UC on the Centre for AT 1974-1979

The Early Days of the Centre for AT - according to Undercurrents

This collection brings together articles and news items published by Undercurrents, ‘the magazine of radical science and people’s technology’, between 1974 and 1979. ____________________________________________________________ UC07/04 A.T. Goes Boom (1974) UC08/01 The Princely Pursuit of A.T. UC08/12 Interview with Gerard Morgan-Grenville of the National Centre (1974) UC13/33 NCAT. Gerard Morgan-Grenville sets out his view on where AT is at. (1975) UC19/11 CATs Cradle: Martyn Partridge and Godfrey Boyle describe their impressions of the Centre for Alternative Technology, in Machynlleth, North Wales. (1976) UC22/35 CATalogue – Nigel Dudley: A congenial weekend at the CAT. (1977) UC34/06 Energy Research (1979) UC35/20 Stream Power – Martin Ashby: 33 Megawatts going to waste in the Dyfi Valley (1979) UC37/05 Corporate AT (1979) ____________________________________________________________ The Archive of Undercurrents is at: undercurrents1972.wordpress.com/

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Undercurrent'; 7

AT. GOES BOOM"' IN THESE 'gold-rush (fays' of Alternative Technology, new camps are springing up whereever there is land t o mine for renewable energy. While some of the earliest projects lost their populations as the veins of enthusiasm, money and mortgsw ran thin, a lot more new strikes are coming in t o keep the 'boom' in AT going.

One of the new (October 1973) camps Is ours at Machylleth, Wales which we have taken the extravagant liberty of calling 'The National Centre for the Develo~mentof Alternative ~ e c h n o l o b We . think there ought t o be centres-call them "Citizens' Advice Bureaux for Technology" if you likewhich would open np AT to a lot more people, and help t o @he the problems in develbpment of renewable energy Sources and other alternative technologies. The property is, we believe, large enough to handle the job of a 'National Centre'at least for the next few yeam On the a t e there is adequate space for workshops, librariesmd accommodation, as well as a wide variety of natural energy supplies, all set in a beautiful Welsh valley.

The Centre is itself a mine, a date quiny which closed in 1949. We heard of its existence from the Earth Workshop people and when we went t o see it we knew it had just the combination of wind. water, sun, space and surroundinxs that we are after. ~ h e G amenities, combined with an annual rent of 5p t o the quarry's pro-AT owner, amounted t o an offer of generosity we couldn't believe or refuse.

And so the Centre was born.

The job now is t o begin developing. Fortunately, the site came equipped with all the essentials, including 6,000 square feet ot ancestral slate cutting sheds. three cottanex.

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A load of old hay

One of the derelict sheds which is being converted into a workshop a t the National Centre. assorted tunnels, a bit of railway, and several thou* and tons of date of assorted sizes and shapes. So, this summer, we are trying t o transform these resources into a habitable place, and t o overlay the whole site with autonomous services.

The summer community is already beginning to assemble, although there is a great deal more room for people who can help with the transformation. We have caravans on the site t o live in and can provide food for anyone who can give us their time.

Over the next four months the emphasis will be on conversion of the sheds into w o r ~ o the p ~installation of a hydro-electric scheme, a refit of the miners' cottages (including a flat-plate collector and total energy package), installation and test of aerogenerators now being built, enlargement of the gardens, extension of the railway and a host of other projects. Much of this

OVER THE PAST five years, the Bath Arts Workshop has built up a community-based organisation eofafed in many

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summer's work will be retracing old steps. Notable exceptions, however, will include a thorough examination of solar collectors on date roofs, the development of very low cost Water turbines, a study of the use of railways t o minimise the environmental impact of building sites, and the fabrication of a community-size methane digestor.

If enough people come to help, and a little bit more in the way of materials can be found, the Centre should be 'operational* by Christmas offering good accommodation for as many as 12 full time people and as many as 30 visitors, along with a dam good workshop and comprehensive library.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of work t o be done. Will YOU join us? For a weekend, a or even t o live as Part Our community this summer. If You think You -, Steve Boujfer. c/o School of Environmental Studies, st- London, WC.' Tel01-387 7030 X650.

recreational arts. Community Technology is a new-formed branch of the woYkshop, concentrating on planning and housing, and now concentrating on setting up an alternative means of producing houses in a low-capital operation .'We are tunaim an exhibi. (ionlget togcthtr pf indirojutis and f-

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TABITHA'S FIRELESS COOKER is a trendy version of the old-fashioned hay-box, develop. ed by food-technolofist - Tabithi ~ e i z d e y NOD. , The idea is that almost any dish which needs fairly lengthy cooking-like casseroles, curries and Christmas puddings-can beboiledgently for 5 to 25 mmW , quicklytucked 'into the cooker,'milleft,fully innilated, to (Èo fqFa fewhoun, or wernight, so that 'slow cookbg tika place without tiltfurther me of fuel", and without bliraing the fwd.

All you need to provide is one double-handled metal pan with a lid, although the maximum size of hay allowed changes from 12 inches on one page of the instructions t o 8% inches on another. tab it ha*^ main argument against hay-boxes is their bulk, in today's cramped society, and the apparent lack of hay to make them with. She has come up with the ides of a cosy jackel made of some modern, nameless insulator, which wraps round yourcooking pot. There are pillows for the base anda folding box of the same material tucks up around it.

Marketed by Low Impact Technology for £14.40excluding postage, Tabitha's Fireless Cooker is a very expensive load of hay. '

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As we go to @&printers, it his been dpocted that Steve Boulter, Tony williarns and several other leading participants in the &tional centre project have left. There appears t o be some dispute about how the Centre should best fulfill its objective of the advancement of atterna(ive technology. A new community has been formed, it seems. We'll have the full story in our next issue .

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ity Technology in every field-from video and AT through t o agriculture and medicine', they say. It runs from August 29 t o September 1. If you would like t o participate or visit it, write for further details to-Thornton Kay, Comtek '74, l a The Paragon, Bath, Somerset. Tel5 169 or 63717.

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THE I DISBELIEF, followed by mused surprise, has been the reaction of most Alternative Technology enthusiasts t o the news that the Duke of Edinburgh if visiting the National Centre for the Develop ment of Alternative in Machynlleth, Wales,at end of October.

Alternative Technology, until recently the almostexclusive province of cranky eco-eccentrics, has become respectable with a rapidity that has taken most AT freaks' breath away.

