggle for social change cannot be waged with the ballot box, nor yet with the gun. Thealtematiwe culture is happening. Or rather, i t is trying to happen. "

Undercurrents 1,l Nuclear Nightmares Come True / Bee Keeping / Back to the Land : What happened in the '30s / Mysterious Energies: the Hidden Secrets of Anciem Britain / Building with Compressed Subsoil Blocks / Wind Power Special Feature: Background Theory & Part I of the Undercurrents-LIDWind Generator Design / New Methane Digester Design / The House That Jaap Built an Autonomous Dome in Holland / Mind Expansion: An Evaluation of Psychocybernetics and Silva Mind Control / Getting Your Goat: Goat-keeping Demystified / Towards An Alternative Culture - part 11. . -"

"it would be naiw to think at someone like the Duke of Edinburgh isn't an incredibly powerful figure in the country therefore he is someone whose sympathy is most valuable to the whole A T movement "

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Undercurrents9 r - Fast & Deadly / End Protesters / Energy An-. n Perils-/ The Terrorists'

" I t is chastening to realise th6 gulf which lies between oneself and even elementary thought control. *'

. . . we should realise, when thinking our Way towards self-sufficiency, that i t will be difficult to make the system work at the macro-socioeconomic level ifwe do not, at the same time, consider radically restructuring the entire economic system. Wtf1wt this more radical change, well-meaningphilanthropy can lead w (or* a disguise for) incipient