Elevated interest in the mbject is not even confined to Britiih Royals, as the d t of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands t o Sietz Leetlang's rather simih'r "Small Earth ~roject"near Eindhoven in mid-October makes abundantly dear. Equally dear is the. fact t l u t Alternative Techmbgy enthuabsti are wing tohavetolearntoddlin one way or another with i n c r e u i f l y frequent overtures from the Establishment.

where and brought down to Wales by lorry for the event.

On His tour of inspection, Prince Phillip will view a solar roof, a wind mill, and a methane digester, - all built off the site -and will inspect the Centre's workshops. To crown the occasio!

Mr. Sebastian de Ferranti has Pilkingtons. Transport of the to use the occasion Royal Person round the for the unveiling of a new quarry will be by means of the tvoe of solar cell develomd

OF A.T.

has, q t i l now, been largely unaware of the jewel that has been nestling in its bosom.

The AT -crowd from the Centre have spent most of the last year beavering away on renovating the outbuildings of the old quarry where the Centre has its home and on tinkering with solar heaters and wind generators.

They have had little opportunity t o fraternise with the locate.

Prince Phillip's visit should

change all that. He's scheduled t o arrive at Machynlleth station

by Royal Train. NO doubt the local Mayor, John Beaumont who also happens t o be the owner of the National Centre'n quarry will be t h e n t o meethim. From the station. g ~ o y a Highneu l will be transported, in a Harbilt electric &laid on specially for the occasion. t o the Centre itself.

There hewill inspect the "Ideal Home", bought by the centre at last year's Ideal Homes Exhibition, re-built on the site, and now fitted with ultratow toss insulation and special The little town of Machynlleth double glazing supplied by

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MINER KEY CONFUSION SEEMS to be the main reaction to the Mines (Working facilities and Support) (Amendment) Act, passed late at night near the end of 1974's first Parliament, As reported in the last Undercurrents, this Private Member's Bill was proposed by Martin McLaren, then Conservative for Bristol NW. Details of the act are still hazy (due t o t h e inactivity of the subversive-ridden HM Stationery Office) but the Bill was definitely made law with only 20 members (18 for, two against) in the dumber. Althoush 20 memben is jut half the number needed for a Quorum,t l h difficulty was circuatvpted by deft use of the q ~ q ~ S t i n d iOrder n i 40.

McLaren's defeat in the election will allow him to devote more time to the affairs of English China Clays Ltd, of which he is a director. Perhaps he will even catch a glance of Cornwall's lovely Arne Peninsula before the machinery of his act allows English China d a y s t o strip it bare and give it the 'lunar' look so characteristic of their deserted workings Our Vancouver correxpondent writes:The 'Mines (Working f a d ities and Support) (Amendment) Bill, is a piece of legislation that could conceivably backfire t o the embarrassment of the Hon Member for Bristo! NW. Here in British Columbia,

Morgin-Gnmvi'r

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Normally. the little railway wagons are pushed around the site by hand. but on this occasion the Duke will be propelled by a proper narrowgauge steam locomotive, constructed by a loving railway enthusiast u p ~ o r t someh it is possible for anyone yeah, anyone resident in BC - t o go into the local office of the Department of Mines and obtain, for the princely outlay of five dollars, a small piece of paper known as a Free Miner's Licence, which permits the holder t o prospect for minerals anywhere in the province with the exception of areas designated as National or Provincial Parks.

The Miner's Licence is thus virtually a Licence of Permission t o Trespass - t o the extent that a whole lotta people have been headin' fer the hills armed with rock pick and gold pan. tiling mineral claims and settling down t o live on their claims in log cabins, geodesic domes, etc .The Provincial Gumment recently got wise t o this and now insists that the claims be worked, but even

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-doubtless for security reasons. But after his departwe, the Centre is t o be throw open t o the media and public and a pleasant time is guaranteed for all. The Society for Environmental improvement Limited which runs the Natia nal Centre. seems destined to become. at least in the mind ( the general public, the standa bearer of the Alternative Ted nobgy "movement" in Britai Yet very little is known about the Society in AT circles apart for the vague general impression that it has hidden wealth and considerable Establishment backing. To shed at least some additional light on the act'vities and motivations of this embryonic AT Superstar, Undercurrents visited the National Centre a few weeks ago and talked t o the Chairman of the Society, Gerard Morgan-Grenvillt Our interview with him appei 0" page 12

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so, panning out a few ounces of gold per month is not a bad way to pass the time, doesn't wreck the environment and may even bring in a b u c k d l t w o ...

Sup*% a bunch of AT-freak armed with geological hammers, shovels and geological maps, were to be found digging up the PM%front lawn at Chequers . . . hauled off to the nearest Fuzz House screaming 'Expedient in the national interest' . . . it's a lovely thought.

Geological maps are obtainable from the Geological Museum. Exhibition Road. South Kensington, or from Stanfords on Lone Acre. Hammers from the Geological Museum, from a firm called Cutrock in Finchley, or can be adapted from bricklayer's hammers.

But don't tell anyone I told you..

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THE SOCIETY for Environmental Improvemnt Limited, a registered Charity, was set up in the Autumn of 1972 in the role of link oroanliation between big business and the environmental movement.

Its Chairman in Gerard Morgan-Grenvilla; other directors include Michael Bray, who controls Stuart Wrightson Ltd., reputed to be the second-largest insurance company in the world, Dhna Eccte, and Timothy Jonw.

Gerard Morgan-Granvilla is an industrialist who, with hit brother ,rum a stainlan-iteel processing plant, Chichestar StainIan Steel, and a company dealing in fancy glassware and china. Dexam International.

The Society has managed t o attract quite a few famous mini as its patrons: , Lord Annan, P r o m t of University College London, Lord Robem, former Chairman of the National Coal Board, Sir Bernard Walay Cohen, former Lord Mayor of London and Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary, are just a few of the y t a b l a who dignify i t s letterheads.

The Society's brief history has not been without incident, however. It) first full-time Director ,Peter Whiiley Iex-Cassalls publisher and husband of Lady Angela Whiteley1 quit in 1973 becameof a dlçagrwmen with Morgan-Granville. And in June 1974, Stew Boulter, the Soddty's ~echhcalManager, was fired by Morgan Grenvilla ,allegedly b & w he had, according to Morgan-Gren~lla,'lort the confldeooe'of Ml Mlowworkam at the Centre, and became ha had uken up a part time tectumhip at Univmjty College, London, while Mill working for the Socirty.

Boulter contwda that he waa dinniÑ beoiuw bà 0dbgWmmt with the direction In which the Cmtra wu movingçthe tlm -towards osmmunlty, instad of the owgoing technical advice a more inwrd-looklng centre which he had envbaged. M u e n d has now been reversed.

Boulter also lay* he took his part-time laeturaihip with Bbrorg~n-Granville's permission, and that it gaw the Society access to valuable University facH'@es in any caw. dispute, which at one stage became so acrimoniow that Boulter was red a one-way ticket t o the 'States I he i s a US citizen) in lieu of his notice money, now appears to have been settled - a t least financially.

But Finance lies at the heart of the Centre's problems at the moment.

Big Industry, originally envisaged as the source of most of the Society's funds, could hardly be shorter of cash thaa days. The initial £50.00 which started the Society off two ymrs ago Isupplied by a backer who s t i l l insists on anonymity) will hardly lest much longer.

And with a figure of £200.00being talked about as the sum needed to nnwate all tha qirrry's outbuilding!, let up engineering workihopa and provide living eccomodation on site, the S h t y for Environmental Improvement will nod a lot of money toon if any of illoriginal grandiose ambitions is to be realid.

In this interview, G w r d Morgan-Granvillathe aims and philosophy

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What are the historical antecedents o f the project? How did you yourself get interested in the environment and in alternative technology?

Well, I came through industry - I worked in industry for twenty odd years. I became involved in questions o f indus' trial pollution and then, on the marketing side, became involved in trying to make marketing forecasts. As a resul of this Ibegan to feel that a number Of factors were influm" pretty decisively the buying of people in the Western wo led me to look at the whole syndrome. Ithink -on a slightly parallel course - Icame t o the thing through conservation. I'm a painter by hobby and iconstantly perhaps hare a slhlltly over-sensitive eye for things that hve been spoiled. hi^ is. a straight çwIn which quite a lot of people hive come into the environment movement -they have just been concerned by pieces of litter they have seen on the street and lly they equate that paper with ing just a visual eyesore but waste of paper. Then they. se that paper in fact requires an incredible quantity of timber just to produce. Then they see that i t is no( recycled, and one thing leads t o another. But one of the things we've found at this centre is that almost no two people have come here for the same reason.

The industrial activIfrkthat you were involved in led you t o realise that there was going to be a resource shortage?

Yes, it made me realise that we were in for an apparently endless period of steeply rising prices. This gave one - if for no other reason, because one's livelihood depended on it - a fairly vested interest inactually determining what was going to happen in the future.

How did this concern of yours for the environment and the rapidly-approachin8 resource andenem crisis of industry

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Wry Leach was publishinghis mernoribteseries of articles In the Observer

did these people get involved i n y w r society?

HI 'Spaceship Earth'. That woke up a Well, i t was a deliberate policy. A lot ot of people tosbme of the facts and of people regard alternative technology as some sort of rationale forold-style W s . Thus in my case it gave a great . anarchism - whereas there are i n fact mpetus to a feeling that was probably a large number of people who head ilmdy there, and Istartedlooking round and reading things and talking ' industry, government, large organisao people and travelling about a bit and tions, who are every bit as aware as are wcaW quite convinced that the sort these otherpeople that something if things that are beginning to be seen needs to be done. But for reasons which are perfectly obvious, they are t o happen. I uw, were in fact ~ o i n g . hen thought, well, everyone whocan sort of frozen i n their particular positions, and can't easily move. So b anything about this ought to try and bsomething. So I set about tryingto one of the things that we set out to do ct some funds, and as you know got right from the beginning was to establish a bridge which anyone could wne. Then we spent about a year just mking at the whole environmental walk. To try to make this a bit mar< ;. obvious, we deliberately set out to roblem and trying to see what we enlist the support of some of the w l d do that was not being done by . wise men of our age. The people we nyone else and which could be done have got on our letterheadare amongst rn the sort o f money that we had, and the more effective. more intelligent he sortof skills which we might be A small, axpwimontal s o h mtﾃドettw. people in various departments. This able to obtain. Everything fellinto policy is construed by some people place suddenly and this centre was Thb small Polton wheel may ioon be to mean that we get huge hidden born as an Idea, and very shortly afterhumnine o m of the watarfalb a t tha subsidies, or that we are a sort of wards In practice as a project. professionally-infiltrated department Have you yourself been the primary of the Establishment, or wen that driving force behind the whole thing we're funded by the CIA all sorts or were there any other people at the of funny ideas.. Furthermore, I beginningwho got Involved. think one needs to realise that the Idid skrt It, but Iregard myself as partpeople towards the top of the pyramid time conductor of the orchestra. i have are vastly more effective interms of a fairly silent role inthe thing the what is done than the people at the people upon whose skill one depends bottom of the pyramid -this is for any sort of success are the players absolutely obvious. Therefore if you i n the orchestra and most of the work can enlist the support of the people W e and right at the beginning has at the top, you've got a chance of been done by other people -such a achieving, fy conventionalmqam, large number o f people that Ithink it really worthwhilethings It would be would be difficult to lame one or two naive to think that someonelike the dominant figures.

Duke of Edinburgh isn't an incredibly You've got a l o t of very e m i n mum powerful figure i n the country. No matter what anyone's views might be on the monarchy and i t s overtones, 1 think most people in the wuntry realise that he, as an individual, is simply a man caught in a position who is trying to do the best thing by the job he's got, which is apretty <:*. :unenviable one. Therefore he is someone whose sympathy is most valuable to the whole AT movement, and he is someone who is walking across this pretty delicate bridge View from o m of tin I d a 1 Homo window. which we are in the process of put-

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level by peopie who work In business than is generally appreciated. I think that people perhaps at the lower end of today's pyramid fail to appreciate that some of the people who control industry are i n fact highly intelligent and fairlv wise. fairlv far-

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gat hk solar cells simply because he believes i n what we're doing. His brother, Boswell (sic) de Ferranti, has actually spent a lot more time and money than anyone else trying to develop heat pumps, because he thought they were a good thing.

IWouldn't deny his competence, or Ms intelligence or his sincerity. What I would be worried about is that he will seek solutbm to the problems of society i n such a way that thosisolutiem will continue to imply Ferranti and roughly the same kind of industrial structure that there is now. For instance, astructure with companies owned by shareholders rather than owned by the people who work for them, a structure where you have private enterprise rather like we have now rather than some kind of possibly municipal or local ownership. small cooperatives and that kind of thing. Sebastian de F a n n t I will want t o fee lots of solar celk coming o f f the Ferranti production line. Sincerely, he may believe that it wilt be better for society -and it might be a bit better but It won't be as food as it could be if the people were workhq~on thm thim diunselves.

Even though that might be 1Ă&#x192;§Ă&#x192; efficient.

Ithink that you've got to rethat high technology develops from high technology, and somebody tike Furami isa high technology wizard.

Now, we agreed earlier that high technology is i n principle, desirable because it can free a lot of people from nasty repetitive jobs. Solar cells are in the forefront o f today's technoiogy, and if a firm like Ferranti which has the resources can produce these things by means of high technology, Ithink there's a place for them.

I'd be delighted if people like Ferranti make solar cells, provided that the ixoole who are workim on those

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that there are alternative waysof living which are socially good,and envirotinkntally good -that just in terms of the science of the environment they are sustainable -then the more intelligent people at the top of the pyramid will start to take a real interest. Ithink that there's far too much talk at the moment and not enough doing. There are thousands o f communes around the country, far more than are recorded. But they are unbelievably fragile, and they don't really add up to a saleable philosophy for mankind i n the latter part of the 20th century.

Some new and obviously workable way of living in a community has got to be discovered. But some communhies probably have discovered It, just by having the right combination of people. l'vedone a roundup, and they're very rare. The ones that survive - funnily enough, the same ones that have survived throughout the centuries tend to be the religious ones. I think a very important point to realise is that we've got an external interest here at the centre whereas most cornmunities are internal - they're interested in their own survival. doing their own thing. Of course we're int+& , b t w e are a hue in . in t order to serve.peopieoutsidee3 f@.. which hqz&+dy been very 'yaluabla, , inproduciksolidarity ,:;. ;. people here.

There'sa . crvkK. ,.., ,.. need t o r n a s s f s o f : i i i k e this one, where people & n ~ l l .y . . . get togetherand +w+w you can have a better life. We've had person after person here, people fromthe entire social spectrum who've said 'Thank goodness we've found a place where it i s happening' - where people

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'anecologically-wastefulprocess that

vacs up too many natural resources at@ isn't inofdlnately profitable.

Ithink these are the dangers. But it hmt be a more intelligent approach 'to try to devise analternative system

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at the present time. It would be my naive to think that out o f the

these things on a small scale?

Yes - we have done just that, actually.

The problem now is to find someone with prototype facilities to actually make it, and maybe we can then sell it to a small manufacturer - it's the sort of thing in fact could be made i n a garage - for a royalty. We might find ourselves that way. But basically, . . we hope to f ~ n ourselves d by 'gale money', and through publications.

TO turn towardsthe futureofthe Centre,.are you hopingthat it will

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dercurrents

A tetter from Gerald Morgan-Grenvilk Of the numerous things of which Ihave a t one time or another been accused perhaps the most paradoxical is that I have sold out AT to the Establishment.

The means by which some suspect that this has been done i s by having set up a focal point for AT which, by an insidious process of big company and big name involvement, has subverted the original aims of AT to the profit based interests of Big Business. Remarks to this effect made at Comtek and some other AT venues have prompted me to amplify the happenings at the National Centre for Alternative Technology - NCAT - better known as the Quarry.

Anyone who has read the attempts of others to encapsulate in a few words the central ethicof AT and from this to pontificate on the social and technical means of its establishment, will know that it is a dangerous task, since the range of i t s individual interpretations is limitless - so the things which I say are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of those at the Quarry, past or present.

Any 'foreigner' taking a look at the Alternative scene in Britain (or Europe) could be forgiven for failing to see any consistency or continuity. Projects come and go leaving scarcely a ripple, and the ideological casualties are almost as frequently encountered as the wreckage of AT windmill prototypes. In this general context I cherish the ambition of trying to create some kind of Alternative bastion, which can providesome element of stability in the highly fragile situation in which most AT types find themselves.

I conceive that this nucleus be sufficiently large and cohesive to develop its own internal dynamic - philosophical, social, technological and financial. The Quarry is now a small part of the way towards this goal.

Readers of 'Undercurrents' will mostly subscribe to the ideas that society could be fairer, that it is possible to live with greater regard for environmental considerations, that small is frequently beautiful, that unnecessary or dangerous technologies should be avoided, that land should be for people, and all the rest of the AT creed, which is so platitudinously intoned and so little exemplified - for the simple reason that exemplification is extremely difficult. How do you, when it comes to the point, become self-sufficient on almost no money, prevent a nuclear Dower station being built, ground bncorde, fix a solar collector on the 17th storey of a high-rise block of flats or fight a faceless bureaucracy?

You don't, because you can't. But what you can do i s to select those areas where you can do something, enlist the coooeration of others who share vour aims. produce a plan capable of reatisation, stickto it, and win small battles one at

The National Centre for Alternative Techno logy at MachynUeth, now in existencefor over two years, has been one of the more contraversal recent developments in AT. Follow ingreports in Undercurrents Sand elsewhere, and frequent criticism of the centre at A T events, they have asked for space in Under-

others to do battle. Thesomething which you choose will depend on your particular view of AT. The winning - or losing - of such battles should be reported more frequently i n 'Undercurrents' if we are to profit from the efforts of others.

To me, ATis not too much to do with drawing the dole, telephone tapping or getting stoned. To me it is rather more to do with the energetic development of a sustainable and better life, in which people work together for the common good. NCAT reflects t h i s ideal. Such a life presupposes independence from those whose policies are antagonistic, and some of the technology at NCAT provides a means to this end. To me the pursuit of such an ideal is now a matter of urgency, faced as we are with a bureaucracy employing one in four of the workforce.

I believe, passionately, that man should have the fullest possible personal freedom -so long as he respects the tribal codes of behaviour. I suspect that most people who subscribe to an alternative society cherish the same belief. Yet 1 am frequently astounded by the political naivety which may almost be said to characterise the movement. Whether or not we are political escapists or activists, whilst we indulge in such notions as Kropotkin anarchism, the fact is that we are all being pushed towards a totalitarian regime',by anunholy but concerted alliance ofpower seekers, if thev have

currents In which to discuss their ideas,and give news of developments at Llwyngwern Quarry, NCAT's home. Below. Gerard Mom Grenville states his views on the centre's role The article is not intended to reflect the collective views of NCAT. or of Undercurrer or its members.

their way, NCAT, Undercurrents, and other corporate and individual freaks will be swept off the board - make no mistake about this; individualism and real personal freedor are absolutely irreconcilable with the totalitarian state: you need look no further than any such state to see the living proof of this.

I believe that a far more militant role now required of those who claim to uphold the basic human rights. If the / movement is to make a lasting and wor whilejmpact it must be prepared to defend i t s cardinal principles with acti( We live in a fool's paradise whilst other capitalist and communist alike, conspir to force us into conformity.

So, if you come to the Quarry, apart from the possibility of seeing lumps of slate being hurled at suspected bureaucrats, you will by next summer also set a great many working devices which wi.. help you to be independent of the system and to live more self-sufficiently. Wind- ' mills a-plenty, solar collectors by the dozen, water turbines and a methane generator which has actually been known to generate methane. (Both commercially available and DIY units are shown: a range of DIY pamphlets is already available). We are also getting into organic horticulture and carp rearing.

(Food for the inmates i s vegetarian whole food). If everything goes according to plan, you may even see a house which provides for all i t s own services. There will be a much enlarged new exhibition hall with many new things, an information office and an AT bookshop, where, if you haven't already done so, you can take out a subscription to 'Undercurrents'. We are also planning some AT discussion weekends this winter: please contact us if you are interested. To enter you will probably have to pay 50p by next summer. It isnot a rip-off: it is the least we can charge if we are to realise the project - as it is most of us are virtually or entirely unpaid. (Weneed more money - subscription forms available!)

If you would likeyour views on the pvelopment of NCAT to be pondered and perhaps incorporated, please write to us.

Gerard Mown-GrenvHe

National Centre for Alternative Technology, Llwyngwem Quarry, Machynlleth, Powys (Machynlleth 2400).

The Centre for Alternative Technology I

WALKING UP THE ROAD from Machynlleth the first thing you see i s . a Darrieus windmill perchted, on a hillside, steel blades shiningin the early'morning sun. A little further onward and. more windmillscome into view, a few odds and ends too remote to identify, signs of inhabitation, a former slate quarry starkly grey among hills and valleys green in all directions, even in this year of drought.

On every road for miles around AA route markers indicate a 'sun and windpower exhibition': a modest enough description of what has become one of the Cambrian ,

'Coast's principal tourist attractions. The Centre for Alternative Technology is designed to impress, to turn people on to the sort of ideas which Undercurrents readers may well ,$ake for granted, possibly torescue AT from the hairy fringe and put it fairly and squarely in the middle of things.

People live and work at the Centre, and the result of their efforts i s on view for visitors to admire. This means the whole gamut of ecologically acceptable energy sources, from familiar wind and solar power devices, through such ambitious

work and inspiration. Nothing isshoddy or discarded, even the most utilitarian of

dominating. A father eulogises about the oil-drum savonius to his teenage daughter: "That's what I call ingenious," he says.

"Don't you think it's a bit ugly?" she replies with tentative scepticism; a classic contradiction, methinks. Whatwould the neighbours say, back in Rochdale?, A windmill in the garden? For most of the visitors a universe of possibilities is opening up, a fantasy of clean and healthy independent lives, hard work and intrinsic satisfaction, fresh food and country air.

How can it all be turned into reality?

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be; capitalism couchant, maybe?

There are signs of political ambivalence; clearly the people at the Centre are adept at riding two horses at once. The l i s t of theirc~mmercialand industrial sponsors is a remarkable cross-section of the British c a s t establishment, from ICI to

resources and materials, support local action grouDs such as FOE. ConSoc and anti-nuclear movements, and encourage labour-intensive rather than cawitalintensive methods of production.

And there i s a strong Dn-It-Yourself emphasis, too. Although the Centre

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liedied entirely Irom heat pumps powered

. by a 3KW windmill. This necessitates '

a vast array of batteries in places where normal households hang their overcoats and is, Isuppose, an inspiring example o f humankind's mastery over nature. But I'm'highly doubtful about any attempt to

example, who knows what else? - and they're not actually extracted or manufactured in situations o f rustic splendour, either. If people were to become complacent about using AT hardware in pursuit of ecological harmony, without considering implications of alienation and pollution at the point of production, then it would amount to exporting the hard work for some other nameless individual to take care of, and there's nothing very progressive about that It would smack of privilege, in fact.

This is not intended as a specific criticism of the Centre since the same contradiction pervades the whole of AT. We're full of fancy ideas about how to build gadgets cheaply using just a few nuts and bolts and bits and pieces o f wire and glass and plastic and whatnot, but some- . one somewhere has to make these things,

The train now approaching the end of the line is mainstay of the CATSown internal transport system,a modernised version of the old quarry railway. Looks good, but like its BR equivalent I don't think it's actually used much.

build an autonomous house up to North American standards of comfort and would much prefer to respond (and see other people respond) to the onset o f cold weather by putting on a thick woolly sweater and enjoying the elements for what they are. The converted quarry-. workers' cottages seemed much nicer and much cheaper, which i s to say, much more caring o f scarce resources.

There's an idea that won't lie down, and it's something to do with materials.

The Centre has gone t o great lengths to use local, natural 'vernacular' materials ' wherever possible and, mundane though it may be, I would single out the recently ' completed toilets neat example ascetic simplicity in both design and construction. But a lot of the other materials used there are anything bu local - steel, aluminium and glass for

ass

A trio of windmills whirls far above the Centre perched on top of a huxe mountain of date.

Rained by the blades the big DAF us Ceggbeatel*) machinefrom Canada are a Swiss Qektm (rwt) and a 200 watt U.S. Winw ~ i n d c h a i g(left). ~ .The -8 supplies 4kw of high grade electrical energy: seems a shame flat it's'immediately degradedto mere heat for an electric. Aga cooker. Why not use plenty of waste stove?

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Where did the water go? John Eyles look wistfully at one of the CATSdrought-stncke Pelton wheels. Normally it should deliver 2k at 120 gallonsa minute.

outlets for people'sskills, and institutic through which they can make their vie' effective. The I Y approach, although a definite adv ce on consumerism, is I in itself enough because many material and products require acomplex level o cooperation and it's at t h i s point that notions of crude autonomy break dowi If we're to have any chance of establi ing a natural energy economy then we'l need more than the occasional newsworthy solar panel here and there, we'l need literally millions of them. If we're t o avoid the horrors of the massproduction assembly lined la Henry Fo then we'tl have to advance on two fronl One n the technical problem o f develop ing ways in which solar panels and wind mills and whatever else can be built efficiently without turning people into zombies, and the other i s the political The big multi-bladed wind pump in the cent

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l'his%&as methane ought to produce n d enough m d to s u p x e cooof an average home - if anyone could be bothered to get their hands ditty feeding it with a slimy of fanuyard manure, vegetable waste and water each day. Which of course no one can.

and it's not iust our smartness and hard work that goes into the final effect, but their smartness and hard work, too. I'm not advocating a campaign of total autonomy from extraction t o finished product but I do feel that if our movement is t o continue being useful then some serious thoueht will haveto be given to the actual and not just to mechanics of slick ways o f trapping natural energy.

That means the clothes we wear, the furniture we use, the vehicles we ride in, the consumer and household . utensils we already have but might well want t o replace one of these days.

Probably the most significant event to occur to AT since i t s inception has been the Lucas initiative and the subsequent carnoaians bv workers elsewhere to work on socially useful products. (See Undercurrents 18). For the foreseeable future the crucial economic life of the country will continue to take place in factories, and any search for relevance must inevitably start there too. I hope that the Centre for Alternative Technology, with all their overwhelming enthusiasm and proven expertise, will come to regard this sort of research as a suitable contribution to make. Having sketched out a rough idea of what constitutes an ecologically sustainable way of life the next important stage is t o devise ways in which i t s paraphernalia can be produced in circumstances which acknowledge the needs of those who produce it This means devising m m a n u f a c u r method; with suitable %

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circulates water through a test ng which spoi a motley assortment of win panels - mostlj commercial, some D-I-Y. Sceptical visitors ca prove it an work8 by washing their hands in solar-heated water at a nearby basin.

problem o f ensuring that the control of capital and resources passes into the hands of those that use and need them. (That's you and me," in case you think 1 mean the Politburo.) The Centre's 130-odd entre preneurial supporters will happily conserve energy all the way t o the bank unless the right soft of pressure is maintained, and it's UD to the rest of us to make sure they don't. , .

Martyn Partridge

Undercurrents 22 f

And after all, it was all guaranteed organic, I mean, I knew where it had been.

As for the rest of the story, the matted-haired wild man seen at the launderette (you know how they never open the windows there), the fumigation saga (not to mention the ostracism of a pioneer by his fellows), well, that's for another time. What I want to say is, it worked, didn't it?That must have been quite some pressure bottled up in there. Eureka, as someone said drily.

Eureka somethin' awful.

Robin Johnson

it up nearly to the top, probably unwisely, as the pipe could clog with scum, I guess, but I wanted to drive out as much air as possible. I flushed the system out with carbon dioxide.

You could use the C02 from wine or beer fermentation: there's a use for everything!

So, I had the thing all set up. I got a deck chair and lay back to watch the gas holder rise. After four weeks nothing had happened. This was last summer. I went round the joints with a paintbrush and weak detergent searching for leaks.

None. Then, almost overnight, up it went. I took the stuff to work and found 10%C02 and no oxygen. That evening I connected up a bunsen, opened the taps and applied a light. It worked. 1 found thai 8 or 10 bricks on the gas holder squeeze the gas enough to give a useful flame; it's about the same as mains gas pressure.

I use the stuff for soldering in the shed. There's enough there for that.

Justas I expected, the system has hibernated for winter. Perhaps it won't start up again when it warms. Perhaps there's an inch or two of scum on the surface inside. Mind you, I've never seen any scum trying to get up the pipes coming from the digesters.

I hope to get round to lagging the digesters or shrouding them with poly bag greenhouses, or piling dung round the outside to keep them warm. And I , can't wait to get the slurry on my garden.

. Mick Hanson

Apart from being a research centre and a permanent exhibition of A T hardware, the Centre for Alternative Technology also acts as a meeting place for people to discuss the wider implications of the movement.

Nigel Dudley describes a recent weekend course.

IN FEBRUARY, Howard Liddell of

by Leopold ~ o f i r These . six speakers Hull College of Architecture combined showed were AT has come from, and where it i s now: intensely interested in with the members of the Centre for Alternative Technology to put on a course the small scale, and the community as an autonomous unit. The difficulties in this at the Centre, for some of his students were expressed by the last speaker, Philip and a few of our own visitors that had Brachi, late of the BRAD commune, who expressed an interest in learning more. spoke very honestly about why the comWhilst none of the six speakers said anymunity had failed and where it had gone thing radically new they presented in wrong. In many ways BRAD (Biotechnic total an interesting history of the changResearch and Development) was a preing attitudes to AT, and highlighted some cursor to our own CAT. Set up by Robin of the problems of community living.

Clarke in 1973, it was to research various The first speaker was Graham Caine forms of alternative technology and of the Street Farmers, who opened on communal living, centred on a large the Friday night with a rather downbeat farmhouse in mid-Wales. Although it endtalk about the experimental house and ed after only three years, the legacy it other activities going on in London a few l e f t behind i s probably greater than any years ago. He seemed to take the view of-the participants realised; we get their that things were quite fun to try, but the mail now, which still averages half a practicability of them was not all that important, and the projects were abandon- dozen letters a day. Philip spoke about the internal frictions that had split the ed when interest waned. Robert and commune, between those that simply Brenda Vale followed the next morning wanted to experiment with the technolwith a broadly similar theme, albeit on a ogy and those that wanted to investigate more sophisticated level. Having completthe community aspects and the intered their part of the studies on the relationships of the group.

Cambridge autonomous house they are This sheds interesting light on the working on a new building of their own Centre's own history, and its success so and an attempt at rural self-sufficiency. far, and on the problems o f other autonoAll three speakers were concerned with mous communities. Until now, we have the viability of personal self-sufficiency. been working so flat out on getting the This contrasted sharply with Howard Centre together that we have never had Liddell's own talk, in which a number time to examine the community aspects of experiments in community selfto any depth. From what Philip said, sufficiency were examined. These includthis i s probably why we have survived. ed a Canadian simulation study, a It seems to be a case of the less said the Scottish valley, Gibraltar, and his own better we will get on! study on the resource potential of Hull.

In addition to the course, the Hull This development seems to mirror a group arrived a couple of days early, and lot of AT thinking. In the beginning, a lived and worked with us for that time. few people were interested chiefly in As well as promoting the informal personal survival. This attitude has now attitude that we always aim at, the studen been accepted as impractical for large felt they had learned more in those two numbers of people, both from the days than they did at the actual course, physical aspects of space and resources, which i s interesting as they only did very and from the social point of view of manual work, and most of that in pouring being cut off from everybody else. This rain.

As we are thinking of running more was confirmed by the fourth speaker, courses in the future, this is of especial John Seymour. Surprisingly, the original interest; we have always believed that talk . self-sufficiency king was not too interestwithout actually doing any work i s of ed in this on a personal level, and would limited use, and it is good to see other much rather see a self-sufficient compeople thinking the same. Perhaps in the munity. Seymour also stressed the need years to come we'll all retire from actual for a devolutionary philosophy. 'If the work, and spend our time taking money Farmers Weekly carry on with their from potential students who will come to present policy they'll end up with only do it for us! one reader', he stated cynically, and callNigel Dudley ed for a rational approach to the distribution of resources, citing the example of For anvone who didn't read about us in Undercurrents 19. we are open to the visitors every his adopted Pembrokeshire, where grain day, and also sell information sheets, DIY is imported from Canada, and their own plans and other books, but please enclose an wheat is sold elsewhere.

SAE with any enquiries, as we're still very short of time and money. The Centre is at On Sunday the theme of 'small i s Llywngweren Quarry, Machynlleth, Powy beautiful' was continued and expanded Wales. Tel. Machynlleth 2400.

sites, the power can only be of usd at the * mill site itself. The electrical power output o f a turbine is obviously usable away from the actual generating station andis available to any electrical load..

Today the problems of fluctuating flow o f water and load governing are solved by turbines capable of changing so as t o maximize their efficiency at a wide range of flows, and incorporate electronic load! governors,

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energy that is often ignoredy that o f small scale water' "pnderplayed power. This may be partly because the ty,tter power resource h a been known I!' and used i n the past or because o f i t s --t 'f relative tack of the 'romantic' appeal o f Ă&#x192;§2the windmill iilhnuetted against the &sky. Indeed a modern turbine could be <completely hidden from view under5 ground, generating power with no - environmental or visual impact upon the '. taixtscape.

Whatever the reason for this lack of

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After assessing the power obtained in the past my attention turned to the theoretical physical resource of water power. Just how much power is daily dissipated by water running o f f from the land to the sea? The maps o f the average, rainfall for the Dyfi valley were obtained from the Institute o f Hydrology and each o f 163 small catchments within the whole Dyfi catchment were examined to assess their average rainfall. It is found by hydrological studies that 80% of the rain falling on land runs offwia streams and rivers. This figure drops to 60% in forested areas. After working out the average theoretical flow for each stream I made an estimate of the available head for each stream. The actual power 'availablefrom a river is pfopoflional t o the available head and the flow. This poweryas calculated for each catchment and all the 1163results summed up. The order o f magnitude o f average theoretical poweravailable for the Dyfi catchment is around 33 Megawatts. Ecommics would reduce the figure to 9 or 1Q Megawatts o f available energy but this is still

other qurcesbrought t o light +out 120 Old waterwheel sjtes (excluding minipg wheels) <ind at least 70 old water turbine sites, in the 471 sq. km of the Dyfi catchment. All-these sites summed up would represent a total o f about 1% megawatts that was once obtained in the Dyfi valley. This is a mere shadow of the potential resource as will be seen later.

The old waterwheel sites vary in condition from completely derelict to a 'few in working order, but the turbine sites fared better and at least 15 o f these still operate and hive mostly generated enough etectridty for their owners at minimal cost for several decades: The use

% Megawatts that was

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riffcts the equivalent cost o f maim Stedricity.

T o reduce this initial cost there is the posibitity df using secondhand equipmelit for which one firm operates a secondhand machinery 'market'. It is very important to remember however that turbine equipment i s usually tailor-made ' to particular site characteristics of head and flow o f water and 'using a turbine in a new location may mean a reduction in that turbine's efficiency.

It is also possible to make turbines (especially the most efficient cross-flow turbines) o n a do-it-yourself basis.

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Legal bars The other major stumbling block t o the wider use o f this resource is the legal situation with regard to 'water abstrac' tion'. The waLerResources Act set up Water Authorities throughout the United Kingdom and empowered them to impose a licencing and charging system for each waterpower site. If water mills and turbines incurred any cost to the Authorities or detracted from the quality or quantity o f the water in any way one could understand users being charged, but in the Dyfj valley I have never encountered any water power site that incurs costs to the Authority or that i n any way pollutes the stream, or reducesthe amount of water. Mills merely temporarily divert the water-and put it all back.

Despite the unfortunate legal situation the outlook for small scale water Power i s undoubtedly vary good. The Dept. of Energy are looking into the ecofiomics of new hydro electric plants at sites that have been u@ in the past and possibly' on the spillways o f reservoir dams.

A t the moment theGovernment is urging people to save energy (the Save-It Campaign) Whilst on the other hand ' heavily penalizing small water Power operators who w u l d save the country a great deal o f non-renewable resources and bring cheap, pollution-free power and employment to many areas. If any readers ate interested and Would like t o have further information about the Dyfi valley study or Water-Power as a vrfioie they should write t o CAT, Mach~nlleth, :Powys, where there is also a working turbine on show t o the public. , MartirrAshby Q~

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AL?ERNAT~vE,TEcHNOLOGY has arrived if being taken up by , is "wiving". How can we mak* sure that AT industry and aover is not going to be to ly co-opted toserve the interests of the dominant ' instituth (or ''n~Iin$j dasms'')? Dave Elliott looks at theqmlitics of to be brm&t up at AT ad*a F*.m of the N A n A (Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Cunferenc* b A w *

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Dale D. Myers - US DepL of Energy private and public i n v e s q n t i n alterMivetechnology i n the energy field is, as yet, small in the UK -only f 16m having beenallocated by Itegwwimerit so far but inkrest i&p~wi&,*gwst the bjg firms, like Taylor Woodrow and British of the Wind Aer-e - key Energy R & 6 Comortia. Lucas vickers are 9 t h keen t o exploit power while a large number of d n l y stpall firms have entered the solar field , m ; q has an annual UK market turnover o f Etm. Many AT enthusiasts fi +QM flits as# i-mf their belief that 'AT* is thà way ahead. ~n fte 0 t h hand ~ theft is no guarantee that the sort bf AT that large scale industrial conglomerates (or even small entrepeneurs)~illdevelop is going to be sort t h a b h -AT feel is appropriate. The emphasis will be on large scale energy systems that can feed the grid, (like wavepower, or even, orbital solar satellites beaming energy t o earth by microwave), or, alternatively, on a small secbnd-rate planned obsoles/cent units sold to gulllbie consumers both o f which Scenario's implying the continuation of existingpatterns of centralised control, arid alienation and exploitation of producers and consumers. These are precisely the trends that AT was meant to reverse. So there is a problem.

There are of course several strategies we can adopt to try to avoid thein.

Some o f them w i l l be discussed inmore ' detailjat the N A m A conference, so 1 won't waste trees going over them in detail. But briefly they a+? t <, , v ,$ubjecti~b t X M i t e t h a l i v e Mdi^pr&@ detailed scrutii t A ,

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Supporting campaigns by workers like those at Lucas, Victors, Par~nn, etc. for the development of soci useful alternatives.

Lobbying vigorouslyrfor the adoptit of socially appropriate technology and therefore against inappropriate ,, x , technologies like nuclear power.

Developing our own 'Community , -',y technology' on a self-help basis, demonstrate the viability of alte~ lives.

There are, obviously, plenty of practic. problem$i n each case - we need more resources, more channels of communic tion, and influence - all o f which no doubt discuss at NATTA. But 1 are also some more general strategic problems, which I want to raise as an hors-d'oeuvre.

For me the key problem is 'polil - or rather political and economic. i n original dream of the AT movement, o at least die 'radical technology' sect, wx> . that* couldgenerate an interest i n a technology by iQ very nature - -g would, ({^itop^*,change,

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builta full-mia air-turbine BRITISH fat producing electricity from the www-and given it to the J a p * n ~ . at Falmwth. dockyards which ~ ~ ~ n w back h i l in ~ ,the old suntry, our engineers, inventor! and scientists are ~nfined to playingabout with models that a n never bigger thin one-tenth scale.

This incredible example of US Windpower Inc. (USWP) a Britain playing the r a w m d - t r o u d 18-mployw Masachunttt shilmthroplat, and doing for a company, has bust open the d t h v... . ~ronwrous counw what . timriean electricity utility it ia not pnpwed to do for itÑif market for rthewable energy m a ma a m u l t of a dociaion by th* Labour Government to by contracting with the ;olfaborf in the International Californian Department of Ewgy AMncy's rave energy Water Ruourcd to supply woBrtnm.

100 ma@watrs for 20 y n at The Janham launcheda 3%cents a kwh.

BOO-ton him. the Kaiei. with 22

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could build a ahip aimi* (lid perhammoreefficient then) the Kaimai have b n n cloud downi bwum of a lade of order*.

US entrepreneurs

kç In thibottom. As the ÑV r l n and fall. Mr b wahed out and iuckedin end air turbinn lining an the deck we WIN(pinning. Each onqdrlves an alternator and the riactricity flows.

The method was inventedby a Japenew. Yoshio Mfsuda, and he h a 300 nevMtion bubvs working in the Pacific without wed for any haail fuel to kwp tha light shining.

Trinity House is noy bu tor British vatm.

The company will inatell up to

2.000 50kW mills on state land near Pacheco Pass, an area of high and conatant winds 80 miles south d of San Francisco. Backed by privota venture capttal;the engineer* of US Windpower have deveiopçthe 'model T Ford' of windmills: it is made of mesi* produced off-the-shelf chew end lightweight components end is. designed for auambly by two people. the 44' tower has a builtin winch that allows the hub and drive train to be installed end repaired without a crane; it rets

on a six foot square concram f o o t i m which is the on& permanentconstruction needed.

A model deal If they a n deliver at the bargain price they have contractedfor lend soma wind pundits are sceptical), USWP's ~ h m iselikely to become a model for the adoption of AT In th? US. Already three other small wind companies have signed similar deals end USWP is mgotiating with , large users in other parts of the country. Thev forecast that bv 1985 &air annual turnover w& be $75 million and oroduction !hC4l milis.

California alone has identified 100,000 MW of potential windpower on state land end plans to ha ma^ one-lanth of this by the v n r 2000. And a m a l l know, what California don todey the ran of the USA does ten y m later.

INsw Roor~l

British timidity Britain decidtd to dwelop the idea md the National Enginmaring Liboratory at Eaat Kilbridt imorwed on his scheme to make à r&a efficient dwict. (The Maw& h i p mil haw holes in the bottom; Britain'scontributionis to have the hold in the side, rather like porthole, and thus capture pore of the

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But, becauseof thecaution of the Government and, it muat be admitted, wmà of the mgincms and scientists working on wave anergy in Britain, i t has been dMided to launch the Brltiah ship at-anstanth scalein the mouth of the Clyde. We like to make pr ms ~iowiv,feeding everything i n t r committees and computers.

And thus it came about that we decided to help the Japanese with their fen efficient experiment-but at full-scale.

"The British contribution i s a chamber five metres high. Under t conditions, with 9 limulmed wave of fivemetres, the mean turbine output power hot been 100 kilowatts; with larger simulated www, the mean power increased up to 170 kilowatts. Britain's most ambitious schemes so for have been producing about o w kilowatt.

The generator being sent to.

Japan wm built under contract for the Deowtrnent of Energy by an mminaflrina firm nemed &wax at

Tha doma homa (or 'Intamrated Llft-Support Sy<t*msbboratory'l of Robm and LM R d n a in N m Mtxko, USA. will ba f l l u r d in two N txogremmwuf the Open Unhaitv's IMW fwnd-fon coura, Living with Technolow. Powamd only bv the u n and tha wind. tha dome haw bÑ tha domw work and n m l o n thà i m o l i t i o ~ of u u c h idf-suffkimt I i v i m Thay will ba b r m d o ~ t o n BBC2 at 11.16~11 on&tur&y 6 Jinuiry ¥id Smturetay 19 JBNTV 1980.

Meanwhla, Suva Bur lidothw UII promofre V d domes lib tha Shelter book ?am will not reprint or upom Orlr woria line* thç no l o r n Miwa i n domw. Thw don't think thw m~rticulxlvamloold

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Corporate alternative technology -

A RECENT VISIT to thi Centre for Alternative Tochnolomv in darkat Powa r w d d that the faithful m completely undiicourfd by the multinatiomis moving in onthoect.

But even they would h i m bam s u r p r w to hear therrmlva baing oubliciaed bv Or Jack Birks.

-1ng Oirmctor l~mchnicillof EP, at the launch of BP's rxw, md not very exciting, energy r n ~ r c h prizes.

According to B i t , W wndk ¥bou£7. million a you on ranowable e w g y r e ~ r c and h dwalopnrnt, and is In tha proem of putting all that undo- on* roof at its Sunbuw r w r c h labc on the outskirts of iondon. And It will bl rather an unusual roof, bacaun t h ~ buildingwill not only h o w DM rauerchm but demonabme the idm they ere working on, ~pecieliysolar, wind and h a t pumps. "A kind of compmv mrak of an idea which is. 1 Ñ innnam to rud, aIrMdy going on in k t h Wain" w how Birks dmcritad It. although uutoriai stand~dawill probably ba high* and mats Ià visible. ,

The Centre for Alternative Technology i d f i s planning to build a laroe 60ft diameter wind genfmr.-lts wrpw would bÃto d i a w the Cantrç' a m ahortu in the summer end provide a dmionatretwn of a Â¥villagd e ' Â¥chemwhich they currently btiçv is the most amnomk.

Thç are having difficulty In reisim the finance w thav haw h n & a d an -1.

AW -&nwoua souls interntad in the ipomorehb ( c h a m ahouldwrim to CAT, Llangwm Quarry. Michynllth,